a® helps keep my skin clearer. ask your doctor about stelara®. first bike ride ever. >> five years ago, the mcstay family mysteriously vanished. >> 10:39 a.m. that morning i spoke to julie on the phone. everything was fine. >> immediately, i felt like something terrible happened to them. >> 9-1-1 emergency. >> with few clues, no answers, the case grown cold until the mystery turned out to be murder.

>> it's everything that we know, that they were brutally murdered. >> a year ago, we talked exclusively to chase merritt. and then a concerned mcstay family friend. >> joseph was my best friend. he was incredible. >> now charged with killing them all. >> this is a cold and callous murder of an entire family. >> follow our investigation, the evidence, the arrest, the accused. >> i have a past. >> in his own words. >> you were the last person he saw? >> i was definitely the last person he saw. >> chasing a killer. inside the mcstay family murders. sunny southern california. the beaches, the surf, the

stunning pacific sunsets. >> yep, another beautiful day in paradise. southern california. >> there's mama again. >> a magical place to many including newly woods joseph and -- includes including newlyweds who called this beach side community home. >> we live down by the pier. paradise. >> in 2007, the mcstays and their two young sons, gia knee gee any and joey jr appeared to have it all. >> i'm having so much fun. >> love, family, and a promising new business. >> it's all julie ever wanted to be, an entrepreneur and work for himself. >> a dream that became a reality said his father, patrick, while -- joseph got an idea while running a gift shop. >> he called me one day and he said, dad, i'm selling these fountains for $224 a piece. said, dad, i can do better.

okay, $224, how much it cost you to make it? he said, $22. i said, you're kidding me. he said, i'm going to start making them in the garage, dad. he did. he sold 30 a month and it just took off from there. he's like, check this out. maybe we should try to build a site for these water fountains. >> dan caff gnaw build a website for water company, earth inspired products, or eip. >> what was originally a tiny start-up operation making nothing was eventually a successful online business. >> so successful, online orders began pouring in. >> i was his customer sales rep. >> gina watson worked for water fall manufacturer in florida. >> anytime he needed a real fancy custom job done or, you know, quote request for one, we'd work together on it, so i got to know him throughout the years. >> tell me what you thought of him.

what was he like. >> well, personally, very nice guy. generous, not easy to anger and professionally, very good with customers. knew his stuff. >> joseph also knew how to spot talent and he believed he'd found it in welder chase merritt. >> joseph owned his own business. and i owned mine. i manufactured custom indoor waterfalls, and he bought the waterfalls from me. >> this waterfall, i'm under the understanding that you're going to have a designated switch. >> we anticipate a million and a half in sales for 2010. >> while they met through business, the two quickly became close friends. >> we talked constantly. we played paint ball together all the time. he came down and had dinner with me and my family once or twice a

week, virtually every week. joseph was my best friend. >> how was he to work with? >> oh, man. he was incredible. joseph was probably one of the nicest people i have ever met. he'd give you the shirt off his back. he was just a nice guy. >> so nice, joseph soon began lending chase money. when chase started having trouble making ends meet. >> they had an excel spread sheet and it maintained the balance of what chase owed joe and chase would be like, oh, i need three more grand for my rent. and joe's like, you haven't finished the fountain yet. and he's like, don't worry, loan me the three gs and the next fountain, take it out of that.

over 20 grand. and it was just this like rolling ledger. >> chase's debt kept climbing creating big problems for joseph's business. >> joseph would take the hit if they had a chargeback or somebody had a problem with the work. he already paid chase part of it and only hurt joseph and i think totalled about $100,000 worth of mistakes chase owed him for. while chase insisted his debt to joseph was never that high, gina grew more concerned that chase was bad news. >> i did raise concerns about chase that he would use materials that were cheaper or sometimes he would leave somebody high and dry without the fountain or without fixing it. and joseph really felt he could control that aspect of chase. he didn't seem to have any concerns at the time. >> no, he really kind of blew me off. >> joseph's wife summer was no fan of chase's either. >> i know he wasn't fond of her and she wasn't fond of him. >> joseph loved her to death. you know, he thought she walked on water. honestly, i thought she was egotistical.

