All language subtitles for 2022-Two Shallow Graves-The McStay Family Murders-EP7-Stay Out of Dodge-E

The defense came out with the bombshell
and said that it was another individual,

uh, Dan Cavanaugh, who did these murders.

He murdered the McStay family.

Who are you talking about that you think
could potentially be involved in this?

Dan starts taking money.

I believe it was on February the 6th.

Did he know that Joey was not coming back?

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

I mean, I still do.

I believe Dan Cavanaugh
specifically either orchestrated

or directly caused the
McStay family to get killed.

Are you afraid of Dan Cavanaugh?

It makes me uncomfortable.

Cavanaugh was a walking, talking red flag.

This guy's a maniac.

We had a motive to kill.

We did really want to put Cavanaugh up.

We looked for him for months.

We tried everything we could.

We have our investigator
in San Diego looking

everywhere for him, and
he's nowhere to be found.

He's literally gone.

Hi.

How's it going?

Can you tell me who you are?

I'm Daniel Cavanaugh.

You're a hard person to find.

Yeah, it's... I've had to, uh,
change some of my lifestyle around because

of, you know, recent events over the last
10 years.

And just, I made it a little bit, uh,
more difficult to just instantly find me.

And why is that?

There's... I was actually told by the
homicide detectives, they're like,

stay out of Dodge.

We got some work to do.

Don't get found.

We want to... we want to basically pull
your name out of the hat.

We want to essentially get this guy.

We know you didn't do it, pretty much,
but just don't get found anyways.

Like, these other guys are gonna try to
bring you in and pull you into it and stuff.

Basically disappear.

You know?

They told you you should disappear.

They had just got done telling me that
this case was gonna take time to get the

conviction, and that it's more useful not
getting found after that point.

Well, they told me that Chase had said to
them that basically he never killed Joseph.

He would never kill anybody, but if he
ever did, it would have been Daniel.

Tell me why, um, Chase
would tell San Diego that if

he was gonna ever kill
anybody, he would kill you.

He told what?

Yeah.

He told me that.

San Diego.

I talked to the homicide detectives.

I didn't talk to, like, all these Starsky
and Hutch fake-ass people on the Internet.

And they were basically like, just stay
out of Dodge.

Like, they're definitely
gonna try to come get you or

try to implicate you in some
way or bring you into this.

But you're not involved
from our perspective,

uh, any longer since we've
crossed your name off.

And so, like, it's up to you if you want
to get found or, but they're gonna

probably send out private investigators
and this, that, and just stay out of Dodge

until we can hem this dude up proper and
put a nail in his coffin.

They're, they didn't say don't be found,
they warned me that there was a,

a guy that had said he wanted to kill me
if he was ever gonna kill anybody.

They said that.

These guys are gonna try to say whatever
they can, they're probably gonna try to

throw you into the bus,
but if they can't find you,

then, like, we're just
gonna take care of this.

You know what I mean?

I wanted them to get caught and convicted
just as bad as anybody else, and I knew,

like, if I was found and complicated any
part of that case, like those guys had

told me, in any way, or slowed it or
delayed it or convoluted the case,

just, you would just, you would just
gaslight more people for nothing,

and I was just not gonna get found.

I was gonna do what they said.

So, as of today's date, have you been able
to locate or get any leads on where Mr.

Kavanaugh is?

No.

There's, like, 20 different
instances where my, at my house,

just random private investigators
over many years tried.

None of them were legit.

None of them had any badges or anything.

They didn't find me.

I just ghosted these fools.

We found you.

We got...

Weeks before the trial was to begin,
a witness comes forward who claims that

you confessed to her that you killed the
McStays.

Oh, the Tracy girl?

What a joke, huh?

He murdered the McStay family.

This is my best friend of 10 years.

I would not make this up.

And this individual that you're talking
about, when you say you probably had the

wrong man, who were
you talking about that you

think could potentially
be involved in this?

Dan McStay.

Okay.

And that's what we're here to talk to you
about.

Did you ever hear Dan mention the name of
the individual in custody, Charles Merritt?

