All language subtitles for 2022-Two Shallow Graves-The McStay Family Murders-EP3-The Killers Truck-E

It is a mystery that has captivated the
nation.

Joseph McStay, his wife and their two sons,
were killed and then buried in the desert.

And now, the mystery unraveling in court
where their suspected killer is on trial.

I'm supposed to be testifying tomorrow.

Just found out about it today.

And I'm a little nervous because I don't
know... I don't know what...

I know kind of what they're going to be
asking me on the defense side,

but it's always scary to be subject to
cross-examination.

And obviously, they're going to try to
make us look bad.

They're going to try to make it look like
we're lying.

Thank you, Your Honor.

Good morning, Ms. Jarvis.

Good morning.

When you visit your dad, do you talk about
the case?

Yes.

And why do you talk about the case?

Because...

I'm, like, our whole family is...

Part of...

Because our whole family is part of this,
um, entire thing, and, um, this case is

what made me want...
to pursue a career in law.

So...

Going through this process and being able
to understand what's happening in court...

has really helped solidify my decision
to...

go that route with my career.

Sorry.

In the entire four-and-a-half-year period
that you've been visiting your dad,

has he ever once told you to lie for him?

No.

There was just something about the way
that she testified.

She's not unlikable.

There was just a sense that it wasn't...

To me, there was a sense that it wasn't
genuine.

Do you recall, on February 4th,
seeing your dad at home?

I...

I don't know if it was
specifically at home,

but I remember being
in the vicinity of him...

when the conversation between my mom and
dad occurred after the...

his phone rang, and it was Joseph and he
didn't take the call.

We have the phone call that occurs at 828.

And nobody can verify that, except for
supposedly Cathy and Taylor, because it

doesn't show up... on
Merritt's telephone bill.

Taylor never gave a
statement to the police

back in the day, when
she did make a statement.

There was never any mention of that phone
call occurring on that night.

No remembrance of that particular phone
call, and things of that nature.

So that was all new on the witness stand.

Now, I wanted to talk to you about the
night of February 4th...

Yes.

...of 2010.

When you talked to
Detective Steers, do you

recall telling him where
you were at that night?

I do recall initially saying that we might
have been at the movie theater,

and then just like a minute later,
I correct myself.

And actually, how did you come to learn
about the date of February 4th?

After my family wasn't able to get a hold
of the mixed days, that kind of became an

important date, just
because that was the last

time that he had gotten
a phone call from him.

So that became kind of the topic of
conversation.

Taylor was going to back her dad no matter
what.

No matter what the
evidence showed, she was

going to say that her
dad was home that night.

And she remembers it.

And that was never anything that she said
before.

It's almost like she's playing a role.

Taylor is proud to be
up there, and she smiles,

and, you know, she cries
at the right time, right?

It's almost so staged.

Have you participated in any way in a
documentary film?

Yes.

And how have you participated in a
documentary film?

They're filming a documentary about this
case, and I've done interviews.

We had no idea that there were
behind-the-scenes conversations,

and there was videotape for the
documentary that was occurring.

Those discussions, what
happened in those discussions,

what information they
talked about, we don't know.

This was the first question they asked for
a sidebar.

And that was subject to you.

Was there anything
taken out of context based

on him saying it to you
as opposed to your mom?

I think that it's unfair the way that
innocent people are treated by the system

when they haven't been convicted of a
crime.

I think that it's unfair
that his family has

to drive two hours to
see him every week.

And...

It's...

It's... It's... It's a...
It's a heavy burden.

Oh, that was good.

You articulated that whole thing pretty
well.

And that's pretty much what we feel.

You know, we've gotten to know him and
know the case, and it's so circumstantial.

Anything they could possibly sweep on one
side of the rug, they did.

When the daughter
revealed that she had been

interviewed, that's
when it became relevant.

Well, wait a minute.

Has your testimony been influenced by
these meetings?

Are you changing your story because of
these meetings?

We issued a subpoena for the footage of
any and all of her statements.

The prosecution was, again, trying to
implant conspiracies into things.

In my mind, every time they do that, it
just confirmed they knew they were losing.

That's how I saw it.

I said, they are desperate.

This is a team that knows they don't have
a case.

And they're gonna win any way they can.

Merritt didn't have the money to pay for
attorneys.