i thought she thought her didn't stink and joseph could do better. >> but joseph and summer were committed to a life together with their two boys and that meant moving out of their cramped apartment. >> they had been looking for houses for several years. >> thanksgiving weekend 2009, the mcstays finally purchased a new home outside san diego in fallbrook, california. chase merritt helped them move in. >> is this the house? >> with a brand new home and a booming new business, 2010 looked to be a promising new year for the mcstays. until suddenly the unimaginable happened. february 4th, 2010, the entire mcstay family vanished. >> i just knew. something told me i wasn't going

to see him again. >> up next, what happened the day the mcstays disappeared. you were the last person he saw. >> i'm definitely the last person he saw. let's see. the paste didn't seem to do much for me. the whitestrips made a huge difference. that's not fair! crest whitestrips work below the enamel surface to whiten 25 times better than the leading whitening toothpaste. crest whitestrips. the way to whiten the beautiful sound of customers making the most of their united flight. power, wi-fi and streaming entertainment. that's... seize the journey friendly.

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the nightmare that lay ahead. >> oh, you got to see these. >> summer, a stay at home mom, was taking care of the kids. while joseph was taking care of business. >> customer service department and shipping had gotten a call from him on february 4th. just checking on an order. >> the morning of the 4th, i spoke to joey on the phone. >> he didn't let on anything was wrong? >> no, everything was fine. >> in fact, better than fine. joseph had just received a big paycheck for one of his fountains. $16,000. >> he was going to go to the bank and deposit a check. there was a branch on cucamonga. by where chase lived. >> we got together, we had a lot to talk about. >> chase merritt met joseph for lunch at chick-fil-a.

>> we discussed, you know, more business that was going to be going on throughout the year. >> so he sounded like he was planning for the future. >> he was definitely planning for the future. >> it was the last known place joseph mcstay went that day. and chase merritt is certainly -- is certain, he was the last person to see him. >> i'm definitely the last person he saw. >> what time did joey leave lunch? >> exactly what time, i don't remember. i mean, i wish i did, but it was just, you know, fairly blurry. >> chase does remember the handful of calls he said he had with joseph after that lunch. the last call came at 8:28 p.m., according to joseph's cell phone records. >> i don't personally remember that phone call. the fact is, i actually had to ask my girlfriend and she said, yeah. you picked it up and looked at

it and decided not to answer it. >> have you thought about or speculated what it might have been, was he in trouble? >> and that's why it's a regret because there's a hundred different scenarios that could have been. >> chase says he tried to reach joseph the next morning. >> i had left a few messages and then the voicemail ended up being full. that's when i got really concerned. >> 1,500 miles away in houston, patrick mcstay was frantic. he usually spoke to his son every day. >> i'm worried, what happened, is somebody hurt? you know, did they go on a trip? >> six days would pass with no sign of the mcstays and then on february 10th, chase merritt said he went to check their home for the first time. >> he wasn't there.

his truck was in the driveway. dogs were in the backyard with no food, no water. i walked around the house. i didn't see anything suspicious. >> did it surprise you that the dogs were outside? >> very much so. so much so that i called susan, joseph's mother and tolder -- and told her there's something amiss. >> i said, go down, the dogs are there, move the dog bowls, the food and the water and then we can see if maybe they hired someone to feed the animals. well, then go back two days later and could tell the bowls were moved, obviously fed. so this is why we thought they were out of town. >> finally, eight days after anyone had heard from joseph, michael mcstay went to his brother's house with chase. who knew exactly how to get inside the locked home.

