there's the house. >> this is the house? >> february 2010. a young family of four building their american dream vanishes from their home in suburban san diego. no signs of a struggle. >> don't go anywhere. >> or any apparent plans to flee. gone without a trace. >> there was no way they left willingly. >> then nearly four years later, 100 miles from their home --

>> 911, what are you reporting? >> i found what looks like part of a human skull. >> mother, faither, and two youg sons found dead. buried in shallow graves in the mohave desert. >> that's never happened in this county. >> brutally murdered. >> who is so cold blooded that they kill children? >> how did they get there? who killed them? exclusive interviews. surprising clues. >> whoever did this to the family had this well planned out. >> buries secrets, who murdered the mcstay family? >> from day one, i just had this gut feeling that i was never

going to see him again. i just -- i just knew. something told me i wasn't going to see him again. >> four years ago, patrick mcstay lost everything he loved. four years ago, his son, joseph, daughter-in-law somer, and their two little boys, 4-year-old geeiani, and 3-year-old joseph jr., vanished. >> i don't think they knew what was coming. i really don't. >> how did you find out that they had gone missing? >> friday i tried calling him, couldn't feget him. sunday i called and couldn't reach him. now i'm getting worried. >> worried since patrick says he rarely went a day without talking to his son. >> every time i talked to him, the last words out of my mouth before we hang up the phone, i

love you, son. >> if he was in trouble and had the ability to reach out to you, do you think he would have called you? >> absolutely. >> this case is unique. i've never seen anything like it. >> investigative journalist stef watts has followed the case closely from the beginning. >> they literally disappeared and nobody noticed for days. >> thursday, february 4, 2010 began as an ordinary day in the mcstay home. >> that morning i spoke to joey. >> he didn't let on anything was wrong? >> no, everything was fine. >> he was planning on having a lunch meeting with a business associate around noon. so he had to get out of the house. >> summer spent the daycaring for the kids. did they have any plans for that weekend? >> yeah, little joey's birthday party scheduled for that saturday, the 6th.

>> yeeee. go. >> but little joey jr. never made it to his third birthday party. instead, the family of four left their house after dark that thursday evening, two days before the party. the doors locked, the family car gone. >> 7:47 p.m., the neighbor's video surveillance catches the suv leaving the home. it appears from what we learned that they left quickly. >> their two beloved dogs, bear and digger, left outside without food or water. >> i know bear, the big one. let me tell you something, that dog is like family. summer, that's like one of her kids. and there's no way -- >> they would have never abandoned him like that? >> oh, god no. >> food was also left out, eggs rotting on the counter.

coffee grounds scattered about. susan blake is joseph mcstay's mother. >> your thoughts are going wild. why would they be mising? something's not right here. >> the family's sudden disappearance stunned nearly all who knew them. a true mystery that baffled investigators. san bernardino sheriff john mcman and his team are in charge of the investigation. any thoughts on what would have made the mcstays leave their home on february 4 in such a rush? >> at this point, no. why would they take their children, who are 4 and 3, out of the home at 8:00 at night? it's dark. what was it that got all four of them out of that house and out of that house in a hurry? >> were they forced to leave or did they leave on their own? early evidence pointed the investigation south to mexico.

>> law enforcement was convinced that the family had gone over to mexico willingly at this point. >> but patrick mcstay was not. so he launched his own investigation from his living room in texas. >> since your son disappeared, what is a typical day for you like? >> just get up in the morning, get on the computer, check and see if anybody has e-mailed me, what is going on my facebook site, anybody sent me any information. >> how many hours a day are you investigate thing? >> whenever i'm awake. >> which is most of the time. patrick hasn't gotten a good night's sleep in more than four years. >> patrick mcstay has been one of the best investigators in this case. he's worked tirelessly to find out what happened to his son. >> do you think if he was having a problem or somebody was threatening him, he would have told you? >> i thought he would have. but i found out later that

apparently he didn't. >> was this random or was this extremely orchestrated? and as the pieces begin to come together, it's looking to me like it was extremely orchestrated. so we have to ask ourselves why. >> why did the mcstays leave their home on a moment's notice, and why would anyone want this beautiful young family to vanish without a trace? shocking clues from the people who knew them best when we come back. life with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis

