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Border crossing video

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrW223Yq6Ik&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube- Border Surveillance Video - Possibly the McStay Family[/ame]

(Family at the 28-31 second mark)
It's possible they were just going for the day, you can get alot of quality goods for very little, if you pay cash! It doesn't look like they're carrying overnight bags! Could be Joey needed some special items for a job. And they met up with ............. I don't really want to think about that horror.
 
Two e-mails were sent to Joseph's brother, Michael McStay, about potential sightings via his Web site, McStayFamily.com. One person said they saw Joseph McStay and his sons in a store on the Gulf side of Mexico. Another reported a sighting on the Pacific side. Michael said he would not go into further detail and was leaving interpretation up to authorities.
[...]

The FBI has reportedly joined in the search for the family as well.
[...]

A surveillance camera from a neighbor's home also caught a short glimpse of the family leaving their home on Feb. 4 at 7:47 a.m.

But why their car was left abandoned near the border remains a mystery to authorities. A second video, from a business near the border, also shows what appears to be the family, crossing into Mexico.

According to the San Diego Sheriff's Department, computers at the family's home shows that someone also searched for information about traveling to Mexico, suggesting that the family may have planned their trip south.

Other clues left behind at the home paint a different picture. The family left behind two dogs without food or water. Summer had been painting the kitchen that weekend and wet paint and kitchen utensils were left out on the counters.

"I was one of the last people speaking to her and for three days straight it was all about moving in and settling in. There was no mention about hesitancy or challenges she was having," said Jesi Silveria, a friend who has known Summer for 10 years. "If she had any stress or strain or worry you could have heard it in her voice. It just doesn't make sense to anyone who personally knows them."
[...]

"It's a shock on one hand that they possibly went to Mexico, but then again that gives me a direction to focus on," McStay said. "The best thing I can do is go down to the border for now and see if anybody remembers anything."
http://www.ocregister.com/news/family-242297-home-left.html
 
SAN DIEGO — Detective Troy DuGal has fielded hundreds of leads since entering the home of Joseph and Summer McStay a year ago to find rotten eggs on the kitchen counter and two cereal bowls full of popcorn on the living room futon. He believes the McStays went to Mexico with their two young boys, but the evidence that fills four large binders in his office cubicle yields no answers.

"I absolutely know their financials and their friends better than I know my own financials and my wife's friends," says DuGal, 49, a homicide investigator for the last three of his 15 years with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Friday marked one year since the McStays disappeared from their home in Fallbrook — a small town north of San Diego known for its avocado orchards — and DuGal says he is no closer to cracking the case than he was the day that Joseph's brother called to report the family was missing.
Four days after the family vanished, their white Isuzu Trooper was parked at a San Diego shopping mall, just steps from Tijuana, Mexico. A dark surveillance video shows four people walking across the border that night, possibly the McStays.

What troubles the detective most is that he has no account of the four days before they crossed the border. Were they staying with friends? Were they at a hotel?

"I think it's likely that something bad has happened," says DuGal, who is on a second career after serving in the Navy.

Joseph, who was 40 when he disappeared, was a mild-mannered surfer who made friends easily. He ran a business from home designing and installing water fountains. He kept promises and paid bills on time.

In his spare time, he played soccer and hung out with buddies. He was close to a teenage son from a previous marriage who lives in the San Diego area.

Summer, who was 43 when she vanished, was more reserved. An avid shopper, she frequented Ross Dress for Less and had a penchant for fur and Ugg footwear.

She was a devoted stay-at-home mom to Gianni, who was 4, and Joseph Mateo, 3. She gave birth at home and wanted them home-schooled.

Born Lisa Virginia Aranda, Summer has taken several names during her life, which DuGal chalks up to an eccentric personality. Her sister, Tracy Russell, told him that Summer once suggested she change her name to Autumn.

Summer admired Italians, which may explain why she once took the surname Martelli. DuGal hasn't found anyone in her life with that name.

