As the developments that lead up to January’s Mcstay family murder trial move along (albeit, slowly), we’ve now got the defense gathering up as much as they can to help vindicate Charles “Chase” Merritt of the brutal murder of the McStay family.  This implied person was already said to have been out of the state during the time the family went missing, so many many see this as, perhaps, grasping at straws?

“In a motion filed with the court, one of Merritt’s attorneys argued that a business associate of victim Joseph McStay, Daniel Kavanaugh, threatened McStay and his family in an online exchange in January 2009 after their relationship soured. Additionally, the attorney said, Kavanaugh told another man in November 2013 that he “knows how to make people disappear” and that they will “find his bones in the desert.” ”

Well, okay then.

So, what about this individual being out of the state during the family’s disappearance?

“Kavanaugh’s comment in 2013 occurred 10 days after the skeletal remains of two adults and two children were discovered buried in two shallow graves in the Mojave Desert, north of Victorville and west of Interstate 15. ”

Coincidence, or nah?

My take on Dan’s threats to Joseph:

• Joseph and Dan didn’t seem to have a solidified partnership agreement that laid out the exact amount of business profit Dan was to receive from the website marketing work he performed. And so it seemed that Joseph was paying Dan whatever he felt was “fair” at random intervals. I could be wrong on this, though that is what I’ve seen implied.
• As an online marketer performing SEO Search Engine Optimization on Joseph’s website, Dan could have easily “undid” the SEO work he performed on the website, removed the back links he built to the website. This would have caused it’s search engine rankings to fall and subsequently tank the website’s traffic. I believe the threats made to Joseph by Dan were exactly this; “pay me or I take back my work.”
• Upon further inspection of Dan’s statements and message exchanges with Joseph, it’s easy to see that Dan was in a position to negotiate a more consistent payment schedule with Joseph if Dan was even partially responsible for the websites search engine traffic.

What’s your take?

I’ve received a few questions regarding whether or not I believe Chase was capable of murdering the Mcstay family and I will be addressing specific answers soon. You are welcome to leave your questions for me in the comments.