Cary Stayner

Cary Anthony Stayner (born August 13, 1961), also known as the Yosemite Park Killer, or simply the Yosemite Killer, is an American serial killer and the older brother of kidnapping victim Steven Stayner. He was convicted of the murders of four women between February and July 1999. The murders occurred in Mariposa County, California, near Yosemite National Park. Stayner was sentenced to death for the four murders, and is still on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California.[1]

Cary Stayner
2018 prison photograph of Stayner.
Born
Cary Anthony Stayner

(1961-08-13) August 13, 1961
Merced, California, U.S.
Other namesThe Yosemite Park Killer
The Yosemite Killer
Criminal statusIncarcerated
Conviction(s)Federal
First degree murder (18 U.S.C. § 1111)
Kidnapping resulting in death (18 U.S.C. § 1201)
Attempted aggravated sexual abuse resulting in death (18 U.S.C. § 2241)
California
First degree murder with special circumstances (3 counts)
Kidnapping
Criminal penaltyFederal
Life without parole
California
Death
Details
Victims4+
Span of crimes
February 15, 1999 – July 21, 1999 (Confirmed)
CountryUnited States
State(s)California
Date apprehended
July 24, 1999

Early life

Cary Stayner was born on August 13, 1961, the third of five children born to Delbert Foy and Kay Stayner in Merced, California.[2] He had three sisters and a younger brother, Steven Gregory Stayner.[3][4] On December 4, 1972, 7-year-old Steven was abducted in Merced, California, by child molester Kenneth Parnell. He was held by his abductor 38 miles (61 km) away in Mariposa County, California, and later in Mendocino County, California, until he was aged 14, when he managed to escape with another of Parnell's victims, Timothy White.[5] Cary later said that he felt neglected while his parents grieved over the loss of Steven.[6] When Steven escaped and returned home, he received massive media attention which resulted in the 1989 release of a television miniseries based on his experience, I Know My First Name Is Steven (also known as The Missing Years),[7][8][9] based on the true crime book of the same name, and Stayner once again felt overshadowed by the attention his brother got. Steven, who had married and had two children, died in a motorcycle accident in 1989.

When he was 3 years old, Cary was diagnosed with trichotillomania and was put on medication, though the condition continued to affect him during his high school years; the consequential bald spots led to him being severely bullied and having to perpetually wear a baseball cap. Although it is believed that his brother's kidnapping contributed to Cary's sexual deviancy, Stayner claimed to authorities after his arrest that he had begun fantasising about abducting and murdering women since he was 7, prior to the abduction of his brother.[10] Additionally, despite his intelligence being noted by his classmates and teachers and his being placed in accelerated classes in school, he continued having fantasies about women being gang raped before he was a teenager. While his sister's friend was staying over at his house, he even exposed himself to her. Due to his cartoon contributions to the school newspaper, Stayner was chosen as the "most creative" student in his graduating class at the age of 18 at Merced High School.[6] After graduating, Stayner worked as a window installer at a glass company which is where he allegedly developed a fantasy about ramming a truck into the workplace, killing everyone there, and setting the place on fire. In 1991, Stayner tried to gas himself to death with carbon monoxide. In 1995, he was admitted to a mental institution after claiming to have had a nervous breakdown and was released after receiving treatment.[11] He was also arrested in 1997 for possession of marijuana[6] and methamphetamines,[12] although these charges were eventually dropped.

Victims

Confirmed

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. Stayner found all of his confirmed victims at the Cedar Lodge motel.[6] Between February and July 1999, he murdered at least two women and two teenagers.[13]

  • On March 18, 1999, the first two victims, 42-year-old Carole Evon Sund and 16-year-old Argentine exchange student Silvina Pelosso, were found in the trunk of the charred remains of Sund's Pontiac rental car.[13] The bodies were burned beyond recognition and were identified using dental records. Sund was strangled with rope and shot but was not raped while Pelosso was raped and shot. A week later a note was sent to the police with a hand-drawn map indicating the location of the third victim, Sund's 15-year-old daughter Juliana "Juli" Sund.[13] 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 Sund, who had been raped and whose throat had been cut. Detectives began interviewing employees of the Cedar Lodge motel where the three victims had been staying just before their deaths on February 15, 1999. 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.[14]
  • On July 22, 1999, when the decapitated body of Yosemite Institute employee Joie Ruth Armstrong, a 26-year-old naturalist, was found, eyewitnesses said they saw a blue 1972 International Scout parked outside the cabin where she was staying the day prior on July 21. Detectives traced this vehicle to Stayner, which led to him becoming the prime suspect in the case.[13] 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.[15] His vehicle yielded evidence proving his link to Armstrong.