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and the boys are on a swing. >> you've got to see these little monkeys. >> in the months before they disappeared, their lives appeared picture perfect. they certainly didn't look like they had any plans to vanish. >> i'm having so much fun. >> joseph's younger brother michael says they had it all. >> everything is going good. they've got these two beautiful boys, they hang out at the peach. >> wow, that's pumping, guys. >> everybody loved joey. the boys were full of life. summer was a great mom. >> they were living the american dream. joseph worked from home building his custom water feature business, while summer raised their sons. >> taking the cruise on the beach. we live up there on the cliff. >> they love the beach. summer loved the beach, joey loved the beach.

>> and they loved each other. joseph's father, patrick. >> couldn't keep his hands off summer. >> did they have a good marriage? >> they had problems like anybody else. but they loved each other. >> he knew summer through his work in real estate, and introduced her to joseph back in 2004. >> love at first sight for joseph. my joke with them was, hey, pace yourself. >> there was no denying that they had an instant connection. >> the two of them met, locked eyes, and that was it. >> gianni, their first son, was born in 2005. less than two years later, joseph jr. arrived. >> summer wanted the best for her kids. she was very frotective. >> let me tell you, don't mess

with those kids. she was a very protective woman. >> shortly after joey jr. was born, they got married in a small ceremony in orange county, california. melissa gellar was a bridesmaid. >> she looked so beautiful. it was a great day. >> but there was something missing. joseph's mother susan remembers summer's side of the family was absent. >> the night before the wedding summer told me that she had called them and said, don't come. >> i know she wasn't super close with her family. >> something that always concerned joseph's mother. >> i asked joey, what's going on, why can't we get together? i always felt like i was brushed off as if there was something going on. >> but there were other issues. joseph's past. >> i know summer was very

jealous of obviously the first w50i6. >> in his earlier 20s, joseph married a woman named heather. they had a son together. >> she was the love of his life. when they broke up, it just broke his heart. >> heather and joseph's young romance broke down after six years of marriage. she filed for divorce in august of 1998, citinger reconcilable differences. >> things happen and out of it the decision was made they're going to be good parents together. >> playing with your brother? >> joseph and heather agreed to share custody of their son, jonah. >> he loved jonah. he still wanted to be as much of a father as he could. >> friends say when joseph married summer, she welcomed jonah into their new family with open arms. >> i remember her helping him

make a lemonade stand. so she was totally embracing it. >> chase merit, a friend and colleague, doesn't agree. >> summer hated the idea of joseph spending time with jonah and taking time away from his other two boys and her. >> did she like jonah? >> i can't say whether she liked him or not. she didn't act like it. >> mary claims joseph just put up with some of his controlling behavior. >> joseph loved her to death. he thought she walked on water, even though she had a lot of problems. and he talked to me about them. >> joseph also confided in merit about his own problems, most recently his mysterious health issues. >> extreme dizziness, nausea. the doctors could and find anything wrong. >> he says joseph wondered if his own wife may have

potentially been to blame. >> somebody told him that maybe he should stop eating at home. >> did he truly believe she was trying to poison him? >> his statement to me was, you know, maybe i should take heed. >> what would be the reason or the motive that summer would ever consider poisoning him? >> we never talked about that. >> do you believe that summer may have been looking to poison your son? >> i suspected the same thing in the beginning because of joey's illness and everything else. so i went down that same road, you know, and no, i don't believe it. >> neither does joseph's mom. >> no, she's gone also. so, you know, none of that makes at all sense to me. >> while merit's theory sounds far-fetched, there's evidence there was trouble in joseph and summer's marriage. just days before they disappeared, joseph had lined up a family counselor for help.

>> he called me and said, mom, can you help me mind a good counselor and stuff. i want to get my family back on track. so at the end of january, when we finally met one that we thought everybody, you know, would feel comfortable with, four days later, poof. >> gone. february 4, 2010, the mcstays vanished. up next, the last person to see joseph mcstay alive, talks for the first time on camera about what really happened that final day.

