"I know that Steven was really happy about the way that it turned out," Jody says, adding that his press interviews tied to the movie helped him finally open up about the abuse he faced as a child. (Captive Audience utilizes the hours of conversations between the filmmakers and their interviews with Steven and the rest of his family to tell his story.) In 1985, at the age of 20, Stayner married 17-year-old Jody Edmondson. On Sept. 20, 1989, Steven Stayner was riding his new Kawasaki motorcycle without a helmet in the rain. When he got into the room, Cary pulled out a .22-caliber pistol, claiming he intended to rob the them. Cary Stayner had decided the day after Valentine's Day would be the day he killed Lenna and her family. Kidnapped in 1972 at the age of 7, the California boy became a national hero when seven years later he not only escaped his longtime abuser but freed 5-year-old Timmy White who was being held captive alongside him. "I felt like that could be any of us, just like my dad, just walking home from school and going missing," she says. A photo taken after Steven's escape to freedom shows him flanked by his beaming father, Delbert. Murphy, his accomplice, got five years and was paroled after two. As hed feared, the revelation had dire consequences. Steven Stayner and Timmy White (Courtesy of Hulu), Stayners return to his family was televised in its entirety cameras and hundreds of spectators and journalists were waiting when the police brought Steven and his dog back to his family home in Merced. Cary Stayner, now 57, was convicted of the murders of Armstrong, the Sunds and Pelosso, and sentenced to death for all except Armstrong's. Lenna said that after Cary Stayner's arrest, her family placed a Beanie Baby peace bear on a little, wicker float down the Merced River to give them peace about everything that happened. I worked with Carey up in Yosemite, we worked for the same company at 2 different hotels. Steven Stayner (front right) pictured with his older brother, Cary (center). I was looking for another article by chance and found your article totosite I am writing on this topic, so I think it will help a lot. A longtime next-door neighbor told the San Francisco Chronicle that the kidnapping scarred Cary, who was often described as a loner and introvert. "He was scared spitless. On Dec. 4, 1972, the Stayner family's low profile permanently changed when 7-year-old Steven Stayner, the middle child, was abducted walking home from school. "One time Cindy (Stayner) and I were outside at night and he exposed himself to us. Thanks again for the important writing Lily! Cary has a couple of nervous breakdowns. August 2022: Whats New and Gay on Netflix, Amazon, Peacock, Hulu, Paramount+, Disney+, Apple TV+ and AMC+? Friends and co-workers would say later that he struggled with impulses he didn't understand and was susceptible to fits of rage. ", 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Parnell was arrested Friday night, Jan. 3, 2003, in Berkeley, Calif., after allegedly trying to buy a child, said. At first, Stayner denied being sexually abused by Parnell. Steven was older now, and Parnell began craving a younger son. In February 1980, he enlisted a local boy to help him kidnap five-year-old Timmy White off the street in Ukiah. Captive America reveals that nearly 40 million people tuned in live to watch the movie's premiere on TV, and the film was later nominated for a Golden Globe and four Emmys. He told Newsweek that Sometimes I blame myself. They shouldn't bother. "I wish I could have controlled myself and not done what I did," he said in a 1999 jailhouse interview. "We figured he would be a cartoonist by now," Shertz said. But a few quotes Cary had previously told media in the midst of his brother's fame led some to wonder if he was a disgruntled, jealous brother. Two months later, the police said the murder remained a mystery but also had a very involved story of exactly what they thought happened. From that point on, Cary lived Steven's shadow. You can find out more and change our default settings with Cookies Settings. The pair then hitchhiked to the Ukiah police station. "The only good part about him being missing," Kay says, "is there was always hope that he would be found.". Kidnapping and Trauma. Reporter Mike Moffitt has been writing and editing stories for newspapers and news websites for more than 25 years. She said the visit "sent chills" up and down her spine. "You can't make a movie about something like this happening," Kay says in the first episode. "They got him to a mental health center, but he