Warrant for Charles Ray Merritt cell phone.
SBSW 14 0630 Probable Cause Affidavit
(There was a warrant executed in December of 2013 for the cell phone records of Joey and Summer McStay, a copy of which was not published. A warrant for the McStay phone records was also issud in 2010)
Justice Delayed: Will the McStay murders ever be solved? Is Chase Merritt a killer or an innocent man on California's Death Row? 
Lurker & Anon, that’s interesting about the mail boxes. It does explain why the brother may not have thought there was anything wrong when he first entered the home on the (was it the 13th of feb?).
If he sees food for the dogs and there is no mail sitting around, the easy conclusion to reach is that the family had someone looking after the home. The brother may not have known that the mailboxes for Avocado Vista Lane were down the road from the home.
The other thing that is interesting about that article is if this guy Hasib is meeting Joey at the mailboxes, who knows who else Joey met…
And it seems that Summer was not as well known to this neighbor.
In the interview with the dad on Websleuths, the dad mentioned that Joey did most of the shopping, things like that because Summer didn’t like to. She may have been more of a stay-home person, preferring to interact with those close to her over being around strangers a lot.
Clue, I remember that too. That Summer was less social than Joey. She had a lot of friends, but Joey seemed like the kind of person who would just start talking to anyone. Summer may have had to get to know someone first.
And we know the brother didn’t have a key to the home. He’d have had no way to check on the mail, even if he was aware of the mailbox situation.
Good point.
Chase should have known how the mail worked, though. He was at the house a lot. Didn’t help build a shed and help them move. We know he was at the house the Saturday and Tuesday before the family went missing.
Lurk, do we really know that Merritt was at the home those days? How do we know this?
Also, was there an extra set of keys found in the home, or did they have to get a locksmith out there, I wonder? How did they eventually get into the mailbox, etc….I guess they could have asked the post office to let them into the mail.
But I wonder if they found keys for the home, or had to put in new locks.
I would have gotten new locks anyway. The killers had the keys to that home. Kind of gives you the chills.
They didn’t think the family had been killed then. No one has ever mentioned whether or not new locks were needed. But in terms of Chase being in the home, I think the McGyver guy mentioned Chase was in the home on Saturday. I don’t know where I read that.
I am guessing Chase was at Joeys on Tuesday because he got a handwritten check for 200 dollars on that Tuesday. He had to get that somehow. this wasn’t one of the checks he wrote for himself.
Here is the link to the next two warrants. I’m placing them together for obvious reasons:
https://mcstayfamilymurdersthetrial.com/sbsw-14-1293-1294/
Sleuth away!!!!
I want to continue the discussion on this warrant for anyone who has more thoughts, but I’m going to post the next two warrants now as well. And I’ll exlplain more about this on the next thread.
Lurk, thanks for the info about the mailboxes. I didn’t know that they had mail delivered down the street.
Back to this warrant. There’s not a whole lot to dicuss here. This is at the start of the investigation. It’s interesting that the intial version given my Merritt about the 8:28 call is used. This is before LE has had an opportunity to look closely at Merritt’s phone records. And Merritt is the last person to have admitted to seeing Joey. And Joey’s last attempted communication (or at least it could have been Joey) is to Merritt. Merritt would have to at the very least be ruled out.
If anyone looked at the Dateline program, The Girl with the Red Shoes, you know that that case was eventually solved by way of one phone call. The call from the mother of the victim to the killer at 9:01. Had the mother not made that call, that case might not have been solved.
I wonder if the 7:59pm check and the 8:28pm call from Joey’s cell phone, might end up being the clinchers in this case.
Won’t tell you where I read this cause itll make you mad, but there was a good question brought up. Why wasn’t there any mail in th McStay home when the sherriff whent in there?
The mail for that neighborhood didn’t get delivered to the homes, it went to mailboxes down the road. See the article.
http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20131115/fallbrook-neighbors-react-to-identification-of-mcstay-remains
“Hasib, however, said he had occasional interactions with the McStays. The people who live on Avocado Vista Lane get their mail from curbside mailboxes holding deliveries for multiple residences, so Hasib would occasionally exchange hi’s with Joseph there, and frequently saw Gianni and the younger Joseph playing outside.”
Thank you sir. That explains it.
Why did it take so long to pursue Merritt’s phone records? Unless SDSO asked him for a copy of his bill and he obliged, and it looked OK to them…
It’s one of the strange things about this case. Why didn’t LE immediately think the worst? They’ve seen the worst. Why not assume the worst? A family doing so well has no reason to run away.
No signs of foul play. It’s not illegal to up and leave your life for whatever reason. This was a tough case from the start.
The probable cause affadavit is up. A few thoughts: Why didn’t SDSO request these records? Also, note that the story being given in this affadavit regarding the Joey McStay 8:28pm call to Merritt is that Merritt spoke to Joey on that call, about a fountain.
Thoughts?
I’ll be posting the probable cause affadavit on this later. Cheers!!!!