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it was lunchtime at this chick-fil-a in southern california. the last known place joseph mcstay was seen alive. >> we to the together. we had a lot to talk about. >> chase merit has never talked on camera before about that day. he met with joseph on february 4, 2010, to talk business, and business was booming. >> we had 500 waterfalls coming up. that would be the biggest project we had ever done. >> so it sounded like he was planning for the future. >> he was deaf fatly planning for the future. >> after lunch, they spoke on the phone a handful more of

times. when the phone rang at 8:00 p.m. and he saw it was joseph calling, he didn't answer. >> i was tired. >> do you regret not picking up that call? >> hindsight is 20/20. >> it was the last known call from joseph's cell phone. the call was made 41 minutes after a neighbor's security camera captured the mcstay's vehicle pulling out of the mcstay's cul-de-sac. >> did joseph actually make that call from his phone or did somebody else take joseph's phone and make that call or was he trying to call for help? >> that missed call is now a missed opportunity. the first of many missed opportunities. >> the next day i called him he didn't answer. i started getting concerned by the end of the second day. >> i put the initial word out to

his friends and family that he had not been communicating on line or via phone and i couldn't get ahold of summer either. >> dan cavanaugh, who managed joseph's company's website, contacted patrick. >> my gut instinct was not really a good one. >> patrick called his younger son michael who lived near joseph. >> i need you to go down and check on your brother. again, i get, i'm too busy. >> i didn't want to overreact. we thought that maybe they did a little ten-day vaca. >> let me tell you something, if i could have jumped through the phone on the 9th, i would have. >> a potentially devastating delay. >> the first few hours are so critical. the first few minutes of that missing family, the beginning of someone trying to commit a crime against you, that's the only chance you have to get out.

>> finally on february 10, six days since the family went missing, law enforcement was notified. >> they don't go into the house, they only checked outside the house. at that point, they thought there was nothing suspicious. >> but that didn't stop chase merit. he decided to check things out for himself. >> i didn't see anything suspicious. >> did it surprise you that the dogs were outside? >> very much so. so much so that i called joseph's mother, susan. >> my mom said chase just left her, he drove by joe's choice. i'm talking with chase every day. i felt like i had eyeballs on the house. >> then on february 13th, nine days had past and still no word from the mcstays. that's when michael decided he needed to drive to his brother's house himself.

chase met him there and together they climbed through an unlocked window. they found the house in utter disarray, rotten food on the counter, clother thrown all over the place. >> i told michael at the time, you should probably call the sheriff's department. and his response was simply, you know what? let's wait until the end of the weekend. >> san diego sheriff, they have a rule any way. after ten days it's automatically they send out homicide. >> would you have reported them missing and gotten police action before those ten days? >> i don't know. maybe. >> monday, february 15th. 11 days after the family went missing, michael called the sheriff's department, who came to the house to investigate. they immediately alerted homicide. then investigators did something patrick mcstay finds unbelievable. >> they don't put any tape, any

crime scene tape on, nothing. they just locked the house back up and leave to get warrants. >> it doesn't make any sense to me. i think you've got a family that's missing for a week and they're still not going to call it a crime scene? >> it took san diego investigators four days to obtain the they needed to complete a search of the home. but during those four days, the mcstay's home remained unsealed. which allowed joseph's mother, brother, and friend access in and out of the house. >> i wouldn't go in there unless i called the sheriff's department and they said i could. i cleaned up the kitchen because it was disgusting and the trash can from diapers sitting there all that time, you know. it was terrible, terrible smell lgs. >> she was cleaning and we were

looking for bank statements. i think she was just reaching for evidence. >> wasn't it a crime scene? >> no, it was not deemed a crime scene, because there was no sign of forced entry. there was no signs of foul play at the house. >> michael says investigators gave them the okay to remove some items from the home. >> with their permission, i grabbed his computer, what would be joey's computer, and the sd card. i got the pictures off, i got that download. then i had to put that back prior to them issuing the warrant. >> back in texas, patrick could hardly believe what's going on. >> the first time i'm thinking is, you're going to destroy evidence. i was just stunned. >> certain items that might have been really key to the big mystery of why they left that house are gone.

touched, moved, cleaned up. it's ridiculous! >> and as you'll see, more road blocks will soon hamper the investigation. coming up, mysterious surveillance footage. and a trail of clues that lead investigators in the wrong direction. i live in a luxury penthouse overlooking central park. when the guests arrive, they're greeted by my butler, larry. my helipad is being re-surfaced so tonight we travel by more humble means. at my country club, we play parlor games with members of the royal family. yes i am rich. that's why i drink the champagne of beers.

