Yosemite Park Killer: Cary Stayner

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Discretion is advised. This is treated
murder. Murderers, rapists, and kidnappers

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often choose to shift blame away from
themselves, pointing the finger at some kind

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of traumatic event that changed the course
of their lives and made them turn towards

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crime. Detectives and criminal psychologists also
examined the upbringing and history of killers,

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searching for anything that might have acted
as a turning point molestation, abandonment,

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violence. But for one serial killer, his turning point was a little more

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unusual, the childhood kidnapping of his
own younger brother. Carrie Stainer had three

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sisters but only one brother, Stephen, who was four years younger than Carrie.

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When Stephen was seven years old,
he disappeared. Although his family had

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no idea what happened to him,
Stephen was being held captive less than forty

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miles away, kept in the house
of the man who abducted him, a

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pedophile by the name of Kenneth Parnell. By the time seven years had passed,

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the chances of Stephen still being alive
were slim to none. Even before

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Stephen went missing, Carrie had not
been like the other kids. He'd always

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been anxious, developing trichotillomania as a
toddler, which made him pull out his

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own hair. Despite medication, he
continued to compulsively pluck the hair from his

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scalp, causing bald spots that the
other kids made fun of him for later.

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He reported having dark sexual fantasies from
a very young age, imagining kidnapping,

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raping, and killing women, even
before his own brother became the victim

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of the same kind of criminal.
Stephen's abduction became the center of Carrie's teenage

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years. While his parents grieved,
Stephen, their older son felt neglected and

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pushed aside. He was shockingly intelligent
and creative, but none of his academic

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pursuits satisfied him. His dark fantasies
got stronger and stronger in his teenage years,

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and he eventually acted on them by
exposing his genitals to a friend of

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his sisters. Then, essentially a
miracle took place. Stephen Steiner, who

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was now a teenager, managed to
escape captivity alongside Timothy White, another kidnapped

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boy. He was an instant celebrity, even featuring in a TV series called

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I Know My First Name Is Stephen. Carrie felt like his family's forgotten child,

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the son that they didn't pay attention
to. After his graduation, Carrie

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had gotten a job working at a
glass company. He later said that while

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he was at work installing windows,
he constantly fantasized about killing all of his

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co workers by crashing a truck into
his workplace and then lighting it on fire.

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During this time, tragedy struck the
Stainer family again. After surviving seven

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years of sexual abuse in captivity,
Stephen was in a fatal motorcycle crash.

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He'd only lived for ten years after
his escape. In his early thirties,

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Carry tried to kill himself with carbon
monoxide poisoning, but his suicide attempt failed.

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Four years later, he spent time
in a mental health facility after having

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a breakdown, but after his symptoms
got better, he was discharged. Carrie

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tried to self medicate, using drugs
to distract himself. All they did was

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make him more and more unstable.
In nineteen ninety seven, Carrie started work

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as a general handyman at the Cedar
Lodge motel, close to one of the

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entrances to Yosemite National Park. The
lodge soon became a hunting ground full of

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the kind of prey that he'd always
fantasized about catching. Over a six month

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period in nineteen nine, four people
connected to the motel were violently killed.

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In February nineteen ninety nine, Carol
Yvonne Sunned, her fifteen year old daughter

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Julie Sunned, and a sixteen year
old exchange student, Sylvina Paloso, were

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staying at Cedar Lodge and went missing. Two of the bodies, Carol's and

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Sylvina's, were found almost a month
later, crammed into the trunk of Carol's

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rental car. The car had been
set on fire, and Carol and Sylvina's

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charred remains needed to be identified with
dental records. Even with a degree of

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damage the fired caused to the bodies. The autopsy found that Sylvina had been

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raped while Carol had been strangled.
Both victims had also been shot. One

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week after the two bodies were located, somebody sent a note to the local

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police, reading quote, we had
fun with this one, with a sketch

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of a map drawn underneath. At
the location indicated by the map, police

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found jewe's body. She had
been sexually assaulted before having her throat cut.