And when you have two private attorneys
that are essentially giving up their

practice for a period of
time and putting their lives on

hold, there has to be some
sort of incentive for that.

Your life's a reality TV show now,
Raj.

You don't just do that for free.

My agreement on payment is confidential.

It's an attorney-client confidentiality.

I can't reach that.

They actually said, we
wanna take your case, but

we can't afford to just
try it and not get paid.

They didn't just object to the
documentary.

They went to the judge and they said,
this documentary is unethical.

These defense attorneys are profiting off
of it.

You know, they can say what they want.

We went to the judge with this.

We provided all the financial disclosures.

We gave them everything to look at.

The judge ultimately ruled that those
things were not correct and he allowed it.

So that speaks for itself.

I definitely felt that
tension from the prosecution

side that they didn't enjoy
having that camera there.

And a little smugness on the part of the
defense that they had that in their corner.

They didn't want
anyone to see this because

they knew at that
time what they're doing.

Which is taking an innocent
guy and building a case

around some wacky theory
that they came up with.

It began in January of this past year.

The McStay family, there they are.

Oh my God, those beautiful child faces.

The whole trial was hard to watch.

It caused a lot of anxiety for people.

You know, this is a family.

They all slept together in the same bed
night after night.

And, you know, Joseph wouldn't even spend
a night away from his family.

I mean, every time I look at my teenage
children and know that Johnny and Joey Jr.

should be that age.

And wondering what they look like.

And I don't know why I always pictured
Gianni having glasses.

And I know that Joseph would have been so
proud of them and bragging about how smart

they were, with their accomplishments,
whatever they were.

They said I would do whatever it took to
find out who did this.

And bring it, bring them to trial.

Look, I lost family.

I lost sleep.

I had no social life.

I'm not a perfect person.

I've made mistakes in my life.

But I can tell you this.

I was not gonna give up on my grandchildren,
my son, or my daughter-in-law.

I was gonna find out what in the hell
happened.

Why?

Why them?

I was staying awake 18, 19 hours.

I was sleeping a couple hours.

And now she's on the phone with me.

And we're talking to the wee hours of the
night.

And we're going over things.

We're going through emails.

In Joey's emails at the time, there were
over 12,000.

In Summers at the time, there were over
4,000.

So I found the email from Vic to Summers
in 2009 saying that he still loved her.

When Joey met Summers, I knew she had a
boyfriend.

And she was still living with Vic.

But he was off some... gone somewhere.

You got the email there.

What was it?

23rd of December.

Read it to me.

Yeah, this is a killer to Summers.

I love you forever.

Happy birthday, Summers.

Forever and ever, Vic.

This is five years after they split up.

Hasn't seen her.

Has had no contact with her.

Okay?

She's got two children with Joey.

And he's sending her this email.

Thinking he's nuts.

But then we go and start
checking it out and find

out he's living within
like a mile of their house.

And then in January, after he sends that
email, he's in a bar in San Clemente in a

building next door to where Joey has an
office.

And he gets arrested for threatening
people in the bar there.

Well, then we go a little farther.

We start checking his background.

We find out that he
was arrested in 2004 for

threatening the neighbor
and her daughter.

What did he say?

He was an ex-Marine or something like that
and he knew how to kill?

And then he would, if
she gave him any more

trouble, he would kill
her and her daughter.

So he's arrested.

We never hear from him for five years or
something.

Then he sends this email two months before
they go missing.

Soon into your investigation, Patrick
McState would also give you information.

Correct?

To try to help.

He would give me his beliefs.

He would give you whatever information he
gave.

Whether you use it or not is your
decision, correct?

Oh, I used it.

I would follow up on it.

And in every instance, it was disproved.

The thing you gotta realize is, we just
didn't see San Diego Sheriff doing anything.

Dougal knew nothing about this guy until
we told him.

Why did we have to tell him?

Why didn't he find him?

I mean, wouldn't one of the first things
you would do is go look at old boyfriends?

But, oh, wait a minute, I forgot.

There's no case here.

It's voluntary missing.

You named four suspects publicly,
like, very early on.

Who were those four?

Oh, boy.

Okay, we had Chase Merritt, Dan Cavanaugh,
Vic Johansson, and Michael McFadden.

Who is McFadden?

