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

[JMarsh]

Does anyone know the check number on the check created and deleted on Joey's computer? Seems like that could be a huge tell, since Chase had a stack of checks out of sequence from the checks at the house? Was the number on the one created on the 4th the same as the one on the 5th? Was it in the same series that were created by Chase from his home?

4093

 

[JMarsh]

I have a burning question now... and I don't think we have an answer... When Mike went into their home, and I guess Chase... were the computers on or were they off???

Good question, don't know. I think he said that the HP lab top had died and he couldn't access information because he didn't have the power cord for it. But he didn't mention the desktop.

 

[KALI]

They may not be here legally. This is California...

Why wouldn’t the friends then come forward when it was brought up as part of the investigation?

 

[fridaybaker]

It seems it might be worth leading the poor old circumstantial evidence carthorse once more to the trough

It is a legal error to speculate away the circumstantial points 1 by 1

But it can also be very difficult to keep the process of legal inference compartmentalised from questions of evidence, and to avoid dipping between the two in a speculative way.

Finally one needs to be very aware of how the evidential burden and standard of proof needs to be applied point by point.

Phew!

So let's try to put that all together in an example, so we can see how easy it is to get led up a garden path instead of drinking the water (ouch mixed metaphors)

IMO the state has already proved the following things

* Chase created a new vendor all lower case and created, printed and deleted cheques. He forged Joey's signature. He backdated cheques. He cashed multiple forged cheques
* Chase called Quickbooks pretending to be Joey, and asked QB to delete all the QB data.

The State will then ask the jury to draw a natural and obvious inference. Chase was stealing from Joey and sought to conceal this fact.

At this point the defence would like to lead the jury up the garden path by speculating alternate answers

Joey knew all about the cheques. Joey authorised Chase to call QBs because he was changing his accounting....

Double Red Alert!

This speculation lacks any foundation in evidence. The defence must be able to point to some evidence that Joey authorised that. That Joey was changing his accounting. Ideally a direct witness to those matters - who just so happens to be available to the defence!

Now here a razor sharp judge would be super sceptical about some obvious "defendant testifying via his sock puppet counsel"

Why doesn't the state produce the recording where Chase said it was all legit? Why doesn't the state call some other customer service rep whom Chase told it was all legit?

Holy speculative hearsay batman!

The defence, without calling the direct witness they have at their disposal, would like the jury to draw speculative inferences, based on a version Chase is telling via his counsel. Importantly the defence is not meeting the evidential burden to establish any of this as a live question at trial.

It's seductive, but this is where we can get into big trouble by leaping from inference to speculation & henpecking the evidence to death.

(carthorse, batman and now a hen )

So let's be careful. Inferences must be based on evidence. Speculation is never allowed. Especially the Jury is allowed to draw natural and obvious inferences and each one does NOT need to be to BARD standard.

I will take it all back if CM takes the stand and testifies to all of this.

BBM: Hmmmm. You forgot the garden path...

Mrjitty, what would we do without you? I think many of us here have had inklings of what you've just laid out so clearly above, but don't have the comprehension of it that you do. It's been so frustrating to seemingly have all of the evidence dismissed here. I hope you will keep posting, and keep us on the straight and narrow.

Your post also reminds me of the response someone else made here about "speculating the evidence away" -I think it was Katydid, but my apologies if not: It's like taking bricks out of a wall, brick by brick, and then claiming that it's not a wall (paraphrasing greatly, I'm sure.)

 

[Edmo]

Looking at Google images I never realised they did Age progression rendering on the family.

It’s quite jarring to see the boys older in the images knowing what has happened.

Here is a link to those pictures;

Unsolved murders and missing persons

 

[Mony Mony]

I don't see the big deal if Joey or Summer did a search on travel to Mexico. Lots of people go to Mexico. It is not unusual. Doesn't change the fact the family was found dead and buried in the desert and the two timed felon had back dated checks from the victim. The defense is trying to deflect, defuse, and confuse. I just hope the jurors can see that. All MOO

 

[mrjitty]

I don't see the big deal if Joey or Summer did a search on travel to Mexico. Lots of people go to Mexico. It is not unusual. Doesn't change the fact the family was found dead and buried in the desert and the two timed felon had back dated checks from the victim. The defense is trying to deflect, defuse, and confuse. I just hope the jurors can see that. All MOO

+1

 

[Mony Mony]

Even the two timed felon admits to going to Mexico during his police interview. He said last time he went was about a year ago for VIAGRA! That made me LOL.

 

[Tortoise]

I don't think it would be on the camera's.

rsbm
All JMO

Sorry I must have misunderstood your first reply to me then, when you said bbm:

Right, but if he drove it to the end of the cul-de-sac and turned around, or pulled into the driveway and turned around, I would think the cam would catch that ... unless he drove outside of the view of the cam, which I don't know why he would drive on the wrong side of the road. I wonder if turning on the truck and lights would have activated the cam or could have been seen on the cam just from the illumination. Geesh I wish we had more of that cam footage from that night!

 

[dlkutac]

4093

Well that is the clincher then. If the same check number, 4093 was created and deleted at the McStay house, then printed and cashed from Chase's home, it proves Chase was at the McStay house because the number 4093 only appears once in a check stock. That stock would either be at Joey's or at Chase's - not both. So, in the speculative theory that Joey was going to print it out but then changed his mind and told Chase to print out the check, it would've had to have had a different check number, since Chase's stock was a different numerical series.

 

[missy1974]

Was the bank rep. questioned? He should be called to testify if Joey’s call to the bank was related to fraud.

