Original subtitles

The family disappeared in 2010, and authorities stopped looking for clues

after they presumed the family had vanished into Mexico.

Years later, the graves of all four of the McStays turned up in the Mojave Desert.

Defense tests on two items found buried with the McStay family in shallow graves

revealed the DNA profiles of three unknown people.

The unknown profiles are from none of the

McStays and are not from defendant Chase Merritt.

Who are they from?

And are they from the real killers?

So these are the items that we had Susanna Ryan, one of our DNA experts, run a

machine called an MVAC, which basically is a small vacuum that is used for the

purpose of sucking up DNA instead of using a traditional swab.

What's your analysis of what you're seeing so far?

I think it's, you know, it's interesting to me to see.

We've got, especially the black bra where we have the most results, where there's

clearly a male, at least one male present

on there that is not matching Joseph McStay.

It's not matching Charles Merritt.

There's DNA from individuals other than McStay or Charles Merritt.

So that's what we're seeing with this data.

We went to the prosecution and said, hey, look, I think this could be a home run.

I mean, we could really find the killer.

Or killers.

This DNA issue is what observers are telling

me is one of the key issues in this case.

The fact that the defense is able to put forward that there's DNA evidence at the

gravesite that does not link the crime to the defendant is huge.

The defense repeatedly made a demand to run profiles, for lack of a better term,

through CODIS.

CODIS is the combined DNA index system.

And it contains DNA profiles of suspects and defendants.

And it's used to help solve cases where you have an

unknown DNA contribution to help identify the contributor.

There's millions of profiles in there.

So when you enter your profile, if you get

hit or hits, you know you're onto something.

Those can be explored and find out who the hit was with.

This CODIS system is only available to law

enforcement and prosecutors, not to the defense.

So if it was going to get run to see who's, if there's a possible match,

it would have to be done by the prosecution.

And they said, no, we're not even going to do a comparison in CODIS.

That was their answer.

We didn't understand it.

Why couldn't they run the DNA through CODIS?

Why couldn't they go find Dan Kavanaugh?

Why couldn't they do a lot of things they could have easily done?

The question assumes that they want the truth.

And not a win.

What would be the harm in just running them and see if it did hit something?

Because it, again, it's not an actual profile.

Both our lab's testing of any of those items and the defense lab's testing fell

well below that threshold to be what's considered

usable to come up with any type of potential profile.

When you're talking such an incomplete profile as you're talking about in the

number of assumptions that have to be computer

generated, you run the risk for a lot of potential error.

The quality of the evidence is so decayed that there's no reliability in it.

And it doesn't meet even our lab's thresholds of reliability.

And so we're not hiding behind red tape, bureaucratic red tape.

We're just saying these aren't biological profiles to be entered into CODIS.

They were here for, you know, three years, four years in this state.

But you're talking about dirt and heat and weather, all these things that destroy DNA.

And for them to magically, you know, find

three profiles, none of them being the family.

The knot on this electrical cord is so intertwined

with Joseph's body and the fabric that he's wrapped in.

If this was in such direct contact with his body, how could his DNA not show up there?

He should have found Joey's DNA.

It defies what we believe is common sense science, right?

The suspect who tied this knot around Joseph's body with his bare hands.

That person's DNA survived, but Joseph's didn't.

It's really just another red herring for the defense.

It's another way to try and make it look like,

hey, we're trying to exonerate our client.

And this is more of a cover up by the DA's office.

They are not willing to do what we need to do, and this

would help us figure out who really killed the McStay family.

The truth is the most important thing here.

What are they afraid of finding?

Do they fear that one of the witnesses or one of the people that they didn't

investigate, like Dan Cavanaugh, are they afraid of

one of those coming back as a potential contributor?

That's... that's where I have a problem.

My name is Suzanne O'Ryan.

It's S-U-Z-A-N-N-A-R-Y-A-N.

The sledgehammer obviously was the murder weapon.

It was in the graves.

You would realistically expect that if there was going to be some DNA from an

unknown source, if their theory is merit is not the killer, it's some unknown

person, you would expect that the sledgehammer

would be something that they would test.

That's the... that's something that the perpetrator would have handled, right?

Actually, to be honest, I don't know if I requested this particular item or not.

Yes, it would be something that was handled.

I definitely didn't test it.

One of the reasons that I would say is that we know the MBAC is better for porous.

..

porous items, things with ridges.

So... it could have been tested.

