Part of TV News Archive. Connections He had a long criminal record and had been questioned extensively by the FBI. Parnell, along with Murphy, took Steven to a cabin in Catheys Valley, where he was brainwashed to believe his parents no longer wanted him. In the end, Stayner confessed without the promise of child pornography or reward money for his parents. Cary Stayner went from being the brother of child abductee Steven Stayer to a full-blown serial killer. From hair trends to relationship advice, our daily newsletter has everything you need to sound like a person whos on TikTok, even if you arent. Agents had interviewed Stayner, a handyman at the Cedar Lodge where the tourists had stayed, and later dismissed him as a suspect. Check-out had apparently been done in advance and the keys were left on the room desk. How frightened the girls must have been when he cut their clothes off.. On Saturday, July 24, FBI agents announced at a press conference that a man was in custody on strong suspicion of murder and that a "significant announcement" would be made shortly. I wouldnt think that he would think of himself as one, but he is a hero.". Caroles parents, Francis and Carole Carrington, appeared on the Good Morning, America TV show, to ask for the prayers of Americans and their help in locating their daughter and the children. In (the) interview, Stayner said he had fantasized about killing women for the last 30 years and described in detail how he murdered all the women, He had strangled Pelosso and Carole Sund in their rented cabin in the Cedar Lodge motel, then took Juli Sund to a lake, where he killed her early the next morning. Tragically, Steven Stayner was killed in a 1989 motorcycle accident at the age of 24. But why doesnt my dad hug me anymore? After the fourth murder, the FBI went looking for Cary Stayner to interview him, but initially as a witness. Stayner said he thought he had gotten away with the earlier crimes, but could not resist the urge to kill Armstrong after he struck up a chance conversation with her. On February 15, the ladies hiked into Yosemite National Park on one of the many trails. Although the Merced police department launched a full-fledged investigation at the time of Stevens disappearance, they werent able to find any significant leads. The police reckoned that the killer of the three women was someone familiar with the county given the location of the Pontiac. Im so proud of the way Carole and Juli lived, and Im so ashamed of Stayner.. He was a good student, a She was subpoenaed because she is a friend of Dykes and Larwick. At the time of the murders, Cary was working as a mechanic at the Cedar Lodge, which is where he met his first three victims Carole Sund, her daughter Juli Sund, and her friend Silvina Pelosso. During the first crash, the truck jackknifed before hitting the car. In a 2003 jailhouse interview with The Chronicle, Parnell admitted that he had tried to buy the boy to experience the "love and respect" that a son has for a father. The trio stayed at the lodge in February 1999, during which time Cary talked his way into their room, where he sexually assaulted and murdered all of them. Parnell and Murphy were driving towards town when Stephen was lured into their vehicle and abducted. The Stayner family was made up of two brothers, three sisters, and parents Kay and Delbert. Steven later said in an interview, I returned almost a grown man, and yet my parents saw me at first as their seven-year-old. Latent fingerprints were also been lifted from the interior of Joie Armstrong's truck, which Stayner admits to touching during his encounter with her. ", The FBI was reluctant to finger Stayner because, they, and many others, did not believe that Stayner acted by himself, given the brazen killing of the three women in the Cedar Lodge Motel and the disposal of the bodies. Although most of the stains were likely to include Armstrong's blood, Stayner was observed to have a laceration on his hand during his interrogation, and therefore may have been cut and bled during the attack. On Monday, July 22, the court heard Stayners taped confession, which he had given to FBI agents. Jeffrey Wayne Keeney, 32, of Modesto. All of its been bad, Delbert Stayner said of his familys life. They then headed out for Cedar Lodge in El Portal on February 14, which is located on Yosemite's western slope. He told Hartman that his parents "didnt change that much," but his brother and sisters, "they changed a lot. Steven Stayners fame was short-lived. It was discovered beyond a campground adjacent to her living quarters in the Foresta community, a group of 30 cabins for use by park workers. Michael "Mick" Larwick, 42, of Modesto, part of a vagabond group of methamphetamine drug users and friends centered in the Modesto area. Against the odds, he flourished there. A large search turned up nothing. The Sund family's worst fears were confirmed when a hiker wandered onto the site of a burned-out red 1999 Pontiac, hidden off Highway 108, in the Stanislaus Forest region on March 18. Woman recalls moment family learned they were target of 1999 Timothy White, the kidnap victim, was only 35 when he died. He had no criminal record and his only encounter with the law was for marijuana use in 1997. But, as the Hulu doc frames it, the media attention that Steven got after escaping his abductor and also saving Timothy White had a dark side both for Steven and for the rest of his family. Campbell, when first arrested on mail fraud charges, had in her possession Carole Sund's checking account and automated teller machine numbers. The prosecution team was headed by George Williamson and the defense team was headed by Marcia Morrissey. 5-year-old Timothy White walking home from school and they quickly snatched him. Agents descended on the colony and returned him to El Portal on Saturday where he was put through a more lengthy interrogation. Then he took action. Convicted in 1978 for rape and robbery, he was jailed on March 14 for failing to register as a sex offender. Jens couldn't accompany them on this trip because he needed to prepare for an upcoming business trip. 