Introducing 'What Happened to the McStays?'

Hey, it's Brad, coming to you on a Saturday was something different. This is an early look at the newest true crime podcast from 2020 and ABC audio "What Happened to the McStays." It's a story about a family that went missing from their suburban Californian home in the spring of 2010. No signs of struggle or forced entry, but clues scattered about the home raising questions, and soon the entire nation wanted to know what had happened. Had the McStays gone elsewhere on their own, or did something more sinister happen? Here's the whole shocking story on this new podcast hosted by my colleague, Ashen Singh. And if you like it, you can get new episodes every week by following "What Happened to the McStays on Apple" or Spotify or Amazon or wherever you're listening now. Or you can get the entire series early and add free by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcast. That's right, we got the subscriptions happening right now. Click the link in the description to start your free trial. Now here's episode one of "What Happened to the McStays." It's the first time in a month to start your free trial. In the beginning of the show, we found out that even though we wanted to make it to the McStays in Germany, we were able to find out more about the news about the McStays and the McStays on their own, we found out more about the McStays on their own, and the McStays on their own, In November of 2009, family of four moved into a palm tree dotted coldosec, and the hills of San Diego County. Joseph McStay and his wife, Summer, were in their early 40s and living a seemingly charmed Southern California life, with their two young sons. Their new neighborhood was surrounded by mountains and farmland. Their new house, a large Spanish-style home on avocado Vista Lane, was around 10 years old, with a stucco exterior, and a red terracotta roof. The McStays home videos from around this time show an active, fun-loving family. In one, little Joseph Jr. runs around the first floor of their new home. In another video, all four of the McStays bites at the beach. Hey, come here! Oh my god! Gotta lack mama! And then, there's the video where the two McStayboys, Joseph Jr., and his big brother Gianni, swing side by side, and a playground swing set together. Their mom, Summer, pushes them higher and higher. For a couple of months, these were the types of sounds that filled the McStay residence. One day in February 2010, the house went quiet. Local station KGTV covered the story. The outside of the McStay home remains exactly as the family left it. They're shoes and the newspaper, both outside. There was a carton of eggs left out on the counter, and one other thing. Summer McStay left her prescription sunglasses behind. Family left their dogs behind, and there had been no activity on their phones. It was as if the McStays had simply vanished into thin air. Authorities, friends, and family were baffled. But how does a vibrant family of four suddenly go missing? From ABC Audio in 2020, I'm Austin Singh, and this is what happens to the McStays. Episode 1. 11 Days Joseph McStay, or Joey, had a weekly ritual with his little brother Michael. In a 2011 interview with ABC News, Michael said that every Friday, Joseph would give him a ring on his way to play pickup soccer. He would call me and we'd touch base. Hey, how's things going? Hey, Mikey, how's your business? What's going on? How are the girls? I asked other boys where and he'd tell me what was going on. But on Friday, February 5, 2010, Michael didn't get that weekly call from his big brother. For Michael, this was unusual, but not alarming. So to miss one Friday, I mean, I didn't think a whole lot of it. But then several days went by without a peep from Joseph. No calls, texts, or emails. It was the same at his work too. Joseph co-owned a business that sold high-end decorative founds. The kind you might see in hotel lobbies. The company was in the middle of a couple of projects. When Joseph's colleagues told the McStay family, they noticed Joseph had gone completely silent. There was customer emails not being answered, which is not like Joe. He was usually right on top of it. Joseph's friends started reaching out to Michael to ask, "Hey, have you heard from Joe? What's going on?" It's not answering his phone. Joseph's wife Summer wasn't returning calls either. So Michael posted to his brother's Facebook page asking friends, "If you've seen him, we've let the family know." Family and friends, God in touch. Michael and Joseph's parents, plus two of Joseph's colleagues, Dan Kavanaugh and Chase Merritt. They shared any relevant information they had. And Michael pieced together that Thursday, February 4, was likely the last day anyone had seen or heard from his brother. Michael and Joseph's father said he talked to Joseph that morning. And according to Joseph's business associate, Chase, he and Joseph met up at afternoon. Love runs were worried about the McStays. But Michael tried to remain optimistic. He thought it was possible the family left on a trip and just didn't tell anyone. I thought, "Well, maybe they're doing a quick vacation, so I didn't want to jump to any conclusions." A few days after the McStays won quiet, Joseph's business partner, Dan Kavanaugh called the police for a welfare check. San Diego County Sheriff's Deputies came out to the home and knocked on the door. No one was home at the time. But