>> joey had pretty serious allergies so he always kept his window open, always. >> they found a mess, rotten food on the counter. popcorn on the futon. clothes tossed all over the place. >> i don't remember a great deal of it because i was in the house for maybe three minutes, i think. not very long. i told michael at the time, you should probably call the sheriff's department. his response was simply, you know what? let's wait until the end of the weekend. san diego's sheriff, they have a rule anyway. after 10 days, it's automatically, they send out homicide. >> could you have reported them missing and gotten police action before the ten days? >> i don't know. i don't know. maybe. >> it would take until monday, february 15th, 11 days after the family went missing for michael

to call the sheriff's department. investigators came to the house. immediately alerted homicide. but chose not to seal off the scene. >> they don't put any tape, crime scene tape, notices on the door, nothing. they just lock the house back up and they leave to get warrants. >> you've got a family that's missing for a week and they're still not going to call it a crime scene? it was mistakenly not a crime scene. >> this investigative journalist said he's never seen a case like this one. it took san diego investigators three days to get the warrants. three days where anyone could come and go. >> detectives just told me this is not a crime scene and i can do whatever i want. >> certain items that might have been really key to the big mystery of why they left the house are gone.

touched, moved, cleaned up. it's ridiculous. >> clues and evidence disappeared from the house, just like the family of four who once called it home. coming up, the first break in this case comes in an unlikely place. 60 miles south of the mcstay home. (mom) when our little girl was born, we got a subaru. it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) the 2015 subaru forester (girl) what? (announcer) built to be there for your family. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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i. >> i know how this works. >> you're a master cappuccino maker. >> come here, mommy! >> after the mcstay family disappeared, their california house once filled with life now seemed frozen in time. a paper in the driveway, shoes by the front door. >> i feel bad i didn't notice anything. >> i'm shocked. i hope everything's okay. >> on february 8th, 60 miles south, police impounded a white isuzu trooper near the mexican border. >> it's towed from a parking lot as abandoned. >> on the 15th, police realized the trooper belonged to the mcstays. >> there was nothing in that car to indicate that anything bad had happened. there was no blood splatter, no damage to the vehicle. >> and no indication why it was

abandoned within walking distance of the border crossing. then came evidence from a search of the mcstays home computer. >> somebody in the mcstay was searching on the computer for passports and traveling to mexico. >> in my mind, we shifted gears. okay, they're in cabo or they're in mexico? >> when san diego detectives focused their search on the mexico border, they found what seemed to be the biggest piece of evidence to date. >> tonight, where are the mcstays? >> authorities pouring over security tapes from bordered -- border checkpoints. >> a grainy surveillance tape showed a family of four walking across the border on february 8 around 7:00 p.m., the same day the car was impounded. investigators believed it could well have been the missing mcstay family. >> we had a strong reason to believe they had traveled to mexico. jan caldwell is the

spokesperson for the san diego sheriffs department. >> we had the guy in mexico who thought he had served him. somebody brought them cocktails and we did have sightings. >> while detectives pursued that theory, those who knew the mcstays insisted they were wrong. >> joseph had a very distinct walk, number one. he walked like a duck. and the man walking across the border was walking normally. >> did it look like summer or the kids? >> i told the detectives i didn't believe it was them. >> you've got one camera angle of the family crossing the border but there's cameras all over the parking lots. how come not one camera down there picked them up anywhere walking in the parking lots or across to the border? come on now. >> fearful that the sheriff's department was putting all their eggs in the wrong basket, patrick teamed up with an old friend of joseph's. gina watson. >> it became, i would say almost an obsession of looking for

information. >> they quickly became seasoned investigators, scouring the internet, tracking down leads. evidence that gina believed poked holes in the theory that the family voluntarily went to mexico. and there was more. >> like all of their craig's list purchases, if a family was planning to disappear, why were they buying so much on craig's list? countertops, microwaves, things for the new house, going on all the way up to the disappearance. >> and then there's this. >> hey, don't go anywhere without the double stroller. >> what would be the need to walk across the border, why not just bring your car, what would be the need to go at that time of night? >> did you ever believe they disappeared intentionally on their own. >> no immediately i felt like something terrible happened to them. >> but what and by whom? >> what's up, dudes? >> early on, friend and business associate chase merritt was top

