California family missing four years found buried in desert 160km away
One riddle ends with the discovery of remains of California couple and their sons missing since 2010; now police seek clues to their killing
Nearly four years ago, the McStays left their snug home in suburban San Diego county, California, on a chilly February evening. Piling into their Isuzu Trooper, parents Joseph and Summer and young sons Gianni and Joseph left behind two dogs, two bowls of popcorn and, soon, a mystery.
Their car turned up four days later in the car park of a small mall near the US-Mexico border, with a few birthday toys for one of the boys on the back seat. But there was no sign of the McStays.
After 1,374 days and some 160 kilometres to the north, San Bernardino county police uncovered the skeletal remains of the parents and two small bodies believed to be their boys, authorities said on Friday. An off-road motorcyclist had noticed a few scattered bones four days earlier, near what turned out to be a pair of shallow graves on the edge of the desert outside Victorville.
After years of false leads and purported sightings from around the nation and into Mexico, San Bernardino county Sheriff John McMahon put part of the mystery to rest when he announced that the four McStays were homicide victims. But the sheriff said it would take more investigation before detectives would have any hope of saying how or why the family died.
"It's not really the outcome we were looking for," Joseph McStay's brother, Michael, said. "But it gives us courage to know they're together and they're in a better place."
From the time the family disappeared in February 2010, detectives in San Diego county said they were baffled by the case. The 40-year-old husband and his wife, 43, appeared to have no enemies. Joseph McStay appeared to have plenty of work at his business, Earth Inspired Products, which installed water fountains.
The lead investigator in the case, Troy DuGal, said he found no signs of forced entry or a struggle at the home of the McStays, on a cul-de-sac in Fallbrook, a town of 30,000. A surveillance camera from a nearby home indicated the parents and their two boys, three and four years old, had left on Thursday, February 4, 2010, at 7.47pm.