March 23, 2021 • 28 mins
When Steven Stayner was kidnapped in 1972, the world watched as police and his family searched for him. Then he emerged a hero in 1980 when he rescued little Timmy White from suffering the same fate of torture, molestation and rape he'd endured for 7 years. Steven was hailed a hero. And then there was Cary, Steven's older brother...
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(00:31):
Welcome back to cutsu Killer's Homicide andSweet Tea. We had a busy,
busy weekend at my house. Plantedtomatoes and herbs and some flowers, and
did a cost co run, didoil changes, tire rotations, hanging movie
posters in our movie room, allthat stuff you do on the weekends.
And I think we've lived in thishouse for nine years and we're just now
getting around and hanging pictures were slow. I totally feel you. Although yesterday
(00:55):
it was so incredibly beautiful. Itwas a sky that is only in Texas.
Of course, I'm sure other peoplewill say this, but it was
the most beautiful blue guy. SoChode and I went and had lunch outside
and did the beach thing and walkedalong the boardwalk and we're just so gafy
(01:17):
romantic sometimes. So that's what wedid and we're disgusting. Yeah. Well,
but also guess what I saw thefirst blue bonnets, Kim. Yeah,
it means it's spring in Texas,we get blue bonnets. I know,
I know. So that's pretty cool. That's really pretty awesome. Everybody
holds their kids to the fields ofblue bonnets and takes their picture every year.
(01:38):
Well, that is what everybody hasbeen doing forever, and nobody mentions
that they're snakes in them. Theyare blue bonnets. So if you decide
to do that, don't just becareful. That's all anyway. Anyway,
Well, today I'm going to talkabout two brothers. One was a hero
(02:00):
and the other one of villain.Oh, I'm talking about the Stainer brother,
Stephen and Carrie. I don't knowif you remember the story of Stephen
Lark. Do you remember Stephen Stainer. I'm not sure that I do,
but maybe as we go, probablyin the late seven when we were in
high school or something like that,there was a movie on TV miniseries call
(02:21):
I Know my Name is Stephen.Oh, right, right, right,
right right, yeah, yeah,I remember. That was Stephen Stainer.
On December fourth, nineteen seventy two, when he was seven years old,
Stephen Stainer was walking home from schoolin Merced, California, which at the
time had a population of about twentytwo thousand. I think now it's about
one hundred eighty year one hundred thousand. But anyway, Stephen was walking home
(02:46):
from his elementary school when a mannamed Irvin Murphy stopped him and claimed to
be working for a church and askedif Stephen's mother might have some donations she'd
be willing to give to the church. Stephen said yes, he thought she
might, and started leading the mantoward his house. And a few seconds
later white buick pulled up and stopped, and Murphy, along with a man
(03:07):
named Kenneth Parnell, who'd said he'ddrive Stephen home to pick up those things,
led Stephen into the car willingly.He thought he was being driven home,
Like I said to his mom.Kenneth Parnell was a convicted child rapist.
Oh no, Murphy and Parnell bothworked at Yosemite National Park, and
(03:28):
keep that in mind for a littlebit later. Murphy was sort of a
simpleton, I guess you could callhim. He was mentally challenged, and
he was happy to have the friendshipof Parnell. Parnell claimed to be a
preacher, and he had told Murphyhe wanted to kidnap a little boy to
raise him in a religious way.Oh my goodness. Murphy apparently didn't know
(03:51):
at the time what Parnell had inmind for Stephen, that it wasn't anything
church related. Stephen was confused twinInstead of driving home they took him to
Parnell's cabin about thirty minutes away inCathy's Valley. Parnell molested Stephen that first
night, and he started raping himless than two weeks later. Oh no.