with no signs that anything was amiss, deputies followed procedure and did not go inside. Joseph's business associate, Chase Merritt, also went to the house a couple times that week. He says to see if he could find Joseph. No luck. And by February 13th, the McStays hadn't been seen or heard from in nine days. Michael says he decided to check the home himself. He took a trip to Avocado Vista Lane. Chase came along too. I'd went down there, started knocking on doors, asking the neighbors had they seen him. Michael says he let himself into the house through a back window that was cracked open. He started looking through the home. He says it was messy. Kitchen drawers had been pulled out and placed on countertops. Toys, books, and clothes were scattered around. And the house was barely furnished. The family was using air mattresses instead of beds. To Michael, it was like his brother and his family were camping in their own home. But this was Michael's first time in the McStays new house. It only moved in about two months earlier, and they were remodeling. Michael says they'd been doing work on the floors and painting cabinets. So to him, this could have been a normal level of untightiness, given the circumstances. And given that Joseph and Summer had two young children. But there was one thing Michael noticed right away that he clocked as being very, very off. The dogs were left outside unattended. It didn't make sense. The McStay family dogs were left to sit in the hot California Sun. By all accounts, the McStays loved their dogs. A big Akita called Bear, and a golden retriever puppy called Digger. Friends say they were like second kids to Joseph and Summer. To leave them alone outside for days on end, this just didn't sit right with Michael. He asked a neighbor to keep an eye on the dogs. And then he left, hoping his family would show up soon. But the McStays had disappeared, leaving a puzzle that would soon mystify their friends and family. Today I want to tell you about an exciting new deal from our friends at Cozy Earth. Take a moment and close your eyes, and think back to the best night of sleep you ever had. Did it feel like you'd never sleep that well again? Well, good news. You can give yourself an amazing night of sleep every night by upgrading your bedding to Cozy Earth. Cozy Earth offers luxury bedding at an incredible price. 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Go to abcsecretsavings.com/2020 for 50% off the best bet betting you'll ever sleep on. Joseph was a talker. I would call him before I'd left for lunch to talk about whatever the problem of the day was, and then it would evolve into just, I don't know, like conversation goes from one thing to another, and then I'm like the phone's getting hot because it's been in your ears so long. Like, can we wrap this up? Gina said that Joseph adored his wife's summer and their two boys. Joseph's kids and his wife were everything to him. Gina says Joseph would share stories about his rambunctious little boys. Like the time they snuck out of their beds early one morning and started rummaging through their kitchen cabinets. He said one night, Gianni and little Joey had gotten into the flower. I guess they kept it in a lower cabinet and you're a parent and you're tired and your little kid sneaks out of bed and gets into the flower and they had it all over them cells and they had like handprints and footprints everywhere and they recovered head to toe. Gina describes Joseph as a surfer dude. He had wavy shoulder length, light brown hair and pictures. It looks like he would be more comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt and a suit and tie. Joseph and summer suns, Gianni and Joseph Jr. were four years old and three respectively at the time they vanished. Joseph shows up the little boys, show their hair down to their shoulders, just like their dad. In one photo, Joey Jr. holds an ice cream sandwich, chocolate all over his mouth. And Gina says their dad, Joseph Sr. was generous with his friends. He would buy his friends laptops just because he was excited about technology and he wanted them to be as excited as he was and oh you got to check out this gaming laptop like, oh you need top of the line. No, that's not good enough. Let me get you this one. He was just very easy with money. He never was too uptight about it. He was more so than any person I've ever met to be honest. Joseph and summer were introduced in the early 2000s. One of his friends set them up and everyone says they hit it off right away. Summer was a very passionate woman who went after what she wanted. It's Jessie Silveria, a friend of summers. I met Summer around 2006 and I was living in Laguna Beach and I think both of us were Laguna ites. Jessie and Summer were both photographers at the time and met while working the same shoot. To me Summer was exotic, you know. She had dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, really big cute smile. Jessie says she and Summer would go out together. Two creatives joined the beachy art scene of Laguna. One summer got pregnant, Jessie says. She scaled back her active social life, stopped working and became a stay-at-home mom. They were nesting. That phase in her life was nesting. Friends and families say Joseph and Summer loved the beach. For the time, the couple and their sons lived in San Clemente. Their apartment was on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, with world-class surfing right outside their door. The kids, they were growing up to be surfer dudes too. They definitely took after Joey, you know, wanting to be close to the ocean. Another big part of the McStay's lives was Joseph's work, Earth-inspired products. It sold the elaborate custom decorative waterfalls. Israel large-scale standalone objects, often six feet tall. Water would be pumped invisibly to the top of tall glass panes, and then cascade down into pools that sparkled with hidden light fixtures. Earth-inspired products also had an online retail side, where they sold pre-manufactured water features. Gina Watson worked for one of Joseph's manufacturing partners, as how the two met and became friends. She says Joseph was a designer at heart. He actually started his business, I think, click in his garage, designing his own features by hand. Gina says Joseph was taking on more and more custom work, and the business was doing really well. According to people familiar with the company, Earth-inspired products have gotten big contracts. A car wash chain with 150 locations, a huge custom job for the Palm Mitchell hair salon brand, and even a project in Saudi Arabia. In late 2009, McStay family moved from their small beach-side apartment in St. Clemente to their house on that Palm Tree Line cul-de-sac. Their new town of Fallbrook is better known for its avocado orchards than its proximity to the coast. It's a 30-minute drive to the beach, a trade-off for the surf-loving McStays. But it was big, five bedrooms for the backyard. Here's Summer's friend, Chessie again. All the outside was completely populated with kids' toys and trucks and boy stuff, and she was growing flowers and gardens. Again, they had plans to remodel the home. In my early 2010, some of the renovations were underway. Joseph would fill his brother Michael in on the progress. "Okay, they're remodeling the house, and it's kind of crazy, you know, the furniture's still in storage." By February of 2010, Joseph was doing well professionally. The couple was working on upgrading their new house. The family seemed settled. "Joe doesn't invest, you know, like $30,000 into a house to renovate it because he's going to leave tomorrow. That's just, it doesn't jive. He doesn't walk out on his friends and his family." And yet, that house in Fallbrook, no one was home, and for over a week, there had only been silence from the family who lived there. He didn't add up. Michael McStay says he'd decided that if his brother and family were, as he'd hoped, just on an extended vacation, they should be back by February 15th. He says he told himself that if by 9am, he still hadn't heard from Joseph, he'd file a missing person's report. Michael McStay says he'd decided to leave tomorrow, and he'd be back by February 15th. He says he's going to leave tomorrow, and he's going to leave tomorrow, and he's going to leave tomorrow, and we'll be back by the weekend. [Music] Minulla oli tärkeää pohtia kehittymistä me tulevaisuudessa. Kaikki myyntiin tarvittavat työkalut, kuten varaston suunnittelu ovat kätevästi dashboardissa. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu Shopify-piste komsi vustolla. Tänä edellä on tärkeää, ja kuten kokeilu on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi. Tänä edellä on kätevästi, ja kätevästi. Tänä edellä on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi. Tänä edelleen, mutta se ei ole kätevästi, mutta se ei ole kätevästi, mutta se ei ole kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi. Tänä edellä on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi, joten on kätevästi. Tänä Brugos saa suspicious circumstances cases, - - like this one, - - or handle by the homicide unit. Although there's a dead body, or not. Police say that when homicide detective - - is joining the search at the McStay residence, - - they check again for any signs of foul play. Any clue as to what may have happened to the McStays? Officers looked all over the home - - inside the kitchen pantry, in the den, - - the garage, in a recycling bin outside, - - in the truck part in the driveway. As detectives searched, - - they noticed a few curious things. To start, it was the food that was left out. According to police and court documents, - - downstairs in the living room, - - there were two small bowls of popcorn, - - half eaten, left on a futon, - - bananas that had started to rot. In a carton of eggs, - - we're sitting out in the kitchen counter. You don't need perishable food out, - - if you're gonna be gone for an extended period time generally. It seemed like the family may have left the house suddenly, - - even unexpectedly. And then, there was the mess, - - police documented, - - clothes piled up on the bathroom counter, - - suitcases left open, - - with clothes spilling out in a pile, - - a tall lamp that looked like it had been knocked over. If the mixtase had gone on vacation, - - like Michael so hoped was the case, - - why would they have left suitcases full of clothing behind, - - and detectives also uncovered something else, - - Lieutenant Burgos again. We knew that one of the vehicles was parked here - - in the driveway and the other one wasn't here. The mixtase 1996 white Isuzu Trooper, - - wasn't missing. If police could find the vehicle, - - maybe they could find the mixtase. They ran a search on the Isuzu Trooper, - - and immediately came up with a hit. According to police records, - - the