Original subtitles

Is that your truck?

It's not my truck.

The truck on the video?

No.

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

No one was immune from examination.

Everyone was a suspect.

Kavanaugh was a walking, talking red flag.

This guy's a maniac who had a motive to kill.

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?

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?

When you look at the phones, with the car, with the

financial fraud, with his behavior, this is who did it.

I'm not convinced we're going yet.

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

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

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

As far as me testifying, it's going to put me over the edge one way or the other.

And obviously, I'm a gambler.

How do you guys feel about Chase possibly testifying?

Good, bad?

I told him that I don't think you should testify.

He wants to because, I mean, he knows the case better than anyone.

But at the same time, like, you took the stand, and, like,

you've seen how easily they can twist anything that you say.

Just the interviews that Chase did before he got arrested, you

know, with CNN and stuff, and the way they picked that apart.

Everyone sees what they want to see in it.

Exactly.

So you said you cooperated a great deal with authorities.

You were questioned by detectives.

What did they ask you?

Of course.

The standard questions, you know, just do I know anything about him disappearing?

Um, did I have anything to do with it?

As far as you know, you were the last person, or

at least one of the last people to see him, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, when he left Rancho Cucamonga, nobody else, uh, although I think

somebody, there was another person or two that he talked to.

I'm not sure.

But you were the last person he saw.

I'm definitely the last person he saw.

First time I saw it was-it was then.

And I just about fell off the chair, either couch, whatever I was sitting on.

Most common thing you would say would be, I could have been the last person he saw.

I might have been the last person he saw- I mean I most definitely Unfortunately,

was the last person he saw.

And the only person who knows that is the killer.

No one else could know that.

He knows the timeline.

He was the last person anyone knows of to have met Joey.

It could be a figure of speech.

Sure, can you make an argument that he's not the smartest tool in the shed,

and when he answered her question in that interview, he didn't quite realize the

impact of what he was saying, because he's not that bright?

Maybe.

Those are his words.

It eliminated all question in my mind then.

It was Chase Merritt.

There was no doubt about it.

Gina was the same way.

Honestly, out of everything in that whole trial that I saw,

I honestly believe that that was that video that did it.

I'm definitely the last person we saw.

How could you say that you were the last person to see him alive?

Unless you knew that.

How could you say that?

Detective DeGaulle specifically told me that I

was definitely the last person to see them alive.

When you reflect back on who could be telling, or

who could be withholding things, it's usually not it.

The closest person.

The closest person, the last person to see, it's you.

You go, who is the closest person to Joseph?

Probably you.

One of them.

Who is the last person to see Joseph?

You.

And so they go... Last person to Dr. Joseph.

Who's this Chase guy?

How do you know he's telling you the truth?

And so when I'm asked in a CNN interview, were you the last person to see him?

I responded, yeah, I'm definitely the last person to see him.

I'm simply repeating what I was told.

It's ridiculous to take it out of context.

They were searching for anything that could possibly be used to convince the jury.

Anything you say can and will be used against you.

What's going on with Mr. Merritt possibly testifying?

You know, that's, ultimately, that question is up to Chase.

I mean, he's going to ultimately make the decision on that.

We can only kind of weigh in.

Well, we'll go over, I'd like to go over some of the things that, if I were on that

stand, I think, would be necessary for me to let the jury know.

See, but the thing that you focus on, what worries me about, you know,

aside from the fact that it's just not a good idea, but what worries me is you

focus on the financial issues because it's important to you.

No, actually, you haven't gone over with me what I actually would like to,

if I was on that stand, what I would personally like to say.

I wanted to testify.

I kept telling my eight attorneys.

Fear of the facts.

If you don't know them, learn them.

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

We're at reasonable doubt.

You get on the stand, whoa.

They're going to take you through the whole crime.

Every aspect of your life now, no matter what it

was, is going to be cast in a different light.

They're going to talk about things that you're not even prepared to answer,

and they're going to make you look like a liar.

They're going to cross you on things that you don't

even realize, including your criminal convictions.

So, it's not going to be pretty.

In my past, I stole things.

