Time may heal all wounds, but it does wreckage to memory. And this case is riddled with fickle, fallible memory. In his 2010 interview with San Diego investigators Chase Merritt exhibits two significant memory hiccups. 1) He can’t recall his home address 2) He can’t recall what he did on Monday, February 8 of that year. This interview took place within a few weeks of the the McStay family disappearing, so it was surprising how clear Chase’s memory was on certain matters, like business and money arrangements, and fuzzy on more mundane matters, like where he was on a Monday just a few weeks prior to the interview.

Old school Reid interrogation techniques and theories would have us believe that memory lapses are all indicative of deception-but what if we simply can’t recall something? Reid best practices now advises that cops fully investigate this type of seeming deception, prior to interrogating a suspect. This standard requires that the investigator fully vet the evidence first, to determine if the target is being deceptive, and if so, why. But back in the day, sometimes this momentary loss of memory would be enough to initiate a full on interrogation. And in 2014, this appears to be what happened to Chase.

The genesis of much of the “evidence” around Chase are his phone records–a full year of these records. And the analysis used was very old school. There was no acceptance by these investigators of individual personality quirks or nuance. Their approach was blunt, they saw no color spectrum of possible interpretation, everything was viewed in black and white.

This really presented a problem, it seems, for Chase, as his 2010 interview showed, he had a few issues with memory of events that were close in time, even in remembering his own home address-now he was being challenged to recall events based on where he was, when using his phone, at random times, four years later.

It seems reasonable that there would be gaps in this memory. This would be true for those with acute memory capabilities even, but add a tendency to forget, and the challenge is likely overwhelming. Add also to this, that Chase didn’t work a nine to five gig. He was an independent contractor, whose schedule constantly changed, depending on what projects he was working on.

But what should the bar be for the State to prove Chase was where investigators and prosecutors need to place him, in order to convict? My thought-a heck of a lot higher than the low, low standard that these investigators held themselves to.

There is a simple story of what Chase did in the few critical days around the McStay family disappearance, and I do believe Chase. February 4, 2010 after he met with Joseph McStay for lunch, he ran errands and returned home to his family, where he remained for the rest of the night. This is the night the McStay family was thought to be killed in their home, even though there was no blood spatter found, and the vehicle captured on a neighbor’s surveillance was proven to have been anyone’s vehicle, but Chase’s.

Chase’s phone records are a bit odd for that night, but he has an entire family who remember him being there with them and phone records based on cell tower antenna connections (as opposed to GPS/Wifi) are themselves not all that reliable. These records were not generated by cellular phone companies to find killers, they were designed to track usage, bill clients and monitor cellular phone coverage.

February 5th, Chase found out what was owed to Metro Sheet Metal, filled in one of the blank checks given to him by Joseph when they met for lunch on the 4th, and paid what was due. The reason the check hadn’t been filled out by Joseph is that the final amount owed was not known on the 4th and it would be Chase who was going to Metro on the 5th.

February 6th, Chase visits his sister at a time almost identical to when he’d visited her before, in July of 2009. His phone records support this visit to his sister’s Oro Grande home more than they support a quick venture to bury the bodies of his best friend and that friend’s family in the desert. And Chase had a number of places in Victorville he might have stopped at-the Denny’s for lunch or the 7/11 to pick up a drink for his sister, and his records reflect the possibility of these stops, as well.

Unfortunately he doesn’t remember. But why would he recall this with precision, four years later? These visits were quick and spontaneous.

February 7th, the State didn’t care where Chase was, so there is no documentation presented on that. No questions appear to have been asked.

February 8th! This day was a revelation for me regarding this case, because all along Chase had a great alibi. This was the day that investigators were convinced that Chase drove the McStay Trooper to a strip mall parking lot, adjacent to the San Ysidro border, and left it there. No. He didn’t do this. He dropped his daughter off at school early that morning then went to the warehouse he worked out of, waited until 10 for a delivery of glass and went home. But in 2010 he didn’t recall this, and so investigators, assuming he had no alibi for that morning, placed him on a road trip in the McStay family Trooper, never double checking to see if they had their facts straight.

It’s a really simple story of a working man, an artist, taking care of business as usual and spending time with family. A story that was complicated by a biased investigation and hiccups in memory. But never does this story support murder. Not even a little.