We... but we did not correct.

There are ridges on that handle.

There are some ridges on that handle, yes.

So the sledgehammer has a series of lines, ridges, down the handle.

It could have been tested.

All the items could have been tested.

Kind of odd, right?

You would think you would want to test the one piece of evidence that you know for

sure the killer had in their possession at one point, but they declined to do so.

There's ridges literally on the handle.

They could have totally tested that item.

So I call bullshit.

You have to wonder, are they really telling the truth

about how important this DNA is that they found?

Someone thought that those items would have a better chance of identifying the

actual perpetrator than the hammer that's in front of you.

You know, I suggest a number of items to test, and these were the items that were

approved and submitted to the lab for testing.

Did you ask for the hammer or not?

I do not recollect.

I think there's a good possibility I did.

I think there were a number of items I

requested, but not every single item was tested.

I told my attorneys, test everything in the grave.

I don't care everything.

Whatever you can test in the grave.

They could have run a few CODIS.

You were told by the defense, we don't want CODIS last May, right?

On April 9th, 2018, they decided to forebone the CODIS upload.

And that was before you had any results?

Yes.

So we have to obtain that approval prior to any processing on the case.

The defense could have checked a box to have it tested.

Right.

Had the defense counsel gotten it in by just

simply checking the, yes, box, we want it run.

But when he opted not to, it was then too late.

Me and McGee had an argument about it.

Why the fuck didn't you have that DNA run?

I told you it was not going to be mine.

And he said, well, I have to be certain.

And I said, so what you're telling me is you don't necessarily believe I'm innocent?

Yeah.

If you're a prosecuting agency sending something, then yeah, you have that option.

It's not available to defense attorneys.

You can request it all you want if they're not going to do it.

And who's to say who filled out that request?

Was it my assistant, Lisa?

Was it, you know, Jim's assistant?

Was it, you know, who was it that did?

I mean, they don't know.

But even if we had crossed that, it doesn't apply to us.

It only applies to law enforcement agencies.

They were afraid of what they were going to find if there was a viable sample.

That's why.

Because they knew it was going to be Chase's.

After you pull that trigger, there's not much more you can do.

If I was in defense, I wouldn't want to touch that one either.

It might come up with something I don't want to see.

And I want Mike to come up with our client's DNA, and then our case is over.

We're going to find this individual of individuals.

I know that the sheriffs, the FBI, everybody wants to bring this to justice.

And if it's the last thing I do, I want to...

I just want to know that, you know, when it's over.

Right now, live in court in California, the brother

of the victim, Mike McStay, is on the witness stand.

I knew Michael was going to end up there, and I didn't want to see it.

Period.

That's it.

Bottom line.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning.

I could care less about his feelings, to be honest, in the context of the trial.

I have compassion for him as a brother of somebody who was killed so brutally.

But in terms of a trial witness, I'm going to do what I

have to do to make whatever point I think we have to make.

Let me ask you, did you own a white utility truck in 2010?

Yes, I owned a white Chevrolet 2007 3500 HD.

Michael had a white pickup truck.

That was just another crazy fact to this case.

Did you see the video of the neighbor surveillance video?

You know, it's called the Mitchley video that we watched in court here.

I did, yes.

Okay.

Um, is that your truck?

It's not my truck.

No.

The truck on the video.

No.

That's the 4th?

The 4th.

The day that you told Deputy Tingley you drove past the house.

And he tells Officer Tingley in his first statement, he says, I was there at my

brother's house on February 4th or the 6th.

When I saw that in this report, I almost fell out of my chair.

What do you mean you were there on the 4th?

What do you mean you were there on the 4th?

That's the day they disappeared.

How isn't anybody just like jumping from the ceiling saying, what?

You were there on the 4th or the 6th?

I was there on the 4th.

I was there on the 4th.

I was there on the 4th.

You could probably check my cell phone records and things if you wanted to.

I'm sure you have been marked with the 99 degree.

And tell me if that, uh, is that an accurate adaptation

of your phone records for the 1st part of February 2010?

It must be, yeah, I think it's fine.

That's my phone number.

That's, that's my number.

There's nowhere on those records to indicate where you are when the call is made.

I have no idea.

I mean, I'm not an expert.

So I've got to talk to Sprint or whoever does that kind of work.

If you look at Michael's phone records, they don't have location data.

He had more than ample time to be at Joseph's

home during when they say the family disappeared.

