Because I think of them every day...Who killed the McStays?

*Update: Joey's Business partner Chase Merritt has been charged with the murders of the McStays and is currently awaiting his trial to begin.  Now that I am back, I want to dedicate an entire post to the reveal of this monster, but didn't want to leave this blog sitting here without the answer the question.  The first person who came to mind when they went missing to me was Chase Merritt, the business partner to see him last and who last spoke to him. Along the way Chase Merritt took it upon himself deflect, make up stories and pretend to be a hero.  Until his mountain of lies fell apart.

There are cases that I am passionate about and think of often and give my time to and then I do my best to put out of my head in order to live in the sun and keep the darkness at bay.

Then there is the McStay case. My heartbeat speeds up when I talk about them. When I think of the McStays, I become obsessed; I go through every scenario every possibility. I think of the call logs, the timeline, the people in their lives, the lies, the rumors, their videos etc. They come alive, they become people I know, then I relive their deaths, they are gone, someone killed them, and buried them in the desert. Who did this? Why? I take a deep breath.

The Internet is full of finger pointing. There is a short list of characters that many feel could be responsible for this crime with long explanations of why these people would do this; for money, out of envy, over a family dispute, but no one has asked the question, are those people capable?

Can a person who knew them, knew their voices, their children's sweet faces, be capable of killing these babies while a mother and father pleads for their lives?

Was Joseph's business such a financial treasure that if it was over money it was necessary they kill the kids? Was the anger or envy felt toward Joseph or Summer so great that it would drive a normal person to not only kill them, but their small children?

In the world we live in, we know people do evil things, parents kill their own kids, boyfriends kill their girlfriends and husbands kill their families. Cases like those make more sense to me, because the situation is personal and in most cases it is a selfish act, an act to punish the living a spouse or yourself. I try to apply that thinking to the McStay case and it always fails to make sense that a friend, family member, or business partner would have felt it necessary to kill the kids and even Summer.  Self preservation is a term always tossed around, that one if not both of the McStays were about to reveal something damaging about a family member, friend or business partner and they had to be silenced, that the kids were collateral damage.

I could buy that, but you could silence the parents and leave the children sleeping in their beds.  There would have been more reasoning, pleading with them to be silent, there would have been some type of residue left over of the the scandal, someone else would have known, exposed, an email trail, a phone call luring them out of the house. SOMETHING!

The public may know less than law enforcement, but up until those bodies were found law enforcement thought the family left of their own free will, that tells me there was no whisper of bad deals, secrets to be revealed etc.  Just a horrific crime committed in deafening silence.

I asked myself, what kind of criminal kills children? What kind of criminal tries to conceal their crimes when not readily pursued? What criminal doesn't leave a paper, electronic trail and jumps instead at an opportunity they create for themselves?  What type of criminal takes advantage of vulnerable people? The McStays were vulnerable, they kept to themselves, kids home schooled, in a new house, no friends nearby, no one dropping by as we know by the massive amount of time it took to even realize they were missing.

Who is this criminal by design?

A child sexual predator. Could this be?

It is often discussed that it looked like the family left in a hurry, because food was left out.

It is known that Joseph McStay was out of the home most of the day, leaving at 11am or so, we know that afternoon Summer talked with her sister, went online and did normal things that can be documented.

This was a new home in a new neighborhood, they were remodeling, they were painting etc.

They did not know anyone.

This is key in my mind.

We have a family who used Craig’s list often for deals. They were Internet users and had a YouTube channel.

We know that the last sighting of their vehicle could be seen leaving their home the evening of February 4th. It doesn't return.

A chilling thought is what if there was a neighbor in their area, someone who met them on the street, who watched them, knew they had kids, and knew Joseph left Summer alone. How easy for this predator to gain access to the home. A knock on the door? A helping hand?

What if Summer and Joey were not the intended targets? What if it was the children?

There would be no email trail, call log and Internet search left behind by a predator in your neighborhood knocking on your door and tying you up, then overpowering your husband when he arrived.

The Isuzu was found by the border four days after it was capture leaving the driveway, the McStays were found buried in the desert miles and miles from their home with their children.

I am guessing it took this predator four days to clean up his mess.

I think the detectives should be looking at neighbors who were off their schedule that week, or day laborers in that area who may have offered Summer a hand.

A child predator would have no issue killing children. A knock at the door doesn't leave a trail.

This is just another theory and we have to remember these were real people, a real family.  Like you and me.

The McStay Family Found

It took me some time to get over the shock of the McStay family being found dead.  Finally decided to post about it.

On Wednesday my sister called to tell me that remains were found in the desert in California, she was aware of my worry for this family I have never met and the concern I had for them since they disappeared. First, I immediately believed it was them, four bodies, buried in the desert, my gut said, it is over.  There was little information and at first no one connected it.  Then I thought, no, can't be them, why would someone kill this normal family and then bury them in the desert? It has to be a mob or cartel related crime and bodies of victims of the cartel or drug trafficking. This end is simply NOT met by an innocent family.  I felt better and just brushed it off.

Then I read the authorities were speaking to the McStay family and my heart sank, it was them.  My heart goes out to the amazing McStay family, I am deeply sorry for your immense loss.  Then anger set in, who in the world would kill innocent children? Kill an entire family and then take the time to drive out to the desert dig graves and bury them? Allowing their families to believe they abandoned their lives and left with no concern of how this would affect them?

My original theories about what happened to the McStays were either they left to start a new life because they were free spirited and wanted to live on very little and by the beach, how I wish this were true. Or that they met up with the wrong person that night, someone they had met from craiglist, had worked on their house, a dangerous drifter, that Joseph was supposed to meet this person alone, but instead brought his family and that the killer or killers had no plan to kill the children, but it happened this way, because in my mind I just can't wrap my head around hurting those boys.

I, like most, would like to see this person receive cold hard justice. I want to know who the monster is, so that I may focus my hate. Don't tell me not to hate, don't tell the McStays not to hate, don't speak about GOD and how everything has a purpose. I know people are killed everyday and people go missing, but this crime is horrific and my connection to the family is that it is similar to my own and I can't stop going through how much they must have suffered, how as parents they probably fought to save their children, but in the end evil, a godless evil overtook them. 

Now is the time for people to come forward with what they know, to bring this monster to the front and expose him or her or them.

I have been asked who I think did this.  I can tell you this, in my opinion, only serial killers, vengeful ex husbands out of jealousy, or an evil person who is possessed by greed and money would take the time to kidnap a family and kill them and bury them. This isn't a movie, criminals make real mistakes. I hope that investigators can piece this together.  The border video in my opinion was not staged, just mere luck for the killer and the hope of authorities that they were still alive.  Joseph's business operated out of Mexico at times, so the language software could have been for his business so that he could speak the language, also the search for passport information could have been as simple as Joseph looking into traveling for business and bringing his family, nothing more. I know there are no coincidences in police work, but I think everyone, including the authorities could not believe they were murdered and wanted so much to make it that they fled, and so they focused on these details and made them larger than what they were.

I don't know if I blame them, because in real life unlike tv, detectives are real people with doubts, emotions, stressors and can get overwhelmed. A murderer or murderers have walked free for three years and it is time for them to face the world.

My only concern is that if this was committed by a random drifter serial killer that we may never know.

I hope justice arrives quickly.