"Summer did not care for her Hispanic heritage," DuGal said. "Therefore, she assumed identities in the things she liked."

The couple dated a while and married in 2007. They left a small duplex in San Clemente, south of Los Angeles, after their boys were born and bought a home in Fallbrook. They moved in over Thanksgiving weekend in 2009 and were unpacked when they vanished barely two months later.

DuGal found no signs of forced entry when he arrived at their home Feb. 15, the day that Michael McStay called to report his brother missing. A computer search piqued the detective's interest.

Summer e-mailed a seller on Craigslist about Rosetta Stone software to learn Spanish and asked that it be delivered to Joseph at a soccer game. Joseph's friends remember seeing him shake hands with two men at a game Jan. 29, the day of the arranged sale.

Internet searches on Jan. 27 included queries on passport requirements for travel to Mexico and whether there was an age requirement for entering the country.

On Feb. 4, the day of the disappearance, Summer made her last cell phone call at 2:11 p.m. to a homeopathic medicine company, and an employee remembered it well. It came minutes after an Internet search for the word "Anger" on the company website.

"Summer was adamant that she wanted to purchase a medication called Anger," DuGal said. "They said, 'Ma'am, it doesn't exist.'"

.A neighbor's surveillance tape shows the bottom of what looked like the McStay's Isuzu Trooper passing at 7:47 p.m.

Joseph's last cell phone call came at 8:28 p.m. to an employee, Charles Merritt, to follow up on a meeting earlier that day. Merritt told the detective that Joseph spoke calmly and strictly about business.

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..DuGal thinks the family left the home alone.

"I believe something occurred within those four walls between the four family members that made them leave in a hurry," he said. "It may have been good. It may have been bad. I don't know."

DuGal opened the back of the Isuzu at a towing yard and found a Pottery Barn Kids refrigerator and sink for a playhouse, with children's videos like "Franklin Goes to School" that were purchased at Ross Dress for Less.

The SUV was towed from a lot with a two-hour parking limit. Employees remembered keeping tabs on it.

DuGal says the border crossing surveillance tape appears to show the McStays. The woman is wearing fur and Ugg boots. The two children and man wear hats, as Joseph and his sons often did.

The FBI assures DuGal that the McStays are not living under witness protection. Neither Joseph nor Summer had criminal records or signs of financial problems.

DuGal believes the family would have sent word home by now if they were safe.

"We're a year into this," he said. "I want to find the family."

Still no word on this family...

Joseph.jpg
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summer.jpg
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gianni.jpg
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liljo.jpg
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mcstayhome.jpg
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Entire family still missing, like we read today, everyone has to be somewhere... www.mcstayfamily.com
 
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So all this time they have been saying they left on their own, now they are saying they haven't left on their own?
 
Thanks for that. A little new info. I didn't hear of the internet searches and meeting Craigs List people.
 
Dunno, could be something like losing home/job/owing money, or illegal activities and parents made a go for it to Mexico...it's possible. I'd so prefer that over reading they were all found dead. Sweet children. I hope they are alive and well.


damn, ya'll are fast----saw the last post of info...so didn't leave on their own? drugs? whether they left on their own or didn't would make sense.
 
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Whatever happened to them, they sure left in a damn hurry. I fucking HATE when people are missing, and never found. WTF happened to them and their beautiful children?
Are there others seen with them on the video crossing the border? If in fact it was even them. UGH.
 
This family is still missing. Last update I found was this from February 4, 2012:

It's been two years since a Fallbrook family of four went missing and one of their relatives is still looking for clues in their disappearance.
[...]

In an exclusive interview with NBC 7, Joseph’s brother, Mike McStay, said he has been desperately searching from day one and that it has become an obsession.

Sitting at the computer for hours on end, Mike McStay checks the website he created for his brother Joseph and his family which features pictures of Joseph's wife and two small sons Gianni and Joseph Junior.

People from nearly everywhere have been sending Mike McStay information on possible sightings.