(04:13):
Stephen begged to be taken home,but Parnell told him he'd been granted
custody and was adopting Stephen because hisparents had too many children and needed to
get rid of one. Oh mygod. Delbert and Ka Stainer did have
five children, and Stephen was themiddle child. He had an older sister
named Cynthia, a brother named Carrie, and two younger sisters named Corey and
Jodi. Parnell's cabin ironically was onlya few hundred feet from Stephen's maternal grandfather's
(04:39):
house. Wow. So if he'dtried to run away, his grandfather was
right down the street and he didn'tknow it, and he didn't try to
run terrible. He was given ampleopportunity over the years to get away,
as he and Parnell moved around thestate from place to place, and Parnell
did odd jobs here and there.Parnell all had told him and claimed to
(05:00):
have adopted him, and he changedhis name to Dennis Parnell. They called
him by that kept his middle nameof Gregory and his birthday, and Stephen
evidently believed the lies that he wasbeing told. He was enrolled in school
and attended school for a few years. And Parnell really wasn't much of a
father, of course, because he'smore interested in what he can get out
(05:23):
of Stephen, right, So hedidn't discipline him. He didn't you do
anything to give him any rules tolive by. He started letting him drink
in fourth or fifth grade. Heleft him unsupervised for long periods of time
while he went off to work someodd job here and there. And like
I said, Stephen could have escaped. He had lots of opportunities, but
(05:43):
he didn't because he believed his parentsreally didn't want him and that he'd been
adopted by this man. That's horrible. And he said later on that he
really had no idea how to gethelp and he didn't know what to do.
Well, that makes sense. WhenStephen was nine years old, a
year and a half, Parnell hada woman living with him named Barbara Matthias,
and they both actively participated in rapingand molesting Stephen. According to Stephen
(06:10):
at least nine times. Yeah.When Stephen turned ten, he was getting
too old for Parnell, and hesent Matthias to try to lure a much
younger boy. The attempt didn't succeed, though, and it would be four
more years, when Stephen was fourteen, that Parnell enlisted his help in trying
to snatch another boy. Oh golly. This point, Stephen had started to
(06:32):
become a you know, kind ofrebellious, a rebellious team because he had
no rules, He had no youknow, nothing to go by. He
had. Yeah, yeah, he'dnever had proper discipline or any sort of
parenting, and he was getting tiredof the abuse. He was all over
doubt. It was done. Hewas done, and he knew that whatever
child was taken would suffer in thesame way he had for the last seven
(06:55):
years. They'd be raped over andover at the hands of Parnell and whoever
else wanted to participate. So everytime Parnell sent him to chat up a
little boy and convince him to comealong, Stephen did something to thwart the
plan. He would tell him torun along or something like that because he
didn't want to do it. Hedidn't want to bring anybody else into what
(07:16):
he'd lived through get kid for him. Then finally, Parnell, figuring Stephen
just didn't know how to lure kidsaway, enlisted the help of one of
Stephen's friends, Randall Poorman, tokidnap a five year old boy by the
name of Timothy White on Valentine's Dayin nineteen eighty, so this was eight
years later. Stephen didn't want thisdistress little boy to suffer what he had
(07:41):
for the past seven or eight years, so on March first, that's a
couple of weeks later, while Parnellwas at work, Stephen took Timothy and
hitchhike to Yukaia, where Timothy wasfrom. Yay yeah, But the little
boy was too young to remember wherehe lived, So after searching for Timothy's
home unsuccessfully for a while, Stephentook the little boy to the police station
(08:03):
and helped him inside, planning toturn around and leave, but the police
saw them and took them both infor questioning. It was there that he
told police the title of that movieI know my name is Stephen. He
went on to say he thought hislast name might be Stainer, but he
wasn't sure if he had a middlename or not. He told the police
(08:26):
about the torture he'd endured. Hetold him the whole story and everything that
he could remember. In a laterinterview, he said that he couldn't see
Timmy suffered. I just didn't thinkit was right for him to have to
go through the same thing that Idid. He really didn't have to.
There was someone there who could stopit himself. When Stephen returned to his
(08:48):
family, he had a lot ofissues. Of course, many were the
result of the abuse he'd sustained atthe hands of Parnell, but also at
the new discipline he was subject toand the rules he wasn't used to having.
He'd grown used to having little orno supervision and no rocks, right,
So adjusting to come back to hisfamily and his home was complicated,
(09:11):
and it was further complicated by theconstant media attention he received. I mean,
I can remember back then, thereporter you know, every day almost
it seemed like anyway there was somethingon TV about him and about his story,
right, because this is so unusualat that time, Right, Reporters
came from all over the country andactually all over the world, Europe and
(09:35):
everywhere, and Stephen only had afew counseling sessions with a psychologist after he
got home, and nothing in theway of psychotherapy to deal with the years
of mental and physical abuse he'd hadto move through. He once joked that
he didn't see the need to spendone hundred dollars an hour on a therapist.
