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How One Man’s Greed Meant the End of the Entire McStay Family
They were murdered and buried in a desert for over three years.
It was February 4, 2010, when the small village of Fallbrook, in San Diego County, was shaken by the disappearance of a whole family.
Summer and Joseph McStay as well as their sons Joseph Mateo and Gianni had vanished without leaving much behind in terms of clues or without really informing any of their kith and kin.
The two children were very young — a three-year-old and a four-year-old. Joseph was 40 years old while his wife Summer was 43 making them a rather young family. They also, from the look of things, seemed to be quite a happy family.
Joseph owned a business of making decorative fountains while Summer was a real estate agent, complementing each other’s professions very well, which was a handy thing in a small village like Fallbrook, where everyone knew everyone, and word of mouth was the best way of expanding business.
With two young kids and a rather simple lifestyle, there didn’t seem much reason for the couple to disappear from the face of the earth, unannounced.
Yet, disappear they did.
The missing report and the ensuing investigation
After family members of the McStays were unable to contact Joseph and Summer for days, Joseph’s brother Michael paid their house a visit on February 13 and found an open window and went in to find no one in the house.
The only living beings in the house were the two dogs — still in their backyard. Odd for them to leave their pets for such an extended period of time, unattended.
A couple of days later, after more searching, Michael filed a missing report with the San Diego County Sheriff’s department and a search began.
The house, when searched by authorities had no signs of struggle or breaking in nor had anything of value missing. There were clearly no signs of a robbery or any kind of crime.
The family’s car was found to have been towed from a strip mall in San Ysidro, San Diego, near the Mexico border, but the location of the vehicle was unknown between the day…
