Charles Merritt to be sentenced in McStay family murder

Charles “Chase” Merritt, the Inland Empire man convicted of murdering a business partner and the partner’s wife and two children, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, Jan. 17, in Superior Court in San Bernardino.

A jury on June 24 recommended that Merritt, 62, be put to death for three of the slayings and life without parole for a fourth. Judge Michael A. Smith can choose between death or life without parole.

Merritt was convicted June 10 of first-degree murder in the deaths of Joseph McStay, 40, his wife, Summer, 43, and their two children, Gianni, 4, and Joseph Jr., 3. Jurors also agreed with a special circumstance of multiple murders. The same jury recommended later recommended three death sentences and life without parole in the death of Joseph McStay Sr., the business partner.

Merritt has lived in Homeland, Apple Valley and Rancho Cucamonga.

Prosecutors told jurors that Joseph McStay was edging Merritt out of their San Clemente water-feature sales and production business partnership. Prosecutors said McStay told Merritt on Feb. 1, 2010 that Merritt owed him $42,845, and at the time the McStay family disappeared, McStay was cutting Merritt out of the business because of poor performance. The family vanished from their Fallbrook home Feb. 4. They formerly lived in San Clemente.

Merritt maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

Merritt was arrested and charged in November 2014 – a year after the McStay family’s skeletal remains were discovered in two shallow graves west of the 15 Freeway near Victorville. A three-pound sledgehammer that investigators said was used to kill the family was buried along with their remains.