of the list. >> detectives are taking a close look at joseph mcstay's business relationships. >> he spoke to us in his only television interview. >> well, i was the last person who saw him, so of course i was a person of interest. >> did detectives ask you if you killed joseph mcstay and his family? >> i don't recall them asking me that. >> nothing that direct? not directly? >> no. i don't recall them being that direct. >> you took a polygraph test. what did it show? >> i don't know. >> you passed the polygraph? >> apparently. i kind of simply assumed. well, apparently, that resolved any issues they may be looking at with me. >> it didn't resolve anything for gina and patrick. they still had their eyes on chase. >> this was one of the first things that i had put together. just simple everything that i could gather on chase. this was about the point where

they couldn't get ahold of him again. the police wanted to talk to him again and they couldn't. >> i had contact with him in may of 2010. and then he disappeared. >> when chase resurfaced months later, patrick made sure to stay in touch. >> i wanted to keep that contact with him. what's the old saying? keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer. >> patrick and gina kept digging. but for the san diego sheriff's department, the case had gone cold. >> it's almost impossible to work a case without information flowing in. >> no leads, no answers to what happened to this loving, happy family of four. but that changed on november 11, 2013. >> 9-1-1 emergency, what are you reporting? >> two shallow graves unearthed in the mojave desert.

>> i found what looks like part of a human skull. >> through the use of dental records, we're able to identify the adult victims as summer and joseph mcstay. we believe the other two sets of remains are that of the boys, their sons. >> when we come back, this new crime scene brings them closer to finding a suspect.

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for four years, patrick mcstay knew only that his family had vanished. this is where they were finally found. >> i have to see it and experience it. >> seeing it, patrick says, is crucial to catching the killer. >> it's awfully hard to imagine somebody just out of nowhere pulling off the road and coming here and finding this. >> finding this place. >> just, yeah. >> do you think it was somebody who knew the area? >> i think they had to.

>> it's not an area where we would generally patrol. it is somewhat remote. >> san bernardino sheriff john mcmahon took over this case when the remains were found and spoke only to cnn. >> it's somewhat unusual to find four bodies in two shallow graves right next to one another and this one is especially rare because it's a mother, father, and two children. >> these graves would be the key to reigniting the cold case and unraveling the mystery. san bernardino district attorney, michael ramos. >> that was a huge break because up until that time, there was really no evidence of a murder. >> now, there were more than 100 new pieces of evidence. like tire tracks nearby and clothing in the graves. >> you're going to look and pick up anything that's anywhere near the desert that could tie an individual to it, tie a vehicle

to the location, perhaps a murder weapon. >> finding the remains and the new evidence meant learning the cause of death, blunt force trauma. >> they were brutally murdered. a horrible cold callous murder. i pray that the suffering wasn't prolonged. >> there is a chance they did suffer, just so i'm clear, even with a one strike blunt force trauma. >> there is a chance, yes. >> would it have taken some time to die? >> yes, yes. >> from the start, san bernardino detectives say they had their eyes on chase merritt. the same chase merritt who began working with joseph mcstay years before. >> hi, welcome to your how-to video of installing your new water feature. >> back then, chase merritt was widely known as a friendly and

talented welder whose laid back cowboy demeanor earned the trust of many, including his new business associate, joseph mcstay. >> i remember my first conversation with joey about chase merritt and he said, dad, you got to meet chase. you'll like him. >> many people did. >> when you first met him though, what were your first impressions of him? >> extremely friendly. you know, very outgoing. >> this is where chase and i dug -- >> jerry smith, a recreational gold prospector met chase in august of 2014. he asked us not to use his real name for his protection. jerry met chase through his new career, gold mining. >> my wife and i purchased a machine called the dry washer and there was a broken part, so i contacted the manufacturer and the manufacturer got me in touch with chase.

