CA - Joey, Summer, Gianni, Joseph Jr McStay Murders - Feb 4th 2010 #11

[thelmadawg]

What is your take on the wording of the email? It could be construed (or misconstrued) to read that JM owed Merritt money. “Chase paid” is either “Chase was paid” or “Chase already paid” depending on the usage of the word paid.

For "best buddies," this is a pretty formal email to Chase - notably, signed Sincerely, Joseph McStay. It would seem the close relationship CM articulated had substantially deteriorated as of February 1.

 

[Tortoise]

Woah Tortoise. Thanks a million for doing this. I have been dying to listen in but being UK based I hadn’t yet had the chance. Reading this has really cheered me up!

The most compelling piece in all that is the cellphone pings, azimuth and the cone the judge refers to. Especially when he highlights that the space captured by the pings is mainly desert and only a small edge of Victorville. Surely if anything nails him it’s got to be that?

I will try listen later but assume he was included the Mitchley video too?

Thanks once again.

He didn't mention the Mitchley video but he did say at the end he wasn't including everything the prosecution might rely on. I think the fact that the Faro scan witness hasn't testified yet might be a reason for not including it.

 

[fridaybaker]

Here it is...

This email is what got the ball rolling, in my opinion. Everything went downhill from there.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Woah Tortoise. Thanks a million for doing this. I have been dying to listen in but being UK based I hadn’t yet had the chance. Reading this has really cheered me up!

The most compelling piece in all that is the cellphone pings, azimuth and the cone the judge refers to. Especially when he highlights that the space captured by the pings is mainly desert and only a small edge of Victorville. Surely if anything nails him it’s got to be that?

I will try listen later but assume he was included the Mitchley video too?

Thanks once again.

Me too! Wow!

I knew if anyone would do this for all of us it would be our Tortoise. Such a gem.

I'm now even more optimistic, if possible, there will be true justice served.

I didnt know Susan was such an important witness for the state.

I only had read short tweets about her testimony, and now I know it gave me the wrong impression about how weighty her testimony truly was.

And his defense wants to call Susan again so all of this can be brought out again???

I suspect there has been many witnesses who have given very compelling evidence where I don't know the full scope of their testimony as well.

That's my fault because I havent had the time to view every bit of daily testimony that's been given.

It shows me though I have missed out on quite a lot of compelling evidence.

Imo

 

[missy1974]

You have to look at the column headings on the one and then look at the second one to see where MSM starts getting paid and Chase’s portion drops to just a few hundred per fountain.

Thanks!

Ok... So, once they went into business with MSM, Chase was making 65% minus what was paid to MSM. Previous to MSM, the one's that I did the math on were pretty close to the 65% if not exact, but previous to MSM. So it was coming out of Chase's cut, but not being paid by Chase directly (probably because of his money issues). Of course, we learned during the Accountants testimony what he deemed Chase's expeneses... but we also heard that there were cheques that he was not given to look at.

This is what I was able to see on that screenshot:

Project is $3100 (65% is $2015) Chase gets $504 MSM $1511 = $2015
Project is $5275 (65% is $3428) Chase gets $858 MSM $2572 = $3430
Project is $4475 (65% is $2908) Chase gets $728 MSM $2181 = $2909
Project is $7200 (65% is $4608) Chase gets $1080 MSM $3600 = $4680

Those were from Oct 2-20th. So, just for those 4 projects Chase was paid $3170. But Chase shouldn't have had any expenses since at that time MSM was doing the fabricating? Or maybe he paid for the electrical/plumbing stuff? From that same screenshot, I can see 1 project in August, and 3 in July in 2009 (all of those, it shows Chases $$$ was 65%). I think it's unrealistic to believe that Chase didn't have expenses when he was making these fountains alone, no one can make fountains from thin air, and as of right now, we don't have the full picture of Chases expenses previous to October 2009. I could see that he maybe burned some bridges with suppliers or bounced some cheques and maybe this was their (Joey and Chase's) solution?