left. Steven Stayner with his parents In their four years together, they welcomed daughter Ashley, followed by son Steven Jr. Steven Stayner captured the heart of a nation when he helped another child escape from a pedophile, after enduring years of abuse and not wanting to see the child experience the same fate. When Steven Stayner returned home, the whole family's focus was on him, she said. Yay! However, his plan was foiled when he saw another person on the grounds where they lived, according to Jeff Rinek, a former FBI agent. Ive never heard about this sad case :( Thank you so much for covering it here! "He loved Yosemite and in some way, it's sad. On the night after Valentine's Day 1999, Cary knocked on the door of the lodge's room 509, saying he had to make a plumbing repair. With glassy eyes, Ashley recounts the daily news coverage of Cary's crimes at the time, and how it was hard watching her father's legacy as a hero become overshadowed by something dark. Steven's brave act thrusted him into the national spotlight. Television crews followed him through the school hallways, watched him at home and looked for any update on his current state as he assimilated back into his life as Steven Stayner. The murders were all over the news and remained unsolved in July, when 25-year-old Joie Armstrong was found headless in a creek. Parnell died in prison in 2008. One day in 1995, he "freaked out" and he bloodied his fist pounding it into a sheet of plywood. I got put on the back burner, you might say. Their childhood, until his disappearance, was typical of the era. Cary Stayner was the oldest of Delbert and Kay Stayner's five children, who included Steven and three sisters. Every summer for the past twenty years, a group of 15-18 year old women and non-binary femmes go to Yosemite for twelve days. Heroism, tragedy and cold-blooded murder: The Stayner brothers. Delbert, she says, would drive through the hills looking for makeshift graves and follow suspicious vehicles with hopes of locating Steven. I believe he was supposed to have been with his brother. Bee), Investigators search the torched remains of Carole Sund's rental car for evidence near Sierra Village, Calif., in this March 19, 1999, file photo. Maybe the text could be edited? In the same episode, she asks: "How much more could happen in our lives in one lifetime?". (Photo by Michael Maloney / CHRONICLE). Cary Stayner will forever be known for marring Yosemite's reputation as a peaceful retreat with the brutal murders of four innocent women. Linda Shertz, stepmother of Lynnea, said Cary Stayner was traumatized by his brother's abduction. In 1999, he confessed to four killings. Sleet was falling when an old Buick pulled up next to him as he walked home from school. "As I walked, there was a red car in the 500 building all by itself. Her beheaded body was found near her cabin on July 22. In July 1999, Cary Stayner happened upon Joie Ruth Armstrong outside this cabin in Yosemite National Park. Francis and Carole Carrington hold up a banner with photos of their daughter Carole Sund, granddaughter Julie Sund and family friend Silvina Pelosso, during a march and rally in downtown Modesto, Calif., Saturday, April 26, 2003, for victims of violent crimes, in the wake of the Laci Peterson murder. In December 1990, Jesse "Jerry" Stayner, 42, Cary and Steven's uncle, was shot to death in his Merced home. Steven had been taught to respect adults in authority but wasnt well-versed in the dangers of talking to strangers, so he agreed to let Murphy and his friend Kenneth Parnell give him a ride home, where they could meet his mother. On December 4, 1972, Steven was abducted walking home from school - the beginning of a traumatizing, media-heavy journey for the Stayner family. and promptly dropped off the radar of friends and family. Steven Stayner, then 24, had married and had two children. The 14-year-old was an instant hero, and later the subject of the NBC miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven.". And now this. At one point, he was even the guy opening all the rooms for the FBI to gather evidence.". He was right under everyone's nose. At the age of 18, he married a 15-year-old girl, and they had a daughter and divorced four years later. Speaking to the FBI, Cary Stayner admitted to killing Armstrong and the three women at Cedar Lodge but he also caught agents unaware, telling them about Lenna and her sister and mother. The rustic lodge was just 7 miles outside the gate of Yosemite, where he sought refuge and got high on marijuana. "Everything they did and everything they