Friends, family and Victorville residents gathered in the desert Wednesday to post crosses as a memorial for the members of the McStay family whose remains were found there earlier this month.

Many people who had never met the family traveled into the desert Wednesday to pay respects to the family, some who had also lost loved ones. Four white crosses marked the area where the bodies were found, names of each member written on the crosses and flowers covering the ground below.

The brother of Joseph McStay, Mike McStay made the journey to the desert to see for himself where his brother’s body was found.

"What was hidden is out in the open, and we can catch the individuals who did this," he said.

Timeline: McStay Family Mystery

The San Diego family had been missing since 2010, and the discovery of the remains leave more questions unanswered as the open-ended mystery of the missing family of four has baffled law enforcement, relatives and anyone who actively followed the case.

Another woman who visited the memorial said Joseph was her uncle’s best friend.

"For myself, this just really hits home," Mallory Cummins said through tears.

Others who came to the memorial had not even met the family.

"There were two kids, and mom and dad," said Victorville resident Gabriel Espinoza, who came to help create the desert memorial. "It’s just not your everyday kind of crime that you hear."

"This whole time they’ve gone missing and they were found right here in our desert," said resident Renee Burke. "We were here to pay our respects to the family."

The group released a flock of doves and sang “Happy Birthday” for Joseph, who would have turned 44 years old Wednesday.

Condolences have been pouring in for the family from people across the world through social media.

San Bernardino County officials are expected to release autopsy reports on the family, though that could take days. Meanwhile, law enforcement sources say the investigation remains active.

A motorcyclist found skeletal remains Nov. 11 in the area between Quarry and Stoddard Wells roads, just north of Victorville, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department Victorville Station said. When investigators began to analyze the bones, they came across another set of remains in a shallow grave about 6 to 8 feet away, sheriff's spokeswoman Jodi Miller said.

Joseph McStay, of Fallbrook, Calif. and his wife Summer were last seen with their two children, then ages 3 and 4, in February 2010, NBC7 San Diego reported. A group resembling the McStay family were spotted on surveillance footage crossing into Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing on Feb. 8, 2010.

A 16-month-old boy died after being run over by a car Wednesday afternoon in Normal Heights, according to San Diego police.

The toddler was rushed to Rady Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A family friend told NBC 7 the boy's name is Manuel, known around the neighborhood as Manny.

The accident happened just before 1:30 p.m. at a home in the 4400-block of Wilson Avenue.

According to police, the child was being watched by a caretaker. That woman's 22-year-old daughter came by the house and apparently backed over the toddler with her car as she was leaving.

Police say no one realized the boy had slipped away, until his 10-year-old aunt discovered him in the driveway.

Police are calling this an unfortunate accident. They say the driver had no idea she hit anything and is cooperating with police.

Family members were too distraught to talk on camera, but were seen crying and consoling each other at the house. Nearby residents described the home as kind of a neighborhood daycare.

At this point, it appears the driver won't face charges.

Check back for updates on this developing story.
 

View 4460 Wilson Ave in a larger map

A San Diego man may be the latest victim of “knockout,” a disturbing new activity spreading across the country involving teens or young adults physically assaulting unsuspecting strangers.

Victoria Hyatt says her husband was attacked in such a way by a stranger in downtown San Diego on Tuesday.

As her husband waited to cross the intersection at 2nd Avenue and Ash Street, Hyatt says a man walked up beside her husband and then, out of nowhere, punched her husband in the face.

“And as soon as he hit him as hard as he could, he just kept walking,” Hyatt told NBC 7 San Diego. “It was like nothing had happened.”

Hyatt says her husband was in complete shock and never saw the attack coming.

“[The man] was dressed like any other young man downtown. He had a nice dress shirt on, a nice pair of slacks,” she said.

When Hyatt learned the assault on her husband may be tied to the fast-spreading “knockout” game, she couldn’t believe it.

“I had never heard of this before,” she said, adding that something like this could happen to anyone.