You recall that you told the deputy Tingley that you drove

past your brother's home on February 4th or the 6th of 2010?

You recall that?

I'm not sure if it was, um, I'm not sure if they got that right.

I really don't, I'm not sure.

I don't like seeing my son go through that.

I don't like to see him hurting like that.

That, that tears me apart.

I knew Michael didn't do it.

He loved Joey too much.

There's no way.

I don't even think Michael would kill his worst enemy.

He's just not that type.

He's not built that way.

He didn't understand it at all.

And he wasn't able to explain it.

It just didn't seem to catch fire with anyone.

Nobody seemed to care about it.

It was kind of a familiar feeling I got in the trial with a lot of things that we

thought were important, but nobody else thought were important.

There was plenty of people that were on that team that Mike did it, you know.

There was a lot of people that thought Mike could have done it.

Especially the, the online message boards.

Anything about Michael was too much.

I mean, they went after Michael 10 times worse than anybody else.

Okay, I'm gonna be polite and nice as best I can, but they don't know a damn thing.

And they're out there criticizing Michael

concerning his brother that he loves dearly.

And they have no clue about the relationship between Joey and Michael.

I can understand why public opinion or the defense's

opinion would lead to that line of questioning.

There's a lot of red flags about Michael, I'm not gonna lie.

What would his motive have been?

I guess jealousy or money or...

There was something that was found by one of the researchers.

There was some sort of document that was found where

Michael was being brought to court over a fraudulent loan.

And for the loan, he had stated that he was the CEO of Earth Inspired Products.

Did you ever apply for a loan indicating that

you were the owner of Earth Inspired Products?

I don't believe so.

A fresh memory?

Yeah.

And you're aware when you signed that application

to the bank that it was under penalty of purchase.

Projection argumentative.

I believe, I don't know.

Is it?

You would know, I wouldn't know.

When you made that statement that you were the owner

of Earth Inspired Products, that was not true, was it?

Yeah.

Here you have this loan application where somebody's saying that they're the owner

of a company, of a person that goes missing or, you know, dies not long after.

Was he just trying to make himself CEO of Earth Inspired Products?

Finding a document like that, that bothered me.

Like, that bothered me for a long time.

And at first, Patrick wouldn't talk to me about it at all.

I'm sorry, but Michael's my son.

In regards of what Amy thinks, I don't think he would lie.

He had nothing to do with it.

Before I just blurt this out, I'm going to show counsel a statement that I'm going to

ask you about, that would have been made in

March of 2010 to the Orange County Register.

On March 26, 2010, that my fear is that I'm looking for

two adult shallow graves and my two nephews' crosses.

I remember saying that, yes.

When you made that statement to Brittany Levine in March of 2010, that was three

years, eight months... Before they were found, right?

When you look at it, two shallow graves?

Wait a minute.

Okay, one shallow grave would have been bad

enough, because you're saying shallow grave.

Who knew it was a shallow grave?

But to say two?

That's pretty remarkable.

I don't put any stock in that at all.

It's just what Michael imagined.

What he thought was coming down the line.

He finally realized that he wasn't going to see his

brother and sister-in-law and his nephews again.

And so he, the picture comes in his head of

two graves and two other graves or whatever.

And that's just how he described it.

My question is, you made that statement.

Because that was my fear.

And you made that statement.

That I wasn't looking for a missing persons case, but rather a possible homicide.

I didn't want to point out that he was the guy that did anything.

That would have been silly.

There was no evidence to bring that up.

But do you understand how easy it is to make someone look guilty?

Because it is.

You can take facts from, you know, whatever place you want and put them into

the scenario you want and make someone look guilty.

And I did that for that express purpose.

And I know that they actually investigated Michael, you know, that the San Bernardino

Sheriff's Department investigated Michael as well.

There's some weird things that he may have done and questionable, I guess,

business practices.

But there was never anything concealed when we asked him about it.

There's no evidence he ever traveled to the desert.

There's no evidence he was ever even around Joseph for,

you know, the weeks before or after they went missing.

No one was immune from examination.

Everyone was a suspect until they, and they just started narrowing down.

Not possible, alibi, not in the area, you know, nothing linking them to the crime.

In our investigation, we had a, gosh, there

was maybe three or four whiteboards in a room.

And we had pictures of anyone who was associated with the family, knew the

family, had business dealings with Joseph or Summer.

So we just had this huge list of people that we had to talk to and verify and

prove or disprove any involvement they may have had.