>> after chase fixed his gear, jerry and his wife went gold prospecting with chase a handful of times in the high desert. >> he said, i know those areas like the back of my hand. >> but jerry says the chase merritt who showed up the last time they met was noticeably different from the friendly cowboy he had come to know. >> well, we were standing there. chase says to me, you probably know who i am. and i refer back to him, well, i said, not really because we just met you four or five weeks ago. and well, have you ever heard of the mcstay family? >> a family of four vanishes. >> jerry remembered hearing about the mcstays on the news but no clue that chase had any connection to them. >> he said he was joey's best friend and his business partner. he didn't seem sad at all

talking about it. he was almost kind of cold. and he also went on to talk about his wife summer, he called her an f 'ing bitch a couple of times. more he talked about it, the more uneasy i got. >> jerry's unease only got worse when chase insisted they hike here, to an even more secluded area. >> what was your gut telling you that day? >> i was getting spooked. hair standing up on my body. >> jerry quickly hiked back to his wife, packed up his $10,000 worth of prospecting gear and headed out of the desert. the next day, jerry decided he needed to tell someone what had happened. >> i made contact with sheriff's department homicide. >> what was their response? >> his response to me was he appreciated us calling and said it helps us build a character of somebody.

>> little did jerry know that authorities already believe that chase merritt murdered the mcstays. weeks later, they made the announcement. >> charles "chase" merritt was identified as the suspect for the death of joseph, summer, gianni, and joseph mcstay. >> up next, how investigators finally cracked the case. >> we knew where mr. merritt was on a daily basis for the last year. ♪ ♪

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less than a year ago, i made a promise to the family that our department would do everything in our power to solve this case. charles merritt was arrested on wednesday, november 5th, without incident. >> nearly five years after the mcstays vanished, 57-year-old charles "chase" merritt was arrested and charged for brutally killing his friend, joseph mcstay, joseph's wife summer and their two little boys, gianni and joey jr. >> although we can never bring them back, i hope this provides some level of closure. >> a lot of people say it's like lifting a ton off your shoulders. no, to me, it was more like a boulder falling on me. >> patrick mcstay's heartbreak was made even worse by the news,

because like his son joseph, he had once put his trust in chase merritt. >> i was fooled like a lot of people at first. when i first talked to chase on the phone and the first words out of chase's mouth was joey talks about you, he talks about his dad all the time. >> but as the months passed with no sign of joseph or his family, he grew suspicious when patrick and gina watson began investigating, they learned that chase has a criminal record stretching back nearly 40 years. >> mr. merritt had some prior felony convictions, spent some time in state prison. >> but while chase's record shows no sign of violence, district attorney michael ramos says his past is very telling. >> it's not uncommon for somebody to take that step from a non-serious, non-violent felony to one of the worst crimes that we know of, murder. >> patrick and gina also uncovered a disturbing

inconsistency, about that last lunch with joseph. the day he disappeared. this is what chase told us in his only television interview back in january of 2014. >> at lunch that day, he -- on the day he disappeared, he didn't express anything that was concerning or anything that he was worried about? >> no, no. no, he seemed happy. >> but chase told patrick something else entirely different when the two spoke months earlier. gina kept notes about their conversation. this is what he said the lunch was about. that they had fought on february 4th at lunch, but they worked it out. joseph was mad that the fountain was damaged with a large chargeback and wanted it fixed or else chase wanted some -- or

else joseph wanted some money back and chase already spent the money. >> in fact, joseph had told his father that he had grown increasingly unhappy with chase's work. >> the last year, joey talked about the quality of the fountains had slipped. joey wasn't happy with that. >> blaming chase at that point. >> yes, absolutely. he was getting complaints. >> so many complaints, joseph was questioning if chase should be part of his business at all. >> joey discussed with me about getting another welder. >> cutting chase out? >> not virtually cutting him out. giving him some competition. >> that competition, patrick says, could explain if chase did it, why he killed an innocent family. >> i guess the bottom line to me is money. >> i can't tell you what the motive is at this point in time. >> could it be money? >> i can say they were business associates.