I was arrested for burglary.

These things are, you know, obviously all public record.

I mean, they're all over the internet now.

They just have a very, very skewed... skewed view of it, because, you know,

they look at my past, and then they tie it together with what they're accusing me of

here, and they're saying, well, look, you know, this is who he is.

Mr. Merritt, you understand you have an absolute right to testify if you want to.

Nobody can stop you from testifying, including your lawyers.

Do you understand that?

Yes.

Do you wish to testify or not?

Your Honor, I think there is one other issue that

Mr. Merritt wanted to address before making that decision.

That is the use of which priors, or if any

priors, would come in during cross-examination.

Okay.

We'd object to... We'd object to any about that.

Well, I... I think I remember some discussion about a burglary conviction.

I'm gonna refresh my recollection now.

June 6th, 1977, he was convicted of burglary out of Victorville Superior Court.

And November 8th of 1977, he was convicted of petty theft of misdemeanor,

which resulted in a two-year prison sentence.

On August 30th, 1979, he was convicted of burglary again.

September 2001, he was convicted of second-degree burglary and grand theft out of L.

A.

County, where he was given three years probation, 180 days county jail.

When he came out, I didn't even know what his

decision was gonna be until the judge asked him.

You didn't know until that last... Until that last second.

So, Mr. Merritt, you've had a chance to have some

additional discussion now with your attorneys?

Yes.

So, what's your decision?

Do you want to testify or not?

No.

I want it to so bad, I can taste it.

When I'm answering the judge, I can barely speak.

Because I'm regretting.

I was really upset.

I do my time even at no uncertain terms, I want to testify.

I can't just sit up here to ramble on.

So, I had penned on Ms. McKee to know the facts.

I didn't ask the proper questions.

And I had absolutely no confidence.

He, number one, knew the facts.

I actually believed in my case even more than I already have.

So, I didn't have any choice but to... without a test claim.

That's the only reason I could... No other reason.

I have to say I was surprised he didn't take the stand.

I really was.

I thought that for sure he would.

Because, you know, he's... He's pretty narcissistic.

It's a tough decision that you had to make today.

It doesn't mean that you don't have a lot of good things to say.

You do.

But, on the issue of have they proven their case...

You know, that's the...

That's the, um...

You know, that's the analysis.

Well... It's the jury gonna see it, darling.

Yeah.

In a murder case, they don't have to have a smoking gun.

Open that bed.

They just simply have to...

Believe...

Beyond a reasonable doubt...

That it happened.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I'm just not sure where we are here.

Now to California, where the defense and the state are fighting it out right until

the end, in the capital murder case against Charles Merritt.

It was a full house in that San Bernardino courtroom today, as family and friends of

both the victims and the defendant crowded in to listen to closing arguments.

This is your final proclamation of, this is why you find the defendant guilty.

So if you don't have that anticipation of, let's go hit it out of the park,

then you're not doing your job right.

All right.

The record is like we are back in session.

The studies and council are present.

The limits of our jury are present.

And people may give your closing statement.

Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Good morning.

Good morning.

How does a family of four disappear off the face of the earth?

A mother, a father, and two young children.

Just gone.

Disappeared with no evidence of contact with

another human being after the February 4th.

Only to be found, buried in two shallow graves

in the Bahati desert north of Victorville.

Three years, nine months later.

The only way that happens, ladies and gentlemen, is murder.

And in this case, it was done locally, deliberately, and with premeditation.

Whatever precipitated the first killing ultimately won't matter.

Because what will matter is, you intentionally didn't kill three other people.

He could have stopped.

You don't need to kill those two kids unless you

know that they can identify who the killer is.

The killing of Summer and those kids and Joe was senseless.

And it was violent.

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

A three-year-old and a four-year-old.

That is an intentional killing by this man, the defendant, Charles Merritt.

The hammer scared the daylights out of me.

I had no idea that Britt had the hammer or that he was going to use it.

Never mind what the facts are, we have this family that was brutally murdered.

And that's the emotional presentation they made.

Hitting the table.

Somebody has to pay.

We knew going in that was going to be a problem.