Vic got wrangled into this right away.

Because, hey, you know, is it a crazy ex-lover that's jealous?

Vic Johansson, who's Summer's ex-boyfriend, had sent her an email close

to Christmas of 2009 saying that he still loved her and would forever.

But I just, I keep thinking, like, how do you get,

how do you get four people without anyone seeing me?

Like, Summer used to always watch the murder mystery stuff.

But she would always tell me that, um, if she ever got kidnapped,

she would fight.

Because she read the books about how the girls get so scared they don't fight back.

So she would, she convinced me that, like, she wouldn't fight her.

His cell phone records revealed that a cell phone was using cell site locations

in Orange County during the time the family went missing.

His cell phone also used cell site locations outside

of California shortly after they went missing.

There was no cell site information or any other information

that showed Johansson near or around the McStay residence.

So, I can understand why they didn't continue with that.

It was kind of our way of keeping track of who still needed to be interviewed,

who could or couldn't be.

And then we'd move that name to another board.

So, he got moved off the list.

So, Michael McFadden came up because there was domestic

violence arrest that he had with an ex-girlfriend.

Michael McFadden is Joey's first wife's new

husband and my oldest grandson's stepfather.

I'm thinking immediately, whoa, I got a grandson that's living with this guy.

And like I say, we had to look at him.

Summer had some suspicions.

And, you know, instead of just saying, no, that's not true, he says he's gonna

muzzle her or, you know, I'll come over there and muzzle her myself.

Doesn't really do anything to make you feel any better about the guy.

If you were sitting in my shoes back then and looking at the case back in 2010,

2011, you had to take a hard look at McFadden.

I mean, he jumped to the top of the list.

Can't exclude him, so we put all that information up there

with him and had to follow where the hard evidence took us.

Now you have to come talk to me.

Let's face it, you're doing an investigation

and it would be a little frivolous not to.

You know, I was waiting for this to happen, you know.

You understand my apprehension, you know.

Of course.

Innocent people are sitting in jail as I speak.

I have a background that you're well aware of.

That background was a way distant past, you know.

Mm-hmm.

I'm, uh, I'm about as straightforward and honest and, uh, clean liver as you can get.

Well, just straight up, if you had anything to do with this, tell me.

I did not.

I did not.

I mean, no.

We got all of his dealings with Joseph.

We tried to figure out what their relationship was all about.

What contact they had, if they still had any contact.

So, we took a hard look at all of that.

So this is his alibi for February 4th.

McFadden claimed to be working at the store on a day the McStay family went missing.

McFadden later went home after work and remained in the residence.

And you say, okay, well, what else?

And there's nothing that physically puts him

there in the desert during the time in question.

So, that's where you kind of run out of leads with him.

There was just so many things that, when you look at, I guess, the pile of

evidence against people, there's some larger piles than others.

Dan was definitely one of the top suspects

because he had intimate knowledge of the business.

He understood how the business worked.

And because he was kind of a flake.

Just like, man, this guy is very intelligent.

Is he smart enough to commit a crime and cover it up?

Could he do that?

So, what's the latest with Dan Cavanaugh?

He's not looking for him anymore?

Where is he at?

Dan Cavanaugh is still being looked for.

Our investigator is following up on leads that we have every week.

He is still working on a newly developed lead.

And we hope to find him, serve him, and have him come to court and testify.

We sent Mr. Robertson, our investigator, down there to find him at all costs.

You know, do what you have to do.

Turn over every stone, talk to whoever you've got to talk to, but find him.

And he's a very experienced investigator, a former homicide detective himself.

He wasn't able to locate him.

You talk about off the grid.

This guy, when we went out to try to find him, he was gone.

Gone, gone, gone, without a trace.

If they hired a PI to find him, they hired a dumb one.

Because apparently they didn't find him.

How was it beneficial for them not to be able to find him?

Because then they could create doubt.

But if he's there testifying, they're going to have answers.

And they don't want to hear the answers.

Gee, we'll look for him, but we'll never find him.

Should we put him on the stand?

Oh, no, no, no.

You know, let's look for him, but maybe we shouldn't find him.

Yeah, it was not hard for me to find Dan.

So we had his phone numbers, we had his address.

He was down in San Diego, and basically we had to

knock on his door and say, Hey, can we go somewhere?

And yeah, let's go to my business park.

So we went and interviewed him there.

The fourth is the last time they touched.

So you think that you actually talked to him the last day or last time?

The fourth is when they stopped, right back.

Okay, so then there was like a week right there when

I was in Hawaii and hadn't had any contact with him.

And when did you go to Hawaii?

I went to Hawaii like early January, like a month

before, with my girlfriend to go out there and serve.

We knew that his bank records showed he had been in Hawaii.

There were multiple purchases throughout the state on debit cards.

His phone records showed him making phone calls to Hawaii numbers while he was there.

Lauren Knowles was his girlfriend at the time.

The first thing she told me, she was like, listen,

I'm not with Dan Cavanaugh, I hate that guy.

We're broken up.

He's not my boyfriend anymore.

He's a jerk.

He parties.

He's crazy.

Whatever.

I don't want anything to do with this case, but I understand that it was this

family and I understand why you're wanting to interview me.

And she was like, I was with him.

Here are the photographs.

Here confirms it.

Oh, I know.

His girlfriend says he was in Hawaii.

And they sent a bunch of Facebook photos to show, hey, here we are in Hawaii.

But you and I know that that doesn't show anything.

Unless you have the metadata from those photographs, it doesn't mean anything.

And they never got the actual photographs from Miss Knowles.

They just got an email with Facebook posts that

are purportedly posted on the 4th of February.

But it doesn't say that that's when they're standing there on the beach.

So we have no idea.

At any point during that relationship, did you and Mr. Cavanaugh travel to Hawaii?

Yes.

Do you recall when you returned from Hawaii?

February.

Middle of February.

They weren't even in a relationship anymore.

She really had... I mean, it was clear she didn't like Dan.

There was no love lost between the two of them.

There wasn't a reason for her to lie for him.

It's not uncommon for a victim of domestic violence to lie for the person.

When you talk to his girlfriend at the time, Miss

Knowles, remember, she's the victim of domestic violence.

She was afraid of him.

And I think if she would have said anything that would put

Dan in jeopardy, I think she would have had retaliation.

I mean, she has seen firsthand what he's capable of.

Are you afraid of Dan?

Again, she violates the court's orders.

Oh, she didn't answer.

Um... It makes me uncomfortable.

I mean, they're making this guy out like he's a stone-cold killer.

Put Dan up against another guy, and he'll run.

I think that they knew they couldn't win.

So the whole case, everything they did was created out.

I think he's guilty of a lot of things, but it's not murder.

Well, Dan Kavanaugh threatening to bring down the business.

They could also be seen as temper tantrums, right?

Uh, spouting off, blowing off hot air, right?

Without more, there's no evidence that, in fact, he did that.

They kept saying it over and over.

There's Dan Kavanaugh.

What about Dan Kavanaugh?

What about Dan Kavanaugh?

I'm like, what do they have that I missed?

Where is this other evidence that pointed Dan being the killer?

And I never got that.

So, um, I'm still waiting for it if they have it.

Who can we take off the list?

We couldn't eliminate Chase.

There was just overwhelming evidence that just kept leading us back to Chase.

Traces of Merritt's DNA were discovered inside the McStay's abandoned Isuzu trooper.

Prosecutors argue in 2010, Merritt killed his close friend, Joseph McStay,

McStay's wife, Summer, and their two young children, Giovanni and Joseph Jr.

, in their Fallbrook home, out of greed.

Traces of Merritt's DNA were discovered inside the McStay's abandoned Isuzu trooper.

This is the McStay's whitest Isuzu trooper that was recovered.

San Diego retrieves the McStay's Isuzu trooper.

They photograph it.

They do DNA swabs.

So when we got the investigation, we get the swabs that they collected.

They weren't processed, but they collected them.

So we do get a DNA hit on Joseph.

I believe Summer's DNA was in there as a trace.

And then so was Charles Merritt's DNA as a trace contributor on the driver's side.

There is evidence in this case that the defendant's profile existed on the

steering wheel gear shifter of the trooper.

One of those samples was at a greater prevalence than even Summer.

It was not located anywhere in the passenger area swap.

We have evidence of someone having DNA located in a position consistent with a

driver of a vehicle which he claims never to have driven.

We have evidence of the trooper.

Have you ever been in it?

Have you ever been in it?

Yeah.

When the last time I was in it, we played paintball, camp penalty.

Front passenger.

But never driven.

Never driven.

Detective Fisk asked you if you'd ever drove the trooper.