He said, I've been talking toreporters for nine years. It's a
(09:56):
pretty good substitute. But he reallyneeded that counseling. He had difficulty fitting
back home, as I said before, but also difficulty at school passing his
classes, you know, discipline issuegrades, until he finally dropped out.
(10:16):
He was kicked out of his parents'home a couple of times because of his
failure to want to live by therules. He was smoking and drinking.
By the time he was nineteen,He'd massed about eleven hundred dollars in traffic
tickets that he had to work offchopping wood for the parks department, but
(10:37):
he kept on getting traffic violations,so eventually his license was taken away.
Now Stephen worked at everything from pizzadelivery guide to working in a meat packing
plant, all minimum wage jobs,but then something happened. He met and
fell in love with a girl bythe name of Jody Edmondson. She seemed
to stabilize him, and even thoughthey had their u s downs, he
(11:01):
was finally settling down and settling inand I were married when he was twenty
and she was seventeen. And Ithink we're going to take a break here
and have a word from our sponsors, and then we'll be back in just
a few minutes to go to theevil side of this story. Oh more
evil I can't imagine. Be rightback. Hey, everyone, you're invited
(11:33):
to Harpy Hour. I'm Tracy,I'm Liz, I'm Steph. We are
the Harpies, and Harpy Hour isour new podcast featuring ridiculous stories in history,
science, and entertainment. Were youever suspicious that pigeons were secretly spying
on you? How do you knowwho to eat first? If you survive
a shipwreck, do problematic musicals sendyou into an uncontrollable rage? If so,
(12:00):
then Harpy Hour might be your newfavorite podcast. That's h a r
p y for Harpy and New episodesair every Tuesday wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can also find us on allsocial media at Harpy Hour Pod and
check us out on Harpy Hour podcastdot com. Okay, bye, okay,
(12:35):
thanks for coming back. Now.Back to what I said earlier about
Parnell and Murphy working in a resortat Yosemite, Well, Stephen's older brother
Carry worked at Yosemite as well,at a motel just outside the park,
and that odd it is. Carriewas eleven when Stephen disappeared, and he
felt a certain amount of resentment towardsStephen both before and after his return.
(12:56):
He said he felt neglected like hisparents grieved for the loss of Stephen and
didn't have time for him. Theydidn't pay enough tention to their other children,
and in nineteen ninety one, atthe age of thirty, he attempted
suicide. He was arrested in nineteenninety seven for drug possession marijuana and meth,
but the charges were eventually dropped.It was nineteen ninety seven that he
(13:20):
began working at the motel Cedar Lodgein el Portal on Highway forty, just
outside the park. Like I said, he worked as a hendyman and fixed
issues with rooms. Oh Now,on February fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine,
three guests at the motel went missing, Carol Sunned forty two, her daughter
(13:43):
Julie, fifteen, and Julie's friend, and an exchange student from Argentina by
the name of Sylvina Palasso, whowas sixteen. They questioned some people,
including the motel handyman, Carry Stainer, but no one was arrested. Stainer
had been laid off since January.He wasn't at the motel working and he
didn't have a record of any kind, so they let him go. They
(14:05):
couldn't find anything on him to incriminatehim. On March eighteenth of that year,
Carol's Sun's rental car was found withCarol's and Sylvina's charred bodies in the
trunk. They didn't find Julie untilMarch twenty fifth, a week later,
when an anonymous letter came in witha hand drawn map showing them where she
(14:26):
was located, about an hour away. Hidden in a thicket along with the
map was a note that said wehad fun with this one. Oh No.
Then, on July twenty second,the beheaded body of a part naturalist
Joy Armstrong was found inside the parkjust outside her home. This time,
though there were witnesses who saw ablue nineteen seventy nine International Scout parked outside
(14:52):
her cabin. Detectives traced the ownerof that car, and the owner turned
out to be guess, oh myCarrie sticks brother, Stephen's brother Carry.
On July twenty fourth, they trackedcarry Standard down to the Laguna del Soul
nudist resort. Seems he was apart time nudist or a voyeur, one
(15:15):
of the two. Oh yeah,well, I kind of think probably,
yeah, it's easy to be apeep in time on a or on a
dude, be to give me aflasher, and oh my god, mind
boggles. So he was taken infor questioning, and he had a backpack
and he wouldn't let them see it. So they took him in for questioning
and took the backpack, and toeverybody's surprise, including FBI agent Jeff Rennick
(15:39):
who was questioning him, he confessedto four murders. Oh wow, that's
when he realized he'd also killed thethree tourists back in February. At first,
he refused to give Rennick or Rennick, I'm not sure. I think
it's Rennick and fellow FBI agent JohnBowles a complete confession unless they brought him
a big stack of child poor oh, particularly little girls pictures and videos.