had, it was about Steven," she said. ), The film took some dramatic liberties, and Steven told The New York Times that he resented his portrayal as kind of obnoxious, rude towards his parents when returning to the family fold. Stayner slashed her throat and left her to die. She was not a woman; she was a child. The boy was asked if he wanted to donate something to a church. By 1981, Mathaiss son, Lloyd (whod allegedly also been abused by Parnell), had been murdered by his stepfather. Carole Sund, 42, was Cary Stayner's first victim at the Cedar Lodge. Hulu's latest true-crime documentary, "Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story ," traces the nearly unbelievable tale of the Stayner family. I dont know sometimes if I should have come home. Kay reveals that she thought her son needed therapy so he would have a place to privately process his traumatic experiences, but the idea was shut down by her husband. Cary Stayner worked at Cedar Lodge for two years before he killed guests Carole and Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso. On Dec 4, 1972 at age 7, he was abducted in California by Kenneth Parnell. Parnell, whose kidnapping of Steven Stayner was turned into a television movie, was convicted in the 1972 kidnapping of Stayner, who was then 7, and the 1980 kidnapping of a 5-year-old boy. The day Armstrong disappeared, Cary Stayner was driving his car to Foresta when he saw the young woman. For seven years, Steven Stayner lived with Parnell, moving from one city to another, as the man sexually abused him. "He was a good dad, he was a good family man," Jody remembers. Just realized that its Steven and not Stephen Ooops! The 1972 abduction of Steven Staynersubject of the miniseries I Know My First Name Is Stevenwas just the beginning of a family nightmare.The three-part Captive . Steven Stayner was the middle child of a family from Merced, California. The description is echoed by Cary Stayner's co-workers and friends at the Cedar Lodge near Yosemite Valley, where he lived and worked as a handyman. "Meeting with Jeff (Rinek) really brought it out that I can talk and I can have feelings about what happened," she said. Lenna said Cary Stayner always carried a backpack. "My older brother, Cary, he was off.". Barbara was somehow also hailed as a good guy in the story. He held her at gunpoint in her cabin as he bound her with duct tape and then forced her into his car. He had been a young patrol officer in 1972 when Cary Stayner's younger brother, Steven Stayner, was snatched off a Merced street in the county's most infamous kidnapping. But when authorities went to Cedar Lodge to conduct interviews and spoke to handyman Cary Stayner, they were unaware he was the killer. "Cary was unwell since he was a toddler, as far as I know," Cory says. I guess I was jealous. Lenna said she could remember one occasion in which Cary Stayner had made her feel uncomfortable. Speaking in an off-camera jailhouse interview, Cary Stayner, a motel handyman at the Lodge, said he strangled Silvina Pelosso, 16, and Carole Sund, 42, in their rented cabin at the Cedar Lodge in February 1999. His father closed up and stopped hugging him, and he was bullied at school with gay slurs. He was there for a couple of hours.". It was always with him, like a woman carries a purse," Lenna said. This rage is starting to bubble up. He didnt want to talk about it, he was ashamed and he feared itd be framed as his fault. But I also dont forgive him. Its so wild how formative these two events were for me. Previous reports by Chronicle reporters Susan Sward, Stacy Finz, Meredith May, Torri Minton, Zachary Coile and Matthew Yi contributed to this article. Regardless of his intentions, Cary's actions hurt his family all the same and took another son from Kay's life. "He was off. Steven Stayner (April 18, 1965 - Sept 16, 1989) was a kidnapping victim. ", "There's a lot of things I wish we'd done differently," adds Kay, struggling to decide if they should have done more to protect his privacy. PEOPLE got a first look at Captive Audience, which explores the Stayner brothers' opposing legacies Steven, who saved an innocent life, and Cary, who took four innocent lives nearly 20 years later featuring interviews with family members, case experts and the actor who earned an Emmy nomination for portraying Steven on TV. Steven Stayner's childhood abductionand reappearance seven years latercaptivated the nation. Steven, the younger brother, vanished on Dec. 4, 1972, when he was just 7 years old. He usually ordered a rum and coke. On the trip, alumni hike out in the