Thanks for going back to this... I have seen the spreadsheets, but they were missing the MSM columns, and I couldn't figure out why Chase's portion had dropped like that, this explains it.

 

[oceanblueeyes]

He didn't mention the Mitchley video but he did say at the end he wasn't including everything the prosecution might rely on. I think the fact that the Faro scan witness hasn't testified yet might be a reason for not including it.

First, thank you so much for transcribing for us. It makes it so much clearer to understand.

I think you are right. I think this judge sees an overwhelming amount of important evidence pointing to CMs guilt BARD.

It would be impossible for him to list them all, and it wasnt necessary either.

He listed many pieces of evidence on the record to support his ruling.

Imo

 

[Tortoise]

I've been dwelling on the supposed lunch meet up. I don't think it happened. Please feel free to point out the errors in my thinking.

Is it possible that Merritt gained physical control of JM at his home after luring him there? The supposed lunch meet up might all have been an elaborate ruse preplanned. How do we know that CM didnt lure JM up there, bind, torture, kill him there?

Whats to say that Merritt didnt disable his phone earlier? He had Joseph so he had his phone. He could have played phone games between both phones all day. He could have made the 5:48 call himself. Could CM have left his phone behind as part of preplanned staging?

But why murder the rest of the family? Maybe Merritt thought JM had cash hidden at home. Maybe JM told him that in an effort to buy time. Maybe JM was already dead when CM went down to Fallbrook. Perhaps the trooper and Joseph remained at CMs house when he made his deadly mission to the house. Maybe JM was not enshrouded in the futon cover and the cover was used for other purposes.

The states time line is extremely close. Whats to say he wasnt there much earlier in the afternoon thus the breakfast leftovers still out? There is probably a fault in my logic so please chime in. I just feel that the lunch meeting never occurred.
Edit: replied to wrong post

I started out at the beginning thinking that Chase intercepted Joey on his way home. Since then I've moved past that to thinking Joey did make it home, I think the major reasons were that they were all killed with the sledgehammer, seeing Quickbooks bookmark opened on the computer after Joey called Chase at 5.47 pm, and Chase calling Cathy at 9.32 pm so having his own phone with him on the journey back north.

I believe it was Chase's plan that day to wait until Joey got home so that he could drive down there and kill them all at the same time, avoiding a situation where he couldn't be sure of finding Summer to murder her separately after murdering Chase.

This is why I think he didn't show up at the lunch meeting, to have an excuse for going there later. I also think he had been poisoning Joey to weaken him and ensure he succeeded without Joey getting away or managing to overpower him if he saw what was coming.

JMO

 

[missy1974]

I've transcribed a few portions of the Judge's response to the defense's motion to dismiss:


Susan Blake

The court has reviewed the evidence in some detail to determine if the court can say if the jury return a verdict of guilty is there substantial evidence to support such a finding. So we start off really with the testimony of Susan Blake the very first witness in the trial and it turns out at least from my perspective when combined with much of the other evidence, her testimony is critical evidence.

She lays out the basic foundation that Joseph was in a business EIP to create and manufacture fountains or waterfalls and that Mr Merritt was involved in that business with him, as was Mr Kavanaugh. So she lays out that foundation.

She then indicates that Mr McStay, Joseph McStay had indicated to her that it was his intent or desire to phase actually both Mr Merritt and Mr Kavanaugh out of the business and other evidence indicated that indeed there was already a plan in place to buy out Mr Kavanaugh that was almost complete, but that he also intended to phase Mr Merritt out of the business and get a warehouse where he could have more welders to fabricate more waterfalls.

And Mrs Blake indicated that Mr McStay indicated to her the reasons why Joseph McStay wanted to phase Mr Merritt out of the business. They were that Mr Merritt had money problems, that Mr McStay had loaned money to Mr Merritt but did not get paid back, that part of Mr Merritt’s money problems were as a result of gambling and we saw from the accountant’s examination of Mr Merritt’s bank records that that depiction that Joseph McStay gave to Susan Blake, his mother, appears to be accurate – Mr Merritt did have money problems, his bank account was often overdrawn or down to a zero balance. Indeed the accounts ultimately were closed because they were so far overdrawn.