(16:03):
Oh my goodness. He also wantedhis family to get the two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars reward that Carols Soun'sparents had offered for information leading to the
killer. No that the agents toldhim, that's something that's out of their
control, and they all though,they also said they had to go to
a higher authority for the kiddie porn, which they had no intention of giving
him of quote, of course notm So instead the agents ordered pizza and
(16:29):
they talked him into confessing. Theywere like, look, you're probably going
to get the death penalty for Joy'sdeath anyway. We know you did that,
and there's enough evidence to prove it. So why not completely come clean
and get the others off your conscience. I feel relieved if you do.
And so, after he lamented aboutit for a while and the fact that
he'd miss having pizza and he'd neverseen Star Wars and all that jazz,
(16:53):
he did confess to the murders.Evidently, Stainer had thought about doing this
since he was child, since before, since before Stephen went missing at seven,
he'd had fantasies about putting a neighborgirl in a pit and keeping her
there. Oh my god. WhenSteven went missing, he felt those thoughts
were the reason why that somehow Stephen'sdisappearance was linked to him imagining doing something
(17:18):
that evil. H sounds like adoesn't sound like a tiny bit of remorse,
but na really, Yeah, hethought about killing his girlfriend and her
two daughters, ages eight and ten, but instead, it seems, on
February fourteenth, the day before Caroland Julie and Sylvina were murdered, he'd
followed another family around town, afamily with four girls. But these girls
(17:41):
were with a man, and thatdidn't pan out. He didn't He wasn't
gonna He's a coward. He wasn'tgoing to attack girls with a man exactly.
He wanted women alone. So thenext day he saw Carol and the
two girls while he was peeping throughthe window at the motel. He went
to the room under the guise offixing a bathroom fan, and so,
(18:03):
of course they let him in.I believe the two girls were watching a
movie Jerry Maguire maybe, and themom was reading a book. He immediately
pulled a gun, told him hewas desperate and had them lay face down
on the beds. He bound themwith duct tape and gagged them. He
then took Julie and Sylvina into thebathroom. He strangled Carol the mom,
(18:26):
with a three foot length of rope, and said it took about five minutes.
He stated he didn't know how.He didn't know at the time that
it took that long to strangle aperson. Then he put a ball.
Yeah, it is to hold arope around somebody's neck tied enough to strangle
them for five minutes. That's ittakes a strong person. That's a time.
(18:49):
Your microwave, it's personal, right, Yeah, I challenge everybody put
a timer on your microwave or yourfar and see how long five minutes is.
It's a long time. Yeah,you can stop it any minute.
Then he put her body in thetrunk of her rental cart and went back
(19:11):
inside. He brought the girls outof the bathroom cut and tore their clothes
off. He demanded they perform sexacts on each other, but Sylvina was
so distressed she was crying, whichirritated him, so he took her back
into the bathroom, had her kneelin the bathtub and strangled her. He
then returned to Julie sexually assaulted her, then took her to another room at
(19:34):
the motel and did it again,saying he didn't want her to see Sylvina's
dead body. He left her tiedup on the bed with the television on
while he cleaned up the crime sceneand put Sylvina's body in the trunk with
Carol's. Wow. When they askedhim where he'd learned how to clean up
a crime scene so well, becausethey couldn't find anything, he said he
(19:55):
watched the Discovery channel, Oh mygoodness, and that's where he learned how
to up and get rid of evidence. Oh my goodness. So at about
four am, he took Julie,who was now wrapped up in a blanket,
and put her in the passenger seatof the rental car. They talked
as he drove round aimlessly. Thenhe told her he loved her and that
(20:15):
he wished he could keep her,and then he slid her throat. Well,
of course, oh my goodness.He stood there and watched her gesturing
at him as she bled out forabout twenty seconds, and then he left
her body in the thicket. Ah. He then drove the car with Carol
and Sylvina's bodies back into the woodsas far as he could and set it
(20:36):
on fire with a can of gasolenehe'd gotten on the way. Afterward,
he took a cab back to Yosemitewith one hundred and fifty dollars he stole
from Carol's purse. Wow, standardpled not guilty by reason of his sanity,
Well, of course he did it. Seems his family had a long
history of mental illness as well aspedophilia. He claimed his uncle had molested
(20:59):
him when he was eleven. Healso claimed, and I don't doubt this,
that he felt a tremendous amount ofguilt when Stephen was kidnapped, like
he was the big brother and heshould have protected him. I think that's
pretty common in situations like that.The older siblings think they could have done
something, the parents think they couldhave done something right. His parents had
sort of pulled away in the yearsafter Stephen's disappearance. They were centered on
(21:22):
finding their son. His father evengoing so far as to say his real
son was gone. That must havemade the guy feel good. Why Delbert
Stainer has been in trouble for molestinghis daughters in order to get counseling.