check revealed that the vehicle was recently towed - - from a parking lot about 60 miles from the mixtase home, - - near the U.S. Mexico border. So near, in fact, - - that it was walking distance to the border terminal. According to police, - - the car had been towed from that lot on February 8, - - four days after the mixtase vanished. Now police had to find out. What did this clue mean? Did the mixtase leave for Mexico altogether? And if so, did they go voluntarily or by force? Were they hiding, kidnapped? Police couldn't yet say. The search of the mixtase residents took all day, - - and in the end police determined there was no sign of forced entry, - - no sign of a struggle or act of violence, - - no blood. In other words, - - no apparent signs of foul play, - - no clear crime. But that didn't mean that detectors were confident - - that all was well with the mixtase. The abandoned dogs, the spoiled food left out, - - the family car found at the Mexican border, - - as Lieutenant Bruges puts it. When you put the whole picture together, - - it raises the level of suspicion that something's not right. One's officers wrapped up the search of the home, - - a couple of the detectives, - - Troy Dugal and Suzanne Fisk, - - hold the Michael aside for an interview in their police car, - - and the tape from this interview, - - Michael still hopes that his big brother's family - - could be perfectly fine. - What's the percentage of these like being in a situation like this, - - and then it just being something totally innocent? - I can tell you that I've never had one like this - - where a family is just totally missing, - - ever, - - so I can't give you a good statistic. - Detective Dugal asked Michael for more information - - about the missing family. How was Joseph in summer's relationship? Who were their closest friends? Did he have problems with anyone? Or money trouble? - Do you know if there's any money involvement - - with your brother owning someone money - - or would somebody try to take advantage of your brother? - I don't know enough about what's going on with his business. - Why is that I have no idea? - They dug deeper, - - asking about Joseph's finances. - How much is your brother worth? - Oh, I don't know. - I have no idea. - Do you know what a hearing can come in? - No. - Dugal asked if Joseph - - might have been involved in narcotics. - My brother doesn't even do drugs. - So that's it out. - Detectives also asked about the Assusor Trooper. Did Michael have any idea what Joseph and his family - - might be doing walking distance from Theoana? - I don't know. I don't know what he's doing down there. - I have no idea. - I don't think he knows anybody down there. - The whole situation still didn't sit right with Michael - - or the detectives. - This thing has just got me scratched my head. - Well, we don't know any more than you know. - What do you think? - Well, it's a brother. Where are they? - I'm hoping they went down and they just went to Mexico - - and they took a two-way vacation. - That's a pipe dream at this point. - I don't know. - I would hope that too, but what did you see in the house - - that would indicate that that's probably not true? - I just walked through, but I didn't get it. - Well, let me help you out. - Inside the walking closet, there's suitcases - - and there's little kids suitcases with suitcases - - flaps open with folded little kid laundry - - clean laundry in the suitcase. - Yeah. - If they were on vacation, the kids suitcases - - wouldn't have been worth it. - In his official account of the day, Detective Dougal - - concluded that there had been no apparent sign of a crime. - But he also said this. - It is my opinion that McStay family - - is the victim of foul play. - The police knew. - This wasn't over. - It was more work to be done. - Now the race was on. - To find out what had actually happened to the family of four. - Before, it was too late. - What happened to the McStays is a production of ABC audio in 2020 - - hosted by me, Ashen Singh. - Produced by Madeleine Wood. - Vika Aronson. - Audrey Mostek. - and Kiar Powell. - With help from Sabrina Fang and Camille Peterson. - edited by Gianna Palmer. - Our supervising producer is Susi Lou. - Music by Evan Viola. - Scoring by Kiar Powell. - Mixing by Evan Viola and Bob Mallody. - Special thanks to Katie Dendas. - Janice Johnson. - Chris Donovan. - Joseph Free. - Sonny Antrum. - Melissa Stoller. - Zander Samaris. - Tom Burman. - Indra Dallisahun. - And Blue Brown. - Josh Cohen is our director of podcast programming. - Emin McNath is our executive producer. - Can't wait for more. Listen to the next episode ahead of everyone else, add free. Subscribe now to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to start your free trial today. järjestelmien ja frontendia sekä myydä verkossa, vaivatta, jos Shopify olisi pyöräilyvaruste, se olisi mielestäni itse polku pyörä. Sillä asiat hoidetaan ja meidän liiketoimintamme hoituu Shopify-ssä. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu, Shopify-piste-com sivustolla. Perustin pyöräilyvaatteita valmistavan ornotin vuonna 2013. Mielestäni parasta Shopify saan se, että voimme harjoittaa liiketoimintaa ilman teknistä osaamista, voimme hallinoida yrityksen taustajaristelmien ja frontendia sekä myydä verkossa, vaivatta, jos Shopify olisi pyöräilyvaruste, se olisi mielestäni itse polku pyörä. Aloita ilmainen kokeilu, Shopify-piste-com sivustolla.