An analysis of the accounts also indicates a significant portion of Mr Merritt’s income or money in his accounts was utilised for gambling or playing poker depending on whether or not you consider poker a game of chance or a game of skill, but at any rate at casinos. So that’s substantiating the information that Ms Blake related.

The pattern of Mr Merritt having money problems and needing additional money and not paying back what he said he would pay back continued after the disappearance of the McStay family. Beginning only days after the family disappeared, Mr Merritt told Susan Blake that he needed additional money to complete existing projects. Dan Kavanaugh said no he didn’t need that money he’d already gotten enough money to complete the projects, there actually was an argument between Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Merritt regarding that. Susan Blake ultimately did advance Mr Merritt over $5000 of her own funds, ostensibly to complete existing projects with the understanding she would be paid back when those projects were completed. Mr Merritt subsequently reported to Ms Blake that indeed the Saudi Arabia project had been completed and he had received $17000 for that project. So Ms Blake asked him to repay the $5000 that she had advanced him, he did not do so and basically there was little if any further contact between Ms Blake and Mr Merritt after that point.


Voicemails

It’s also interesting that the defendant in his statements indicates that he talked to Joseph McStay on a daily basis usually multiple times a day and after the disappearance he indicated that he was continuing to try to reach Joseph McStay. However the testimony with regard to the cell phones that there were 25 voicemails on Joseph’s cell phone after the disappearance, 31 voicemails on Summer’s voicemail after the disappearance, of various people trying to contact them and enquire if they were ok but none of those were from the defendant.


Interview with Detectives

So with the backdrop of information about the financial issues of Mr Merritt, the financial issues between Mr Merritt and Mr McStay, the problems of Mr Merritt at Metro Sheet Metal it’s also interesting that when Mr Merritt is interviewed by the San Diego authorities shortly after the disappearance he reports that he and Joseph are or WERE best friends, they were good business partners, good working relationship there’s no mention of any conflicts regarding him not paying Joseph back for various sums, conflicts with MSM, any of that information.


Cell Phone at Grave Sites

And then we have the cell phone cell tower locations principally relating to February 6th 2010 - FBI Agent Boles.

That information indicates that from at least, well there was a phone call at 10.46 am from the defendant’s cell phone in the area of Mojave Drive near Oro Grande, which is certainly in the general area of where the bodies were buried.

Then between 11.30 and 11.52 am there were a series of calls that had originated from the tower above the grave sites with an 85 degree azimuth as the first contact which would place the cell phone in a cone going out from the cell tower and included within that cone is the grave sites.

There was another phone call at 1.30 pm with the originating azimuth of 170 degrees with a terminating tower in Victorville and the 170 degree azimuth of the originating call and the azimuth of the terminating call in Victorville was also in a cone that would have included the grave sites.

So it places Mr Merritt’s cell phone in the area of the grave sites for a considerable period of time on February 6th.

That becomes somewhat more significant given the geography of that area. If we had a cell phone in a location in a cone in the middle of a city whether the city is San Bernardino, Victorville or Rancho, and within that cone is an area where a crime occurred or a body was left might not be that significant because there is a lot of other residences a lot of other businesses a lot of other locations where people could be within that cone, not so where the area where the bodies were buried. The cone going out from the cell tower which includes the area of the grave site is mostly open desert, if you go far enough south you eventually do get into the city of Victorville but placing the cell phone in that general area which is mostly desert is certainly more significant than it would be if it were all city area.


Last Word

So the court finds that if the jury accepted the prosecution’s evidence, arguments and conclusions and returned a verdict of guilty that there is substantial evidence to support such a finding. For those reasons the motion to dismiss pursuant to Penal Code Section 1118.1 is denied.