Not until two weeks ago, when he told me
how he framed him.

Who is Tracy?

She was just a friend that kind of lost
her mind.

Have you heard any of her statements?

Have you seen her interview?

No.

Well, let me show you.

Oh, God, here we go.

Something new.

This is why reactions are the biggest
thing on YouTube, you know?

He started with Summer, he raped Summer,
and had a rope around her neck.

And he was wielding a Swiss Army type
switchblade.

A Swiss Army knife is a different knife
than a switchblade.

And then he told Joseph, go take a hike
with the kids.

And he told Summer to assume the position,
told her to get on her knees, you know?

He raped her.

It's creative.

And then, um, said he came twice.

And then, so there should be DNA inside of
the Gravesome.

You know?

Thanks for making me laugh, honestly.

That's a next level psycho.

You know?

Why would she say that stuff?

I mean, you just can't discount it that
some people are crazy.

You can't logically make sense of it.

Just...

Yeah.

It's a crazy person, you know?

I met her through some other mutual
friends.

And I just was, like, platonic friends
with her.

And then, eventually, I
didn't really want to take

it any other place, because
she's really not my type.

And I just had, like, a friendship with
her.

And so that kind of just set her off.

And then she went down this whole rabbit
hole.

I'll say he did it, or he confessed it to
me.

Just scatterbrained.

She's a fucking idiot.

The defense probably saw that as,
like, a silver bullet.

Or that it was going to amount to
something.

They didn't realize they were dealing with
a fucking idiot.

That...

knew, like, she knew nothing.

And then she was willing to go to great
lengths to, like, straight lie.

You can't put her in this thing,
by the way.

She's just bullshit.

You're not going to actually have her in
this thing, right?

I want to show you a clip of Chase.

Oh, let's see what we got here.

Dan Cavanaugh.

He looks bad.

I believe he has virtually everything to
do with this.

What do you think?

Convincing?

So he said, I had virtually had everything
to do with this.

It must have been virtual,
because if I was 2,500

miles away, I sure as hell
couldn't have done it here.

I was in Hawaii, like, just so far away.

I don't like it.

Honestly, didn't do me any favors.

He's given you a spun, twisted version
that makes sense in his little mind.

Which could have been a
formidable frame job if I was in

the country, or if I was,
like, in the state, you know?

And that people didn't discover the bodies
that you shallowly buried.

Like, yeah.

He wasn't getting away with that.

They should just kill him.

I'd go watch.

They asked me if I wanted to go watch.

Who asked you?

The cops.

Homicide detectives.

Like, there's gonna be, if, like,
this goes down, and we convict this dude,

he's gonna get the death penalty, like,
family, and you can go watch that shit.

So maybe he'll look at me through the
glass for his last time.

Did you have anything to do with the murder
of Joseph McStay, Summer, and the boys?

Not only did I not, but I have no
knowledge of anybody that did.

But you're 100% convinced the right man is
in jail?

Yeah.

There were some exchanges between you and
him, right?

Like, some instant messages.

When I found and discovered that there was
sales that were going on that were kind of

not reported to me, and they're hidden,
I just call it out.

And I'm like, hey, we got a problem here,
Joe.

You know, I thought we had a good deal
going.

You need to make up for this, bud.

Yeah, he says, Nell, I, Summer,
and the kids know the real you and what

you would potentially do to harm me and my
family.

He said, don't try your guilt trip shit on
me, bro.

It's a threat against your livelihood,
but I built that company.

I built that for us to be successful.

So that's just, like,
completely goes against you

helping them when they
just steal the business.

You said, your sight will be gone from the
engines.

I will make my own fountain site.

The later you respond and deal with this,
the worse it's going to be.

I think at one point, you know,
you talk about, I'll take down the site.

So after these exchanges right here,
Joe kind of comes around and you guys,

okay, you got me.

I was pocketing all the money and stealing
all the sales.

What can I do to make it right?

I'm like, well, thank you for coming
around and being honest.

You got caught, but here's what we're
going to do.

You're going to need to get current on the
lost sales that were hidden and

cherry-picked, and you're going to need to
pay all that back.