>> but ramos will say his team of investigators were suspicious of chase since the mcstays remains were first discovered. >> we knew where mr. merritt was on a daily basis. for the last year. >> watching him closely? >> watching him closely. >> and the more they watched, the more red flags came up. >> we know there have been many inconsistencies, not only with the interviews with the sheriff's department and within our criminal investigation, but with whoever he talked to. his story is all over the place. >> including his story about that last phone call from joseph's phone. the one chase told us he didn't answer. >> i don't personally remember that phone call. >> but that's not what chase told patrick. >> patrick asked what the last conversation was b meaning 8:28 that phone call. he said it was a quick summing

up with a copper fountain that needed fixing. so he told you he answered that call and they talked? >> yes, this is where one of the inconsistencies is. >> and there were plenty of other inconsistencies. >> would you ever expect this is how it would end in the desert like that? >> in the desert? i had no clue. >> mr. merritt was very familiar with the high desert in my county. >> i asked chase about that during our phone conversation and how odd for him, he said, to have to find all those years later they were found seven minutes from his sister's home. so, definitely a red flag. >> and then there's the mcstay house in fallbrook. >> investigators believe these murders occurred at their residence in fallbrook. >> murders that experts believe would have left extensive blood splatter. >> no clues here, is there? >> no. >> chase merritt told us he had been to the house several times before it was sealed off.

what does that tell you, anything? >> number one, we're sitting here, he had access. number two, if he was there after they went missing, he had plenty of opportunity to, hypothetically speaking, clean up. he had plenty of opportunity. >> and he had the opportunity to cast doubt away from himself. >> does it surprise you he would go to the house and be the one who showed such concern and alert them missing? >> no. we've always heard about individuals that go back to the scene of the crime. it's not something that is uncommon. it's also a form of defense in the future. >> but while authorities are confident they found their killer, for patrick mcstay, one nagging question remains unanswered. >> i mean, how he supposedly

loved my son, the question is, why did he do this to him? why to two little boys? i mean, he could have been known as uncle chase. >> when we come back, the prosecution's case against chase merritt. >> if this does go to trial, will you go? >> oh, absolutely. i want to look merritt in the face. caring for someone with alzheimer's means

i am a lot of things. i am his sunshine. i am his advocate. so i asked about adding once-daily namenda xr to his current treatment for moderate to severe alzheimer's. it works differently. when added to another alzheimer's treatment, it may improve overall function and cognition. and may slow the worsening of symptoms for a while. vo: namenda xr doesn't change how the disease progresses. it shouldn't be taken by anyone allergic to memantine, or who's had a bad reaction to namenda xr or its ingredients. before starting treatment, tell their doctor if they have, or ever had, a seizure disorder, difficulty passing urine, liver, kidney or bladder problems, and about medications they're taking. certain medications, changes in diet, or medical conditions may affect the amount of namenda xr in the body and may increase side effects. the most common side effects are headache, diarrhea, and dizziness. he's always been my everything. now i am giving back. ask their doctor about adding once-daily namenda xr.

this morning a major break in the case of the mcstay family. >> four murder charges against charles ray -- >> police are calling him a cold-blooded and callous killer. >> with those crimes, eligible for the death penalty. >> november 12th, 2018, chase merritt's first day in court. the first time he responds to the charges against him, not guilty. not surprising with what he told us a year early. in your gut, what do you think happened? >> i have absolutely no clue. >> words that patrick mcstay trusted for so long. >> i trusted him because my son

