CA - Joey, Summer, Gianni, Joseph Jr McStay Murders - Feb 4th 2010 #6

[katydid23]

I'm not certain he did give Chase more access. It looks to me as if there were restrictions placed on the log-in email and password.

And speaking of pretzels: How is the state's assertion that Chase drove to the McStay's home, killed them, drove away, came back, wrote a check, called himself using Joey's phone, then I guess drove away again-and then kept the bodies in a truck for two days, then buried the bodies, then days later returned to the McStay's home and conducted searches for dinosaurs, how is THAT not a pretzel?

I think it would certainly be giving Chase more access if Joey was giving him permission to log in to the account and write checks to himself. And if he said 'please call Intuit and close my online account, delete it all, and change it to a desktop account, which you will have to buy and download onto my computer.

That is giving Chase a tremendous amount of control. It is very hard for me to believe that Joey would have done that.

 

[mrjitty]

That's an extremely optimistic estimate. I fear it's more like 1/6 if we are lucky.




Exactly my position as well.




I can confirm this. When somebody calls me that many times a day I could never pinpoint when a certain conversation occurred. With rare exceptions for memorable moments. I also have someone that is a "can't answer, don't have 30 minutes" type of phone call. Though, for mine it's more like 90 minutes. Especially if he's drinking.

Surely he would remember if he was at home watching a movie or whether he was in fact put on the road with his phone tuned off?

The problem with being confused is he turned his phone on and called his girlfriend at 9.30pm

 

[katydid23]

I can confirm this. When somebody calls me that many times a day I could never pinpoint when a certain conversation occurred. With rare exceptions for memorable moments. I also have someone that is a "can't answer, don't have 30 minutes" type of phone call. Though, for mine it's more like 90 minutes. Especially if he's drinking.

If your boss and his family went missing, would you be able to remember his last call to you?

I think I would. JMO

 

[mrjitty]

I think it would certainly be giving Chase more access if Joey was giving him permission to log in to the account and write checks to himself. And if he said 'please call Intuit and close my online account, delete it all, and change it to a desktop account, which you will have to buy and download onto my computer.

That is giving Chase a tremendous amount of control. It is very hard for me to believe that Joey would have done that.

"Please also forge my signature on cheques"

 

[mrjitty]

If your boss and his family went missing, would you be able to remember his last call to you?

I think I would. JMO

Chase has never explained where he was between the last call from joey at 5.30 and when he called his girlfriend at 9.30pm

Nor do I expect him to explain at trial

 

[MsFacetious]

If your boss and his family went missing, would you be able to remember his last call to you?

I think I would. JMO

My boss has a dozen kids plus their spouses and children. That would be a world record I think!

My intention is not to defend Chase and say it was reasonable.
I just pointed out a couple of things that he said that actually rang true to me. Nothing more.
I know I come across as a defense investigator... (cuz I am) and I'm not making any friends. But I'm just commenting on things that grab my attention. After 18 calls from one person today.... that happened to be one of them.

 

[mrjitty]

IMO he did the Paul Mitchell cheque because he thought it would be the least chance to steal.

He printed it and took it with him.

Later he had the idea of backdating and redid the Mitchell cheque for more money printing it on the blanks he had at home.

The fact that those blanks were never recovered is another red flag.

 

[mrjitty]

My boss has a dozen kids plus their spouses and children. That would be a world record I think!

My intention is not to defend Chase and say it was reasonable.
I just pointed out a couple of things that he said that actually rang true to me. Nothing more.
I know I come across as a defense investigator... (cuz I am) and I'm not making any friends. But I'm just commenting on things that grab my attention. After 18 calls from one person today.... that happened to be one of them.

What is more suspicious to me is that his alibi of where he was collapsed

Even if he got the call mixed up he should have known where he was that night.

 

[mrjitty]

Later on Cathy said that Chase asked her to lie for him. She said that he told her he was in the bathroom so he didnt answer it. But that would look bad, so he wanted her to alibi him.

I will try and find that info.

Amazing how chase has never assembled an account of where he actually was that night

 

[katydid23]

KAYE: Chase Merritt has never talked on camera before about that day. He met Joseph on February 4th 2010 to talk business and business was booming.

MERRITT: We have 500 waterfalls coming up, you know, it would be the biggest project we'd ever done.

KAYE: So it sounded like he was planning for the future.

MERRITT: He was definitely planning for the future.

KAYE: After lunch, they spoke on the phone a handful more times. So when Merritt's phone rang at 8:28 PM and he saw it was Joseph calling, he didn't answer.

MERRITT: I was tired.

KAYE: Do you regret not picking up that call?

MERRITT: (Inaudible) 2020.

KAYE: It was the last known call from Joseph's cell phone. The call was made 41 minutes after a neighbor security camera captured the McStay's white Isuzu pulling out of the McStay's cul-de-sac. WATTS: 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?

KAYE: That missed call is now a missed opportunity, the first of many missed opportunities.

MERRITT: The next day, I called him and he didn't answer. I started getting concerned by the end of the second day.

DAN KAVANAUGH: I put the initial word out to his friends and family that he had not been communicating online or via phone and I couldn't get a whole summary either.

KAYE: Dan Kavanaugh, who worked with Joseph managing his company's website, contacted Patrick.

KAVANAUGH: My gut instinct was not really a good one.

CNN.com - Transcripts

 

[wary]

It is a shame that we don't have a thread that is restricted to trial information. There are many of us who want to discuss the facts of the trial, the prosecution case and the defense case in a logical and readable manner. This thread started out that way, but the last 3 or 4 parts of it have muddied the waters for those who are trying to follow the court procedings. jmho

I think the discussion will shape up, once they start having a trial again. I hope!