Suspected

Following his arrest, Stayner was suspected of being responsible for other homicides and disappearances in addition to his four known victims. Given that similar offenders started their violent crimes at far younger ages, investigators have stated that they think Stayner may have additional victims.[16]

  • 28-year-old Patricia Marie "Patty" Hicks Dahlstrom last contacted family in September 1982 after relocating to Merced, California from Washington State.[17] She had joined a religious following, the San Anda Apostolic Church, founded by cult leader Donald Gibson. Hicks was one of the group members who were detained in December 1980.[18] An investigation into the religious organisation revealed that sexual assaults had been carried out under various religious pretences. Gibson was put on trial in September 1981, and was found guilty of four sex offences. Afterward, Hicks decided to leave the cult and was last seen by her roommate taking public transportation to the Yosemite National Park. A severed arm and hand were recovered from Yosemite National Park on June 28, 1983.[19] By 1988, a skull was also discovered near the original scene. In April 2021, genetic genealogy identified the remains as being those of Hicks.[20] Stayner is known to have been acquainted with Gibson at the time of his 1981 trial, which he attended. Authorities believe Stayner may have chosen to kill Hicks in retaliation for her testimony against Gibson.[21]
  • On December 26, 1990, Stayner's paternal uncle, 42-year-old Jesse Jerrold "Jerry" Stayner, with whom Cary lived in Merced, California, was shot to death in his house with his own shotgun. The murder was never solved and Stayner became a suspect after his arrest. Cary later claimed that Jesse molested him around the same time that Steven was kidnapped when he was 11.[13]
  • In October 1994, severed human hands were found near the New Melones Reservoir. On December 13, 1994, a headless and handless torso was found in a cluster of trees off Camp 9 Road near Vallecito, California by a group of boys who were burning yard debris. A forensic pathologist determined that the detached hands belonged to the body. In December 1995, the remains were identified as belonging to 24-year-old Sharalyn Mavonne Murphy.[22] Her head has never been found. The FBI investigated Murphy's homicide to determine a link between Stayner due to similarities between her death and the murder of Armstrong.[23] Authorities also reviewed the case of 34-year-old Denise Smith, whose decomposed body was discovered in a 50-gallon burn barrel off Jacksonville Road near Don Pedro Reservoir in December 1994.
  • 20-year-old Michael Larry "Mike" Madden planned to meet friends at Sand Bar Flat Campground in the Stanislaus National Forest near Sonora, California on August 10, 1996, for camping and fishing.[24] On that day, he left his family's home at around 5:00 a.m. He was never seen again.[25] At 2:00 a.m. on August 12, 1996, Madden's companions showed up to the predetermined spot, but they found no sign of him.[26][27] Authorities have considered that Madden may have been a victim of Stayner who committed his crimes near Yosemite National Park, 75 miles east of Sonora.

Trial and conviction

Stayner was tried in federal court for Armstrong's murder since it occurred on federal land. To avoid a possible death sentence, he pleaded guilty to premeditated first-degree murder, felony first-degree murder, kidnapping resulting in death, and attempted aggravated sexual abuse resulting in death. During the sentencing hearing, Stayner stunned the courtroom when he suddenly broke down in tears and apologized. "I wish I could take it back, but I can't," he said. "I wish I could tell you why I did such a thing, but I don't even know myself. I'm so sorry. I wish there was a reason. But there isn't. It's senseless." Lesli Armstrong, Armstrong's mother, started crying as she listened to Stayner, and said afterward that she believed his apology was genuine.[28] Stayner was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Stayner pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the other murders in state court. Stayner also admitted that he had intended to murder two Finnish girls in 1998 but fled when the girls' advisor arrived. 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.[29] Dr. Jose Arturo Silva testified that Stayner had obsessive-compulsive disorder, mild autism, and paraphilia.[30] He was nevertheless found sane and convicted of three counts of first degree murder with special circumstances and one count of kidnapping by a jury on August 27, 2002.[31] After being sentenced to death for the brutal killings, Stayner has been housed at the Adjustment Center on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California since 2002.[32] Stayner remains on death row[33][1] though there have been no executions in California since a 2006 court ruling over flaws in the administration of capital punishment in the state.[33]

Media portrayals
  • Stayner's case was featured in an episode of American Justice produced in 2002.[34]
  • In 2011, Stayner's investigation and arrest were featured in an episode of FBI: Criminal Pursuit, titled "Trail of Terror", airing on Investigation Discovery.[35]
  • In 2013, the history of Stayner's progress from student to the convicted murderer was told in an episode of the U.K. television series Born to Kill? titled, "Yosemite Park Slayer."[36]
  • The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series Mugshots released an episode on the Stayner case titled "Cary Stayner – The Cedar Lodge Killings".[37]
  • In 2018, the Reelz channel aired an hour-long documentary about the murders titled Yosemite Park Killer.
  • On January 26, 2019, ABC News broadcast a 20/20 episode covering the Stayner brothers, titled "Evil in Eden".[38]
  • 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, Casefile, an Australian 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 released an episode on Steven Stayner's kidnapping earlier in 2020.
  • April 2022, a Hulu three-part documentary Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story focused on the lives of Steven and Cary Stayner.

