Twenty-six-year-old Joie Armstrong worked at Yosemite State Park as a nature guide. The Yosemite Murders. Kenneth Parnell, who by the time he raped Steven Stayner, was his father all night. Motel handyman Cary Stayner is shown in a July 29, 1999, mugshot, was charged Oct. 20, 1999, with capital murder in the killings of three Yosemite sightseers. He was a cool guy who mixed easily with the rest of the staff, according to a waitress at the diner. He was convicted of all four murders and sentenced to death in August 2002. I took her to the bathroom, put her in the bathtub and strangled her, Stayner said of one of his victims in an audio confession. He told the FBI that Juli had asked him to carry her because of the cold and indicated that he had lifted her in his arms in the manner of a bridegroom carrying his bride across a threshold. On March 18, 1999, a man found Carol Sund's rental car in a secluded area 100 yards north of Highway 108, near Long Barn, California. Cary Stayner killed four women near Yosemite National Park in 1999. He claimed to have raped and killed her at Taylor Mountain, more than 25 miles southeast of . Brianna Vaccari covers Fresno City Hall for The Bee, where she works to hold public officials accountable and shine a light on issues that deeply affect residents lives. On February 12, 1999, Carole Sund, her daughter Juli 15, and Silvino Pelosso 16, left their Eureka, California home for a vacation. Between February and July 1999, Cary Stayner killed four women near the majestic. But in December 1972, the Stayner family's own sense of security was disrupted forever, with results that many believe helped shape the person Stayner became. According to the March arrest report, Eugene Rufus Dykes, 32, of Modesto, and Larwicks half-brother, was arrested. I Know My First Name Is Steven was a dramatic television movie that aired in 1989. Cary Stayner was born and raised inMerced, CA, and his family life was rife with tragedy, which he eventually added to himself. Cary Anthony Stayner was born in Merced, California, an agricultural town of 65,000 people that sprawls across the eastern flank of the San Joaquin Valley and calls itself the Gateway to Yosemite. He said he felt like getting in his truck, driving into the office, and killing everyone in there and torching the place. Stayner's boss drove him to a Merced psychiatric center, where he spoke with a therapist. Despite his brothers traumatic ordeal, Cary Stayner turned to kidnapping and murder himself 27 years later. The officers confiscated his marijuana and let him go. New series on Hulu follows old Yosemite murder cold case | The Fresno Bee After admitting to the killings down to the most gruesome details, Cary Stayner was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder. Yosemite murders Sund pontiac burnt out Discovery of the bodies in the Stanislaus Forest and Lake Pedro 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. Now Dennis McDougal, acclaimed author of the spellbinding true crime tour de force Mother's Day, brings his considerable investigative and narrative. By last spring the FBI was centering its investigation on two suspects from Modesto, ex-convicts and methamphetamine users who had had violent run-ins with police in the days after the Sunds and Pelosso vanished. Tuckers son, rookie agent Cullen Tucker, played a major role in helping crack the mystery of the victims identity nearly four decades later. At trial, Stayners lawyers argued he suffered from mental illness and the trauma of his brother Stevens kidnapping. (California Department of Corrections). It was there that he committed the first of his horrific crimes. Cary Stayner Today: Where Is He Now in 2021? | Heavy.com Just before dusk, as she packed up her car for her trip to Sausalito, a blue-and-white International Scout came down the dirt road toward her house and stopped. In an interview with J.P. Miller, a screenwriter who spent a long period with the Stayners doing research for the 1989 NBC miniseries, he vented his frustrations about his brother: His head was all bloated out, Cary told Miller. He refused to let it end in Game 7, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Stayner admitted that he had escaped earlier crimes, but he could not resist the urge to kill Armstrong. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Turning left off the main Yosemite highway, Kidd steered his Jeep down an unmarked road into Foresta: 30 cabins, inhabited mostly by park employees, scattered across the bottom of a wooded glen. He told the FBI that he had fantasized about hurting women since he was a child and that he had been unable to stop his compulsion to kill. California flooding: 80% of Sierra Nevada snowpack hasnt melted yet 4. Nearly three decades before Cary Stayner was arrested for abducting and viciously killing four women near Yosemite National Park, his seven-year-old brother Steven was kidnapped and held captive for seven years by Kenneth Parnell, a convicted child molester in California. Despite its reputation, Yosemite is still one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. A forest fire had roared through this area in 1990, and many of the pine trees here were still blackened and skeletal. Violent crimes in Yosemite Lakes are 18% higher than the national average. On Feb. 15, 1999, 42-year-old Carole Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and Juli's 16-year-old friend Silvina Pelosso all went missing while staying at Cedar Lodge in El Portal, California, according to HISTORY. Cary later told reporters that he almost drove his car into the Merced River in excitement. But that wont put an end to flood concerns set off by this weeks anticipated Big Melt., The rate of melting may not be as significant, but it will continue, said Scott Roe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Sacramento. Pelosso was taken into the bathroom, where Stayner strangled her. Brutal Yosemite murders recalled 20 years later; killer had grown up in The mountains were the only place where he could have some freedom to feel like a person and take control of his destiny.. All Access Digital offer for just 99 cents! I got put on the back burner, you might say., By then Stayner, in his early twenties, had abandoned any ambitions he may have had. This is throwing them a big lifeline, said Jon Rosenfield, a biologist with conservation advocacy group San Francisco Bay Keeper. I love the big meadow with all its daisies and incredible history.. It stated, We had fun with this one, according to ABC News. The motel is where Cary Stayner worked as a handyman and on February 15, 1999, Stayner knocked on Sund's door. Her body was found 27 feet away from her head in a drainage ditch. The Yosemite Park Murders // True Crime Mystery - YouTube One man shot after brawl at Fresno park. August 27, 2002 / 10:21 AM / CBS NEWS. He hid her lifeless body, with its head nearly severed, in the underbrush. The case remained unsolved for years, until DNA evidence led authorities to arrest a man named Cary Stayner in 2002. Stayner jumped out and crashed through the woods in pursuit. Stacey Ann Arras was just 14 when she disappeared at Yosemite National Park on July 17, 1981. Lucas told investigators at the time that the victim was a hitchhiker he picked up on Highway 41 between Fresno and Yosemite. It is difficult to imagine a more heinous crime in American or National Park history than this one. San Quentin State PrisonOne of Cary Stayners more recent mugshot photos, taken in 2010. On El Portal Road, a few miles short of the Cedar Lodge, his vehicle broke down, and he flagged down a ride from a passing Yosemite park ranger. We never really got along well after he came back. Just before dawn Stayner turned off the two-lane road near the town of Moccasin and parked in a deserted parking lot. Wild Crime follows the little-known investigators who are tasked with solving the most brutal crimes in these wild places. Stayner confessed to the murders and was sentenced to death. All rights reserved. But there was a different mood a few miles away in Foresta. Stayler stashed the bodies in the trunk of Carol Sund's Pontiac. In the spring of 1984, when the case had gone cold, investigators were contacted by the California Department of Justice, who gave them a tip that an alleged serial killer was confessing to murders across the country, including one that could fit the profile of the Yosemite case. Later that day, he called the police when they failed to answer his call. Due to a court ruling on capital punishment, there have been no executions in the state of California since 2006. told Ada County jurors on Monday that she tested three DNA profiles in connection with Vallow's murder case, including . He was previously a housing and homelessness reporter at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in Sonoma County. He was shot and killed by his uncle shortly after his death. Theyve been mapping out the locations of wastewater treatment plants, hospitals, prisons and other sensitive areas, and are planning with local fire departments for places to set up shelters or position rescue crews. Hours without power is tough, but what about Bay Area communitys two weeks? By then his father had lost his job at a Merced tomato cannery and had moved with Kay into a trailer park in the town of Atwater, where two of Stayner's three sisters also lived. Yosemite National Park is a well-known picturesque