 

[katydid23]

RSBM, also BBM

I want to make sure I understand this correctly. "Charles Merritt", capitalized, was already added as a vendor to the CONTACTS account. Chase, on Feb 1, added himself, charles merritt, not capitalized, as a vendor to the CUSTOM account. So, am I understanding that previous to Feb 1, Chase was listed as a vendor ONLY in the CONTACTS account, not the CUSTOM account? Because I recall a lot of discussion that there would have been no need for Chase to add himself as a vendor because he already WAS listed as a vendor (thinking he added himself as a vendor when he was already listed as a vendor). But that would have been in the CONTACTS account, which Chase never (afawk) accessed, not the CUSTOM account? I think people may have been confused, not realizing the two accounts were completely separate?

Right. But that still brings up a lot of questions.

Joey had not been using the custom account for creating checks. The custom account was created solely to track money owed to Merritt (minus advances or loans made to Merritt by McStay).:



The Case in Chief

[from June 15, 2015 Preliminary Hearing]

[Joseph McStay had two Intuit On-Line QuickBooks accounts. His first and primary account was created in 2004 and he titled it “Contacts“. The Contacts account was used to keep record of receivables and payables for McStay’s on-line company Earth Inspired Products (EIP), and also tracked his personal finances. His second account, Custom, was created in 2008 after he had begun working with Charles Merritt. And from all reports the Custom account was created solely to track money owed to Merritt (minus advances or loans made to Merritt by McStay).

McStay was not known to draft checks from either the Contacts or Custom accounts by way of his computer. He would instead hand-write checks and later add the details to the Contacts Account as a matter of record keeping.

Prior to February 1, 2010 the Custom account was never used for check writing at all, but instead tallied McStay’s work with Merritt.


[ So why , within days of the family vanishing, does Joey tell Chase to start creating checks from the custom account, when it had never been used for that before?]

[ It seems like a way to really mess up one's accounting, to begin doing it that way. It was not the reason the custom account was set up. And it doesn't seem like a very good way to change it if he is going to have a lot more money and new projects coming in, to keep track of.]

 

[katydid23]

Did he lie, or was he confused?

He clearly lied. He gave them details, about how he had already spoken to Joey at length that day, at lunch and then 3 or 4 other calls afterwards. So he was tired and so he looked at the phone and decided not to answer, as he was watching a move with his gf.

all of the above was a lie^^^^^^

 

[asyousay]

It is a shame that we don't have a thread that is restricted to trial information. There are many of us who want to discuss the facts of the trial, the prosecution case and the defense case in a logical and readable manner. This thread started out that way, but the last 3 or 4 parts of it have muddied the waters for those who are trying to follow the court procedings. jmho

That’s only natural because the trial seems to have more dark days than they are on.

 

[Tortoise]

I find it equally possible that it was Joey attempting to hide his business from DK (aka "Dan the hacker"). The January date would correspond with JM"s argument with DK about ownership and control of EIP. DK was able to access (and remotely alter) the computerized EIP accounts. He designed and set up the system. I would not be surprised to learn that Joey was trying to cut off all EIP and personal financial access to DK

BBM Where did you get information that the argument happened in Jan 2010?

As far as I know that was 6 months before the murders, if not a year.

Where is the evidence that DK could access and remotely alter the computerized EIP accounts, AKA QuickBooks?

 

[asyousay]

It’s presidents day next Monday do you guys get a bank holiday for that?

 

[katydid23]

The Custom account doesn't seem really all that critical. All the data that would be necessary for Chase to eventually be paid was kept in the Contacts account (or I imagine it was). So he may have thought, either that he wouldn't lose the data, or that the data could be replicated once he got the desktop version.

The critical account, one that I'm sure Joey would not want eliminated, would have been Contacts.

What is hard to tell with Chase is how much he understood about what he was doing.

But WHY would Joey have Chase do such a critically important task? I wouldn't give someone else such a potentially 'dangerous' task if they didn't really know what they were doing. It makes no sense.

 

[katydid23]

It’s presidents day next Monday do you guys get a bank holiday for that?

yes

 

[katydid23]

From the CNN interview:
KAYE: 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 cellphone records.
MERRITT: I don't personally remember that phone call. The fact is I actually have to ask my girlfriend. And she said "Yeah and you pick it up and look at it and decide not to answer it."
CNN.com - Transcripts

Merritt said: ‘I was the last person Joseph saw. He came to Rancho Cucamonga on February 4 to talk to me about a huge business deal we had going on in Saudi Arabia.

‘We met for an hour-and-a-half for lunch. He was so excited. We had the Saudi Arabian project and a few other things going on. The business had never been so good and we were looking forward to the future. He did nothing to suggest there was anything wrong or untoward.

‘We both left and went home and I spoke to him on the phone about two or three times on his drive back to Fallbrook, all standard business stuff. The last time I spoke to him was around 6 o’clock.

‘It has been reported that I spoke to him in the evening, but that isn’t true. He did call me at 8.28pm, but I was watching a movie with my girlfriend, looked at the phone and decided not to answer.

'When you talk to Joseph it takes about half an hour, so I thought I’d catch up with him in the morning.

‘I didn’t answer that call and I regret it to this day.’ That was the last call made from Joseph’s phone.

'Prime suspect' in McStay murder mystery breaks his silence | Daily Mail Online


[So which is it? He didn't remember the call? Because he sure does describe it pretty well for someone who doesn't remember. ]

 

[mrjitty]

Also someone who was actually somewhere else