How can you assertively sell someone?

I was definitely the last person to see them alive.

Was in fact the killer.

The person who took that sledgehammer to the skull of a three-year-old.

And a four-year-old.

He's off the grid on February 4th.

Presumably those murders were killed or occurred.

He was off the grid at that opportunity for three and a half hours.

After which there's no contact from Joe or Summer.

And where's the defendant?

Nobody knows.

He's the one that benefited from all the porch checks.

He's the one that benefited from the QuickBooks activity.

No one else.

Dan Cattenaugh didn't benefit from it.

Mike McStay didn't benefit from it.

None of those checks were written out to them.

He does everything he can to cover the tracks at QuickBooks.

Is there any reasonable interpretation that the person that called QuickBooks

from the defendant's cell phone was not the defendant?

Absolutely not.

He's in the high desert on February 6th,

pinging off a tower overlooking the grave sites.

What is the reasonable inference from that evidence?

Maybe he's checking on the condition of the bodies he buried there.

Maybe he's actually burying them on that day.

Possible.

It's a reasonable inference.

Is there a conclusive proof?

No.

But in that circumstance, when you put it together with all of the rest,

what's the explanation?

It all comes back to the defendant.

Nobody wants this family to go without justice.

They don't want that.

Nobody would want that after seeing what happened.

No.

So that's a lot of pressure on a jury.

This was going to be about fighting the temptation to convict Chase without evidence.

That's what a lot of this case was going to be.

Remember, we don't have to prove when this

occurred, how this occurred, or where this occurred.

Just that the defendant did.

We don't have to prove where.

We don't have to prove how.

We don't have to prove when.

Okay, then what do you have to prove?

We just have to prove he's a bad guy.

And he's a gambler.

We had to emphasize that jury so they understood that those

weren't the legal requirements of what we had to prove.

I remember feeling like he promised us we were going to find out more at the trial.

But I don't feel like they ever answered those questions satisfactorily for me

anyways of where it was done and how the car got to the border and the whole nine.

So those are unanswered questions for me.

What you have, ladies and gentlemen, is overwhelmingly convincing.

A set of circumstantial evidence that no matter which way you look at it,

no matter which way you turn the wheel, it always

comes back to that center point being the defendant.

It always comes back to the man with the means, the

motive, and the opportunity to commit that murder.

The defense will present its closing arguments tomorrow.

And then, of course, at the very latest, this case will

be handed to the jury by at least Thursday morning.

If convicted, Merritt faces the death penalty.

I can tell you, from our perspective, it's a huge responsibility

knowing you're representing somebody who's innocent.

And if you mess things up or you screw things up or you don't do your job,

that your client can be killed by the government.

I cannot speculate as to the nature of Raj and Jim's relationship as the trial went

along because I'm not privy to their conversations, their thoughts, their motives.

However, it did seem like they weren't on the same page come the end of trial.

The prosecution's theory of the killing is interesting.

The theory is, killed in the house, but they don't have evidence.

So, the family was not killed on the floor.

None of the evidence showed that.

What the evidence does show is they survived to the morning fifth.

They were being kidnapped by multiple people.

How do you control the naked?

You need at least three.

At least.

If Summer and the kids are still alive, and they're brought in one vehicle,

and you need somebody driving this thing, you need somebody controlling.

That's creepy.

In my closing, I was doing what was expected of the prosecution, which is lay

down a concrete theory of how this crime occurred.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, law enforcement didn't care about Dan Kavanaugh.

Dan Kavanaugh took in $26,000 for the online account.

Milleen's over here, okay, and he's giving his, okay.

McGee's over here giving his, and I'm trying to

figure out which one is the blind leading the blind.

And I think they both showed their ignorance at that point.

I'm talking about Dan Kavanaugh's PayPal records.

Do you realize that law enforcement, Sergeant Smith sitting

here, and his team never even requested his PayPal record?

So they didn't know that Dan Kavanaugh had diverted payments

from the production business online to his own account.

Can't believe that if they're talking about greed

and fraud, how they don't look into Dan Kavanaugh.