Michael McFadden.

Is the husband of Joey's first wife.

And my oldest grandson is a stepfather.

This is, um, a summary of a conversation
with Patrick.

Mm-hmm.

During the course of
Patrick's investigation, he

received an email from
Summer's sister, Tracy Russell.

Tracy told Patrick that McFadden had
threatened to Joseph and Summer at

Christmas of 2009 or early 2010,
that he told Joseph to muzzle his wife or

he would come to his house, kick his ass,
and muzzle Summer for him.

I would say he was probably Patrick's
number one suspect at that point.

I found that in 1998, he had been charged
with great bodily injury, domestic

violence, corporal injury on spouse or
co-inhabitant, criminal threats,

attempted murder.

Victims said her ex-boyfriend Michael
James McFadden broke into her house and

beat her up for one hour before she
escaped to her brother's house.

Wow.

The door was kicked open, saw McFadden
entering her room, looking extremely

angry, stated McFadden was yelling,
I'm gonna kill you.

She had a two-inch laceration on her
forehead, a three-inch contusion above her

left eye, bruised shoulder,
red scratch to left side

of face, numerous bruises
to both arms and legs.

The only things he pled
guilty to were criminal

threats and the assault
with a deadly weapon.

But all of those other charges were pretty
eyebrow-raising.

Hi there.

Michael?

No, no, no.

I'm with Channel 8 in San Diego.

Hold on a second.

You guys are gonna have to leave.

I just wanted to get a statement.

Right now.

Patrick puts McFadden's record up on the
boards, right?

Yeah.

And what happens then?

You know, people went nuts, and it caused
a lot of conversation, and it also...

I believe McFadden
ended up, if not reaching out

directly to Patrick, at
least sending a message.

He wasn't happy about it, obviously.

He threatened me.

Threatened you?

He threatened me on Facebook in the
message center.

I still have it.

Patrick cares about his family and his
son.

And I think, although
sometimes it was a little

over the top, his
intentions were always pure.

And he was doing that any way he could.

If it was banging, you know, pot and pan
as loud as he could so that someone would

listen to him, he was willing to do that
because he wants justice for his family.

I never knew who did it.

I never settled on anybody.

I never... I would follow
all of these paths, but I

never followed just one to
the exclusion of any other.

I kept everybody in the running until they
weren't anymore.

And to be honest, I was not disappointed
when they arrested Chase, but scared that

perhaps they didn't look into the whole
thing enough.

Because of the fact
that we found so much

compelling stuff in
these other people's files.

No news questions right now, bud.

Sorry, can't do it.

Like, right now, this footage right here
is not going anywhere.

As far as you asking me if I'm a violent
person, the answer is a resounding no.

Definitely not.

And whether I would have it in me to do
something like that or not, come on, dude.

Absolutely not.

You don't understand how badly I've
suspected Dan, right?

I mean, I still do.

So...

Do you think Dan Kavanaugh has anything to
do with the murders?

I believe he has virtually everything to
do with this.

Do I believe he hands-on did it?

No.

But I believe he got Joseph
McStay into some kind of

business deal that Joseph
didn't understand well enough.

And Dan Kavanaugh was crooked enough that
it ended up going south.

And I believe Dan Kavanaugh
specifically either orchestrated

or directly caused the
McStay family to get killed.

Most definitely.

an e-check payment He starts taking money,
I believe it was on February the 6th.

He didn't contact me till the 9th.

So that means he was taking money three
days before he ever contacted me.

So, how did he know to take the money?

Did he know that Joey was not coming back?

Dan was upset.

He felt like Joe was not paying him.

And he described it as an allowance.

Okay, he's giving me, he's throwing me
down a couple thousand dollars every month.

But he's got hundreds of thousand dollars
in his bank.

You know, he's making good money.

Looking at the layman, he's blackmailing
Joey for money.

Dan's trying to control
and manipulate Joseph based

on threats that he's going
to take the site down.

And the fact of the matter is,
Dan probably could, right?

And Joseph didn't know enough about
computers and how to protect himself.

This is pretty serious.

When you threaten somebody, you're going to
take away their livelihood and everything.

It's like, if you can do that,
how far can you go?

How far will you go?

I worked for a company called Blue World
from 2006 to 2010.

And sometimes Joseph would resell our
pre-made fountains.

