Sometime between Jan. 11 and Jan. 21, 2018, Desert Springs, AZ., residents, Susan and Jerry Mcfalls Sr. were murdered and their bodies left in a shallow grave just south of the Utah, Arizona border, off Black Rock Road. A memorial marks the spot.
The body of Susan Mcfalls was identified in November 2018. Jerry Mcfalls body was confirmed in January of this year.
A recent service was held in Beaver Dam, AZ., honoring the two-year anniversary of the couple being reported missing.
Family and friends gathered to pray for justice for the Mcfalls. Information shared by many who attended, including family members, may shed new light on the Mcfalls murder.
Evidence, some of it anecdotal, motive and opportunity seem to be building against son Jerry Jr. and his wife Meridee Mcfalls. According to the Mohave County Sheriff’s office, they are suspects in the case. Recently, the community heard a very different story from what the couple has been publicly saying over the course of the investigation.
One area that was never searched was the area where the bodies were found. Meridee and Jerry claimed the area had already been searched. Eleven of the weekly search members confirmed wanting to search that area but Meridee or Jerry said, “searching it further would be a waste of time.”
Nobody, not even Fugitive Recovery Specialist David Bounsall, had reason to doubt or question what they were told until after the bodies were found.
According to close family members who attended the memorial, Susan and Jerry Mcfalls Sr. were currently in the process of cutting Jerry Jr. out of their will.
Meridee owned a bowling alley in the Salt Lake City, UT., area. Jerry Jr. owned an auto repair shop with Jerry Sr.
After falling into serious financial trouble, Meridee and Jerry Jr. took out several credit cards, gas cards and loans against the bowling alley without Jerry Sr. or Susan’s knowledge. Both businesses ended up closing or going bankrupt. Afterwards, Susan and Jerry Sr. cut Jerry Jr. and Meridee completely out of their lives and pocketbooks.
Jerry Jr or Meridee didn’t speak to Susan and Jerry Sr. in almost a year. Just weeks before the couple was murdered, Jerry Jr. and his son Ethan called Susan and told them that he was leaving Meridee and needed a place to stay. He stayed with his mom and dad for approximately a week but returned to Meridee. Just weeks later the couple was murdered.
Susan allegedly sent a text to Meridee on Jan. 11, 2018 at 11:27 a.m., asking where she purchased a baby’s bed and ending the text with “love ya.” Immediately, Meridee responded with, “Walgreens, love ya lots.” At 3 p.m. Susan responded with “Thanks be home Sunday love you all.”
A court date (reason unknown) was set for Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2018 and marked on Susan and Jerry Sr.’s home calendar. The couple didn’t appear that Sunday as was texted, they didn’t attend the court appointment, and nobody checked on them until Jan. 20 at 8:50 p.m. when Meridee sent a text asking, “You ok Jerry’s been trying to get ahold of you.”
Susan and Jerry’s teenage grandson Kayden said his grandmother would never have sent texts like the one described. “She didn’t talk like that and Meridee and Susan hated each other,” he said. Kayden is Jerry Jr.’s nephew.
The Mohave County Sheriff made a welfare check on Jan. 21 but the couple was nowhere to be found. The house appeared as if the couple were getting things ready to leave but perhaps were abducted instead.
“Grandma never would have left the dogs. Grandpa wouldn’t leave his driver’s license. There’s no way those dogs survived ten days without food or water and there wasn’t evidence that the dogs were starving. They didn’t tear up anything for food. Something had to be left there for them to eat and drink for them to survive that long. A faucet was left dripping into a pan outside the back of the house, but Susan didn’t leave that. She had the dogs’ food and water dishes in the house. She didn’t leave the dogs outside for fear of hawks, coyotes or other dangers,” Kayden said.
The grandson is now with his paternal grandparents who were raising him jointly with Susan and Jerry Sr. The two couples were close friends, seeing each other, visiting homes and sharing meals and family business several times each week. The grandparents corroborated everything Kayden said.
Kayden, who lived with Jerry Jr. and Meridee, described her as controlling and manipulative, making all the plans and then informing Jerry Jr. of the specifics. He said Jerry Jr. just went along with Meridee. “It’s another reason my grandma hated Meridee. She was the reason Jerry Jr. took out all that credit and didn’t tell his parents,” he said.
For two years, Meridee and Jerry denied the existence of a silver SUV that may have played a part in the murder. Investigators have located and identified a silver SUV which used to belong to Meridee’s former 13-year employee and friend, Zach Jeppesen. Former neighbors confirmed that the silver SUV was at Meridee’s and Jerry’s home several times a week. Jeppesen no longer owns the SUV.