And you said no, you had only been a passenger

on the trooper when you went paintballing.

I just want to clarify that with you.

Actually, that isn't what I said, because I remember the conversation.

Just refresh my memory, actually.

I mean, I only drove it two or three times and only short distances, so...

This interview is how many years later?

That was in 2010.

This is in 2014.

Four years later, he's trying to recall what he told Fisk and Dugal, right?

It was four years prior.

Chase was not going to remember.

It's silly.

The one thing the DNA analysis and the trooper tells us is

that one thing for sure is that he did not drive the trooper.

He certainly didn't drive to San Ysidro because he would have been caked with DNA.

That steering wheel would have been caked with his DNA as opposed to trace transfer

DNA on the right side of the steering wheel.

They had trace DNA of Chase inside the vehicle.

You shake someone's hand, you exchange sweat between that hand, and you get in

the vehicle, and you transfer it inside the vehicle.

As we highlighted, there's no DNA on the inside where you close the door.

There's none on the side mirrors or any of the things you would do, seat belt,

any of that.

It's on the steering wheel, and it's on the gear shift or center controls,

because they swabbed all of that with the same item.

Which was poor investigation work on its own.

When we were talking with our crime scene specialist,

they're like, they should have broke that down.

They should have, one thing for the air conditioning, one thing for the gear shift.

And so you knew where it came from.

The DNA was either on the gear shift, center console,

4x4 shifter, the air conditioning, or radio control.

One of those.

But they have no flippin' clue which one, because they use one swab for all of those.

To say it's on the gear shift is basically an

inference that they believe I was driving the car.

And that's just simply not true.

If Chase Merritt's driving that vehicle, his DNA

would be over more than just those two spots.

My plan was, which I like to do, is use the

people's expert to the benefit of the defense.

My name is Donald Thomas Jones.

D-O-N-A-L-B-P-H-O-M-A-S-J-O-N-E-S.

Some of the studies that I had you review, they talked

about the analysis of DNA found inside vehicles.

Correct?

Yes, sir.

And people that have never even been in the

vehicle could still be on the steering wheel.

I don't remember that specifically, but I would say that that's a possibility.

Would it be reasonable for you to conclude that

this could be secondary transfer DNA in the vehicle?

It is a possible explanation for that.

Is it a reasonable one?

I believe it is reasonable, yes, sir.

The defense claimed that it was placed there by touch DNA transfer due to a

handshake that occurred during the meeting in the Rancho Chick-fil-A.

The problem with that is they never produced evidence of that meeting.

You ever see that guy shake hands with Joseph McStay?

No, sir, I did not.

Okay.

So when you were asked, is that reasonable?

And you responded, I believe it is.

It was making the assumption that there had been that interaction.

They never produced evidence of a handshake.

So there was no evidence in the record that

any DNA would possibly have been transferred.

Well, you know, they're trying to say this, but there's no proof of that.

Well, wait a minute.

My attorney should have objected, like, right then.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That's reversing the burden of proof.

We don't have to prove bitterly shit.

You have to.

I could see the writing of the wall.

And, well, both Jim and Raj.

I said, the problem is, you two have lost this case.

You're getting me convicted.

And Jim says, I think you're over-exaggerating.

And I said, no, Jim.

I'm going to be convicted.

There's no question.

And if I don't testify, I have no chance.

Visiting my dad yesterday, he said he's about 90% sure that he's going to testify.

And it's mostly because he just, I think he just feels frustrated having to

sit there and listen to all of these fragments of

the story that aren't really being pulled together.

We all assumed he would testify just because of his narcissism.

That he had to tell his story, that he had to be in control.

He had to control the narrative.

There's no way he wouldn't let this whole trial go without him having his say.

He's a rat on a sinking ship.

He'll do whatever he can to survive, no matter what gets in his way.

As far as me testifying, I...

Right now I'm 50-50.

It's going to put me over the edge one way or the other.

And, obviously, I'm a gambler.

So, we're in a good place, Chase.

We're at reasonable doubt.

You get on the stand...

Whoa.

Nobody can stop you from testifying, including your lawyers.

Do you understand that?

Yes.

It was blow, after blow, after blow, to a child's skull.

That is an intentional killing by this man.

My defense attorneys were not on board with each other.

They did argue different things.

We, the jury, in the other titled action, find the defendant, Charles Ray Merritt.

Hi.

How's it going?

Can you tell me who you are?

I'm Daniel Kavanagh.