Before his death, Joseph McStay had loaned business associate Charles "Chase" Merritt $30,000 to pay a gambling debt and was planning to fire him, another associate told investigators, according to search warrants released Wednesday, July 1. Some 305 pages of search warrant documents were unsealed related to the investigation into Merritt, who is accused of killing McStay, his wife and their two young sons in 2010, then burying their bodies in the desert near Victorville. The search warrants cover a period from Feb. 21, 2014, almost three months after their skeletal remains were found, to Nov. 10, 2014, days after San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators announced the arrest of Merritt, 58, of Homeland. The $30,000 debt was noted in the first search warrant affidavit that San Bernardino County sheriff's investigators filed, seeking access to Merritt’s cellphone records. A coalition of media outlets, including The Press-Enterprise, sought to have the warrants unsealed. The prosecutor and judge had said 33 search warrants would be released, but only 29 were. An attorney representing the media also asked last week for an explanation why authorities had referred to 60 search warrants after Merritt’s arrest. Neither discrepancy has been explained. Before the documents were released, San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Michael Smith made redactions to protect the defendant’s rights and privacy rights of third parties. Attorneys for the prosecution and defense requested certain details be blacked out, as well. IDENTIFYING A SUSPECT McStay started a water fountain design and distribution company, Earth Inspired Products, and hired Merritt as a designer and builder. Two other men, Joseph and Daniel Kavanaugh, also were involved in the business. The last known phone call McStay made was on Feb. 4, 2010, according to the court documents. After the family went missing from their Fallbrook home, San Diego County sheriff’s investigators interviewed Merritt, who said he was the last person to see Joseph McStay alive. But there was no sign of foul play, and investigators concluded the family may have gone to Mexico without telling anyone. Once the bodies were found in the High Desert in 2013, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department opened a criminal investigation. Search warrants helped investigators determine Merritt’s location around the time the McStays were killed. During a preliminary hearing June 15, an FBI special agent testified that Merritt’s cellphone “pinged” Feb. 6, 2010, on cell towers near the desert burial sites. During that hearing, prosecutors presented enough evidence to persuade the judge to send the case to trial. They did not pinpoint a motive for the crime. According to the first search warrant, McStay loaned Merritt $30,000 to pay a gambling debt. “Kavanaugh told San Diego County investigators Joseph (McStay) planned to fire Merritt.” Because of the redactions, it was unclear which Kavanaugh the warrant was referring to. Merritt said he did not like Kavanaugh and stated, "If I were ever going to commit murder it would be with him," according to warrants. During the preliminary hearing, investigators testified about suspicious activity on a McStay business account around the time the family went missing, including backdated checks being written, some of which were deposited in Merritt’s bank account. Investigators also said Merritt had cashed thousands of dollars in checks on the account at casinos across Southern California. SUSPICIONS Several of the warrants said investigators believed Merritt “was trying to sway (San Diego County) investigators away from believing he was capable of the murders” because of an unspecified injury. Evidence indicated the McStays may have been killed with a sledgehammer. But San Bernardino County investigators reviewed home video that showed Merritt jumping over a fence and climbing a mountain next to the McStay home a few months before the crime, leading them to conclude that his injuries were “exaggerated for investigators.” On Oct. 16, 2014, less than a month before Merritt’s arrest, he told an investigator that he was writing a book about what he knew concerning the investigation. “Merritt stated he wrote approximately seven chapters to the book and stopped,” according to one of the warrants. An investigator wrote that a search for handwritten notes and computers might help determine whether Merritt was describing events from memory “or fabricating items to cover his involvement in these murders.” That warrant was for the motor home of an ex-girlfriend, Catherine Jarvis, the mother of Merritt’s children. Merritt had been living there with her at the time of the McStays’ death. At the time of his arrest, he lived with girlfriend Mechele Muir at Highland Palms Senior Estates, a 55-and-older mobile home community in Homeland west of Hemet. An inventory of property seized from the mobile home and vehicles on site included a spiral Justin Bieber notebook, a People magazine and the book “No Goodbyes” by Rick Baker. Baker is a blogger who has conducted numerous interviews about the case and whose website states it is “dedicated to bringing justice for Gianni and Joseph Mateo McStay,” the two dead children. NO OTHER SUSPECTS More than 20 warrants were related to tracing the computer and phone use of the victims, Merritt and other associates. Other search warrants were for McStay credit card use, bank records of the McStays and Merritt, and DNA. As the investigation progressed, investigators returned to court seeking more warrants, for example, to corroborate Merritt’s statements and try to resolve conflicting information about Merritt’s and Jarvis’ whereabouts around the time of the McStays’ disappearance. Warrants also were issued for cellphone records for a family friend hired to paint the interior of the McStays’ home. He was unable to reach Summer McStay the day the family is believed to have disappeared or the next day. Records also were searched for a cellphone belonging to Michael McStay, Joseph McStay’s brother. Michael McStay met Merritt Feb. 15, 2010 to go to his brother’s home when attempts to contact the family by phone were fruitless. The brother climbed through a window, found no sign of them and called authorities to report them missing. An August 2014 warrant to check his phone records said they “would corroborate or contradict his statements” and show where his cellphone was located to help determine whether he was a suspect. In one September 2014 affidavit for a warrant, lead San Bernardino County investigator Edward Bachman wrote that detectives were trying to develop additional leads that “may show additional involved witnesses or suspects in the homicide.” At a November new conference announcing Merritt’s arrest, however, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon said there were no other suspects.