Several friends, acquaintances, family members and close associates have mentioned Jerry Jr.’s obsession with crime series, true detective stories, Forensic Files, The First 48 and even a crime magazine called ‘The Strand.’
On the first anniversary of finding Susan and Jerry’s bodies, Meridee, Jerry Jr. and a friend Alex, visited the burial site and memorial.
A video made during the visit begins with Meridee holding the cell phone/camera and walking toward the memorial at night. Faint chanting is heard that sounds like “I am down you are down, and if Alex is related, he is down, and Alex is down you are down…” The camera then goes onto a picture of Susan and Jerry, there is laughter, and someone says, “Apparently crime is the happy strand.”
There’s a little more laughter then Meridee cuts in saying, “No, we’re live.” There is vocal silence for the following 21 seconds before Meridee says, “We are live up at the memorial of Susan and Jerry Mcfalls.”
Meridee and Jerry Jr. have obtained legal counsel and, up to this point, have refused to take a lie detector test. Traveler Dave, a 30-plus year veteran of search and rescue and private investigator who has been involved with the search from the start said, “Innocent people do whatever they can do to clear their names; the guilty try to hide. If it were me, I’d take that lie detector test in a heartbeat if for nothing other than to clear myself from the investigation and let them move on to find the guilty ones. It’s one less person the investigators have to worry about; depending on the results.”
Investigators also know that Meridee and Jerry Jr. are adept at manipulating where people think they are by tagging different locations on social media. According to their location tags they appeared to be shopping in Las Vegas, but Jerry Jr. was spotted at a Mesquite location. Jerry Jr., after the fact, posted a message about their experiment working.
Grandson Kayden says that Jerry Jr. and Meridee have taken possession of all cash, vehicles and many collectibles that his grandparents had owned, even those items that would rightfully go to other family members according to his grandparents’ wishes.
There is a substantial amount of money in Susan and Jerry Sr.’s bank accounts as well as checks belonging to Jerry Jr.’s grandmother who is still alive. Susan controlled those checks up until the time she was murdered. Now Jr. and Meridee have control of the money which family members haven’t been allowed to access.
Kayden says that Jerry Jr. and Meridee haven’t shared anything with family members about the continuing investigation, memorials that have been held or anything else. He wouldn’t have known about the memorial if he hadn’t seen it on Facebook.
Meridee and Jerry Jr. knew about the memorial saying, “We were made aware through a Facebook post of a vigil being held in Beaver Dam this weekend. We would like you to know that we have NOT been working with or been in contact with David Bounsall since Oct. 13, 2019 and have NO part of the vigil being held and we are not positive it’s being held for the right reasons.
“There are some very serious lies and allegations from several individuals going around on Facebook and in the media about myself and Jerry’s involvement in Susan and Jerry’s murder. This has added an extreme amount of stress and safety concerns for our family on top of this already difficult time.”
Bounsall has volunteered his time, his men and his gasoline to and from Las Vegas every week to bring whoever murdered these two people to justice. After Bounsall began asking the Mcfalls questions and pointing out the flaws in their stories they became angry. They have accused him of lying and planting evidence against them. Bounsall has continued his investigation and kept contact with Mohave County Detectives who are also working the case.
In an election year, community members are seeking answers from the Mohave County Sheriff.
Among them, are how the dogs survived ten days with no food or water; why the children waited so long to call for a welfare check; why did Meridee and Jerry Jr. lie about knowing anyone who owned a silver SUV; why did the couple leave the house without purses, dogs, cell phones and driver’s licenses; is the official investigation coming to a conclusion soon; do we need to continue to worry that a killer is living among us?
So far the only official response from the Sheriff’s office is “Nobody has been ruled out as a suspect, the investigation is currently ongoing, and we cannot release any details of the investigation at this time.”
Both Bounsall and Traveler Dave said, “Meridee and Jerry Jr. have had two years to play the victims but they’re not the victims, the real victims are Susan and Jerry McFalls and the community wants justice for them. We’re not going to stop until we get it.”
The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office is still urging community members or anyone with any information on the Mcfalls murder to contact the Sheriff’s office at 928-753-0753.
Additional Mesquite Local News articles pertaining to this story can be reviewed at: https://mesquitelocalnews.com/2018/03/14/missing/
Subsequent articles are available at :https://mesquitelocalnews.com/2019/10/16/41965/, https://mesquitelocalnews.com/2018/05/03/sheriff-under-fire-by-community/, https://mesquitelocalnews.com/2019/10/16/41965/ and https://mesquitelocalnews.com/2018/03/08/mcfalls-search-party-volunteers-desperately-needed-wanted/.
The video can be viewed here:
