Missing McStay Family Murder Weapon was a Sledgehammer

Jun 16, 2015

The missing McStay family murder weapon was a sledgehammer and there is ample grounds for the accused ex convict charged in their beating deaths and disappearance to stand trial, a California judge has just determined. 

Yesterday’s decision against 58-year-old Charles “Chase” Merritt, a close business associate of Joseph McStay, concluded a long awaited preliminary hearing in which probable cause for the heinous crimes was at last revealed.

Apart from a sledgehammer, that body of evidence also includes phone records and DNA results linking the accused to the slain family-of-four’s final hours on February 4, 2010, the day they suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.

Successful businessman McStay was 40 when he and his wife and their two toddler sons mysteriously disappeared from their residence in an upscale community near Los Angeles.

Following three years of sometimes extraordinary speculation about their actual fate and whereabouts -- and several wild goose chases -- the skeletal remains of the missing clan were stumbled upon in the nearby desert.

Thereafter, investigators disclosed only that all four McStays had been bludgeoned to death at their home, but eventually arrested prime suspect Chase Merritt for the multiple slayings and cover-up.

Since his arrest, prosecutors have continued to maintain secrecy about the crime while building their case against him.

Merritt is alleged to have used the McStay family’s own sledgehammer to kill them with, then days later placing at least three cell-phone calls from the very site of the shallow grave he illicitly buried the victims in.

The defendant’s DNA was also found on the McStay family vehicle which had been found abandoned at a U.S. and Mexican border crossing, giving rise to the popular but erroneous theory that the doomed foursome had surreptitiously entered Mexico to start a new life together.

Their accused killer aroused police suspicions in the earliest days of the investigation because he persistently referred to them in the past tense during questioning, even though they were still believed to be merely missing persons.

Chase Merritt has previously served prison time for a number of unrelated felonies, the nature of which have yet to be specified. He’s pleaded ‘not guilty’ on all criminal counts in the McStay family murders.

@EponymousRox

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