“It appears to be a relatively new trend,” said San Diego Police Department Officer Jim Johnson.

Officer Johnson says that while police may not be tracking “knockout” incidents locally just yet, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

And he says people need to understand the seriousness of the so-called game.

“First of all, it’s a crime, just the initial act itself,” he explained. “But let’s say that person falls down, hits their head and dies. Then, that means you’re probably going to go to jail for life.”

Hyatt says the attack on her husband should serve as a warning to others to always be on alert.

“Be more aware of who’s around you – what’s going on around you,” she said.

As for those who think this is a game, she has another message:

“Knock it off. Knock it off. You’re hurting a lot of people and it’s not a game. It’s not a game.”

Hyatt says her husband is recovering and luckily, he’s okay.

She says he called police immediately after the attack and officers were able to track down the man who hit him. However, so far, no charges have been filed.

Cases of “knockout” have been reported around the country, with many of the assaults caught on camera in places like New Jersey, Missouri, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

In Pittsburg, a teacher suffered life-threatening injuries from a “knockout” punch. In Chicago, a 62-year-old grandfather was actually killed from injuries sustained in an attack linked to the dangerous game.

Earlier this month, a 78-year-old woman fell victim to the game in Brooklyn, making her the ninth reported “knockout” victim in New York. Authorities in New York have been investigating the incidents as hate crimes.

The alarming trend began gaining national attention in May after a group of teenagers in Syracuse, N.Y., allegedly knocked out a 51-year-old man and stomped on him. The man died from his injuries.

In New York, reports of recent “knockout” incidents have prompted community leaders to call for an end to the violence.
 

Locally based craft beer brewer Ballast Point has signed a 15-year, $16 million lease deal to occupy a 106,584-square-foot industrial facility in San Diego’s Miramar submarket, according to CoStar Group and public data.

Special Section: Local Business Spotlight

The warehouse at 9045 Carroll Way is owned by H.G. Fenton Co. of San Diego. Brokerage company Voit Real Estate Services represented the landlord and tenant in the transaction.

The property was built on 5.6 acres in 1978 and has eight loading docks. The deal is among the largest industrial leasings this year in the Mira Mesa and Miramar industrial neighborhoods, CoStar said.

Ballast Point was looking to expand its initial production brewery in Scripps Ranch and found the new location after a 20-month search, Voit said in a statement. The Carroll Way building will be Ballast Point’s main brewing, bottling and canning facility, with production set to start in summer 2014.

“Breweries require very specialized facility services and systems, from ceiling height, power, water, gas, floor drainage, outside areas for tanks and storage, easy access for large trucks, and to be centrally located,” Voit Senior Vice President Jeff Chasan said.

The Business Journal is the premier business publication in San Diego. Every day online and each Monday in print, the Business Journal reports on how local business operate and why businesses leaders make the decisions they do. Every story is a dose of insight into how to run a better, more efficient, more profitable business.

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The U.S. State Department didn't reveal much of anything on Thursday in the wake of reports that North Korean officials had detained an 85-year-old California veteran of the Korean War last month.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a wide-ranging news conference in Washington, D.C., that she "wouldn't dispute" reports that Merrill Newman was being held in North Korea, but she wouldn't confirm it either.

"I just don't have any more specifics on it," Psaki told reporters.

Earlier Thursday, NBC News' Andrea Mitchell had asked Secretary of State John Kerry about the reports Newman had been detained, but he did not address Newman's reported detention specifically.

"They have other people, too," Kerry said. "These are all very, very disturbing choices by the North Koreans."

Newman's son, Jeffrey Newman of Pasadena, told the Associated Press that on Oct. 26 his father had been set to return to California when a uniformed North Korean officer boarded the plane he was on and asked for his passport. Jeffrey Newman said his father, who lives in a Palo Alto assisted living facility called the Channing House and was traveling as a tourist, was then told by a flight attendant that he had to leave the plane.
 
"My dad got off, walked out with the stewardess, and that's the last he was seen,'' Jeffrey Newman said.

It wasn't clear what led to the detention, which the Mercury News first reported on Wednesday. 

Newman taught high school in Berkeley and Livermore, and had been to Korea as an infantry officer during the Korean War, the newspaper reported.

“There are parts of this that are, even by North Korean standards, out of the ordinary,” said Dan Sneider, associate director for research at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford, told NBC Bay Area.

That North Korea has yet to formally admit holding Newman is "very unusual," according to Sneider. It may indicate that the North Koreans "don't know what to do with him yet," he said.

Sneider said North Korea might hope to use Newman to get something from the United States, as in 2009, when former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang to secure the release of two American journalists.

Newman's son told the Associated Press that he was speaking regularly with the U.S. State Department about his father, but U.S. officials wouldn't confirm the detention to reporters, including NBC Bay Area, citing privacy issues.

The son said that, according to his father's traveling companion, Newman earlier had a "difficult'' discussion with North Korean officials about his experiences during the 1950-53 war between U.S.-led United Nations forces and North Korea and ally China.

That war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically at war. The war is still an important part of North Korean propaganda, which regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of trying to bring down its political system - statements analysts believe are aimed in part at shoring up domestic support for young leader Kim Jong Un.
 
The detention comes about a year after North Korea detained another American and as the U.S. State Department warns in a formal notice that Americans should avoid travel to the country, in part because of the risk of arbitrary arrest and detention.
 
North Korea has detained at least six Americans since 2009, often for alleged missionary work, but it is unusual for a tourist to be arrested. The North's secretive, authoritarian government is sensitive about foreign travelers, and tourists are closely monitored. Analysts say it has used detained Americans as diplomatic pawns in a long-running standoff with the United States over the North's nuclear bomb production, something it denies.
 
Speaking Thursday to reporters in Beijing, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Glyn Davies wouldn't confirm Newman's detention but said, generally, that Washington was working with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which acts as America's protecting power because Washington and Pyongyang don't have official diplomatic relations, ``to try to move this issue along and of course calling on North Korea ...  to resolve the issue and to allow our citizens to go free.''
 
Merrill Newman was traveling with his friend, Bob Hamrdla, who was allowed to return. Hamrdla said in a statement that "there has to be a terrible misunderstanding'' and asked for Newman to be quickly returned to his family.
 
Jeffrey Newman said his father always wanted to visit North Korea and took lessons in the language before leaving on the nine-day trip. Newman said he believed the inspiration came from the three years his father spent as an infantry officer in the Korean War, but said his father never talked about his service. The son added that the Swedish ambassador had delivered his father's heart medication to the North Korean Foreign Affairs Ministry, but it was unclear whether he had received it.
 
Despite some recent nuclear diplomacy, tensions remain on the Korean Peninsula after a spring that saw threats from North Korea of nuclear strikes against Washington and Seoul. International disarmament talks are currently deadlocked, with North Korea demanding status as an atomic power and Washington refusing to resume the talks until the North makes progress on past disarmament commitments. The North is estimated to have a handful of crude nuclear devices and has conducted three underground atomic tests.
 
Davies, the U.S. envoy, told reporters that the holding of American citizens by North Korea is a further indication of its lack of sincerity on restarting a dialogue on nuclear issues.

Jeffrey Newman said he believed North Korea would eventually release his father after realizing that all they have is an "elderly traveler, a grandfather with a heart condition.'' 
 
"We don't know what this misunderstanding is all about,'' he said. ""All we want as a family is to have my father, my kids' grandfather, returned to California so he can be with his family for Thanksgiving.''

 NBC Bay Area's Kris Sanchez, and the Associated Press' Foster Klug, Robert Jablon, Channing Joseph and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this story.

Rain covered San Diego County Thursday bringing cool temperatures and a pockets of rain across the region’s roads during the morning commute.

Check Your Forecast

The scattered showers were light for the most part but there was also the potential for an isolated intense downpour according to NBC 7 Meteorologist Jodi Kodesh.

“Our potential for rain, we have it already, will continue all day today,” said Kodesh.

The storm is dropping heavier amounts of rain as it approaches the foothills.

Over the next 48 hours, our coastline and valleys could see over a half an inch of rain. We could see up to two inches in our local mountains and foothills. Deserts may get a quarter of an inch, according to Kodesh.

Check Interactive Radar

The rain-slicked roads presented dangerous conditions for drivers heading in to work early.

In Del Mar, no one was injured when four cars crashed at 5 a.m. along northbound Interstate 5 near Via de la Valle.

Driver Ben Hertel said the car he was traveling in was hit from behind and spun around.

“We spun into the guardrail on the inside and then came all the way across the freeway collecting a couple of other cars and going off the bank,” he said.

Their car fell about 150 feet down the embankment and landed in water. Hertel said the water was about knee-deep and the car doors opened just fine so they were able to get out.

Crews were working to remove two cars from that embankment.

Check Traffic Map

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for Riverside County beginning 4 p.m Thursday through 10 p.m. Saturday for areas above the 5000-foot level including areas like Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear.

Though much of the momentum of the storm moves over our mountains and deserts, there is enough instability to create a thunderstorm in San Diego Friday and Saturday.

The start to next week will bring sunshine and warmer weather, Kodesh said.

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• San Diego Man May Be Latest Victim of 'Knockout' Game


• Pregnant Woman's Water Broke After Air Bag Deployed: CHP


• Woman Found Alive After Days of Searching


• 3 London Women Spent 30 Years in "Slavery"


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California Highway Patrol officers report that a pregnant woman's water broke after she was involved in a crash on southbound Interstate 805 north of Mission Valley.

The collision involving two cars occurred just before 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and forced the closure of the highway just south of Murray Ridge.

Officials say the air bag in the woman’s vehicle deployed in the crash.

Minutes after first responders arrived, the woman had to be transported to a nearby hospital by ambulance.

Citing privacy requirements, the CHP would not release the woman’s name or update her condition.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

Two brothers from Romania surprised their mother with a birthday present that puts your gift card to shame.

Toma and Paul Alexandru traveled around Romania to recreate childhood vacation photos taken nearly 20 years ago as a gift to their mother for her 55th birthday. The recreations are a near-mirror image of the old photos, right down to the facial expressions and poses. Even the clothing looked similar, but Toma Alexandru told the "Today" show that they were not able to match everything perfectly.

The old and new photos were laid side-by-side and presented to their mother in a photo album.

Their Mom was moved to tears, Alexandru said. Knowing she would get emotional, they included a box of tissue along with the gift.

The brothers' photos are part of a popular trend on the Internet, where adults recreate awkward childhood photos and post them next to each other, making for some funny and sometimes cringe-worthy moments. 

Click through the gallery above to see more of their photos.

A car's safety equipment is credited with protecting a driver from more severe injuries in a high-speed rollover crash during a speed trial event at a dry lake bed in the Southern California desert.

The crash, captured on video, occurred during a speed trial event Nov. 10. The video was posted Nov. 18 -- two days after driver Brian Gillespie was released from Arrowhead Regional Medical Center, according to the Southern California Timing Association.

Gillespie's modified Hasport Hondata Insight was traveling at about 180 mph when the car veered to the right and rolled several times at the El Mirage lake bed (map), about 35 miles east of the Antelope Valley community of Lancaster. The car was stripped to its protective roll cage -- a strong frame built into the passenger compartment of a car to protect its occupants.

Gillespie suffered a collapsed lung, cuts and bruises, according to the Timing Association.

He previously shattered the 200-mph barrier at the El Mirage lake bed.

Video Credit: John Wylie

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San Diego police searched for three juveniles Thursday accused of shooting at a window on a trolley.

According to officials, the three young suspects were seen hanging out on a hill along westbound Interstate 805 just west of San Ysidro Boulevard near the trolley stop.

At around 2:50 p.m., the suspects allegedly shot out a window of a trolley. No one was injured.

Officials did not immediately release further details, including suspect descriptions.

Check back for updates on thi developing story.
 

A house fire on the 4400 block of Marlborough Street in the Kensington neighborhood drew multiple fire trucks to the scene Thursday afternoon.

There were no evacuations or injuries reported, but the Red Cross was reportedly called to assist one person and a dog.

Smoke was visibly pouring out of the house and fire crews were still investigating the building, which is located just east of the I-15 and north of El Cajon Boulevard.

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Countless images and videos have shown the frightening destruction caused by tornadoes that ripped through several Illinois towns on Sunday.

Perhaps none of them shows how instantaneously a home can be dismantled in a powerful tornado, but a video posted to YouTube this week comes close.

Surveillance video at a gas station-Dairy Queen combo in Diamond, Ill., shows cars being spun around in the street as the twister enters the area. Between the 29 second and 31 second mark in the video, a two-story home is wiped off its foundation and completely destroyed.

The video's description notes that the house was a model home and no one was inside at the time.

The phone at the gas station has since been disconnected, and employees there couldn't be reached.

Diamond was one of the towns most heavily hit by Sunday's storms. In all 22 tornadoes touched down in Illinois. Damaging and powerful storms also hit other parts of the midwest, including northwest Indiana.

In Washington, Ill., an EF-4 tornado with winds that forecasters said reached 190 mph affected more than 1,000 houses. A man was killed in the storm there and 122 people were injured.

 

San Diego County sheriff’s deputies are looking for a convicted child abuser who failed to appear in front of a judge in Vista Superior Court.

Joseph Vincent McCarron, 59, of Fallbrook was scheduled to appear on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
He was convicted on 11 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

McCarron is described by deputies as armed and dangerous. He’s believed to be driving a 1993 green Honda Accord with a California license plate 3ELK383.

He may be in Rainbow as well as Fallbrook in the North County, officials said.

If you have any information, you’re asked to call the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department at (858) 565-5200.

Four cars were damaged after several high-speed crashes happened within moments of each other along Interstate 5 in Del Mar. The incidents ended with one car flipped and another car partially submerged in water early Thursday.

CHP officers responded to calls for help from several drivers along northbound Interstate 5 near Via de la Valle at 5 a.m.

“It’s a miracle that we’re all okay,” said driver Amanda Conahan. “Somehow we’re all okay, I don’t know how.”

Conahan said she was traveling northbound in her blue Hyundai when the car began hydroplaning on the rain-slicked road.

When her car began to fishtail, she said she slid across the road and slammed into a guardrail, landing upside down off the freeway.

“I think I flipped twice, I don’t know, it’s hard to tell,” she said.

At the same time, three other cars were involved in a collision at the same location although the California Highway Patrol has not determined the cause of the crash.

Passenger Ben Hertel told NBC 7 he was worried about flipping over as well when the vehicle he was traveling in drove off the highway and down the embankment.

Hertel said the white Lincoln Towncar was hit from behind.

“We spun into the guardrail on the inside and then came all the way across the freeway collecting a couple of other cars and going off the bank,” he said.

The car landed in water described as about knee-deep.

Hertel said the car doors opened just fine so they were able to get out without any injury.

Inside another car, two Navy sailors were headed to Camp Pendleton to work when their vehicle also went down the 150-foot embankment.

Their vehicle landed upright. The sailors were not injured, officials said.

Removing the vehicles was a challenge for tow truck drivers who were working to clear the scene.

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Chula Vista police said they have found a 72-year-old woman who they have been searching for since Sunday.

Officers were working on few leads as they searched for Norma Luikart who was last seen Sunday at 7:45 a.m. at her care facility in the 400 block of South Oxford Drive.

On Thursday, Luikart was found half of a block away from that adult care home.

“We’re unsure of where she’s been for the last several days,” said Eric Thunberg with the Chula Vista police. “There was no obvious signs of trauma or injuries.”

Luikart suffers from dementia and seizures and is unable to say her name so it is not clear what information she will be able to tell officials.

A person living on Ocala Drive heard a loud noise and saw Luikart lying down near his gate lying down.

He told police that he recognized the woman from the flyers posted in the area.

Dozens of San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Search and Rescue volunteers joined the search.

The volunteers, wearing bright orange jackets, jumped on quads to roam nearby parks and canyons and walked neighborhoods with dogs.

Luikart was transported to Sharp Chula Vista hospital with a bruise on her hip that officials believe she suffered when she fell outside the resident's home. 

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• 3 London Women Spent 30 Years in "Slavery"


• Sex Predator to Be Released Into East County


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A dozen people were hospitalized with smoke inhalation today after a sand blaster caught fire at a dry dock on Belt Street, just east of the airport.

One of those people had trauma injuries, although the exact cause was not known.

Fire and military personnel are trying to figure out how to remove the piece of machinery that caused the fire, which was not major but caused a great deal of smoke.

San Diego State University’s sexual assault policies will be put under the microscope by the California State Auditor’s Office.

A spokeswoman for the auditor confirmed SDSU is on a list of public universities that are under review, including UCLA, UC Berkeley and Chico State.

The auditor’s office did not explain why SDSU is being investigated.

Lawmakers approved the audit after UC Berkeley was accused of violating the Clery Act, which requires colleges to release information about crime on and near campus.

Auditors will look at cases from 2009 to 2013 to see how well the schools are following laws and how they handled sexual assault allegations from students, according to the auditor’s office.

On Thursday, SDSU would not comment on the audit, but did release the following statement:

San Diego State University is working with state auditors. The University does not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation in its education programs or activities and takes seriously its responsibility to educate students, care for victims and properly adjudicate cases involving sexual conduct and crimes.

The report is expected to be released in April 2014.
 

A North County hotel has been ordered to increase security after complaints of prostitution and nuisance activity.

La Quinta Hotel on Paseo Montril in Rancho Penasquitos must now install more security cameras and signs to deter criminal activity.

The hotel agreed to do this as part of a settlement with the San Diego City Attorney's office.

The San Diego Police Department discovered prostitution at the hotel during several undercover sting operations.

Court documents show multiple undercover operations where investigators said they arranged to meet at the hotel with prostitutes through websites.

The hotel is located in the suburbs, which is surprising to many locals, including Sabre Springs resident Amy Sandoval.

“It’s a very, very family-oriented area; lots of kids, lots of families, lots of schools nearby. I would never imagine anything like that going on in this area,” said Sandoval. “You don’t expect an area like this to have that problem.”

However, as this case proves, Deputy City Attorney Nicole Pedone says a bust like this could happen anywhere.

“These types of things really can happen anywhere, even in the best of neighborhoods, as we can see,” said Pedone. “Anyone who drives past this motel can see it’s a well-kept hotel – it’s a nice hotel. From the outward appearance, no one believed there would be any crime or nuisance issues here.”

According to Pedone, the hotel became a hub for prostitution, with prostitutes congregating there on a regular basis. Since the hotel is near a freeway, she believes the location gave easy access to those involved in the illegal activity.

“In this case, there were approximately 16 arrests since March of 2012,” said Pedone. “I think that is a fairly significant number.”

A couple of those arrests involved an alleged pimp and prostitute who had a 6-year-old child together. The child was actually present at the hotel at the time of their arrests, Pedone said.

Pedone is hopeful that these added security measures will be effective in curbing the problems in the area.

“Hopefully we can push [this activity] out of our city and make our city safer,” she said.

Find out more about this story Thursday on NBC 7 News at 4, 5 and 6.