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there's the house. >> this is the house? >> november 2009, just months before they vanished, the mcstays moved into a new house. >> there's the entrance. >> it was a new beginning. >> hi, you like all this big room in here? >> for them to be able to run and play outside, it was perfect. >> but by february 15, 2010, that once perfect house was now shrouded in mystery. the mcstay family was still missing, and so was their trunk. detectives send out a be on the

lookout bulletin. what did they diskover? >> instantly they get a hit on the truck. it's been impounded from a shopping mall near the mexican border. >> detectives say that four days after the mcstays disappeared, their white trooper was parked and subsequently towed from a parking lot steps away from the mexican border. >> there was nothing in that car to indicate that anything bad had happened. >> no apparent foul play. investigators and loved ones had to consider the possibility. did the mcstays park their car at the border and then vanish into mexico? >> in my mind, we started shifting gears. okay, they're in mexico. >> i just thought, well, maybe they took off. >> it still wasn't adding up. >> summer was afraid of mexico.

would summer take her two children in there? heck no! >> but the truck wasn't the only evidence leading investigators south of the border. soon after they found the vehicle, detectives uncovered another clue. a search on the mcstay's home computer from a week before they disappeared. >> somebody at the mcstay home had searched for getting passports to mexico. >> then just weeks later, what appeared to be a major break in the case. >> authorities are poring over security tapes. >> new video could show the family crossing the mexican border. is it the mcstays? >> this surveillance footage showing what appeared to be a family of four crossing on foot into mexico on february 8. the very same night the mcstay's trooper was found near the border.

>> we're getting a story, we found the car at the border and we got a family walking across the border. so they may have left voluntarily. >> while detectives pursued that theory, those that knew the mcstas insisted those people in that individual were not the mcstays. >> i said right up front, the first time i saw it,'9" wasn't them. >> so they're meeting with detectives. >> fearful detectives were chasing dead end clues, patrick called tim miller, a fellow texan, who he hoped could refocus the search for his family. >> patrick sounded pretty distraught. >> miller founded the nonprofit search and rescue organization texas equusearch. he traveled to california weeks after the family disappeared. >> it was basically a recon trip

to look at the area, kind of map things out. >> miller needed some help, so he called investigative journalist steph watts. the two had worked together on previous cases. their first stop, inside the mcstay home. joseph's brother michael let them in. >> i thought we were going to get in trouble for interfering in a police investigation, for contaminating some evidence. but michael said, no problem, you can be here. >> the detective just told me this is not a crime scene and i can do whatever i want to. >> it baffled me that this was not a crime scene. it baffled me that they even left me in there. >> there's no clues here, is there this >> no. >> though miller and watts failed to find any evidence of foul play, what they did find suggested the mcstays never planned to run away.

>> they don't go anywhere without their double stroller. >> this is really significant. they would never leave the house on a planned trip. they would never go anywhere without the baby stroller for an extended period of time. >> miller and watts left the house that day more convinced than ever that something is very bad had happened to the mcstays. so the following day, they drove to the border, looking for areas along the way that appeared suspicious. >> i was really focused on the ride down there. i'm looking at everything where somebody could pull off and dump something. >> we retrace that same drive with miller. >> when you look at such a vast area, did you realize what a challenge you had. >> i told michael, we've got a real challenge. it's only going to be a miracle.

>> but that miracle never happened. miller called off his plans for a ground search the moment detectives showed him that grainy surveillance video. video that convinced him and watts the mcstays may have disappeared on purpose. so you thought it was them on the 1ri8dio? >> yeah, sure did. >> it looked like them to you? >> yeah. >> as a journalist at the time, i had to consider it. particularly because law enforcement was so add mant. >> we had a strong reason to believe they traveled to mexico. >> jan caldwell is with the sheriff's department. >> somebody else down there brought them cocktails and we did have the sightings. were they still there? we didn't know. >> and as more time went by, detectives say the leads dried up and the case went cold. >> it's almost impossible to

work a case without information flowing in. >> with every passing day, the case grew colder and colder. weeks, months, eventually years past with no news. the san diego sheriff eventually handed the case over to the fbi in april of 2013. but still no answers. >> there's some real problems. there's some things that were really missed. up next, the mystery only deepens. a tragic discovery in the mohave desert.