Can you imagine sitting there as a prosecutor

thinking, we didn't really follow up on that.

We didn't do anything to check that out.

And here we are in trial already, and we already put all our eggs in this basket.

What do we do?

That would be a very uncomfortable feeling for a prosecutor.

For the two-week period after Joseph disappeared, Mr. Kavanaugh

helped himself to about $13,000 out of Joseph's PayPal.

Why would he do that?

Did Mr. Kavanaugh think that he wasn't coming back?

They put a bolt on Mr. Merritt's head.

And they were done.

I was really surprised when I saw their closings.

I was really surprised that they clearly weren't in

agreement on any theory of how the murder occurred.

So it was very clear that Mr. Moline was, Dan did this, and Mr.

McGee was, we don't know who did this.

It had to be more than one person.

My defense attorneys were not on board with each other.

They did argue different things, different theories of a

lot of different things throughout their closing arguments.

And they just had no rhyme or reason, really, about their closing arguments.

And they were lost.

They were completely lost.

Every time my defense attorneys started asserting Dan Kavanaugh, Dan Kavanaugh,

Dan Kavanaugh, the prosecution were probably leaving the courtroom

high-finding and looking at themselves and each other and

saying, those idiots were burying Mr. Merritt all by themselves.

They kept asserting things that they just simply could not prove.

There were a lot of things that were done to try to prevent

the jury from looking at what the actual evidence is.

They didn't have the law or the facts on their side, and it became apparent at the

end that it was going to be this free-for-all on let's

just throw it out there and, you know, accuse anybody.

So it was important to let the jury know, like, this is fiction.

This isn't evidence.

Here's your evidence.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the case of People v.

Charles Merritt.

This is not the People v.

Dan Kavanaugh.

I can't cover all of the misrepresentations that were made to you

yesterday because we'd be here all day again.

But I do want to cover some of the ones that are a little bit more important.

Elephant in the room, Dan Kavanaugh.

Dan Kavanaugh is the killer.

That's what you're being told, right?

That's what you're being fed.

What evidence do you have of that?

Absolutely none.

Dan Kavanaugh took money from the business after.

Absolutely.

There's no question about that.

Dan Kavanaugh used some of that money to keep the business running.

Now, whether or not that was right or wrong, he wasn't

taking money before the McStay family disappeared.

He was.

He was the one taking the money.

He was the one forging the checks.

Look at the records.

The defendant's phone leads off of a tower in the

area of the graves on February 6th during heavy rains.

It's off February 8th for two periods of time.

In the morning and at night.

And that's the day the car is taken to the border.

The defendant's DNA was on the steering wheel

of the car because he drove it to the border.

That's how it got there.

There's a simple explanation.

And the defendant's DNA wasn't on the items in the grave because none of those

items would have retained reliable DNA evidence.

We had a family of four that went missing.

For three years, nine months, and seven days.

They sat out in two shallow graves waiting for somebody to come along.

And find some remnant of them.

So that they could tell you what happened.

They can't come in here and testify.

But they've given you as much information as they can.

And it's in the Quick Book records.

It's in the cell phone records.

It's in the graves with them.

Ladies and gentlemen, justice in this case means going back into that jury room.

Looking at the facts.

Looking at the law.

And returning verdicts of guilty.

We felt if they followed the law, there's no

way that all 12 of them can come back guilty.

It just can't happen.

We laid it all on the table.

We had left nothing.

No stone unturned.

No sweat.

Drops missed.

I mean, we laid it all out there.

I think we were very confident.

But of course, being practical and intelligent lawyers,

you'd still have that little nervousness that, is it enough?

The jury in this case can consider first-degree murder, second-degree murder,

or not guilty.

Those are the charges on the table.

A juror says he or she can only deliberate for three hours a day.

The judge is going to let this case go into

deliberations in half days from here on out.

What's going on with that?

That's going to be very complex in terms of how they decide this case.

It's going to have stopping and starting, because they're

not allowed to deliberate when they're not all present.

So we're going to see this drag out for a long

period of time, half a day here, half a day there.