trusted him. >> reporter: and now he sees a different chase merritt. >> to me, he looked like a broken man, and he knew he was done. >> when the jury hears the evidence and we put it together for him, they will find him guilty. >> reporter: but could the case be that solid and one man could have done it all? >> he's the only person, the only suspect in this murder case. >> i was honestly a bit shocked, especially that it was one personal alone. >> i don't believe that. >> why not? >> just too much there. >> could one person kill a family of four, bury the bodies 100 miles north in the mojave desert, drop the car 250 miles south of the mexico border, could one person do all that and then return home to make it look like he was home that night to make it look like he took a call

from joseph mcstay? >> yes. we have the evidence to prove that, yes. >> how strong is that proof? how reliable is the evidence gathered at the mcstay house weeks after investigators say they were murdered there? >> tons of critical evidence could have been lost in those first 15 days. >> 15 days in which people were in and out of the house. >> so many things in there that could have been relevant to the case. investigative journalist s steph watts. >> we don't know if somebody in that house was related to or had knowledge of the crime could have removed items that could have been significant to solving this case. could have removed items that could have indicted them in this case. >> i don't think that you can seal a home for that long unless you are actually investigating a murder, and at that time, it wasn't. >> we know that the family members went in and out and susan mcstay went in and cleaned the counters. she couldn't stand the house was dirty, she went in and threw out dirty diapers. and mike mcstay took the video

card out much the laptop computer, and took it out, and how frustrating is that for you? >> if it is not an obvious murder investigation from to get-go, from the beginning, things like that are going to occur. >> reporter: things that could make chase merritt's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt challenging. and how will they show that chase, a close family friend, had motive strong enough to kill two little boys in cold blood? >> i mean, just unthinkable that anybody could hurt two children like that, and especially being a mom, myself. >> did it ever play into who you suspected? >> the only thing that i could think is that perhaps the two children knew the killer and that's why they had to be killed as well. >> a killer investigators believe knew exactly what he was doing. >> premeditated and deliberate, first-degree murder. we truly believe that. >> district attorney ramos

doesn't believe this is an open and shut case, though. >> i think the biggest obstacle in cold cases is time. because people forget, witnesses forget and the time frame in which what occurred and the evidence, that could be lost. >> but patrick has faith in ramos and san bernardino investigators, and he always has. >> they told me in the beginning, san bernardino, they would solve this case, they were committed to it. and i knew they would. >> god bless he and his family. it is usually a family member who keeps it alive, and keeps pushing, and something happened here, and something is not right. and it keeps it in the forefront, and it keeps it in everybody's minds. >> not only was she good at what she did, she knew joey. >> a man who has kept the memory of his son alive with the help of a woman he now calls his daughter. >> i have to say that the only person that i know in the whole

thing that i could ever trust is her. you know. and she never once turned her back on me or betrayed the trust, you know. >> that is nice. >> trust and friendship that patrick says he'll need as chase merritt goes on trial for murder, the murder of his loves ones, joseph, summer, gianni, and joey jr. >> if this does go to trial, will you go? >> yes. definitely. >> reporter: it is important to you? >> absolutely. i want to look him in the face. let me tell you what one of the detectives told me. he says, i know, patrick, i know that you would like to give me 15 minutes with him, but i can't. and i said, yep, you're right. >> what would you ask him? >> i wouldn't ask him anything. there would be one person coming out of that room.

>> a father consumed by anger and sadness, yet driven five years later, by love and devotion. >> why did i keep going? why did i fight? one word, joey. my son. i love him. and he loved me. and i know he was saying, you're doing the right thing, dad. i know you'll do it, dad. ♪ -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

s up next, a man is gunned down just after dawn. >> there was a bullet hole that was straight into the tile. >> his wife is killed, too. >> there were three people in the johnson house. >> two of them did not come out alive. >> no one thought the couple had any enemies. apparently, they had quite a few. >> that certainly was a mystery to us. >> i could describe him as a very cocky, arrogant, young man. >> and the crime scene told a story no one wanted to believe. >> the evidence was yelling and screaming. this is what happened.