See also

Further reading
  • 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 September 2, 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 June 12, 2015. [Subtitle: "Cary Stayner planned to kill his girlfriend and her daughter; instead, he killed four other women."]
  • CNN, 2001 [1999], "Yosemite suspect confesses to 4 killings, cnn.com (online), July 27, 1999, see , accessed June 12, 2015.
  • Stacy Finz, 2002, "Yosemite killer sentenced to death," SFGATE (online), December 13, 2002, see , accessed June 12, 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 978-0-312-97457-2
  • McDougal, Dennis (2000), The Yosemite Murders, Ballantine Books, ISBN 978-0-345-43834-8
  • Rinek, Jeffrey L. (2019). In the name of the children : an FBI agent's relentless pursuit of America's worst predators. London: Marilee Strong. ISBN 978-1-5294-0188-2. OCLC 1111594447.

References
  1. "Stayner, Cary Anthony". Inmate Locator. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
  2. "Steven Stayner lived courageously". Lodi News-Sentinel. October 3, 1989. p. 2. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  3. "Crash ends life scarred by childhood abduction". The Spokesman-Review. September 18, 1989. p. A3. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  4. "Yosemite killer Cary Stayner born". History.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  5. "Crash ends life scarred by childhood abduction". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, Washington: Cowles Company. Associated Press. September 18, 1989. pp. A1–A2. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  6. Sward, Susan; Finz, Stacy; May, Meredith; Minton, Torri (July 30, 1999). "Overshadowed All His Life". The San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst Corporation. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
  7. Blau, Elenor (May 22, 1989). "A Kidnapping Victim Rates The Film About His Ordeal". The New York Times. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  8. A.P syndicated report printed in the New York Times September 18, 1989
  9. I Know My First Name is Steven at IMDb
  10. Hammer, Joshua (November 1, 1999). "The Yosemite Horror". Outside. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
  11. Gray, Orrin (September 11, 2017). "The Yosemite Killer: Cary Stayner's Twisted Mind". The Lineup. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  12. Bailey, Eric; Arax, Mark (July 26, 1999). "Man Is Suspect in Both Yosemite Murder Cases". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  13. Finz, Stacy (December 15, 2002). "The case of a lifetime". The San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst Corporation. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  14. Finz, Stacy (December 14, 2002). "The Case of a Lifetime, Part Two". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst Corporation. Archived from the original on June 28, 2008. Retrieved August 13, 2016.
  15. "Yosemite suspect confesses to 4 killings". CNN. Atlanta, Georgia. July 27, 1999. Retrieved June 12, 2015.
  16. Zamora, Jim (July 27, 1999). "Cops investigate Stayner in several unsolved slayings". The San Francisco Examiner.
  17. "Phenotyping, Genetic Genealogy Help ID Jane Doe Found at Yosemite in 1983". Forensic Mag. November 22, 2021.
  18. "A woman was found dead in Yosemite. Now she's been linked to a cult and a serial killer". The San Francisco Gate. November 22, 2021.
  19. Hawkins, Stephen (December 22, 2020). "Investigators hope facial reconstruction leads to murdered woman's identity". Fox News.
  20. "1557UFCA - Unidentified Female". The Doe Network.
  21. "Answers". Wild Crime: Murder In Yosemite. Season 2. Episode 4. Hulu.
  22. Garland, Francis. "FBI looks for link to death in Calaveras". The Record.
  23. George, Gray. "Cold case to be examined in two-part series next week". Calaveras Enterprise.
  24. "Michael Larry Madden". The Charley Project.
  25. "1629DMCA - Michael Larry Madden". The Doe Network.
  26. "Missing Persons Case #MP4473". NamUs.
  27. "Michael Larry Madden". California Attorney General's Office. March 23, 2001.
  28. "Stayner sentenced". The Modesto Bee. December 1, 2000. p. 1. Retrieved March 6, 2022.
  29. Geringer, Joseph (February 12, 1999). "Cary Stayner and the Yosemite Murders". truTV Crime Library. Archived from the original on May 13, 2008. Retrieved April 9, 2011.
  30. Finz, Stacy (July 30, 2002). "Stayner called mentally impaired / Psychiatrist testifies for defense". The San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst Corporation. Retrieved July 15, 2015.
  31. Finz, Stacy (August 27, 2002). "Stayner guilty of 1st-degree murder / Former handyman could now face death penalty". The San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst corporation. Retrieved June 9, 2018.
  32. Finz, Stacy (December 13, 2002). "Yosemite killer sentenced to death / Terrible details of Stayner case stun even the judge". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, California: Hearst Corporation. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
  33. Jardine, Jeff (July 26, 2014). "Waiting out the death penalty". The Modesto Bee. Modesto, California: McClatchy. Archived from the original on August 8, 2018. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
  34. "The Yosemite Killer". American Justice. New York City. 2003. A&E Television Networks.
  35. Director: David Haycox (2011). "Trail of Terror". FBI: Criminal Pursuit. Season 1. Investigation Discovery.
  36. Director: Neil Edwards (September 3, 2013). "Yosemite Park Slayer". Born to Kill?. Season 1. Episode 4. London, England. Sky UK.
  37. "MUGSHOTS: CARY STAYNER – THE CEDAR LODGE KILLINGS". FilmRise. Archived from the original on October 6, 2017. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
  38. "Evil in Eden". 20/20. Season 41. Episode 21. January 26, 2019. ABC.
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