So evidently pedophilia went back five generationsin this family. So it's kind of
ironic that Stephen was kidnapped by apedophile. Oh that's horrible. And Carrie
(21:49):
Stainer had peeped in on his sistersand cousins had groped one of his sisters
inappropriately at one time or another.But most it was the feeling that he
wasn't there. I think that heThey concentrated the family everything on finding Stephen,
and there was nothing left over forhim. And I'm not excusing his
(22:11):
behavior. That's no excuse. That'sjust how he felt. It's right,
it's invisible. So he pled guiltyto Joy's murder. He didn't really have
much choice. They kind of hadhim red handed. I'm not sure if
what they found in the backpack.I think there was a book about a
serial killer and a few other things, but it was enough to convince him
(22:33):
to plead guilty to that and toJoyce family. He said, I wish
I didn't do this terrible thing.I gave in to terrible dark dreams that
I tried to subdue. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you why
I don't even know myself. Iwish Joy was here, but she isn't.
I am so sorry. But likeI said earlier, he pled innocent
to Carol, Julie and Sylvina's murders. Basically, you know, not guilty
(22:57):
by reason of insanity. His lawyercited the family's issues with molestation and mental
illness. The fact that he askedfor child pornography in return for his confession
was another thing that they brought up. No normal person would do that,
right. They said he had OCD, mild autism, and paraphilia, which,
(23:18):
according to Miriam Webster, is definedas a pattern of recurring, sexually
arousing mental imagery or behavior that involvesunusual and especially socially unacceptable sexual practices,
such as sadism or pedophilia. Sohe kind of did have those traits,
but the jury didn't buy it,and on August twenty second, two thousand
and two, he was convicted offour murders in California court and sentenced to
(23:42):
death or he's probably still sitting.Yes, he's still sitting there, and
he's fifty nine years old, closeto sixty. He tried appeals, saying
the jury members weren't victims of molestation, so they wouldn't understand. But that
didn't pan out either, So he'ssitting there, like I said, for
nineteen years, going on twenty.Stephen Steiner, as I said earlier,
(24:06):
was married to Jody, not hissister's sort of like my family Kim and
Kim, right, But he ismarried and had two or three children,
and he had his life finally backon track. He held down two jobs,
one as a janitor and another asa pizza delivery guy, and he
talked to kids at school about howto stay safe from people like the ones
(24:27):
who took him. Oh, that'sso sweet. He testified in front of
the State Ways and Means Committee onstiffer penalties for child abduction, requiring fingerprints
for children. Basically, he wantedparents to get their children fingerprinted so that
if something did happen and they disappeared, they might be able to find them.
He could have been found if there'dbeen fingerprints on record for him,
(24:48):
probably right. I remember there wassome sort of program like that way back
then, and we're trying to geteverybody to get their kids fingerprinted. Yeah,
oh yeah, we had our fingerprintedbecause they that was and they gave
out little cards with their school picturesthat had all their violent information on it,
which was awesome, and he enjoyedthe media attention at first, until
(25:11):
it became too much and he justwanted a normal life without people watching his
every move. He bought a motorcycle. Yeah, of course, he bought
a motorcycle with some of the thirtythousand dollars he received through rights to his
story. It was a blue andwhite nineteen eighty nine Kawasaki e X five
hundred, pretty neat bike. Ashe left work on rainy day in September
(25:34):
sixteenth, nineteen eighty nine, hisboss told him to take one of the
delivery trucks instead of his bike sohe could stay dry on his way home.