Waiting for a verdict is, for a lawyer, very difficult for the, for the,

for the sole reason that we don't have any control.

Waiting is the worst, and you never know how long a jury is going to take.

Another day, another week, another, you know, whatever.

A lot of attorneys stress over, what can I have done different?

What are they going to say?

What's the verdict going to be?

And they will not sleep.

They will panic.

They will go through notes.

They will freak themselves out.

And for some, I don't know how I was able to do it, I'm able to shut it off.

And I just go, there's nothing I can do now.

It's been many, many months of ongoing trial,

lots of breaks for different valid reasons.

The result of that is the jury has to have a lot of information and evidence before

them over a long period of time that they actually have to recall and sift through,

which is going to make their job more challenging.

How is your dad doing right now?

I feel like my dad is kind of spiraling right now.

Every time I've talked to him since the jury started

deliberations, he's looking at worst case scenario.

So he's trying to prepare for being convicted and what he's going to have to do.

And, like, he's scared.

I know he's scared.

That was probably one of the worst times, waiting for the damn thing.

We were notified that there was a verdict on Friday afternoon.

But the judge did not take it.

He asked us to come in on Monday.

Which really kind of upset us.

You don't want a juror to change your mind.

You don't want a juror to fall out.

It was almost like you're kind of living in

this parallel universe for a couple of days.

It's very difficult to kind of go through that, especially in a case like this.

You know, we're hanging on every second.

When I asked family members from the McStay family how they

were doing this morning, they said they are simply ready.

The verdict is expected to come down at 10 o'clock.

If convicted, on all counts, Charles Chase Merritt could be facing the death penalty.

From San Bernardino, Jamie Chambers, Fox 5 News.

Good morning.

The record's left.

We are back in session.

Parties and counsel are present.

As I'm sure you all know, the jury informed us Friday that you have a verdict.

You know, it's one of those things like, as good as you feel walking out of a

courtroom, you never know what a jury's gonna do.

Ever.

As good as we thought we presented the evidence, and as well as we thought we

argued it, you just don't know what a jury's gonna do.

I know that no matter what the verdict is, it's

going to have an emotional impact on everybody.

It was a weird feeling, in the sense that, you know, this has all now come to a head,

with all the time, and all the hours, and all the battles, and shenanigans,

and the, you know, everything.

It's, all of that stuff is all now, we're gonna find out what, what's going on.

And you have all the verdict forms in the envelope?

Okay, if you were handling those, then they left.

That's when I started getting very, very scared.

What I was praying for was the extent of my hope, is that there would be just one

person that could see through the prosecution.

Who, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Charles Ray Merritt.

Who, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Charles Ray Merritt.

Guilty of the offense of murder, in the first degree, of Joseph McStay.

Guilty of the offense of Joseph McStay Jr. Guilty of the offense of murder,

in the first degree, of Joseph McStay Jr. I was, I was pretty much, um, by then.

My attorneys took it so far, and never got over the hump.

My attorneys gave them some of the evidence, and the prosecution gave them a

hell of a lot of false evidence.

And defense counsel mitigated little, little to none

of the false evidence that the prosecution presented.

I am curious at the prosecutors, of course.

I am, uh, sounds kind of weird, but you can understand, or I guess,

I guess you can make excuses for a prosecutor lying and presenting false

evidence and all of this stuff, because he simply wants to win.

Right?

You can come up with excuses for it, at least.

Are they good ones?

Are they, are they honorable ones?

Of course not.

But at least you can come up with some kind of reasoning

behind a prosecutor doing the things that they did.

Now that Charles Merritt has been found guilty, the

next step of this trial moves on to the penalty phase.

That is where we'll discover whether or not Merritt will receive the death penalty.

Because there are special conditions to this case, and because he is charged with

four counts of premeditated first-degree murder, he certainly would qualify.

Good afternoon.

Obviously today is a sad day for us.

Their closing argument is, is amazing.

Everything, literally almost everything they said was a lie.

Almost every single thing they said was a lie.

Some of you who followed the trial saw that one of the DAs in this case withheld

its culpatory evidence in a death penalty case.

It's unheard of.