"You think you're on a trail and the door just gets shut in your face," McStay said.
[...]

In a grainy video taken at the border, a family who resembles the McStays can be seen walking across the border.

"It's compelling. It tells you that it could be them," McStay said. But he has his doubts.

Mctsay says the man in the video appears to be carrying an infant on his chest possibly in a baby byorn. Furthermore, he said his brother has a teenage son from a previous marriage and would never willingly cut off their relationship.

"They're not cruel people they wouldn't put their families through this," McStay said. "I know them. I don't think they would behave that way."
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/Search-Continues-for-Missing-Fallbrook-Family-mcstay-138709269.html


McStay Family support site: http://www.mcstayfamily.org/
 
I still think it is very suspicious that nobody realised they were missing for 11 days, when he was a contractor and otherwise reliable. There cannot have been any work for him, or people would have been wondering why he wasn't at their homes installing the water features they ordered. (Now, if there was ever a type of work that would dry up during a financial crisis.......)
 
Susan Blake writes her son Joseph all the time. "I send him e-mails," she says, "keeping him updated on what's going on."

Each e-mail goes unanswered. All she can do is hope that he sees them.

It's how she copes with one of the most unsettling and baffling missing persons cases in recent years: the mystery of the McStay family.

Next week marks the third anniversary of the disappearance of Joseph McStay, 43; his wife, Summer, 46; and their two young children, Gianni, 7, and Joseph Mateo, who would be 6 this month.






February 4, 2010 was the last day anyone saw the family or heard from them. When police entered their Southern California house more than 10 days later, they found eggs on the kitchen counter and bowls of popcorn in the living room. Their two dogs were also in the home. But not a single trace of the McStays.

2010: California police search for missing family

Did they voluntarily leave? Are they in Mexico? Are they in danger? Are they dead?

Despite hundreds of tips and several high-profile television reports and interviews, no one has a clue.

"This is definitely an unusual case," says Lt. Glenn Giannantonio of the San Diego Sheriff's Department's homicide division "At this point we are no closer to finding them than on the day they disappeared. I know that sounds horrible, but we just don't know what happened to them."

The sentiment is shared by Dennis Brugos, who led the sheriff's department investigation into the McStays' disappearance before retiring last year. "Nothing makes any kind of rational sense that you can put together," Brugos says.

The McStays lived on a cul-de-sac in Fallbrook. Described on its website as the "friendly village," Fallbrook is about 18 miles from the Pacific Coast and some 50 miles north of San Diego.

Joseph McStay owned Earth Inspired Products, a company that built custom water features for high-end commercial businesses around the world, says Mike McStay, his younger brother. Summer stayed home to raise the children, but according to Mike was planning on getting back to work.

The family's locked and abandoned Isuzu Trooper was located February 8, 2010, in San Ysidro, just two blocks from the border. Surveillance video taken that night shows a family fitting the description of the McStays walking into Mexico.

"If you look at the clothing that they were wearing at the time, it coincides with when the vehicle was found; it leads you to believe that that was them crossing the border," Brugos says. "I can't say definitively it's them, but it's a high probability."

Giannantonio agrees. "We do believe the family on the tape going into Mexico is that of the McStays, " he says.

But Joseph's mother isn't convinced.

"My son's meds were in that car," she tells CNN. "My son has asthma and doesn't go anywhere without the meds on him. And to have babies go without car seats. This is the stuff that doesn't add up."

Mike McStay says he is not sure if the family is on the video. "The best is that the children appear to be size appropriate, but I could never get an ID off the adult. Even if it were them crossing, we still don't know to what intent. We don't know if it was under duress or willingly."

However, he says he believes someone has an answer. "How does somebody not see them?" he wonders. "They have to go get groceries, get the basic necessities of life; they have to have a way to generate an income. There has to be something.

"My brother is out there. I want what everyone wants, a phone call, a letter, something. I don't want to know why he left. We just have to know that they are OK."

