SAN BERNARDINO – (INT) - It’s now up to Superior Court Judge Michael Smith whether to accept a jury’s recommendation that Charles Merritt should suffer the death penalty for killing Merritt’s former business partner, his wife and their two children.

The same jury that convicted Merritt voted unanimously Monday in a split verdict recommending a no-parole prison term in the slaying of Joseph McStay and the death penalty for the murders of McStay's wife and their two children.

Merritt never took the stand at his 5-and-a-half month long trial. But, he denied killing the McStay family. They vanished from their Fallbrook home in 2010. Their graves were found in the desert near Victorville more than 3-years later along with a sledgehammer, the murder weapon.

Supervising Deputy District Attorney Sean Daugherty said the motive was “greed and greed’s child, fraud.”

Merritt was embezzling thousands of dollars from Joseph McStay's custom fountain business, prosecutors said.

Story Date: June 27, 2019