I felt that this guy couldn't be trusted
anymore at that point.

I was just going to let him eventually try
to pay it off, which would have taken him

years, and then I was just going to delete
it.

Delete?

The whole website.

That was your plan?

Yeah.

You don't want to play around with me,
dude.

Several months later, he was just taken
out by Chase.

Do you remember the first time you learned
about Chase?

So the first time I ever talked to him,
I was in Hawaii.

Joseph had not been responding for several
days, and I was trying to get in touch

with not only the authorities to let him
know a welfare check would probably be a

good idea, but also called his mom,
his brother, his dad.

I'm like, no one knew.

But then someone said, like, do you know
Chase?

And I was like, what?

And at this point, I
hadn't ever talked to

him on the phone, seen
him, met him, nothing.

And all of a sudden, this guy's,
like, calling me.

And I'm out in Hawaii, and I had this
random guy calling me.

And my partner hasn't answered for a few
days.

Something's up.

Come to think of it, I didn't even know
about some of these deals.

I was trying to sort and sift through,
like, the information and the profits and

losses and compare different balances and
compare accounts and Quicken and

QuickBooks accounts and just looking at
what's going on here.

And so then I find a little spreadsheet
that's just, like, a single sheet,

and it's just saved in our web server
directory.

And so then I'm like, this is weird.

I gave it to the authorities and just
said, I think this is a running balance

sheet, like, indicating
that he might have been

indebted to Joe Ranger,
which is a smoking gun.

Chase owed Joseph from the books,
and I saw that they were maintaining

between themselves like 30 Gs on these
books around the time they disappeared.

That's just bullshit.

They have no clue as to how Joseph McStay
did his math and how he did that ledger.

And Dan Kavanaugh told the police that he
made 50%.

I was never told that, and he was never
black.

And he just found out because
he had... he hacked Joseph's stuff.

That is serious motive for Dan.

But it never came up in trial.

Who was the first person to suggest that
you owed Joey money?

Very, very first person
was Dan Kavanaugh in

his first interview with
San Bernardino County.

Prior to that, nobody had said anything
about me buying any money.

If you go back through the trial, they
kept saying that I owed a debt to Joseph.

But he knew damn well that's not true.

You see that he's in debt.

What motivates a man to commit a crime of
killing an entire family of four,

including two young children?

Money, greed, self-interest.

He had a motive to erase the debt.

Long story short, we get down to Dan's,
and I start telling Dan, look,

we need to keep making these sales.

And he got belligerent, I got belligerent
back, and then that set off serious

sparks, and I literally wanted to throw
him over the damn balcony.

I mean, I was...
I was so pissed.

And he physically stands up in my house,
and he's like, you don't know me, boy.

So I'm like, see that balcony right there?

You're going off it, dude.

Straight up.

In front of Joe's mom, and she,
like, runs out of the room.

And so I just, like, fired him to his
face, because I just got a bad vibe.

I had a bad feeling.

I didn't know how he was involved or what,
but, like, I know that if it was you,

you can't do shit to me, because you'll
get caught.

He definitely had it out
for me, and he probably

thought in his head that
he killed the wrong guy.

Chase is strong.

Okay, this guy lifts up stainless steel
all day and hammers it with a sledgehammer

and folds and bends it into
beautiful, amazing works of

art that up 5,000-pound
rocks in him and stuff like that.

This guy's not weak.

You know what I mean?

He single-handedly could have done this.

It seemed like I saw a look in this guy's
eye.

He said I did it.

Okay.

The homicide detectives, they just told me
that after having met with me and gone

through all the paperwork and everything,
that I was no longer of interest to be

implicated or having known anything.

He's 100% guilty.

You have a pre-paid
call from... Chase Merrick.

An inmate at the California State Prison,
San Quentin.

I woke up... I woke
up... I woke up...

I woke up on the upro this morning to kind
of put a damper on the day, but other than

that, I'm... I'm
doing all right.

I didn't do it, therefore somebody else
did it.

I believe that early on they made the
mistake of focusing only on me.

