McStays Episode 2: Missing?

In late February 2011, four weeks after the McStay family vanished from their Fallbrook home, Detective Troy Dugal asked Joseph McStay’s brother Michael to come to the San Diego Sheriff’s Department. Dugal believed he had a promising lead. He pressed play on a silent, blurry, dimly lit video. In the 15-second clip, a group of four calmly crosses the U.S.–Mexico border on foot—two adults, a man and a woman, each holding the hand of a small child. According to police, the footage was captured on the same day the McStays’ white Isuzu Trooper was towed from a shopping center near the border. To Detective Dugal, the shapes looked like a mother, father, and two children. Could this be the McStay family? He had suspected foul play, but this border footage cast new doubt. Maybe the McStays had left of their own accord.

The search for answers

When the McStays vanished, they left behind close family and friends desperate for answers. Joseph’s father, Patrick McStay, began investigating on his own, enlisting help from Joseph’s friend Gina Watson. “I don’t know what happened, okay?” Patrick told ABC News in 2011. “I’m looking for answers just like them.” Gina, who had met Joseph through work, says she became obsessed with making sense of something so incomprehensible.