Listening to the judge the other day, there were things that he was saying that didn't seem right, it wasn't until the end of his decision that I understood why. IMO he was only considering what the prosecution put forth. Just as an example... about the voicemails which you have transcribed in your post, we learned that VM's were deleted and that the VM's that they did find on Joey's phone were from after it was reported in the media that he was missing, so how were they to find VM's from someone that left them previous to that if they were deleted?


Here is the judge explaining the standard that the court considers in regards to a 1118.1 hearing:


Now certainly all of that information that I've just gone over was subject to considerable cross-examination and I have no doubt that Mr. McGee and Mr. Maline could give their closing argument on that information and could probably take a better part of a day and with a different argument, a different analysis, different inferences, and different conclusions drawn. But that really is not the standard for the court to look at with regard to an 1118.1 motion to dismiss, the standard on the 1118.1 motion is not that all other analysis or conclusions can be eliminated but rather the standard is if the jury were to accept and of course I'm not going through every exhibit, I'm not going through every item of evidence and every point of prosecution may argue that supports a verdict of guilty, I'm only considering what the court considers primary or major factors, there are a lot of other potential issues that the prosecution may (?) support, but I'm not considering those in the 1118.1 motion. So, as I was saying, the standard it's not that can the court eliminate all of those of our analysis or conclusions but rather the standard on the 1118.1 motion to dismiss is if the jury were to accept the prosecution's evidence and arguments and analysis and conclusions and conclude that that is sufficient proof guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore return a verdict of guilty and thereby at least by inference was rejecting the defense evidence, the defense arguments, and the defense analysis, would that decision by the jury be supported by substantial evidence. The points that I just went through, in the courts view, do support or would support such a finding by the jury So the Court finds that if the jury accepted the prosecution's evidence, arguments, and conclusions and returned a verdict of guilty that there is substantial evidence to support such a finding, for those reasons the motion to dismiss the (?) section 1118.1 is denied.


can be heard at 1:00 of this video:

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I started out at the beginning thinking that Chase intercepted Joey on his way home. Since then I've moved past that to thinking Joey did make it home, I think the major reasons were that they were all killed with the sledgehammer, seeing Quickbooks bookmark opened on the computer after Joey called Chase at 5.47 pm, and Chase calling Cathy at 9.32 pm so having his own phone with him on the journey back north.

I believe it was Chase's plan that day to wait until Joey got home so that he could drive down there and kill them all at the same time, avoiding a situation where he couldn't be sure of finding Summer to murder her separately after murdering Chase.

This is why I think he didn't show up at the lunch meeting, to have an excuse for going there later. I also think he had been poisoning Joey to weaken him and ensure he succeeded without Joey getting away or managing to overpower him if he saw what was coming.

JMO

Wow you always present things I've never considered, and you do it so well.

It makes total sense it was CM who was poisoning Joey so he knew he would be in a weakened state, when CM assaulted, and brutally attacked him.

He knew Joey was a younger man, so the coward had to do things where it would be more to his advantage.

I think that is why he chose the sledgehammer to murder them all.

It's such a foreboding lethal weapon. One tremendous blow to Joey would immediately incapacitate Joey.

It shows what a yellow bellied coward he was.

Imo

 

[Tortoise]

It's interesting looking at the Saudi Arabia money.

Chase printed himself the following cheques for this job -

Feb 2nd - $2495 - memo line: deposit sa 1001
Feb 5th - $2350 - memo line: lighting install sa (1001)
Feb 8th - $6500 - memo line: saudi arabia final

So that totals $11,345

This job was listed on the email (not included in money payable to Chase yet).

It was also the job he was asking Susan Blake and Dan for money to complete and yet he had already advanced himself the above cheques and Susan testified he said he received $17,000 when it was completed.

JMO

 

[missy1974]

Sorry I don't understand your questions. They were murdered on February 4th so are you saying towards the end of their business relationship only includes January?

Now, according to the judge's remarks, we see his gambling problems were not just testified to by Joe Sequeida but Joey had already said that was one of the reasons he wanted to phase Chase out of the business to Susan Blake. I had missed that in her testimony, but I never doubted it anyway from the extent of his cash withdrawals.