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911 emergency, what are you reporting? >> i found what looks like part of a human skull. >> the call came in at 9:58 a.m., november 11, 2013. a motorcyclist off-roading in

the mohave desert. >> what's the location? [ inaudible ] >> so you're in victorville? >> yes, yes. >> a remote area. 100 miles north of the mcstay home, and over 150 miles from the mexico border. >> it's not an area where we would generally patrol. >> the local sheriff's department found two shallow graves and four skeletons. >> through the use of dental records, we were able to identify the adult victims as summer and joseph mcstay. we believe the other two settles of remains are that of the boys, their sons. >> it gives us courage to know that they're together. >> just days later, we went with michael mcstay to the desert.

>> i had to come out here, for me. this is just something that i had to do because we're going to find out who did this. >> who did it? who is so cold blooded that they killed children? >> a cold blooded murder, but now there might be evidence that could finally lead to answers. >> now we have a scene. >> we met jan caldwell of the san diego sheriff's department just days after the remains were discovered. >> hopefully now that we have a scene, that's going to tell us the answers to this mystery. >> a mystery, once considered a missing person's case, now officially a murder investigation. >> the manner of death has been determined to be homicide. >> almost four years since the disappearance. grieving family and friends criticize law enforcement for overlooking evidence that might have helped them find the

mcstays sooner. >> could have hired some boy scouts and done a better job. >> allegations we put to the san diego sheriff's temperature in one of the rare interviews they gave on the case. >> these are the files. >> this would include information on bank accounts, business associates, everything. >> this is an incredibly thorough investigation. thumbing through it, i see phone records, communications, to have done all this, to compile this kind of a massive file and still not know the answer, enormously frustrating. >> it's a slap in the face to the family that they put all their eggs in one basket. >> they believe the law enforcement was so convinced their family went to mexico, they were looking in the wrong direction. >> why would they not drive over

the border to enjoy a day in mexico? why would they walk over the border in the dark at night when there's really nothing on the other side at that time of night to do with small children? >> consider the timing. according to the sheriff, the empty mcstay vehicle was found between 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the mall. yet the surveillance video at the border is time stamped 7:00 p.m. >> tell me something, where were they for an hour and a half? with all these cameras in the parking lot, in the mall stores, and on top of the bank right in front of where the vehicle was parked, there's no video. >> of them. >> of them, anything. no video period, any of it. that's amazing. >> whoever put that car there fooled us all. it's exact hill what they wanted us to believe. park it close to the border and

believe they went to mexico. >> they didn't come to mexico, get murdered in mexico, and then go 300 miles away and bury them in mexico. it's easy to dispose of things in mexico that's never found. >> do you think they went to mexico at all and came back and this happened? >> no. you drive to the border, you go across the border. something happens across the border. how did you get them back? and there's absolutely no record of them ever crossing back into the u.s. you don't get checked going out, but coming back you do. >> even days after the bodies were found, san diego sheriff's department stood by their belief that the mcstays went mexico. >> we think there's a strong possibility they crossed into mexico. >> on november 15, 2013, the san bernardino sheriff, law enforcement for the county where

the remains were found, took over the investigation. >> the first step is getting up to speed on what was done in san diego. it was nearly 3,000 pages of typed material. >> and that wouldn't be their only challenge. >> the other big hurdle for us will be the amount of time that the bodies were in those graves. some of the evidence that may have been present initially may be gone just because of animal activity or just the elements. >> despite that, patrick mcstay still hopes to find answers. >> i'll give san bernardino all the opportunities in the world to solve this case. >> he's been in contact with the new investigative team to find out who did this and why. >> it has to be somebody that hated them for a reason. some crazy reason. so that person killed them all.