He was anxious to get home,though, and he reminded his boss
that he didn't have a license atthe time and he didn't want to cause
any problems for the store if hegot pulled over. Instead, he headed
home to his wife and kids onhis motorcycle. He was going less than
(25:55):
the speed limit when a car pulledout in front of him, and Stephen
slammed into it. When I wastwenty four years old, when he died,
Oh my god, that's horrible.Yeah. Ah, Timothy White,
remember the little boy, the fiveyear old that he rescued. Yes,
at this point was around fourteen yearsold, and he served as a Paul
(26:15):
Bury at his funeral. Oh that'sso sweet. Timothy went on to become
an La County Sheriff's deputy. Wellthat's awesome. Unfortunately he passed away too
on April first, twenty ten froma pulmonary embolism. He was only thirty
five years old. Oh my gosh. And yeah, the evil one is
(26:36):
still alive. That's right, theevil standard is still alive, sitting in
prison getting his three a day.Hmm. I do kind of love that
Stephen was delivering pizza and Carrie wasall stressy that he would never have pizza
again. I love that, Yeah, I gotta, I love it.
But yeah, it was about tenyears later that he committed those murders,
(27:00):
ten years after Stephen passed away.Oh wow, that was so sad.
So that was my story this week. Well, wow, it's a Debbi
Downer. I can remember this kidfrom when we were kids, and yeah,
I mean yeah, basically I recallsome of this vaguely, but of
(27:21):
course, as we were kids,we're not paying much a tension either.
But I remember because our parents wereall our parents were worried because they were
watching the stuff, even though wemight have it and watch and they're like
and I hope that they'd have beena lot more protective of us. I
mean, we both had good parents, So yeah, thank god for that.
(27:42):
But thanks Kim. Hey, yeah, do you have any comments about
this episode? Go to our websitecuts to killers dot com and make your
comments there and drop your email intothe email information right there on the front
page age of the website, andwe will be sending out a monthly newsletter
(28:03):
starting at the end of this monthfor you to keep up with us what
we're doing and things we're working on, and also some other podcasters you might
be interested in. Well, thanksagain for being with us, and we
hope that you join us again everyTuesday and Friday. And in the meantime,
please don't bury the bodies without us. Bye'all, Bye y'all.
Welcome back to cutsu Killer's Homicide andSweet Tea. We had a busy,
busy weekend at my house. Plantedtomatoes and herbs and some flowers, and
did a cost co run, didoil changes, tire rotations, hanging movie
posters in our movie room, allthat stuff you do on the weekends.
And I think we've lived in thishouse for nine years and we're just now
getting around and hanging pictures were slow. I totally feel you. Although yesterday
(00:55):
it was so incredibly beautiful. Itwas a sky that is only in Texas.
Of course, I'm sure other peoplewill say this, but it was
the most beautiful blue guy. SoChode and I went and had lunch outside
and did the beach thing and walkedalong the boardwalk and we're just so gafy
(01:17):
romantic sometimes. So that's what wedid and we're disgusting. Yeah. Well,
but also guess what I saw thefirst blue bonnets, Kim. Yeah,
it means it's spring in Texas,we get blue bonnets. I know,
I know. So that's pretty cool. That's really pretty awesome. Everybody
holds their kids to the fields ofblue bonnets and takes their picture every year.
(01:38):
Well, that is what everybody hasbeen doing forever, and nobody mentions
that they're snakes in them. Theyare blue bonnets. So if you decide
to do that, don't just becareful. That's all anyway. Anyway,
Well, today I'm going to talkabout two brothers. One was a hero
(02:00):
and the other one of villain.Oh, I'm talking about the Stainer brother,
Stephen and Carrie. I don't knowif you remember the story of Stephen
Lark. Do you remember Stephen Stainer. I'm not sure that I do,
but maybe as we go, probablyin the late seven when we were in
high school or something like that,there was a movie on TV miniseries call
(02:21):
I Know my Name is Stephen.Oh, right, right, right,
right right, yeah, yeah,I remember. That was Stephen Stainer.
