The Missing McStay Family

A family flees their home in the night. They leave behind their pets. Their bank account, untouched, with thousands of dollars in it.
Well, they go missing...

They turn up on camera, crossing the border into Mexico. Very curious indeed. Car is found on camera, abandoned, with kid's toys in it..

Credit cards, phones, money, left unused.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to those people. Strange, how people can just disappear.
Eerie. Like they're wiped from the face of the earth.

reply to post by Grifter42


I know this story and it is a strange one. It makes no sense at all.

How about a link for those new to the McStay disappearance?

ktla.com...

There's a link with an overview.

It is bizarre. I wonder if the Dad lost it and subjected the rest of the family to his paranoid delusions? Just guessing, I really have no idea, just trying to come up with a simple, reasonable answer.


Here is a theory about the mom:

www.10news.com...

I'm not familiar with this story but will check kosmicjack's link in just a second.

BUT, in my old neighborhood there was a story of this family that just up and disappeared one night. Their house was found with the lights on, vacuum cleaner running etc. No one is sure what happened to them or why. They just all disappeared one night and left without a trace and no obvious plans to leave.

It wasn't just the kids who talked about it and made up wild stories, the adults did too. They ranged from alien abductions to them being secret spies etc It's a weird suburban folk tale for sure.

witness protection relocation maybe?


was someone "found" and then they were re-relocated?

reply to post by HanzHenry


That's what's so eerie about this one.

Whole bunch of questions, pretty much no answers.

Mexico is a pretty strange place to relocate to. Who were they fleeing? That's what I want to know.

reply to post by Grifter42
I watched a show dedicated to this story on IDiscovery a year or two back. It definitely looked like the family walking through the border crossing into Mexico. Unless eventually someone discovers their bodies or something I have a feeling we may never know the reasons why, but just to make a wild guess I would say the father was on the run from dangerous people and took the family with him.

Really weird story. I've never heard this one before. I read the stories linked earlier in the thread. Very eery. It would be interesting to read the personal emails the author of the book about the mystery had access to.

We had a home down the road raided by the police were talking country with 5 homes in the mile. House was empty for a few years till it burned down. No police report after the raid nothing. People only lived there a couple of months. Rumor it was relocation because of witness protection leak.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by Grifter42

 

I watched a show dedicated to this story on IDiscovery a year or two back. It definitely looked like the family walking through the border crossing into Mexico. Unless eventually someone discovers their bodies or something I have a feeling we may never know the reasons why, but just to make a wild guess I would say the father was on the run from dangerous people and took the family with him.

They would have had to used ID to cross the border so either they had new ID or the part about leaving it behind is wrong.

reply to post by Char-Lee
My guess would be new ID. If they didn't want to take any chances on being found out it would be the smart thing to do I would think, and it's pretty apparent they didn't want to be found out.

Originally posted by littled16
reply to post by Char-Lee

 

My guess would be new ID. If they didn't want to take any chances on being found out it would be the smart thing to do I would think, and it's pretty apparent they didn't want to be found out.

very strange leaving all of 100k in the bank though.

reply to post by Char-Lee
Who is to say they didn't have a lot more than that and took it with them? Either they were super scared OR somebody paid them a lot to disappear- or they went nuts! It's a mind boggler for sure!

reply to post by littled16

The connection to mexico via the imported fountains is interesting and could suggest a link to drug imports. I guess there is nothing really to go one for us who know so little, hard to just forget it though once I started thinking about it.

Personally, I think they're probably dead somewhere. I know it's not optimistic, but something in my gut just makes me think that the situation these people faced was bleak.
No one leaves all that money there if they plan on living. I get the impression they might have been coerced.

What is the nationality of Mrs. McStay? The kids are named Gianni, and Guiseppe Mateo McStay. That's pretty Central/South American sounding to me and with names like that they would blend right in.

I'm also guessing drug related. Maybe he realized the DEA was on to him and he fled with the family. I don't know how much his fountain business made but it sounds like a front to me. Maybe they left 100,000 in the bank because the DEA was watching them and if they emptied their bank account all the way out it would tip the Feds off to them fleeing.

I recall seeing a documentary on this, and the narrative very much pointed to them not wanting to be found, although they were never connected to crime from what I recall.
The gist was more that they just went "hippy" as a lifestyle choice.

However, after recently seeing how people had been kidnapped in quite urban US areas and held for years, I'm starting to strongly doubt that theory.

They didn't need new id's they just walked across the border, it was a minor site the border patrol found the vehicle.

I think it was some sort of exit strategy. I believe they had set up all new identities, accounts, etc., and left everything behind on purpose in order to "disappear"..

Another thing, the wife Summer McStay had legally changed her name twice before. And had been known by five other names during her life.

It was known she hated the move to Fallbrook, after living in a beach front apartment.

Or else it could be Witness Protection.

There's a documentary on NetFlix about them.

Looks like they didn't McStay.....


It's ok I'll show myself out