And there was a day, I believe it was in
June of 2010, that I got a call from

another waterfall reseller.

He was concerned about Joseph because he
saw an ad that his business was for sale.

So I immediately, like, what are you
talking about?

And he sent the ad to me.

And sure enough, it was Dan Cavanaugh with
his name and everything on there.

He was saying that he was the owner and
that he wanted to sell it.

And then, from what we understand,
he did sell it.

The following purchase price, $20,000
United States dollars in cash.

Wow, I never knew that he sold it for so
little.

That's insane.

And he had no right at all.

Signed by Dan Cavanaugh, an individual.

Ugh, he's a disgusting person.

I mean, it's always going to leave a
question in people's mind, was Dan involved?

Especially when you start
just simply looking at money

being taken before they're
ever known to be missing.

What did he know?

Come to order.

Reverend Flick, we are back in session.

Parties and council are present.

All members of our train or outfits are
present.

Do you know what the total amount that Dan
Cavanaugh took in when it came to these

online orders from, let's
say, February 10th, 2010 to

when he sold the company,
which would be in July of 2011.

The PayPal orders that came in were about
$127,000.

I'm talking total.

So, PayPal, bank...

There were, there would
have been, in addition to that,

there were some wires that
came in, there were ATM deposits.

And in total, the income was $206,000.

And that money went into Cavanaugh's
account.

That's correct.

So that, to me, was a pretty extraordinary
event.

And it appears that investigators just
missed it.

They never got Dan Cavanaugh's PayPal
records.

They had Joseph's, but they didn't seem to
really care too much that money was being

taken out by Dan Cavanaugh during that
period.

And again, it was all ignored.

Why?

Because you wanted to have that bias.

It didn't confirm your story.

It didn't confirm your belief.

If it doesn't confirm it, ignore it.

I think it's very clear that the defense
is trying to point fingers and show why

this is all about motive, a financial
motive for someone else who did the

murder, not the defendant, and that would
be this Dan Cavanaugh.

One of the ways to cast reasonable doubt
is to say, if he didn't do it, who did?

Well, here's a good explanation.

Look, follow the money, right?

Follow the money and the money trail,
and it points to Cavanaugh, a different

business relationship than this defendant,
so he must have done it.

We did really want to put Cavanaugh up.

We looked for him for months, for months.

We tried everything we could.

The defense point the finger at Dan
Cavanaugh and maybe others, right?

Well, under the law, they're not allowed
to do that, absent some, really,

shred of evidence to link them to the
crime, other than a mere accusation.

How that didn't come in, I'm still kind of
bewildered about that.

Now, were those instant messages allowed
to be read in court?

No.

No.

The jury never heard that.

Never heard of them.

The jury never knew they existed?

Never knew they existed.

Dan Cavanaugh was a walking, talking red
flag, and they ignored it.

This guy's a maniac.

Who had a motive to kill.

I mean, that's what you want the jury to
be listening to.

When you talk about some of those
transactions, the stuff that occurred

afterwards, like selling the business and
stuff like that, how does that show that

he was connected to the crime
in the first place, as opposed

to just taking advantage
of a missing family of four?

We were trying to find him.

We need to get to the bottom of it.

Prosecuting the wrong person makes no
sense.

They got the wrong guy.

As part of the missing
persons investigation, San Diego

County Sheriff's Department
canvassed the neighborhood.

And at some point, they come into contact
with Miss Mitchley, who lives kind of

diagonally across the street from the
mixed days.

And they notice that she has security
cameras on her house.

She was able to give them
a few clips that she felt was

relevant, that the detectives
felt were relevant as well.

The most important being a vehicle that
was backed into the mixed days driveway

that pulled out and left that evening on
the 4th.

The truck pulls out at
747, and we know this is

the last time, you know,
anyone saw them ever.

We know this is, this is the murderer
leaving.

So that was a very, very big deal for us.

So, tell me, what do you see on her video?

I see the defendant's truck leaving the
driveway.

Whether to either park down the street or
to actually just leave completely.

That's my interpretation of it.

This is Chase's truck at the house at the
time the family disappeared.

That's, that's a big deal.

This is a damning piece of evidence.

No doubt that was not his truck.

Evidence doesn't lie.

It wasn't his truck.

