02 February 2020 :

Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith sentenced Charles Merritt, 62, White, to death. The sentence by Superior Court Judge Michael A. Smith reaffirmed the jury’s verdict and came minutes after Merritt sobbed his way through a statement in which he reasserted his innocence and vowed to someday prove it. Merritt received life without parole for the murder of former business associate Joseph McStay Sr., 40, and death for killing McStay’s wife, Summer, 43, and their children Gianni, 4, and Joseph Jr., 3. Authorities once figured that the McStays voluntarily left their home about the time they disappeared, likely to live in Mexico after their SUV was found near the Tijuana border crossing and surveillance video showed a similar-looking family walking out of the U.S. But on Nov. 13, 2013, motorcycle riders found evidence that led to the family’s remains – along with a 3-pound sledgehammer – in 2 shallow graves in the desert north of Victorville. The District Attorney’s Office and even the judge said the case against Merritt was built on circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors had said that Merritt’s cellphone was turned off during critical hours, and pings from it on Feb. 6, 2010, 2 days after the McStays vanished, put him in the area where the graves would be found years later. Further, prosecutors had argued, a high-tech analysis of a video from a surveillance camera proves that Merritt’s truck left the McStay home the night of the murders, and that Merritt’s activity with McStay’s QuickBooks showed he was looting it. The theft, Deputy District Attorney Melissa Rodriguez said outside court Tuesday, was the primary motive for murder. She said prosecutors believe that McStay noticed the theft of about $40,000, and when he confronted Merritt, he and his family were killed. In June, jurors found Merritt guilty.