McStay Family Update / Nancy Grace

Update to this post dated 1/31/2012: I have not been able to verify Patrick McStay's current status. Numerous people have left comments stating he was successfully extradited from Texas to New Orleans to face charges on alleged financial improprieties. I've heard conflicting reports about whether or not he posted bail. Most seemed to think he was still being held, which makes me wonder if bail was set prohibitively high since he had previously been a fugitive with regard to the Louisiana warrant. If anyone has media or press confirmation (please don't leave any unsourced comments or I'll just delete them) as to his current status I'd be interested to hear. Also, if anyone knows the exact nature of the charges or if any additional charges have been filed--particularly if any of these charges were related to the McStay family disappearance. I'm doubting the latter is the case and am leaning towards the idea that P.M.'s legal woes are probably separate problems from any problems which might have been the reason for the McStays' disappearance. But we will see what we will see, I guess. For the record, as of this date, I believe the McStays are all alive and well, and that they disappeared of their own volition. For my reasons regarding this, just go to the homepage of this blog and look at the left hand side for the most read blog posts on this site and you'll see several other posts I did exploring several diverse theories which I feel are plausible explanations of the reasons for the family's disappearance.


12/28/2011 MCSTAYS UPDATE: I just put these two things together tonight: Does this creep you out the way it creeped me out?

IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MCSTAYS CASE: PATRICK ROBERT MCSTAY SOUGHT BY LOUISIANA LAW ENFORCMENT: WARRANT ISSUED. This might be the key to solving the mystery of the McStays' disappearance. Or it may prove to be unrelated.

PREFACE: I now thoroughly believe this is the solution to the McStay family disappearance and I'm happy to say I believe they are all alive, if not totally well: I believe this explains why this case seems to so irrational and seems not to make any sense. I think this is a tragic love story, and not a "true crime" story at all.

I woke up with my tv tuned to a channel I'm rarely on and to a show I rarely watch: Nancy Grace's program dedicated to discussion of high-profile criminal cases and stories of the missing.

Oddly enough, I lucked on an hour dedicated to the mystery of the disappearance of the McStay Family.

This was very interesting and the guests included Joseph McStay's brother, Michael, who really surprised me with some of his answers to questions.

I have to hand it to Nancy Grace. The qualities in her that many find most annoying, her unrelenting brashness and confrontational nature, are what make her a great investigative journalist. She's not afraid to ask difficult questions (the prosecutor in her) and she asked Michael McStay some difficult questions. And I was shocked by his response to one of those questions.

When Grace asked McStay whether he believed it was possible that Summer had either killed his brother (or had him killed) he vacillated. He gave answers like "I hope not." There was never any sort of resounding vote of confidence that this would not even be a remote possibility. He eventually ended by saying he didn't believe that that's what happened, but he appeared to be saying this without any real conviction.

This could mean either he's still playing the "let's cover for Joey and Summer game" excellently, or that he has genuine doubts about the stability of their relationship and the capacity of Summer for violence. It was a really unnerving response.

Someone had commented today on another of my McStay posts that he felt confident that one of the spouses had murdered the other.

The thing about spousal homicide is you sometimes have zero clues from the externally visible circumstances.

When Michael McStay was asked his interpretation of the footage possibly showing the McStays crossing into Mexico by night, he said he believed the woman was Summer but he didn't have any such conviction that the man traveling with her was his brother. He also didn't feel confident in saying that those were the McStay children. Obviously, if it is Summer on the videotape those are doubtless her children. That she's suddenly entering Mexico holding the hand of a child other than her own would be more than a little improbable.

Mr. McStay mentioned that in the enhanced FBI footage one can see the woman believed to be Summer McStay is wearing Ugg boots, which Summer was known to have a great fondness for. I can say even myopic I could see the distinctive headgear those kids always wore in the enhanced video, and these aren't really as common as people seem to think. Not even in California. Those hats were bigger in the nineties and less common today. And to have two children wearing those hats is still a stretch I think, when you consider the timing of the crossing relative to the time the vehicle was abandoned.

Also of interest (and new to me) were the following facts: 1) The day of their disappearance, Joseph McStay purchased beach towels, which would seem to indicate a planned visit to some beach and quite possibly one in Mexico. 2) The search that we had heard was done for passport requirements to travel into Mexico was actually a query sent to the site About.com. Whether Summer or Joseph (or someone else--unlikely) made this query is not known. 3) A painter who had been helping with the renovations on the McStays' newly-purchased home apparently "disappeared" without explanation. A family friend had offered to take his place. One has to wonder whether this individual might have been casing the house and the family's resources.

But even with the new information revealed in this most recent examination of the disappearance, it still seems someone was planning a trip to Mexico and it still looks to have been a one-way trip.

The person doing the query would have known that you can get into Mexico that way but you cannot get out. The children would have needed their birth certificates and Summer and Joseph would have needed passports to get out. Summer's passport was expired.

So did Joseph McStay plan to kill his wife or possibly his whole family in Mexico?

Did Summer have Joseph McStay killed either in America or in Mexico?

Did someone lure the family to Mexico for nefarious purposes and kill one or all of them?

I say it still seems like a willful disappearance to me.

If one spouse murdered the other, the probability would of course be greater (going by FBI statistics) that Joseph murdered Summer.