Eliminating Michael McStay, Dan Cavanaugh,
never even...

never even doing any kind of investigation
on either one of them or anybody else.

And... I believe that
every time they were...

they came face to face with the evidence
that demonstrated that it was not me, they.

..

just decided, well, you know what,
we're not going to let this go.

When you first...

you guys first started talking to me,
I wanted to make sure that it wasn't just

entertainment.

I wanted to make sure something got to the
general public and the people that have

the power to help me, you know,
the truth.

What I'm hoping for is that you can get a
grasp of just how the prosecution

manipulated not only the evidence,
but witnesses and their statements and all

of that in order to proffer
things that were just

simply not true and could
not have been true and...

they did knowingly.

The cell phone records should be thrown
out.

It should never have been presented in the
first place.

I just wanted to make sure
that you were completely

aware of just how
critical that evidence was

So you have one grave down, um,
over in that area, and then the second

grave is kind of right behind me,
and then the cell phone tower is actually

up on the mountain
right there, and that's the

cell phone tower that,
um, Chase pinged off of.

When you look on the 6th, and he's pinging
at that tower, right at the graves,

it kind of puts you on your heels a little
bit.

That's pretty damning evidence.

Yeah.

So the pings on the cell phone tower,
the prosecution states that those place

you on the side of the tower where the
graves are?

Correct.

Vlad Javonovic is pointing out that
there's a problem with the tower,

that it's not relaying its information
correctly, and what he's suggesting is

that a tower ping on
the east side of the tower

may actually be on the
west side of the tower.

Correct.

Correct.

Basically, it would, it would almost
certainly put me on the 15 freeway moving

north on the 15 freeway toward,
toward Highway 66, which is the highway

that my sister lives on.

Vlad didn't just say there was a problem
with that call.

He said, specifically, you cannot trust
these records for geolocation.

So to highlight the problems with the cell
towers near the gravesite, your expert

points to one call that day that lasted 30
seconds.

And from where it started
to where it finished, you'd

have had to have traveled
five miles in that 30 seconds.

It's actually 8.5 miles.

The 1152 call shows me allegedly on the
east side of the tower, but ending the

call just seconds later, eight and a half
miles away.

And my expert himself said, I have never
seen any records so inaccurate.

The key at the beginning of trial spent a
page and a half or more of describing how

great Vlad was and how he was going to
prove the prosecution's theories all wrong.

Our expert, we wanted somebody that knew
what he was talking about.

His job is to implement, optimize,
commercialize the running of cellular network.

He knows how to talk to one another.

He will explain all of that to you.

He's an interesting guy.

Vlad Yovanovitch.

He said he's going
to be calling this great

witness that's going to
prove everything wrong.

And what's he do?

Doesn't bother calling him.

In the end, you decide not to call him.

Correct.

Tell me why you made that decision.

I cannot speak to the internal decisions
and the benefit of a client.

I was actually kind of shocked at the fact
that Vlad was not going to be called.

He was there in court, ready to be called.

We had him there for that purpose.

It never got to the jury.

But had the jury heard that, it would have
been impossible for them to convict me.

I said, McGee, you're the one that got me
convicted.

And you need to step up and do something
about this.

You know, and I was chewing his ass up.

And my appeal is going to
be primarily about ineffective

assistance of counsel and
you guys doing these things.

And McGee took that and said, okay,
I'm quitting.

And he filed with the court and quit his
counsel.

I recused myself.

I cannot defend myself and defend my
client at the same time.

The motion of neutral, it was pretty much
an ineffective assistance of counsel

argument that I didn't know what I was
doing.

Do you feel like they were using you as an
escape boat?

I don't know.

I really didn't evaluate it in that way.

My whole life, I've dealt with people
having opinions of me.

And over the years, I just learned to
ignore them.

Did Mr. Jovanovic find
some problems that you guys

discussed regarding the
side tables from AT&T?

He had a lengthy report detailing numerous
errors that he saw on the table.

Did you ever have a discussion with him
about that call being an impossibility?

He didn't say it was an impossibility.

The more difficult he was, the
impossibility of trying to place them.

Or where they could possibly be.

