Cary Stayner

Cary Stayner was born and raised in Merced, California.[2] His younger brother, Steven Stayner, was kidnapped by child molester Kenneth Parnell in 1972, when Cary was 11, and held captive for more than seven years before escaping and being reunited with his family.[3] Stayner later said that he felt neglected while his parents grieved over the loss of Steven.[4]

When Steven escaped from Parnell and returned home in 1980, he received massive media attention. A true crime book and TV movie, both titled I Know My First Name is Steven, were made about the ordeal. Steven died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. The following year Stayner's uncle Jesse, with whom he was living at the time, was murdered. Stayner later claimed that his uncle molested him at the same period as when Steven was kidnapped.[5]

Stayner is reported to have attempted suicide in 1991,[6] and was arrested in 1997 for possession of marijuana[4] and methamphetamine,[7] although these charges were eventually dropped.

In 1997, Stayner was hired as a handyman at the Cedar Lodge motel in El Portal, California, just outside the Highway 140 entrance to Yosemite National Park.[4] Between February and July 1999, he murdered two women and two teenagers: 42-year-old Carole Sund, her daughter, 15-year-old Juli Sund, Juli's friend, 16-year-old Argentine exchange student Silvina Pelosso, and Yosemite Institute employee Joie Ruth Armstrong, a 26-year old naturalist.[5]

The first two victims, Carole Sund and Pelosso, were found in the trunk of the charred remains of Sund's Pontiac rental car.[5] The bodies were burned beyond recognition and were identified using dental records. A note was sent to police with a hand-drawn map indicating the location of the third victim, Sund's daughter Juli.[5] The top of the note read, "We had fun with this one." Investigators went to the location depicted on the map and found the remains of Juli, whose throat had been cut.

Detectives began interviewing employees of the Cedar Lodge motel where the first three victims had been staying just before their deaths. One of those employees was Stayner, but he was not considered a suspect at that point because he had no criminal history and remained calm during the police interview.[8]

When the decapitated body of Joie Ruth Armstrong was found, eyewitnesses said they saw a blue 1979 International Scout parked outside the cabin where she was staying. Detectives traced this vehicle to Stayner, which led to him becoming the prime suspect in the case.[5] FBI agents John Boles and Jeff Rinek found Stayner staying at the Laguna del Sol nudist resort in Wilton, where he was arrested and taken to Sacramento for questioning. During his interrogation, Stayner shocked the agents when he confessed not only to Armstrong's decapitation, but to the murders of Pelosso and the Sunds, and the sending of the map for finding Juli Sund's body as well.[9] His vehicle yielded evidence proving his link to Armstrong.

Stayner claimed after his arrest that he had fantasized about murdering women since he was seven years old, long before the abduction of his brother.[10]

Stayner pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His lawyers claimed that the Stayner family had a history of sexual abuse and mental illness, manifesting itself not only in the murders, but also his obsessive-compulsive disorder and his request to be provided with child pornography in return for his confession.[11] Dr. Jose Arturo Silva testified that Stayner had obsessive-compulsive disorder, mild autism, and paraphilia.[12] He was nevertheless found sane and convicted of four counts of first degree murder by a jury on August 27, 2002.[13]

In 2002, during the penalty phase of his trial, Stayner was sentenced to death and thereafter entered housing in the Adjustment Center on death row at San Quentin Penitentiary in California.[14] Stayner remains on death row as of November 2020[15][1] though there have been no executions in California since a 2006 court ruling over flaws discovered in the administration of capital punishment in the state.[15]

• Stayner's case was featured in an episode of American Justice produced in 2002.[16]
• Stayner was mentioned on Criminal Minds, in the season five episode "A Rite of Passage".
• In 2011, Stayner's investigation and arrest were featured in an episode of FBI: Criminal Pursuit, titled "Trail of Terror", airing on Investigation Discovery.[17]
• In 2013, the history of Stayner's progress from student to convicted murderer was told in an episode of the U.K. television series Born to Kill? titled, "Yosemite Park Slayer."[18]
• The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series Mugshots released an episode on the Stayner case titled Cary Stayner - The Cedar Lodge Killings.[19]
• In 2018, the Reelz channel aired an hour-long documentary about the murders that was titled, "Yosemite Park Killer".
• In January 2019, ABC News' 20/20 ran a story covering the Stayner brothers, titled “Evil in Eden”.
• July 19, 2019 ABC News' 20/20 ran a story covering the Stayner brothers, titled "Black Sheep".
• August 30, 2020 HLN aired "The Yosemite Murders: The Missing Women (Part 1)" and "The Yosemite Murders: The Evil Side (Part 2)", from the documentary series How It Really Happened.
• October 31, 2020, the Australian true crime podcast Casefile True Crime Podcast released the first of two episodes on Stayner with the title "The Yosemite Sightseer Murders." The second episode was released on November 7, 2020. The podcast had released an episode on Steven Stayner's kidnapping earlier in 2020.

• List of serial killers in the United States

• Allie Yang, Joseph Rhee, and Keren Schiffman, 2019, "Steven and Cary Stayner: The tale of two brothers' horror and heroism", ABC News (online), July 19, 201, See , accessed 2 September 2020. [Subtitle: "The two brothers are both famous and both knew unspeakable horror."]
• Mara Bovsun, 2012, "Justice Story: Twisted trail of 'Yosemite murders' leads to resort handyman," New York Daily News (online), Sunday, September 30, 2012, see , accessed 12 June 2015. [Subtitle: "Cary Stayner planned to kill his girlfriend and her daughter; instead he killed 4 other women."]
• CNN, 2001 [1999], "Yosemite suspect confesses to 4 killings, cnn.com (online), July 27, 1999, see , accessed 12 June 2015.
• Stacy Finz, 2002, "Yosemite killer sentenced to death," SFGATE (online), December 13, 2002, see , accessed 12 June 2015. [Excerpts from Stayner's confession; subtitle: "Terrible details of Stayner case stun even the judge."]
• Smith, Carlton (1999), Murder at Yosemite, St. Martin's True Crime Library, St. Martins Press, ISBN 978-0312974572
• McDougal, Dennis (2000), The Yosemite Murders, Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0345438348

• Documentary series from Court TV (now TruTV) "MUGSHOTS: Cary Stayner -The Cedar Lodge Killings" episode (2002) at FilmRise