I am 100% certain of that.

I'm absolutely convinced it was Chase's
truck.

If it's not their, his truck, then where's
his opportunity to commit the crime?

The people really needed Chase's vehicle
to be on that video.

And it wasn't.

They didn't have any direct evidence to
support that I did these crimes.

Everything was circumstantial.

Everything.

So, without direct evidence, then they
have to show enough circumstantial

evidence to convince the jury that it was
me at their home and who killed them.

But obviously the video is so grainy,
um, that it's really difficult to be able

to ascertain what are we going to be able
to get from this and what can we use this

for and how significant is this piece of
evidence going to be.

Essentially what you needed
was you needed some expert to

be able to explain the
significance of the Mitchley video.

How are you this morning?

Good.

Good morning.

Where are you from?

I'm from Toronto.

Okay.

Welcome to California.

Thank you.

What do you do for a living?

Uh, I'm a 3D forensic analyst.

We don't go to it with an agenda looking
for an outcome.

We sent him the
footage, we sent him the

scans of the truck, and
he went to work on it.

And we were actually just
taken aback by the conclusions

he reached when he sent
us his preliminary report.

So, after conducting all of
this analysis, what conclusions

could you draw from the
evidence that you were providing?

The first one is that the position of the
headlights on the 2000 Chevy truck,

such as those in Mr. Merrick's truck,
is consistent with the, um, the position

of the glare that we're seeing in the
video.

That is consistent.

I compared the height of the, where those
were located on the vehicle, down to the

ground, and that is
also consistent with the

range that we found
on the 2000 Chevy truck.

All these features are consistent with the
2000 Chevy truck.

So, if I go to the last few frames,
and I, and I move in on this area,

you know, just look
around this area here,

what you'll see is,
there's the bright spot.

Okay?

Now, that bright spot
happens to coincide with

a latch, which is on
the side of the vehicle.

It's not inconceivable that the latch
could be causing some type of reflection.

Now, having said that, I
can't make an identification

with the, with the
evidence that I have.

I can't go in and say,
well, look, you know, I

can tell exactly that it's
this 2000 Chevy truck.

All I can say is that this model truck
that we have is consistent with all the

features that I've pointed out in the
video.

So, he was able to illustrate for the jury
that while you can't conclusively say it

is the truck, he could say that here are
all of these unique identifiers that are

consistent with the defendant's truck,
and let the jury draw its own conclusion.

You can't rule it out.

You can't rule it out, ultimately,
came the theme of all of that testimony.

You cannot rule out the defendant's truck.

But as it turns out, when Mr. Licio
testifies, there's one person that they

didn't anticipate listening to the
testimony, and that was Dr. Rudin.

Because this trial was carried live on Law
and Crime Network.

You can see that it comes from just about
any way.

I listened to it, and that's the first
time I heard about this latch theory.

I think something is wrong here.

And that whole thing made no sense to me.

His findings that this vehicle is
consistent with this truck is wrong.

In the world of criminal
forensics, Dr. Lenny

Rudin is one of the
world's experts in this area.

Dr. Rudin consulted with the prosecution,
I think, in excess of two years.

He was their retained advisor and expert
on that video.

I can't validate this anymore.

I mean, after a certain
amount of work, thinking,

computing, and so on, I
arrived in an opposite conclusion.

That's all.

He had gotten fired by the prosecution for
wanting to just tell the truth.

The truck was everything to them.

Putting Chase's truck there was their
whole case.

After Mr. Imes tells me to stand down,
I sent Mr. Imes that message.

Essentially, what he was saying is,
we eliminate it.

It's not Chase's truck.

It can't be.

It's impossible.

And in a series of text
messages, that was the

message Dr. Rudin
was saying to Britt Imes.

Dr.

Rudin contacted me.

And he told me, Mr. McGee, I have
concerns.

And I want to tell you what really
happened.

He felt that we needed
to be notified of the

truth because you can't
keep this from a defense.

And that became a pretty big violation.

And that's when we started saying,
this is misconduct.

This is a Brady violation.

Those are very serious accusations.

This is grounds for a mistrial.

The defense called Dr. Rudin as a witness
for themselves.

Yeah, it's a unique once
in a lifetime experience

having a prosecution witness
become a defense witness.