'I try to stay strong because I know that's what you'd want your baby to be, but, Mommy, I don't want you to leave me.'". In the Bureau's mind, this time it had the right man. Vacuum sweepings were taken from inside Joies house, where Stayner claims to have bound her with duct tape, yielded hair evidence. Stayner said he thought he had gotten away with the earlier crimes, but could not resist the urge to kill Armstrong after he struck up a chance conversation with her. | For FBI agent Jeff Rinek, it was the climax of a On December 4, 1972, at the age of seven, Steven was approached after school by Edward Ervin Murphy, who claimed he was collecting money for the church. The two hitchhiked to Ukiah, California. ", Stayner's apartment was searched later in the day and the authorities discovered evidence that linked him to Armstrong's murder. Silvina Pelossos mother, Raquel, said, I just cannot understand how so many peopledidn't realize that maybe (Stayner) was the man since I heard that he was interviewed some time ago. Acting on a tip from a caller who was worried about the whereabouts of his friend, Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26, park rangers found her decapitated body on the morning of July 22, 1999. While Steven was a freshman at Mendocino High School, some 300 miles to the south, his older brother Cary was an upperclassman at Merced High School. And in 1999, the Stayner family was back in the news but this time, for a less than positive reason. Stayner was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Joie Ruth Armstrong. Billy Joe Strange, 39, an El Portal parolee who worked at the Cedar Lodge lounge and restaurant, where the murdered women were last seen. Over the next few weeks, a task force including FBI agents and law enforcers from four surrounding counties, arrested several known sex offenders, drug users, and ex-convicts with a record of violence from within a 75-square-mile area between Modesto and Sonoma. One of those arrested, and later released, was Cary Stayner, who worked at the Cedar Lodge as the handyman. By Friday, July 23rd, Stayner, in the meantime, had disappeared from the area, by the time agents came to arrest him. Carole and her husband, Jens, 43, owned a realtors business in the Stockton area. He paid a local kid to ride with him to the town of Ukiah, California and he told to go and find him a boy. According to Special Agent Christopher Hopkins , both the FBI's Evidence Response Team and the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office collected items of potential interest from Room 509 at the Cedar Lodge Motel, the room in which Stayner sexually assaulted Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso and murdered both Carole Sund and Silvina. On July 23, when Cary Stayner was released from custody for his marijuana charge, he quickly packed up and left for Laguna del Sol, a nudist colony, according to In this, he calmly reviewed how he strangled 16-year-old Silvina Pelosso in the motel bathtub and how he sexually assaulted Juli Sund for hours before brutally cutting her throat. Steven told the police what happened to him and Timothy and he was also able to tell them his real name was Steven, not Dennis. Police found her car in front of her cabin, packed for the trip. Upon examination by the FBI Laboratory, some items have yielded trace evidence. The other Sund children believed their mother and sister Juli would be returned. "We never really got along that well after he came back All of a sudden Steve was getting all these gifts, getting all this clothing, getting all this attention. It was the last time the women were seen alive. Concluding the interview, he addressed the victims' families: "I am sorry their loved ones were where they were when they were. Cary was 11 years old at the time, and deeply upset about his brother's disappearance. Steven was a national hero. WebThe story of Steven and Cary Stayner will leave you in absolute disbelief. Unsurprisingly, it didnt take long for the story to become national news, and the teenage Steven was at the center of it all. You could see that he wanted to play and be with kids and be normal. It then came out that Steven had been kidnapped by Parnell, who had been sexually abusing Steven while also posing as his father and forcing him to go by the name Dennis Parnell. Her mother had been dating him and he had decided to kill them on Valentines Day. Out of respect for his family and the victim's family, we don't want to say anymore." They had been hosting Silvina, who was a foreign exchange student from Argentina and a friend of Juli's, She was spending three months with the family. I guess I was jealous. His attempt was foiled when other people were at the house at the time he was planning to commit the crimes. At a press conference outside the Stayner house, everyone was smiling, but Cary in his baseball cap wasnt smiling at all. The two brothers of the Stayner family are both famous - one experienced horror in the hands of a child molester, Steven, and the other, Cary, the serial killer in Yosemite. By the time Steven was 14, he had been abused and manipulated by Parnell for seven years and Parnell and Steven together realized that Steven was growing up and that he was no longer going to be controlled by Parnell and they would need to find someone else that they could sexually abuse. Cary didnt emerge as a suspect during the initial investigation, and the FBI actually believed they had the people responsible for the killings in custody. Cedar Lodge, 9966 CA-140, El Portal, CA 95318. "'Deep in my heart I know something my mind does not want to learn,' said Gina,13. He did feel, however, that the FBI spared nothing to investigate the earlier killings. Curtis Cousin Eddie Smith Claims Alex Murdaugh Made Him A Fall Guy, Morgan Doughty Filed A Lawsuit Against The Murdaugh Family, Buster Murdaugh Testified For The Defense At His Fathers Double Murder Trial, Randy Roth From 'A Rose For Her Grave' Is Still In Prison, Get Even More From Bustle Sign Up For The Newsletter.