But probability is only probability. And if the woman in the video is Summer and the man in the crossing video is not Joseph, then the possibility that Summer killed Joseph or had him killed has to be entertained.

If we imagine a third party luring the family to Mexico for nefarious ends, it seems odd that the McStays would research the requirements for crossover themselves and not worry about getting back to America. Because they lacked the requisite documents to do so when they crossed over.

It seems one or both of the adult McStays was planning a one-way trip into Mexico (and possibly countries beyond).

I don't believe this was a modern band of Mexican banditti (this was insinuated on the show) who kidnapped or killed the McStay family. Some wild stuff does go down south of the border though, and there have been murders of American tourists like that recently, some of which became high-profile news stories.

There was too much orchestration beforehand indicating intent on behalf of one or more of the McStays to really give credence to the idea that at least one of the adult McStays did not plan this trip to Mexico. Additionally, it was revealed recently that Summer was learning Spanish several months before the family disappeared.

Home invasion and kidnapping seem unlikely. More assets would have been seized from the house and certainly the McStays' accounts would have been raided through cards they carried. And that vehicle most likely would not have been left just sitting there. It would have been fenced.

Was it flight to avoid prosecution for some criminal activities one or both of the adult McStays were engaged in? I don't know. I've seen a lot of people online saying Summer's involvement in the loan modification business was more than a little shady. But I don't think I've seen any real confirmation or documentation to back up that claim. The McStay family disappearance has now reached the level of notoriety where rumors, untruths and half-truths are being spawned and spinning off the story as rapidly as hurricanes in the Atlantic when autumn nears.

I still come to the conclusion of willfull disappearance.

But I'm not sure why. The investigators on this case say the government has assured them that the McStays are not in the Witness Protection Program. But some have asked whether the government would actually confirm that fact if it were the case. Deniability might be the policy for the safety of those in the program.

I hope this disappearance was done in solidarity, but I have to confess I wonder more and more whether one of them might have done harm to the other.

Because of the lack of forensic evidence, I don't believe any such theoretical murder would have happened in the new house or the vehicle.

Possibly this occurred somewhere in the four days in America unaccounted for before the crossing-- or in Mexico itself.

But my instincts still say no.

I still think Joseph and Summer McStay are in this thing together, whatever it is.

And that the family's members are all alive.

Oh, one last mote to trouble the mind's eye.

Someone called in asking if investigators in this case had looked at the disappearance of the Jamison family. This was in Oklahoma.

The caller was obviously a watcher of Investigation Discovery's series Disappeared, since both of these high-profile cases were covered by that program. Both of these cases probably became high-profile because of those programs more than anything else. Investigation Discovery claims it's the fastest growing network, and I completely believe that claim.

The caller had insinuated that there were a number of eerie similarities in the two cases.

I saw that program on the Jamison family disappearance and that is indeed another weird disappearance, but the stories don't share that many similarities.

I will admit that case has one of the creepiest videotapes ever.

The video of the family shows them loading up their vehicle the day of their disapearance, where they walk right past each other dozens of times like zombies in that grainy black and white film. The couple never say a word to each other. It's as though they're the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That clip really gives me the heebie-jeebies. Cree-py.

There was a whole other dimension to that story with the wife's rampant bipolar disorder and the journal found in the vehicle in which she apparently vented a frightening, suppressed rage she felt towards her husband.

They disappeared in an isolated place where they were scoping land to build on.

And there is that strange last photo of their daughter found on the camera left in the family vehicle with the malnourished family dog, who was near death when rescued.

One family friend claimed this photo disturbed her. She stated she believes the child looks worried and speculated that this child seemed aware that something was drastically wrong that day.

There's definitely foul play there and I'd be shocked if it wasn't a multiple murder.

On that one, I'd bet my mental money on a murder by stranger or murder/suicide family implosion.

I have no idea why they did not find the bodies nearby though.

If the wife had been the murderer, my guess is the bodies would have been easily found. She was slight of build. But then she could have lured her family far from where the vehicle was located before committing this act. I don't really believe this is what happened--I'm only speculating.

If the husband committed murder--and he had to have suffered from severe mental illness or drug addiction since he had recently asked a priest how to get imaginary beings off the roof of the family dwelling--the bodies might not be found so easily.

But the fact that in this isolated location the vehicle was not moved implies either the family is somewhere nearby (dead) and the searchers missed them--or they were abducted and taken away in another vehicle.

But in the latter "abduction by stranger" scenario there is a problem --a large sum of money was left behind in the vehicle.

If someone set them up to meet there and then killed them, say because of a grudge, it's possible that they never even looked in the vehicle--because they were only concerned with abducting the family. I mean if they didn't have a mercenary motive. Or maybe they simply didn't suspect the family would bring money along when looking at the plot of land which they were considering for a homestead.

There seemed to be a belief that severe drug abuse (and probably crack) played a big part in whatever happened.

Crack will make people do some insane things.

And since one or both of the Jamisons were suffering from mental illness, obviously that drug would have just exacerbated any psychologically distressing situations.

Both of these cases are bound to keep people guessing for some time.

Each case truly is a modern day Marie Celeste.

And all of these people vanished as thoroughly as if they were indeed lost in the middle of the ocean.