>> searching for suspects and a motive, inside the investigation when we come back. co: sometimes you don't know you need a hotel room until you're sure you do. bartender: thanks, captain obvious. co: which is why i put the hotels.com mobile app on my mobile phone. hotels.com i don't need it right now.

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>> >> this is the first time patrick mcstay has seen the shallow graves where his family was buried. >> when we hit the dirt off the pavement -- >> yeah. >> -- first thoughts in my head, was what were they thinking coming up that road?

they had to know it wasn't good. >> yeah. >> and that's -- that's the part that i don't want to think about. i miss you, son. >> all he can think about, how his family was killed and who did it. >> it's awfully hard to imagine somebody just out of nowhere, pulling off the road and coming here and finding this -- >> finding this place. >> yeah, yeah. to me, they had to know where they were going. >> there was more than one person involved in this case, because not one person dragged four people out to the desert and buried them single handedly. the only way this case is going to get cracked is if somebody talks. i think police should be looking at everybody. a lot of people have interesting paths this this story. >> have you ruled anybody out?

>> we have not ruled anybody out at this point. >> even family. >> this is a homicide investigation. they questioned everybody. >> like joseph's brother, michael mcstay. were you ever questioned? >> yashgs i've always been -- they took me to the police station just recently, too. >> michael says he told them everything. including why in the early weeks after joseph disappeared he withdrew money from his brother's bank account. and even sold off some of joseph's property, all before he knew his brother was dead. >> well, i figured at that point the house was going into foreclosure because it wasn't being paid, so i thought the best thing i could do is liquidate some things and give them the money. let me just say, i'm going to cut to the chase, i didn't do it. i'm his brother. i don't want his business.

>> a very valuable business. some say was worth more than $1 million. something dan cavanaugh knew all too well. remember him? he worked for joseph managing the company's website. he called and e-mailed patrick on february 9, worried about joseph. yet as early as february 6, cavanaugh started withdrawing money from joseph's business bank accounts. >> why are you taking money from somebody that you don't know is not coming back unless you know he's not coming back? >> cavanaugh insists he had approval to access the funds while joseph was still missing. >> i actual liquly corresponded his family about that, and said we need a couple of gs or we're going to lose everything. they're like, do what you need to do.

>> but cavanaugh didn't stop there. by summer 2011 when joseph was still missing, cavanaugh had sold joseph's business to an outside company. >> they weren't really looking to give me huge amounts of money, but they were like, we'll just come in, pay off whatever debts and things that the company has incurred and bring it current, and then you'll barely get paid any money. >> patrick was enraged when he found out. >> he owned nothing of anything. >> we shared ownership from the beginning, starting the company 50-50. we basically had a little bit of a gentleman's agreement. though the money trail led straight to cavanaugh, he's maintained his alibi and innocence. >> no involvement and no knowledge of who might have done it. i was in hawaii for over a month before he disappeared.

>> and the evidence we uncovered seems to indicate that cavanaugh was in hawaii around the initial days of the mcstay's disappearance. so what, aside from money, could be a motive? some have pointed to those marital problems between joseph and summer. >> i think joseph was a little bit concerned about possible affairs, or a possible affair that summer may be having. >> could this have been a crime of passion? a lover scorned? so many theories. so many questions. yet so few answers. especially why would someone kill two little boys? >> the only answer that i can come to, is because they would have been able to identify somebody. even a 2-year-old would be able to possibly say that's the man who murdered my mommy, that's the man who murdered my daddy. or it was straightly out of

absolute hatred for that family. >> answers could come from this barren desert. where the keys to unlocking this mystery could be buried in the sand. >> there was certainly evidence found in an around the grave sites, but we're not prepared to talk about it. >> are you confident that you can find who killed them? >> it's certainly my point that we'll be able to solve this and bring the suspect or suspects to justice. >> and despite the lack of answers, patrick mcstay still has faith. >> it's like a play. the first act has just ended. we've got three more acts to go. >> but those acts have yet to be written. for now, patrick waits and hopes. hoping for clues to solve these murders.

hopes for justice, at last for his family. mexico is a country where every day people fight to live. all too often, they lose that battle. a magnificent, heartbreakingly beautiful country, the music and food, and a uniquely mexican, darkly funny, deeply felt world view. right down there, cuddled up beneath us, our brother from