McStays, Bonus: The Call

20/20

In this bonus episode, hosts Ashan Singh and Brad Mielke reflect on the conclusion of their series regarding the McStay family murders. They

Key takeaways

The investigation involved two distinct tracks: a missing persons case in San Diego and a murder investigation in San Bernardino.
Technological shifts, such as smartphone location data and widespread surveillance, have significantly altered the landscape of forensic investigations since 2010.

Main topics

The McStay murder investigation
Chase Merritt's conviction and claims of innocence

Notable quotes

It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it.

Conclusion

The episode provides a poignant look at the human cost of high-profile

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hi, this is Ashan Singh here with the final episode of What Happened to the Mixed Days. Remember, you can catch up on the entire series for free if you follow What Happened to the Mixed Days on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now. Or listen to this entire series ad-free and discover so much more from 2020 by subscribing to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts. Click the link in the description to start your free trial today. Now, here's the final episode of what happened to the McStays. Speaker 1 (0:34) Early morning on a Manhattan sidewalk, a shooting caught on surveillance video. Speaker 7 (0:38) It was an assassination-style killing, and everybody saw it. Speaker 1 (0:43) A new podcast series from ABC Audio in 2020 goes inside this captivating case. I'm ABC News legal analyst Brian Buckmeyer. Listen to Burden of Proof, Luigi Mangione, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 3 (1:02) Hey, I'm Brad Milkey, host of ABC's daily news podcast, Start Here. And if you just finished listening to the captivating story of what happened to the McStays, I think you're going to really enjoy this special bonus episode. Because today, I'm here with the host who led us on this journey, Ashin Singh. And today, we're going to dive deeper into the story. We've got some interview material you have not yet heard in this podcast, including... Speaker 3 (1:30) An ABC exclusive interview with Chase Merritt from prison. We're going to get into what we learned from that interview. But first. Let's welcome our guest here, our host, rather, Ashan Singh. Ashan, you've been with ABC for like 10 years, and that time you've done lots of reporting, especially for Nightline. This was your first time hosting a podcast, though, right? So what's that been like? Speaker 2 (1:49) Yeah, Brad, thanks so much for having me and sitting down with me to chat about this. This project has just been unbelievable. I've had a few opportunities to kind of delve down the true crime path with Impact by Nightline. I've done some stuff on some kind of current cases, right? The Delphi murders, the Gilgo Beach murders, and obviously the longstanding cold case. of who killed Tupac Shakur, but I think what made this one so fascinating for me is that... This was a case that had lived on the minds and hearts of so many people back in 2010. And then for years, nobody actually knew what happened. And so for our team to be able to dig through this archival material that ABC had been collecting over the years and get a clearer picture of this case that almost feels like it couldn't happen in the year 2026, and then to get to sit down and work with our ABC audio team in a podcast, it really leaves no stone left uncovered. You really get to dive into the nitty gritty of the story. And Speaker 3 (2:42) this story about the McStay family, like you said, is so fascinating. It's so heartbreaking. As you start turning those stones, I guess, what really stuck out to you? What grabbed your attention as you started examining this? Speaker 2 (2:53) Yeah, Brad. So 2010 doesn't actually feel like that far back, right? But in reality, there are advances in technology that investigators now have at their disposal that they really didn't have back then. And so how much technology has advanced since the first investigation, even though it really wasn't that long ago, it's almost like a crime of days past, but happening in the modern era. So now smartphones have apps that show whereabouts as opposed to only having a cell tower. that was pinging back in 2010 and there are cameras everywhere. But San Diego investigators, they were looking at footage from one neighbor's security camera. And at one point, this grainy footage that was taken from the border. And you mentioned Speaker 3 (3:30) like the grainy surveillance, but like even the idea that you'd have to look that closely to tell like which side of a car the exhaust pipe is, like all of that seems so far away and yet so close. Speaker 2 (3:39) Sign of the times, Speaker 3 (3:40) right? Literally, exactly. Like you said, like. Somebody's Ring doorbell cam probably gets you better footage at this point, but that's just not what they were dealing with. Exactly. Speaker 2 (3:47) So now it's really interesting to me that there are two different investigations going on here. First, you have the San Diego police. trying to figure out exactly what happened to the McStays. It was this missing persons case, and there wasn't this discovery of graves. So police did not have this explicit knowledge of foul play like they did in the second investigation. So the nature of the way they even went about this investigation was totally different. And then you have this murder investigation, and they're kind of coming at it from a completely different angle. They have these remains. They know someone killed them. But they need to find out who. So the cases are like these two investigations that are happening in two different time frames that almost tell two completely different stories. And so it was interesting to see how the custody of the case changed hands from San Diego to San Bernardino and the sort of different approaches that were employed here. Speaker 3 (4:35) So now that you wrap this, though, I guess, how does the story sit with you? Like what feelings remain as the whole series came to a close? Speaker 2 (4:42) You know, Brad, what I love the most about this story is obviously there was a conviction. Obviously, Chase Merritt is in jail as we speak. But, you know, there are a lot of little elements. of how this investigation unfolded and a lot of open time frame that leaves you scratching your head. You know, I would love to know more about the days leading up to the McStay's disappearance, particularly what was going on with Joseph. You know, Joseph and Chase had this meeting at Chick-fil-A on February 4th. Right, Chase, his business associate at the time. And we have no idea what the tone of that meeting was, but... I mean, as far as we know, like that is sort of where everything unfolds or