As regards the cell phone towers you always have the poor reception issues to fall back on for an explanation, just like February 4th and 8th

The question is pretty clear... So saying "towards the end" means what? They had only been working together for 4 months, you assume that it means 2009.... I assume it meant the last month or so based on his testimony... he really doesn't make it clear, so it's up for interpretation.

>modsnip - personalized and off topic comment<
I think I have made it clear that I think CJ and CM had a terrible service and/or phones, if you disagree, whatever lol I find it interesting that Smith went back recently to show all the times he was pinging near a Casino, but not sure if January is an exhaustive list of when he was there, and since we don't have complete phone records, no way to look for ourselves, since now I know I can just use google maps to be a cell phone expert No training required! That is going to come in handy in other trials that I follow

 

[missy1974]

It's interesting looking at the Saudi Arabia money.

Chase printed himself the following cheques for this job -

Feb 2nd - $2495 - memo line: deposit sa 1001
Feb 5th - $2350 - memo line: lighting install sa (1001)
Feb 8th - $6500 - memo line: saudi arabia final

So that totals $11,345

This job was listed on the email (not included in money payable to Chase yet).

It was also the job he was asking Susan Blake and Dan for money to complete and yet he had already advanced himself the above cheques and Susan testified he said he received $17,000 when it was completed.

JMO

Do you have any record of what MSM was paid for that job?

 

[Force Ten]

The other thing I'd like to know, have the prosecutors given an explanation of how it was possible for Chase to do all the alleged parts of the crime alone, such as murdering at the house, driving the victims (alive or dead) to the grave site, burying them, driving the Isuzu Trooper to Mexican border (did the burial happen before or after the Mexican trip?), leaving the Trooper there, and somehow managing to get from the Mexican border to home or to the burial site with a vehicle other than the Trooper (or motorbike? bus? taxi? rental truck?)

The point is, if all you have is circumstantial evidence, some of which are unreliable, without any forensic evidence linking the defendant to the murder, you need at least to show that what you allege he did was practically possible. A convincing time sequence conjecture or various possible scenarios such the different ordering of events ABCDE or BADCE will help.

There is forensic evidence, Chase left his DNA all over the inside of the Trooper. The forensic accounting is also very damning. The QB call Merritt made stating he was Joseph and wanted the account to be deleted should cause anyone alarm. Making checks out to oneself and then backdating? I'm sorry, what does it take to see the obvious deceit?

The defense's reasoning for this makes zero sense. The defense has made way too many bizarre inferences already to be taken seriously. That is what is "unreliable". Virtually everything stopped for the family after meeting with Merritt on the 4th. He essentially signed his name to their death warrants.

The prosecution is not obligated to prove exactly how he pulled it off, only that he's responsible.

Let's say you come across a truck and a driver on the road with a deer dead in front of it. The truck reflects the impact of the deer, logical discernment is the truck struck the deer and the driver is responsible.

Or would you implicate the driver's brother?

Imo people can't see the evidence in front of them because they refuse to use basic black and white interpretation of the facts.

 

[Tortoise]

Wow you always present things I've never considered, and you do it so well.

It makes total sense it was CM who was poisoning Joey so he knew he would be in a weakened state, when CM assaulted, and brutally attacked him.

He knew Joey was a younger man, so the coward had to do things where it would be more to his advantage.

I think that is why he chose the sledgehammer to murder them all.

It's such a foreboding lethal weapon. One tremendous blow to Joey would immediately incapacitate Joey.

It shows what a yellow bellied coward he was.

Imo

I only came to this conclusion recently because it suddenly fell into place for me that Joey was supposed to have paid off Dan after a year's long agreement by installments, by January 31st 2010. Then Dan would no longer be a business partner.

Chase set himself up as a vendor and started to create cheques for himself on February 1st. That seems too coincidental to me for it not to be connected with Dan's expected final pay-off.