What kind of prosecutor would, would hold evidence that would help a

person, would help the accused show that he was innocent?

And it is a crime for a prosecutor to do that.

And that prosecutor, in my opinion, should be in jail.

And how he's not, and how he's been able to

get away with it all this time, I have no idea.

We believe that there has been a miscarriage of justice.

I believe my client is innocent.

Instead of hearing all the legal mumbo jumbo, I

would like you to hear from his daughter Taylor.

I don't think any of us are surprised about what

happened today based on how the rest of the trial went.

The evidence didn't get out there that we needed

to get out and the full story wasn't told.

And, you know, we're ready to keep fighting and he's ready to keep trying to

prove his innocence regardless of how long that takes.

So, we're gonna stay behind him every step of the way.

An investigation needs to be launched into how this, uh,

this, uh, case was investigated and how it was prosecuted.

I think that's really necessary because, uh, the outcome of this was, uh,

just totally unbelievable.

We're devastated, shell-shocked, everything.

Words can't describe how disappointed we are.

We just spent whatever time it was with Chase and he's equally devastated.

You know, we tried to rationalize what the jury did and we just can't.

So, what's the jury's role in all this then?

They recommend death or life without rule.

And the judge's sentence is based on that recommendation?

I

am so very sorry that Joseph's, Summers, and Joseph Jr.

's family, and Gianni's families have had to bear this horrific tragedy.

No mother or dad should have to bear this.

The pain of losing their son or daughter.

Part of me wanting to just stay silent.

At least for a while.

At least for a while.

The thing that is bringing you this solace is ending my life.

Ending, ending my life for a crime that I did not commit.

Your Honor, there are no second acts.

Do what is right.

Give me the hearing I deserve.

I can show you where this trial has failed.

Allow me to show the family just what these prosecutors have done.

What's happened here is wrong.

It's taking me from my family.

A family that does not deserve this.

I may deserve a lot of things.

I don't deserve this.

I did not do this.

And as God is my witness, I will be back here.

And I will prove to everyone that that is true.

Thank you, Mr. Murray.

He gave a statement of deniability,

which, again, it's pathological.

Oh, I'm sorry you guys have all that pain, but I didn't do it.

It's... it's...

It's not surprising coming from him.

Because I think it's... He is definitely somebody who believes his own lies.

So, that now brings us to the issue of sentencing.

For the offense of the first-degree murder of Joseph, Mr. Merritt, Joseph,

Mr. Merritt, for the first-degree murder of someone, Mr. Merritt, to be sentenced

to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

For the first-degree murder of someone, Mr.

Merritt, let the defendant, Charles Merritt, be sentenced to death,

let the penalty be carried out to San Quentin

State Prison in a manner then prescribed by law.

The man convicted of killing a San Diego County family and burying their bodies in

the desert has been sentenced to death for his crimes.

You know, I don't know if he ever actually will be

put to death or if he'll just die in prison, but I...

I don't think that anybody that I've talked to in the family necessarily wants

to watch him die or, you know, wants to see that end happen, but it is

good to know that he'll never be on the street to hurt anyone else again.

Call me vengeful, whatever you want, I don't care.

Yeah, I'll do the injection.

You know, I'll pull the switch.

He means nothing to me.

He's garbage in my mind.

If I pull the switch or inject him with a

needle, and he's gone, it'd be good riddance.

The world is a little safer today.

Would it take any of your pain away?

Probably not.

That family did not get justice.

That still haunts you?

It haunted me during the trial.

I was representing Chase Merritt.

I didn't think he did it.

But I really wanted answers for them.

I couldn't give it to him.

Hey, it was pretty devastating.

When it happened, it knocked me for a loop.

I'm just seriously focused.

And from hell or high water, I'm going to fix this.

Because, you know, obviously they got it wrong.

I didn't do it.

Do I think Dan Kavanaugh personally killed the family?

I don't know.

Do I think he had something to do with it?

Absolutely.

There's no question in my mind.

Hi.

How's it going?

Can you tell me who you are?

I'm Daniel Kavanaugh.

I'm Daniel Kavanaugh.