He knew the answer was, yes.

Vlad thought it was an impossibility.

Immediately, what should have been done
is...

Moline should have stepped up and said,
really?

Well, let's take a
look at Vlad's report,

where he stated that
1152 was an impossibility.

I don't recall if they asked me that
specific question, but I would have...

I would not have
answered it to say yes.

I would have said that the data doesn't
allow that kind of decision.

We achieved better than we ever hoped
would hold.

So, um...

Any testimony from
Mr. Jovanovic about some issues, I

think, would be hampering
the presentation as a whole.

From our perspective, it would cause more
problems if we put them on.

I think we made a strategic
decision to leave it where

it was, because we thought
we were in a good place.

In other words, we thought, since Agent
Bowles was not able to give a definitive

answer as to the location of where Chase's
cell phone would have been when he hit the

courtside tower, we thought that that was
good enough, and we left it at that.

When you're talking about a man's life,
you throw as much blood on the wall as you

can, and hopefully some of it sticks,
you know?

I was just so upset and so pissed,
and I let the judge know what I thought.

Your Honor.

He wants to have a talk with you,
Your Honor.

I'm sorry?

He wants to, um, take a few minutes to,
uh...

I'll go.

That's okay.

Sure.

We'll take, uh, 10-minute recess.

I just finally got so tired of it.

I was so upset that I was absolutely
livid.

And I tried to fire Lee.

My dad was feeling very frustrated
because, number one, the judge isn't

allowing them to argue the things that
they wanted to argue.

Number two, Raj isn't arguing the things
that he wanted him to argue.

So, I think all the frustration that has
built up over, you know, the entire six

months of trial, I think it all kind of
came to a head.

I think it became very evident that he
wanted to be in control and that he wanted

to manipulate the
storyline or the timeline of

the case that he thought
was in his best interest.

If he did not like what, uh, was
happening, he fired his attorney.

It showed that he wanted
to be the person in charge

of the narrative and in
charge of the process.

Chase is definitely a hands-on client.

Now, is it easy to work with Mr. Merritt
all the time?

Absolutely not.

He's one of the most demanding,
uh, clients I've ever had to deal with.

But I try to look at it instead of
clashing with him.

I try to look at it from the standpoint of
an innocent person being in jail.

How would I be?

I would probably be demanding myself.

Yeah, what is what we are back in session?

Parties in open court, parties in council
are present.

The request to leave Mr. Lee has been
denied.

Uh,

Mr. McGee's representation
on that issue, on all of

the issues, was at the
higher end of representation.

The court does not have a reasonable doubt
as Mr. Merritt's guilt.

Therefore, the notion of the new trial,
the insufficiency of the evidence,

is denied.

In hindsight, absolutely, we should have
brought that cell tower evidence in.

If I would have understood it, like I
understand it now, of course I would have.

I would have said, no, we need to put
Chase on the other side of the tower.

To not follow through with that was not
just ineffective assistance of council.

It was a specific relinquishment of their
obligation, their duty to protect me.

What is the likelihood that you would ping
off of a tower?

Not only a tower that
overlooked the grave sites,

but on the sector that
covered the grave sites.

I will guarantee you that when I'm done
with all of this, and I get out of here,

if I don't get Imes and all
three of these district attorneys

disbarred, I will be after
these people until the day I die.

Moline and McGee, I believe
that they believed that my

conviction was worth more
money to them than my acquittal.

And I'm gonna do my best to put those two
in jail.

There are such things as American
tragedies.

When, you know, a family
of four is murdered and

senselessly buried away from
their homes unceremoniously.

While I may have an opinion as to how
things happened or what happened on a

particular day, there's a
lot of unanswered questions

that only certain people
know the answers to.

Like, this should have been a bloody crime
scene.

Well, I don't have to prove it's a bloody
crime scene.

I just have to prove that four people are
dead and that he did it.

I still believe all the evidence that we
talked about Chase.

All of those little pieces that paint the
larger puzzle.

I know that he's guilty of this crime.

But there's still a big mystery of...

Not that you really want to know those
gruesome details, but how did he do it?