But Joey missed that final payment of $2000 to Dan on that last weekend. So I believe after he'd murdered Joey and the family it was a rude awakening for Chase that Dan was still part owner of the business and could and did control what Chase did.

JMO

 

[missy1974]

It's interesting looking at the Saudi Arabia money.

Chase printed himself the following cheques for this job -

Feb 2nd - $2495 - memo line: deposit sa 1001
Feb 5th - $2350 - memo line: lighting install sa (1001)
Feb 8th - $6500 - memo line: saudi arabia final

So that totals $11,345

This job was listed on the email (not included in money payable to Chase yet).

It was also the job he was asking Susan Blake and Dan for money to complete and yet he had already advanced himself the above cheques and Susan testified he said he received $17,000 when it was completed.

JMO

sorry, coming back to this again...

@MichaelCorleone posted the screenshot of the email (I have copied and attached, hope it works)

In that email it says for the SA job the total is $18,225. (if that is Chase's total to be paid, which I think it is?)

So are you saying that he got $11,345 + the $5000 from Susan? Was there more paid to him between that?

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Listening to the judge the other day, there were things that he was saying that didn't seem right, it wasn't until the end of his decision that I understood why. IMO he was only considering what the prosecution put forth. Just as an example... about the voicemails which you have transcribed in your post, we learned that VM's were deleted and that the VM's that they did find on Joey's phone were from after it was reported in the media that he was missing, so how were they to find VM's from someone that left them previous to that if they were deleted?


Here is the judge explaining the standard that the court considers in regards to a 1118.1 hearing:


Now certainly all of that information that I've just gone over was subject to considerable cross-examination and I have no doubt that Mr. McGee and Mr. Maline could give their closing argument on that information and could probably take a better part of a day and with a different argument, a different analysis, different inferences, and different conclusions drawn. But that really is not the standard for the court to look at with regard to an 1118.1 motion to dismiss, the standard on the 1118.1 motion is not that all other analysis or conclusions can be eliminated but rather the standard is if the jury were to accept and of course I'm not going through every exhibit, I'm not going through every item of evidence and every point of prosecution may argue that supports a verdict of guilty, I'm only considering what the court considers primary or major factors, there are a lot of other potential issues that the prosecution may (?) support, but I'm not considering those in the 1118.1 motion. So, as I was saying, the standard it's not that can the court eliminate all of those of our analysis or conclusions but rather the standard on the 1118.1 motion to dismiss is if the jury were to accept the prosecution's evidence and arguments and analysis and conclusions and conclude that that is sufficient proof guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore return a verdict of guilty and thereby at least by inference was rejecting the defense evidence, the defense arguments, and the defense analysis, would that decision by the jury be supported by substantial evidence. The points that I just went through, in the courts view, do support or would support such a finding by the jury So the Court finds that if the jury accepted the prosecution's evidence, arguments, and conclusions and returned a verdict of guilty that there is substantial evidence to support such a finding, for those reasons the motion to dismiss the (?) section 1118.1 is denied.


can be heard at 1:00 of this video:

Thank you, Missy!

Imo, the jury will find the state's evidence is much more legitimate, and supporting a guilty verdict BARD.

Imo, in fact I think by the end of this case the jury will have no doubt at all about CMs guilt...not even some fanciful or imaginary doubt.

This judge knows the defense is allowed to put on witnesses trying to muddy the waters. That is what DTs do, and are paid to do.

So his words in his ruling are very much inline with what other judges get on the record when ruling why the case will not be dismissed.

Smoke, and mirrors are words that have long been used to describe what defense attorneys do. I think it will apply in this case too.

In the end, like juries do day in, and day out in courtrooms everywhere here, they will go by the totality of the evidence entered, and thankfully in this case, the state has an overwhelming amount of vital CE facts for them to weigh.

It's really amazing to me how much the state does have, especially since the first police department investigation was so inept, and shoddy.

I'm very proud of these prosecutors, and how well they have presented so much evidence to this jury for them to have when coming to their verdict decision.

Imo

 

[MichaelCorleone]

sorry, coming back to this again...