Mike McStay is familiar with the theories speculating on what might have happened, including one presented in the new book, "No Goodbyes: The Mysterious Disappearance of the McStay Family."

Author Rick Baker says his own investigation, including reviewing hundreds of personal e-mails, shows that Summer and Joseph were having problems and that their relationship was, in his words, about to "explode."

Baker speculates, among other things, that at least one of the family members may have met with foul play.

Mike McStay bristles when asked to comment on Baker's suggestion. "I don't know how he sleeps at night," McStay says of the author. "I suspect he's looking for money. He's a good manipulator and knows how to twist things. He's just trying to sell books."

Blake, the mother, says there were many inaccuracies in the book. "It was very hard to read all this, very heartbreaking, the accusations."

She says, "The bottom line for me is this book will bring focus to finding the family, sad to say."

Giannantonio cautions there is no evidence of any criminal activity. "Everything leads us to believe the disappearance is voluntary. It's still categorized as a missing persons case," he says.

"We have to rely on facts and evidence. We don't want to publicize unsubstantiated theories. Everyone has theories, however we can't come out and say this is what actually happened unless we have something to back that up. Other people can, but that's not the business we are in."

Brugos says he thinks anything is possible. "If you are staying together as a group, as a family of four, it's probably a little more difficult. If you want the kids to go to school, questions are asked, and with the Internet everybody is an amateur detective."

Mike and his mother get reported sightings of the McStays on a regular basis. They come from all over the country. Mike, who says he chases them all down, recently received a tip from Belize, where his brother owned property.

"Every time one comes your heart pumps and you hope to God that this is it," Blake says, "and when it's not you fall apart. It's heartbreaking and very hard."

She isn't giving up. Neither is Mike, though both are mindful that ultimately the truth could be devastating.

"Until my dying day I will try to resolve this thing. I have to know where my brother and my family are," Mike says. "I'm going to have to stick with this for the rest of my life. Until we have closure. So that we can have some peace. I know all of us need peace."

Blake says the search for her family is the biggest fight of her life. "I refuse to give up. I hope to God, but at the same time it's been three years.

"How can a family of four just disappear?"

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/26/justice/mcstay-family-disappearance/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
 
Someone may have mentioned this before, but all I can think of is witness protection - it's the only reason I can imagine the whole family disappearing and having no contact with anyone. You cease to exist as the people you were, and become new identities with no contact with your past. That would give me hope if I was the family left behind - only that they were safe, not that I would hear from them again.
 
FALLBROOK, Calif. — The FBI is taking over the search for a Southern California family that has been missing for 3 years, officials say.

Joseph McStay, his wife Summer, and their 2 young sons Gianni and Joseph were last heard from on February 4, 2010.

In a statement Tuesday, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said it pursued hundreds of leads to find Joseph and Summer McStay and their sons.

The investigation is being turned over to the FBI due to the agency’s experience working outside the United States.
Its believed the family likely went to Mexico voluntarily, but relatives aren’t convinced.

Investigators say that on Jan. 28, days before they disappeared, someone used the McStay’s computer to find information about travel to Mexico and passports for children.

The McStay’s white 1996 Izuzu Trooper was found abandoned February 8th in San Ysidro.

missing-family-video-bgDetectives also uncovered video from a border crossing showing a group of people similar to the McStay family going into Mexico through the pedestrian gate.

The video is dated around 7 p.m. Feb. 8, the same day the Trooper was found.

Detectives showed the video to the McStay’s relatives.

Some recognized the white jacket that the woman is wearing in the video, but other family members aren’t sure it’s them because of the poor quality of the video.

Since their disappearance, investigators said, the McStays haven’t used their credit cards, cell phones or the $100,000 in their checking account.

Family members maintain the McStays would never have left on vacation or for any other reason without telling someone.

“Evidence at the family home suggested that the family had not left on a planned vacation and that the totality of the circumstances surrounding their disappearance was quite out of character for this family,â€￾ sheriff’s Lt. Dennis Brugos said.

The family dogs had been left without food or water.

Food was found on the kitchen counter and two cereal bowls full of popcorn were in the living room.

“Certainly it’s not against the law to be missing voluntarily but we are checking some things preliminarily such as their banking, cell phone use, to try to make a determination on what happened,â€￾ said Lt. Dennis Brugos.

McStay worked from home and ran an online business selling indoor fountain waterfalls called Earth Inspired Products since 1996.
[....]
http://ktla.com/2013/04/09/new-developments-in-search-for-missing-mcstay-family/#ixzz2UAWeUacb
 
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I joined FB groups for this family. One is operated by Joey's father and the other is operated by the brother. Patrick, Joey's father, is a piece of work. He gets in fights with people on the FB page and bans them. He takes questions and statements completely out of context and posts long incoherent rambles. I had to stop the FB notifications from the page because it was constant. The brother is much more civilized.

I looked for rules regarding FB pages. These are group pages to help search for the family, so I think it's okay to post them. Right?

Patrick, the dad
https://www.facebook.com/groups/search4mcstays/



Micheal, the brother
https://www.facebook.com/groups/324645994165/
 
The remains of two of four bodies buried in the desert near Victorville have been identified as missing husband and wife Joseph and Summer McStay but it remained unclear Friday if the other bodies were that of their two young sons.

The McStays and their boys, Gianni and Joseph Jr., went missing from their home in Fallbrook in February 2010. The family's 1996 Isuzu Trooper was found abandoned four days later in San Ysidro, near the U.S.-Mexico border.


Friday, CBS News 8 confirmed with a family member of the McStays that two bodies were found in a remote area are those of Joseph and Summer McStay. CBS News 8 was able to speak with Joseph McStay's father, Patrick McStay who's never stopped looking for his son and says he was hoping for some better news.

"Somebody harmed him and for no real good reason," he said.

Patrick McStay confirmed the family has been contacted by law enforcement from the San Bernardino County sheriff's office and was told that four humans were discovered in two shallow graves, two of those bodies are that of Joseph and Summer McStay. He says at this point the other two bodies are being identified and don't know if they are the bodies of the children.


Patrick McStay says for four years this has been a huge struggle for the family and says he knows his son would have tried to make contact after all these years to let them know he's okay.

"He would not have left or done anything without calling me or his mother," he said. "And for almost four years now, he would have picked up that phone or gotten word to one of us that they were out there and okay."

Sheriff's officials said a forensic anthropologist would assist in conducting the autopsies to determine the causes of death, ages and gender.

San Bernardino sheriff's officials will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Friday to make an announcement in the case.

THIS IS A STORY UPDATE. AN EARLIER STORY IS BELOW.

VICTORVILLE, Calif. (AP/ CBS8) - A relative of a missing Fallbrook family confirmed to CBS News 8 Thursday night that bodies found in the desert near Victorville belong to their loved ones.

Patrick McStay says two of the four bodies found in a shallow grave have been identified as his son Joseph and daughter-in-law Summer McStay. But the couple's two missing sons are still unaccounted for, while investigators confirm the identities of the other two sets of remains.

Patrick McStay could not confirm whether the identified remains were children or adults.

The McStay family mysteriously vanished in February 2010, leaving their dogs abandoned and food on the counter. The San Diego Sheriff's Department ruled in 2012 that the McStays voluntarily went to Mexico on their own.

Deputies and coroner's investigators were digging through two shallow graves in the Mojave Desert for three days after the bodies were discovered. It all began when an off-road motorcyclist reported near Interstate 15 found bones that turned out to be human, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

Sheriff's homicide detectives and coroner's officials on Wednesday wrapped up the excavation in barren scrubland on the outskirts of Victorville.

Victorville is in the high desert about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles. No homes or businesses are near the gravesite.

"There were two graves where remains were located as well as additional skeletal remains ... near the graves," the statement said.

A third site that appeared to show some disturbed ground was also dug up but investigators determined it was unrelated to the gravesites.

Authorities went to the site near the Interstate 15 freeway on Monday after an off-road motorcyclist reported finding bones that coroner's investigators later confirmed were human.

"It appears the remains have been there for an extended period of time. Age and gender are unknown pending examination by a forensic anthropologist," the sheriff's department statement said.

"It is difficult at this point to state how long it will take to determine the causes of death," sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said.
http://www.cbs8.com/story/23976542/...odies-in-the-desert-for-missing-mcstay-family
 
I'm sure it's in production as we speak. I'm sure it's a race with the networks to be the first one to air the new findings.
 
I'm really heart broken. I'd much rather imagine them living under assumed names somewhere in Mexico-- anything but this!:(
 
This case is very mysterious ..
How did they all just disappear, leave their car ( empty of both car seats ) 2 blocks from the border and end up dead in the desert almost 3 years later?

Abduction from home?
Car jacking gone bad?
 
This is a classic mystery; it's fascinated me for years. I had hoped, when I first saw the video, that they had walked away from their old lives to start a new one.Tragic ending; the only positive thing about it is that it will end their families' questions and fears. They will be able to bury their loved ones and start the life-long process of healing. So sad. I hope one day soon we will know the why and how this happened. I wish their families peace.
 
This case is very mysterious ..
How did they all just disappear, leave their car ( empty of both car seats ) 2 blocks from the border and end up dead in the desert almost 3 years later?

Abduction from home?
Car jacking gone bad?
My guess is some kind of emergency phone call made them leave the house.
I've been trying to read up, it seems the dad made a phone call 45 minutes after the car was filmed leaving the house. Just a normal call about work. There's no real official information, as it's still being investigated.
They haven't got DNA back on the kids yet, but because there's 2 kids buried with the McStays, they assume they are theirs.
 
(CBS) - The father of Joseph McStay says he has a list of three people he suspects may have had something to do with the disappearance and murders of his son, daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren.

"I have exhausted and have so much information on three possible persons of interest," Patrick McStay told CBS News' Crimesider over the phone Friday. "All have a motive."

McStay says that while these three individuals are "totally separate," one of them stands out above the rest due to a long criminal history that includes charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary.

"He has money, was in prison... He absolutely had a motive," McStay said.



http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_...people-in-familys-2010-disappearance-murders/
 
Because I got stuck on a psychic site today.
March 2010
here are some cases Im more drawn to than others. This family has had my attention from the start.
I don't get an over all good vibe when I think of them. I started the meditation at their home. I see a man, he is walking down the street to their home, he was dropped off at the farthest corner from their home. Huge palm tree to the right of him as he walks by and mountain scene in the background. You can almost see the main road (boulevard) from behind him. He is heavy set, heavy at the waist area, was once in fantastic shape. I feel he played football in school. Blue faded jeans, work boots. I hear the word GARDNER, and wonder if that was his job. He seems to be caucasian. Beige shirt, button down, short sleeved. He rings the bell, he knows them, they know him. The kids are happy to see him. The dogs go outside, allergies to the dogs. I feel Summer met him first. Summer has set up a business deal. I hear talk of renovations, kitchen counters and bathrooms. Marble. Sudden aggression. Gun pulled out on family. Joseph tries to keep peace as Summer freaks out. I feel thats why they left so easy, doors lock automatically when closed.

http://psychicsunitetofindmissingchildren.blogspot.com/search/label/McStay Family
 
I see a lot of similarities with this case:
"... a whole family disappeared : Xavier Flactif, his partner, Graziella and their three children. Their cottage located in The Grand Bornand is found empty, everything looked to be in order but ready-made meals are found and the fridge is full of food...
http://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/hotyat-david.htm
http://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/hotyat-david.htm

That's why I think the father is right, the perp is someone they knew, someone full of jealousy, anger against a beautifull and happy family with enough money to buy a house.

 
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