natural wonder. He would go hiking and sunbathing in the nudist colony of Laguna Del Sol on days off. The Yosemite National Park Sightseer Murders and the two faces of evil Four months later, Stayner beheaded Joie Armstrong, a 26-year-old park naturalist. Police, of course, refused and Stayner made a full confession anyway. Steven Stayner, Cary Stayners brother, was kidnapped in 1972 and the only living relative of the elder Stayner was his brother, who died in 2013. But the vagrant was never found, and the murder went unsolved. Stayner left Sund's rental car in the woods and call himself a taxi. [1] Early life [ edit] Cary Stayner was born and raised in Merced, California. But for six months in 1999, brutality at Yosemite had a human face. Her boyfriend and her other roommate were away. 2008. A handyman who worked in Yosemite National Park in the United States has confessed to several grisly murders. With the murders in Yosemite Valley, the dual nature of the wildernessthe threat lurking behind the beautycame again into unnerving focus. They were having the time of their lives. They had dinner at the Cedar Lodge restaurant and then strolled back along dimly lit pathways lined with wooden statues of bears and bald eagles to room 509, in the far west wing of the hotel. In the gathering darkness, he shoved her into the front seat of his Scout and began to drive back up the road. Carol Sund, Juli Sund, and Silvina Pelosso. At a parking area where the dirt track from her cabin joins the Foresta road, Armstrong managed to open the Scout's passenger door and leap out of the moving vehicle. The National Park Service, in addition to managing the visitor centers, campgrounds, and other facilities at national parks, provides public services at other sites. He took her car keys, dragged her corpse out to the dark, deserted parking lot, and heaved it into the trunk of the Pontiac. This is dubbed the Smiley Face Murder Theory. Join Outside+ to get Outside magazine, access to exclusive content, 1,000s of training plans, and more. For the past year, Armstrong had lived with her boyfriend, another Yosemite Institute naturalist, along with a second roommate, in a green cabin set by itself at the edge of a golden meadow. Details appear to match the death in Summit Meadow, and they find evidence Lucas described. They found beer cans, wrapped-up tin foil, a canteen and what seemed like a piece of fabric that could have been from the victim's jacket. The three tourists had last been seen on February 15 at the Cedar Lodge, just outside the park, and evidence at the motel indicated that they had been abducted. The teenager was on a trip with her father with a group that had stopped at a camp site that afternoon. The man responsible for the killings was 37-year-old Cary Stayner, a handyman at a motel near Yosemite State Park. Environment | Back in Yosemite, the investigators made crucial breakthroughs with leads from the alleged killer's confession. Henry Lee Lucas - Wikipedia Yosemite National Park is closing most of the Yosemite Valley as the Merced River was expected to exceed 10 feet . The National Park Service is a part of the US government that is in charge of preserving federal lands and protected areas for the sake of a healthy, scenic, and enjoyable environment. The girls were staying at Cedar Lodge motel in El Portal, CA, near Yosemite National Park. Cary Stayner, Steven's older brother,was a handyman at the Cedar Lodge just outside the park where the women were staying, according to the Modesto Bee. A possible brutal murder in one of the most scenic places in America goes unsolved, a serial killer confesses to more than 100 murders and two generations of detectives try to crack the case. Until the Yosemite murders, perhaps the most terrifying crime against women in the national parks occurred in May 1996, when two experienced backpackers, Julianne Williams, 24, and Lollie. 9% of visitors were international visitors. On July 22, 1999, the decapitated corpse of Yosemite naturalist Joie Armstrong was discovered not far from the cabin where shed been staying. Kidd called in to the park dispatcher and was asked to join a search for a missing persona search, the dispatcher said, with law enforcement implications.. Fresno coroner identifies her, Pedestrian, 56, killed in hit-and-run IDd by Fresno coroner. Stayner now awaits trial in a solitary-confinement cell in the Fresno County Jail. In June the chief of the FBI's Sacramento office, James M. Maddock, confidently announced that we have all of the main players in jail, but we are in no rush to charge them.. Then he bound and gagged them with duct tape, placed Silvina and Juli in the bathroom, and turned to Carole Sund, who was lying on the bed.