night with foot baths, salts, salves, and nail polish to care for each other halfway through the trek. In March of 1973, the local paper called the search for Steven one of the longest and widest missing persons investigations ever made by the local police department. They had no leads, but his family never stopped holding out hope. "They did mention about finally getting a chance to get out of here," said Ennis Mayberry, 36, who bought the house from the Stayners 10 years ago. "I remember being very uncomfortable by it, but I turned around and went up the river and did not try to pay any attention to it at all," she said. I camp and hike and backpack as a solo woman, and I do fieldwork as an ecologist in a lot of parks and public lands, and theres always a little fear in the back of my mind, but Im glad that its at a level where its much healthier and doesnt stop me from experiencing life the way I want to. i never saw the miniseries at the time but i came across so many people when lost in various reddit threads etc who had and who it made a big impression on! my leading theory is that the show simply didnt research deep enough to know this factoid! The days of network television when we only had 3 channels to choose from. Unlike the first three murders, where he left virtually no evidence, he knew that he had left a very easy trail for investigators," Rowlands said. Before joining the SFGate team, he worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette. Welcome toOBSESSED, in which I provide you a reading list / media consumption list that speaks to my primary hobby: doing obsessive amounts of research into a singular topic or story for no reason. ", Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Reportedly, Parnell also abused some of Stevens friends who came over, and as soon as an outraged parent was onto him, they moved again, this time to Manchester. "Now it's tainted, [he's] not the pure hero," Ashley says. But he was unable to develop any sort of interpersonal relationships with any women," said TV reporter Ted Rowlands. In well-crafted Hulu true-crime docuseries, the family of Steven Stayner looks back on his abduction, his escape and the strange twists of fate that followed. One night, he and Timmy snuck out while their abductor was working and they hitchhiked to Ukiah. As a teenager, Cary loved smoking weed and so did his Uncle Jesse, who Cary eventually moved in with, until Uncle Jesse was murdered in 1990 with his own gun, allegedly by a home intruder. Lenna said she'd told no one this for 20 years. The groups are adamantly trans inclusive, and prioritize QTPOC and white gays and theys, BIPOC, as well as low-income youth for selection. The obvious question is whether what happened to Steven caused Cary to do what he did," Flynn said. Much like Steven's, their disappearance shocked the nation and dominated headlines as investigators frantically searched for them. "It was the biggest deal in Hollywood," says Corin Nemec, who portrayed Steven as a teenager. Parnell was convicted on kidnapping and false imprisonment charges. He was one of two sons and three daughters to parents, Delbert and Kay Stayner. Decades after the Stayner family dominated the news cycle, they are back in headlines once more following the release of Hulu's newest true crime docuseries. He was constantly hounded by reporters and classmates were irked by the attention he was receiving. Child predator Kenneth Parnell, convicted of kidnapping Steven Stayner and paroled to Berkeley, was sentenced 25 years to life in 2004 for trying to buy a 4-year-old boy for $500. Steven Stayner was 7 years old when he was approached on his way home from school by a Ukiah hotel clerk named Kenneth Parnell. "It seemed as though he had a compulsion with trying to get close to women or be sexual with them. Stayner was voted "Most Creative" by fellow students. Strength said Cary Stayner's arrest has stunned the community. His parents taught him to trust adults. When he realized that she was alone, he said, he could not control the urge to kill her too. Cary eventually developed acute paranoia after years of consistent marijuana use, but kept on smoking regardless. Cary was arrested the same year, and in the trials that followed he was convicted of all four women's murders and sentenced to death. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2009 - 2023 The Excitant Group, LLC. His father also refused to send him to therapy, because he scorned psychiatry in general and saw therapy as a tool for weak people. After Steven's death, his parents sold the house. "The FBI went in and spoke with my mom privately to let her know that Cary Stayner had confessed to initially wanting to kill my mom, and rape and kill my sister and I," Lenna said. Steven Stayner, celebrity savior of a young boy, was dead at 24. On Monday, Cary Stayner was to be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Sacramento for the murder of Joie Armstrong, a Yosemite Institute naturalist. Steven Stayner's miraculous story of escape from his kidnapper in 1980 garnered national headlines at the time. Along Bette Street, neighbors searched for clues from Cary Stayner's childhood that he was capable of the gruesome crime. ET on ABC. Hope to see more posts from you. Nearly 40 million viewers tuned in, making it NBCs highest rated miniseries in five years. But from that moment on, Steven would never escape the spotlight. Is the Stanley Quencher tumbler worth its TikTok hype? And they do this ritual in particular to honor and acknowledge Joie. Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Lenna told "20/20" she had kept this story hidden for 20 years, never sharing it with anyone. The entire time he was right there! Vickie Flores, who grew up with the Stayner children, said Cary Stayner had a strange side. According to later interviews, Cary had been fighting sadistic urges and hearing voices for as long as he could remember, and used pot to drown them out. Cary Stayner had a tough childhood before he made his move to Cedar Lodge, where he'd eventually unleash a rage that had been simmering for years, according to people close to him. In February 1999, Carole Sund; her 16-year-old daughter, Juli Sund; and friend Silvina Pelossa, an exchange student from Argentina, were staying at the lodge. Her throat had been slashed. He later said he was unable to resist killing her when he realized she was alone. Joie Armstrong, the last of Cary Stayner's victims, was beheaded. Jeff Rinek, a former FBI agent, is the author of "In the Name of the Children," a true-crime account of the cases he has investigated during his career with the FBI, including the Cary Stayner case. On December 4, 1972, seven-year-old Steven Stayner was on his way home from school when Ervin Edward Murphy approached him, pretending to be a dude from the church handing out gospel tracts, as one does. This letter from the editor was also just what I needed it pretty much sums up my April and, Hurrah! This response from a judge to Kenneth Parnells motion (1981) that charges against him her either unsupported by probable cause or barred by the statute of limitations is really choice. For two years in Santa Rosa, Barbara Mathias, a girlfriend of Parnells, moved in with them, and she participated in Stevens abuse. Classmates remember him as shy but a good kid who had holes in his shoes. PEOPLE got a first look at Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story, which highlights the opposing legacies of kidnapping survivor Steven Stayner and his serial killer brother, Cary Stayner. Neighbors who remember Steven Stayner's return to his family's home on quiet Bette Street in Merced were astonished that his brother was now a suspect in one, or more, grisly killings. I remember watching I Know My First Name is Steven because I remember that scene where the line is drawn from. On July 21, 1999, 26-year-old Joie Armstrong, a park naturalist, was packing for a trip to join friends. < Dubs fans picking apart video of possible Poole-Draymond incident, Bay Area preschool teacher suspected of dumping body along road, Bay Area mom influencer found guilty of lying about kidnapping, More rain, 'unseasonably chilly' temperatures coming to Bay Area, 'Horrible': Oakland rapper dumps on Chase Center Warriors fans, Destructive landslide closes historic California institution, 49ers out in full force at Warriors-Kings Game 7, Sold-out Berkeley crowd gets rowdy at country star's concert, Shock, fear as 2 killings in 3 days rock quiet Davis. If you haven't listened to episode 138 yet, make sure you do that before you jump He was sentenced to seven years in prison but only served five -- less time than he held Steven captive. I'd play basketball with them, hang out with them," said Tim Tatum. Inside was a Ukiah hotel clerk named Kenneth Parnell, who accosted him about making a donation to a church. Courts, lawyers, and investigators seemed especially sensitive to the shame that seemed to surround such crimes.. Kenneth Parnell is shown in a June, 1981 file photo testifying at his trial for the kidnapping of a 5-year boy.
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