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Police carried out interviews of all the
employees at the motel, but they

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didn't view Carrie as a suspect.
Four months later, a headless body was

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found in the same area and later
identified as twenty six year old Joey Ruth

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Armstrong, a naturalist who worked for
the Yosemite Institute. Unlike the previous three

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victims, Joey had only been killed
the previous day, making it easier for

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investigators to follow the trail of the
killer. Eyewitnesses had seen Carrie's vehicle parked

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outside Joey's cabin the day before her
body was found, but he was nowhere

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to be seen. The FBI was
involved and track carried to a nudest resort

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where he was staying and rested him
on suspicion of murder. During questioning,

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Carrie made an unusual choice. He
immediately confessed to killing Joey, but told

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investigators that he had also murdered Carol, Julie and Sylphe and he had been

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the one to send the map of
where Julie's body could be found. Now

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investigators had a man in custody who
had openly admitted to four violent crimes.

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It would be highly unusual for a
man this violence and sadistic to only have

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started killing in his late thirties,
and detectives began to examine other cases that

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Carrie could have been involved in when
he was younger. Once they started looking,

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the clues were everywhere. At nineteen
eighty one, a young woman named

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Patricia Dahlstrom had testified against a cult
leader, Donald Gibson, who had sexually

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assaulted her. Donald was an acquaintance
of Carrie. Carrie even went to his

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trial to support the man. Two
years later, Patricia went missing in Yosemite

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National Park and her skeletal remains were
found the following year. Had Carrie murdered

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Patricia as revenge for testifying against his
friend? It definitely looks that way.

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Another cold case, at nineteen ninety
four, two severed hands were found in

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the Serra Nevada Foothills, followed by
a decapitated handless body two months later.

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The following year, the remains were
positively identified as a twenty four year old

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woman named Sherlyn Murphy. Her killer
was never identified, and to this day,

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despite extensive searching, her missing head
has not been found. Was it

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possible that Carrie also murdered male victims. Investigators considered the possibility that he had

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been also responsible for the disappearance of
twenty year old Michael Madden, who had

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gone missing on his way to California's
Stanislos National Forest. Yosemite National Park,

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where Carrie seemed to commit all of
his crimes, was only seventy five miles

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away from there. There was also
one potential victim who was closer to home,

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Carrie's uncle, Jesse Stainer, who
had been shot to death in nineteen

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ninety. The murder weapon was Jesse's
own gun, and the killer was never

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found. Later, Carrie claimed that
his uncle had molested him when he was

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a little boy. Although he was
never found guilty of killing his uncle,

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he had a connection with the victim
as well as a possible motive for killing

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him. Because Joey Armstrong had been
killed on federal land, Carrie went to

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trial in federal court. Desperate to
avoid a death sentence, he decided to

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plead guilty to all the charges against
him, a hefty list of first degree

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murder, kidnapping, and aggravated sexual
abuse that had resulted in death. Despite

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seemingly completely unbothered even proud during his
confession, he showed a completely different reaction

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during his sentencing in front of the
court, Carrie began sobbing, saying,

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quote, I wish I could tell
you why I did such a thing,

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but I don't even know myself.
I'm so sorry. I wish there was

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a reason, but there isn't.
It's senseless. Carry avoided a death sentence,

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instead being sentenced to life in prison
without the possibility of parole. In

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state court. Facing charges for another
three murders, Carrie changed his tactic and

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pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. While a doctor testified that Carrie had

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autism, OCD and abnormal sexual desires, as well as a potential history of

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sexual abuse, Carrie was found to
be sane. He was found guilty a

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first degree murder of all three victims, as well as the kidnapping of one

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victim he'd remove from the scene.
For these charges, Carrie was sentenced to

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death in two thousand and two.
Since then, Carrie has been imprisoned on

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death row at California's San Quentin State
Prison, but nobody has been executed in

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California since two thousand and six.
The Stainer family lost their two boys,

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one a victim and one a perpetrator. Somehow, Carrie lived through the experience

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of his brother being abducted by a
monster and then grew up to be a

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monster himself. That's ten Minute Murder
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