Based on the data you
have only, the white truck is

rejected as being the
vehicle in the evidence video.

Based on the data I have and all the
methods that I have available to me now,

I render a rejection.

The prosecution has a distinct
responsibility to forward any exculpatory

information that can
be to the issue of guilt or

to any motion that could
be brought by the defense.

Exculpatory meaning it's helpful to the
defense.

It provides evidence that would help your
client.

And they refuse to turn it over and they
hide it.

They ignore information that does not fit
their theory.

Now we know that
information was presented to the

government saying, our
regional theory is gone.

We can't agree with that anymore.

And I'm finding this is actually not his
truck.

In the state of California, there is law
on the books that says if a prosecutor

deliberately withheld
evidence from the defense that's

exculpatory, that can be the
basis of a charge for a felony.

So it's obviously an extremely serious
accusation.

The potential for a mistrial is always
there.

They're cherry picking their evidence to
say, let's convict the man based on

information that we may know is not
accurate.

And let's hide it from the defense.

These people were willing to do anything
to prove that it was me.

I think it just shows that it doesn't
matter to them to figure out the truth.

It doesn't matter that they have the right
guy.

It just matters that they are able to
present what they want to present.

They've invested so many resources into
showing that that's merit's truck.

Because it's the only thing that places
him involved well.

Nothing else.

So, without that, there's no case.

Literally.

That's why you see this fight.

That's why you see a prosecutor doing what
he just did.

Lying and cheating.

And withholding evidence.

Because without it, they lose.

End of story.

I sent him that message on...

...February 15, 2019.

He never responded to it.

At the time the issue comes up,
I don't have a text thread with Dr.

Rudin, for whatever reason.

It just so happened that...

...during that period, I had an old cell
phone.

It had memory issues.

And so I would routinely, as
a matter of habit, go through

and delete old text threads
that I no longer needed.

What this person, I
can't even call him a

prosecutor, because
prosecutors don't do that.

I mean, how is it that he's here?

Like, don't you want to know what he's
doing?

Covering up the truth?

And really, most prosecutors who do stuff
like that never work as prosecutors again,

and they shouldn't.

You know, think about it.

And in a death penalty case especially,
you're a cheater and a liar.

You withheld this evidence, and now your
expert is saying that you're full of shit.

So what are you going to say as the
prosecutor now?

Was the incidental deletion of the text
thread a misstep or a miscue?

Yeah, potentially.

I probably should have
waited until the end of

trial, you know, to
clean out that text thread.

So, based on that type of conduct,
Your Honor, I do believe that Mr.

Merritt was prejudiced
by that lack of information.

So, in light of that, we are requesting a
dismissal of all the charges.

Alternatively, a mistrial, because in
reality, if this was post-conviction,

then the remedy for Brady violations is
reversal.

Alternatively, I think a jury instruction
is appropriate.

At a very minimum,
Mr. Imes should be removed

from this case, if not
all the prosecutors.

All three of them.

I would say it's extremely appropriate for
them to make the request for mistrial,

the request for sanctions.

Is it appropriate to then ask for removal
of the prosecutor?

That may be a little far, but nonetheless,
they did.

We believe that this prosecutor's
committed a felony.

I think it was just the whole allegations
of misconduct.

We should be charged with felonies.

I mean, that to me
was probably one of the

most underhanded
things that the defense did.

In light of the fact that they are
prosecutors, they've made a mockery of it.

That was just the general consensus on the
mixed day camp.

It was a lot of fear that we'd been all
through all of this for nothing.

And that Chase might actually go free.

And nobody wanted to see that smug look on
his face.

Brady violation and a death penalty case.

Come on.

This prosecutor is a liar, a cheater.

The question is, was it misconduct for Mr.
Arms not to provide the information?

What I was most worried about was that
there might be a mistrial.

There was just an inordinate amount of
prosecutorial misconduct.

It's very clear in
California, as a prosecutor, if

you withhold exculpatory
evidence, you go to jail.

Cell phone pings are a really big deal.

It's yet to be explained by any of them.

Are there several things that I would have
done up there?

Of course.

Half of my family lives on the high
desert.

Isn't it true that you told the detective
that your brother hardly visited?

I don't remember saying anything like
that.

I can see the writing on the wall.

The problem is, you two have lost this
case.

You're getting me convicted.