If he called specifically about his account, they should have a record of that. I have a friend that worked at a bank (in Canada though) and every time they accessed an account, it would show an employee ID (I only know this because someone used her computer once to do something they shouldn't have ... her own fault for not logging out)

If he phoned asking a general question... like what time are you open until? or can I deposit this cheque at the Rancho Cucamonga branch? Then I don't think they would have a record.

 

[fridaybaker]

I was listening again to McGee's OS, and his very first opening statement in that presentation, really really bothered me...

He said that when Maline brought him onto the defense team, he didnt even know anything about the McStay case. So after reading the police files and reports , this is what jumped out at him:

"This isn’t a case about murders—murders happen every day—this is a case that somebody wanted this family to disappear—and that struck me—who wanted them to disappear and who had to gain from their disappearance…?"

REALLY?
This quadruple murder, where an entire innocent family was bludgeoned to death, was not about 'murder' , because ' murders happen every day'? Seriously? Two tiny boys were slaughtered, alongside their loving mother, but it's not about that, that happens every day....

I found that incredibly dismissive and insulting. It wasn't just about the family disappearing. They could have disappeared in a much less brutal and coldblooded way, if it wasn't also about 'murder.'

Well, I think Chase Merritt wanted this family to disappear.

 

[missy1974]

I don't see the big deal if Joey or Summer did a search on travel to Mexico. Lots of people go to Mexico. It is not unusual. Doesn't change the fact the family was found dead and buried in the desert and the two timed felon had back dated checks from the victim. The defense is trying to deflect, defuse, and confuse. I just hope the jurors can see that. All MOO

I don't think it's a big deal either. I know it's been reported that Summer would never go or take her kids there. I have considered that Joey was thinking of taking his oldest son there to go surfing, which Joey still did occasionally after he married Summer.

I actually find that showing that either Joey or Summer searching this is taking away the 'premeditated' part that Chase did the search so he could later leave the Trooper at the border on the 8th. I don't believe that, but there are many posters here that do. jmo

 

[JMarsh]

Well that is the clincher then. If the same check number, 4093 was created and deleted at the McStay house, then printed and cashed from Chase's home, it proves Chase was at the McStay house because the number 4093 only appears once in a check stock. That stock would either be at Joey's or at Chase's - not both. So, in the speculative theory that Joey was going to print it out but then changed his mind and told Chase to print out the check, it would've had to have had a different check number, since Chase's stock was a different numerical series.

I think it may mean the opposite. Chase never cashes a check with the numbers 40.. anything. His checks are all in the 4200 range. Joey's are in the 4100 range. What I believe that check number means is exactly what I speculated before-that the Custom account is not being used as a "bank account" it is being used to monitor projects.

However, even with that usage you can still write checks only it will impact the project "balance" so in order to keep that accurate you have to delete the checks after, so as not to impact the project balances. The check number 4093 doesn't actually reflect any check that is going to be printed, it is just the number they each put in when writing checks by way of the Custom account.

 

[missy1974]

Sorry I must have misunderstood your first reply to me then, when you said bbm:

you did. Because I never said that I thought the parked Trooper would be caught on camera, it's clearly out of the camera range, I think the movement of the Trooper when it was dark between 7-8 and even later could have been caught on camera. Again, it's entirely possible it wasn't, but I don't believe that. This is just my opinion.

 

[Edmo]

you did. Because I never said that I thought the parked Trooper would be caught on camera, it's clearly out of the camera range, I think the movement of the Trooper when it was dark between 7-8 and even later could have been caught on camera. Again, it's entirely possible it wasn't, but I don't believe that. This is just my opinion.

I have a ? Did the camera ever capture the truck GOING to MS's house?

 

[missy1974]

I think it may mean the opposite. Chase never cashes a check with the numbers 40.. anything. His checks are all in the 4200 range. Joey's are in the 4100 range. What I believe that check number means is exactly what I speculated before-that the Custom account is not being used as a "bank account" it is being used to monitor projects.

However, even with that usage you can still write checks only it will impact the project "balance" so in order to keep that accurate you have to delete the checks after, so as not to impact the project balances. The check number 4093 doesn't actually reflect any check that is going to be printed, it is just the number they each put in when writing checks by way of the Custom account.

Huh... I hadn't noticed that the cheque #'s weren't the same.

I went and checked Carmen's testimony quickly and see that one cheque is numbered 4236 that was given to MSM and dated the 4th.

 

[asyousay]

I just don’t believe that a week before the family vanished that there was conveniently a google search to Mexico and then magically the person who did this made it look like they had gone to Mexico.

 

[missy1974]

I have a ? Did the camera ever capture the truck GOING to MS's house?

Not that we know of, but they only took the 7-8pm time and I believe they were only looking for the Trooper. We have no way of knowing if any other vehicles went by before 7pm.

 

[dlkutac]

I think it may mean the opposite. Chase never cashes a check with the numbers 40.. anything. His checks are all in the 4200 range. Joey's are in the 4100 range. What I believe that check number means is exactly what I speculated before-that the Custom account is not being used as a "bank account" it is being used to monitor projects.

However, even with that usage you can still write checks only it will impact the project "balance" so in order to keep that accurate you have to delete the checks after, so as not to impact the project balances. The check number 4093 doesn't actually reflect any check that is going to be printed, it is just the number they each put in when writing checks by way of the Custom account.

Right, but we're not talking about the custom account. The idea is Joey issuing a check off Contract, then deciding to have Chase issue it himself (in a brand new procedure created the day of the murders). We're talking about a cashed check from a stagnant (missing) series of check numbers. If you are saying they may have been using a dummy series for monitoring, they would not pick a series that preceded the current series because it was more than likely used in previous years. I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that 4093 was created, deleted, then re-created and cashed. Was 4093 cashed after re-creation? I have yet to find a complete list of checks with check numbers anywhere.