Who did he kill first?

Did he have to tie somebody up?

Just the horror of wondering
if one of the parents had

to watch their children
be killed in front of them.

You're talking about a significant time to
clean anything up, to repaint.

You have all the supplies there if you
need them.

When you think of an attack
with a sledgehammer, a lot

of people immediately go
to this movie-esque attack.

And we don't know that that was the case.

There's a lot of stuff we don't know about
that.

I can't believe that he did this because
it just doesn't make any sense.

He's not the kind of person who I believe
is capable of doing something like this.

He's not a violent person.

He didn't...

He doesn't... He cares about money, but
he doesn't care about money that much.

Like, it's... To him,
money comes and goes.

And he's had lots, and
he's... He's thrown away lots.

And he just... He just moves on.

It's not the be-all, end-all in his life.

It's just... It's not.

I just don't think he's capable.

I don't think there's ever
been any doubt, at least

in my mind, about
whether he's innocent or not.

I think the motivation to close this case
kind of clouded the judgment, possibly,

of the people involved.

And what speaks to someone's guilt or
innocence is evidence.

And in this case, there is no evidence.

It's completely circumstantial.

And the investigators see what they want
to see.

Under the facts and the law, we should
have a not guilty burden.

No question.

This is...

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

They know they charged an innocent man.

Unfortunately, for them, winning is the
most important thing.

And they win at all costs.

I don't just blame the prosecutors.

I blame myself.

Surely I could have done something to stop
this unethical train that was barreling

towards a conviction.

But I couldn't.

And I have to live with that regret.

And I hope and pray that one day,
Chase will be vindicated.

And I honestly believe that he will.

Because there's no question in my mind
that he's innocent.

All we know is this family fell off the
grid at this time.

And their bodies are
discovered, you know, three

years and eight months
later in a shallow grave.

And that all four of them were bludgeoned
with a sledgehammer.

That's what we know.

We conveyed, I think, that there was a
falling out.

And I think that Merritt
went up there to Fallbrook to

try to convince Joseph to
keep him on in the business.

Hey, Chase, step back.

I think he didn't even go up there with the
intent to have anything physical happen.

And I think at some point, the fight,
or the argument, or the dispute,

whatever you want to call it, got
physical.

Whether he was winning
or losing the fight, or

why Chase grabbed the
sledgehammer, I don't know.

But eventually he did get
there and he knocked Joseph

unconscious or killed
him right then and there.

And then at that point, Summer's upstairs.

So she hears this commotion
and comes down and

that's when the second
confrontation occurs.

I think at that point, you know, the
kids, they were killed up at the gravesite.

My opinion of Chase Merritt is that I
looked at the evidence from the beginning.

And I do not see how he could have
actually done this.

Summer was that mama bear.

And so I guarantee she fought for her
life.

And the injuries indicate that she went
out in a horrible way.

She looked her attacker right in the face.

Yep.

It seems almost impossible that he could
have done that all by himself.

And so that's, that's the part that I
think bothers everyone.

That there's no way that he's
the only one that knows what

he did and managed to pull
it all off without being caught.

Because I never felt like he was that
smart either.

I mean, I think we're lucky that they got
a conviction at all.

But there just might be more to it that
we'll never know.

Let's go on daddy's bike.

Yeah, let's go on daddy's bike like
Chubba.

Walk a mile in my shoes, kid.

You know?

Lose two little grandchildren that don't
even know what life really is.

That haven't had a chance to do anything
really in life.

And then a brilliant, and I mean loving,
man.

And a woman that is dedicated to her
husband and children.

Because she was.

I mean, take people like that off the
earth and the way they did it.

It's just...

Yeah.

They don't deserve anything.

You guys say goodbye.

Bye.

I've been up front.

Everything that I've told my attorneys,
everything I've told law enforcement.

All of my actions have to, have to account
for something.

Nothing that I've done shows that I did
this thing.

And nothing that I've said shows that I've
done this thing.

They, in order to put me in this chair,
they had to make up just a plethora of

lies and innuendos, and in order to make
it happen.

That's all I got to say about that.