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Death penalty being sought in slaying of McStay family

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - The district attorney will seek the death penalty for a California man who is accused of killing a family of four and burying their bodies in shallow desert graves.

District Attorney Mike Ramos filed notice Monday in San Bernardino County Superior Court in the case against 58-year-old Charles Ray Merritt, who is being held without bail.

Prosecutors say Merritt killed his business partner, Joseph McStay; McStay's wife Summer and their children, 4-year-old Gianni and 3-year-old Joseph Jr.

Merritt has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial beginning Aug. 10.

Search warrants served in the case will be unsealed Wednesday.

The McStays vanished in February 2010, puzzling investigators who said there were no signs of forced entry at the home, nothing was missing, and the couple's credit cards and tens of thousands of dollars in bank accounts were untouched.

The family's remains were found more than three years later buried in the desert in San Bernardino County, 100 miles from their home in the San Diego community of Fallbrook. Merritt was arrested a year later, in November 2014.

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