@MichaelCorleone posted the screenshot of the email (I have copied and attached, hope it works)

In that email it says for the SA job the total is $18,225. (if that is Chase's total to be paid, which I think it is?)

So are you saying that he got $11,345 + the $5000 from Susan? Was there more paid to him between that?

What do you think the 15% thing means? Also the “savings?” I can’t figure out what savings he would be putting in the column to pay Merritt.

 

[MichaelCorleone]

Thanks!

Ok... So, once they went into business with MSM, Chase was making 65% minus what was paid to MSM. Previous to MSM, the one's that I did the math on were pretty close to the 65% if not exact, but previous to MSM. So it was coming out of Chase's cut, but not being paid by Chase directly (probably because of his money issues). Of course, we learned during the Accountants testimony what he deemed Chase's expeneses... but we also heard that there were cheques that he was not given to look at.

This is what I was able to see on that screenshot:

Project is $3100 (65% is $2015) Chase gets $504 MSM $1511 = $2015
Project is $5275 (65% is $3428) Chase gets $858 MSM $2572 = $3430
Project is $4475 (65% is $2908) Chase gets $728 MSM $2181 = $2909
Project is $7200 (65% is $4608) Chase gets $1080 MSM $3600 = $4680

Those were from Oct 2-20th. So, just for those 4 projects Chase was paid $3170. But Chase shouldn't have had any expenses since at that time MSM was doing the fabricating? Or maybe he paid for the electrical/plumbing stuff? From that same screenshot, I can see 1 project in August, and 3 in July in 2009 (all of those, it shows Chases $$$ was 65%). I think it's unrealistic to believe that Chase didn't have expenses when he was making these fountains alone, no one can make fountains from thin air, and as of right now, we don't have the full picture of Chases expenses previous to October 2009. I could see that he maybe burned some bridges with suppliers or bounced some cheques and maybe this was their (Joey and Chase's) solution?

Thanks for going back to this... I have seen the spreadsheets, but they were missing the MSM columns, and I couldn't figure out why Chase's portion had dropped like that, this explains it.

I think the bigger take away is that something drastically changed in October 2009 with regard to how much Merritt was being paid. I think it appears this is when MSM entered the picture. Fast forward to the end of January and MSM doesn’t want to deal with Merritt any longer. I don’t think the prosecution made a big enough deal of this situation. I think it is proof of Merritt’s imminent exit from the McStay business model.

 

[missy1974]

What do you think the 15% thing means? Also the “savings?” I can’t figure out what savings he would be putting in the column to pay Merritt.

No clue LOL I was wondering that myself..

Could it be that they changed the 65% minus MSM or expenses to 15%? It would be inline with what he was getting paid anyway after they were in partnership with MSM? it doesn't explain the "savings" part of that... how confusing! LOL

I am still wondering when Joey's fiscal year end was, and I have not heard or been able to find that.

I think I now understand the MSM issue with wanting to know how much Joey was getting paid for the fountains. They wanted to know how much Chase was getting paid, because if they were doing some of his work, they wanted to be paid for it. Joey tells them it's none of your business, just bill what you do and I will pay you... So if they billed what they did, even part of Chase's job, they did get paid for it and it would have come from Chase's "cut" anyway, and that was probably Joey's thinking, because it really was none of their business how much Joey was making. JMO

 

[A lucas]

I think the bigger take away is that something drastically changed in October 2009 with regard to how much Merritt was being paid. I think it appears this is when MSM entered the picture. Fast forward to the end of January and MSM doesn’t want to deal with Merritt any longer. I don’t think the prosecution made a big enough deal of this situation. I think it is proof of Merritt’s imminent exit from the McStay business model.

Also Michael I think the McStays bought their fab new house around Nov 09, whilst CM’s income reduced, his bank account was in dire straights and eventually closed.

JM at this time was giving more work and money to MSM then sent CM that email saying he owed 42k. That surely could have been the catalyst for theft, fraud and then eventually murder? JMO.