On December fourth, nineteen seventy two, when he was seven years old,
Stephen Stainer was walking home from schoolin Merced, California, which at the
time had a population of about twentytwo thousand. I think now it's about
one hundred eighty year one hundred thousand. But anyway, Stephen was walking home
(02:46):
from his elementary school when a mannamed Irvin Murphy stopped him and claimed to
be working for a church and askedif Stephen's mother might have some donations she'd
be willing to give to the church. Stephen said yes, he thought she
might, and started leading the mantoward his house. And a few seconds
later white buick pulled up and stopped, and Murphy, along with a man
(03:07):
named Kenneth Parnell, who'd said he'ddrive Stephen home to pick up those things,
led Stephen into the car willingly.He thought he was being driven home,
Like I said to his mom.Kenneth Parnell was a convicted child rapist.
Oh no, Murphy and Parnell bothworked at Yosemite National Park, and
(03:28):
keep that in mind for a littlebit later. Murphy was sort of a
simpleton, I guess you could callhim. He was mentally challenged, and
he was happy to have the friendshipof Parnell. Parnell claimed to be a
preacher, and he had told Murphyhe wanted to kidnap a little boy to
raise him in a religious way.Oh my goodness. Murphy apparently didn't know
(03:51):
at the time what Parnell had inmind for Stephen, that it wasn't anything
church related. Stephen was confused twinInstead of driving home they took him to
Parnell's cabin about thirty minutes away inCathy's Valley. Parnell molested Stephen that first
night, and he started raping himless than two weeks later. Oh no.
(04:13):
Stephen begged to be taken home,but Parnell told him he'd been granted
custody and was adopting Stephen because hisparents had too many children and needed to
get rid of one. Oh mygod. Delbert and Ka Stainer did have
five children, and Stephen was themiddle child. He had an older sister
named Cynthia, a brother named Carrie, and two younger sisters named Corey and
Jodi. Parnell's cabin ironically was onlya few hundred feet from Stephen's maternal grandfather's
(04:39):
house. Wow. So if he'dtried to run away, his grandfather was
right down the street and he didn'tknow it, and he didn't try to
run terrible. He was given ampleopportunity over the years to get away,
as he and Parnell moved around thestate from place to place, and Parnell
did odd jobs here and there.Parnell all had told him and claimed to
(05:00):
have adopted him, and he changedhis name to Dennis Parnell. They called
him by that kept his middle nameof Gregory and his birthday, and Stephen
evidently believed the lies that he wasbeing told. He was enrolled in school
and attended school for a few years. And Parnell really wasn't much of a
father, of course, because he'smore interested in what he can get out
(05:23):
of Stephen, right, So hedidn't discipline him. He didn't you do
anything to give him any rules tolive by. He started letting him drink
in fourth or fifth grade. Heleft him unsupervised for long periods of time
while he went off to work someodd job here and there. And like
I said, Stephen could have escaped. He had lots of opportunities, but
(05:43):
he didn't because he believed his parentsreally didn't want him and that he'd been
adopted by this man. That's horrible. And he said later on that he
really had no idea how to gethelp and he didn't know what to do.
Well, that makes sense. WhenStephen was nine years old, a
year and a half, Parnell hada woman living with him named Barbara Matthias,
and they both actively participated in rapingand molesting Stephen. According to Stephen
(06:10):
at least nine times. Yeah.When Stephen turned ten, he was getting
too old for Parnell, and hesent Matthias to try to lure a much
younger boy. The attempt didn't succeed, though, and it would be four
more years, when Stephen was fourteen, that Parnell enlisted his help in trying
to snatch another boy. Oh golly. This point, Stephen had started to
(06:32):
become a you know, kind ofrebellious, a rebellious team because he had
no rules, He had no youknow, nothing to go by. He
had. Yeah, yeah, he'dnever had proper discipline or any sort of
parenting, and he was getting tiredof the abuse. He was all over
doubt. It was done. Hewas done, and he knew that whatever
child was taken would suffer in thesame way he had for the last seven
(06:55):
years. They'd be raped over andover at the hands of Parnell and whoever
else wanted to participate. So everytime Parnell sent him to chat up a
little boy and convince him to comealong, Stephen did something to thwart the
plan. He would tell him torun along or something like that because he
didn't want to do it. Hedidn't want to bring anybody else into what
(07:16):
he'd lived through get kid for him. Then finally, Parnell, figuring Stephen
just didn't know how to lure kidsaway, enlisted the help of one of
Stephen's friends, Randall Poorman, tokidnap a five year old boy by the
name of Timothy White on Valentine's Dayin nineteen eighty, so this was eight
years later. Stephen didn't want thisdistress little boy to suffer what he had
(07:41):
for the past seven or eight years, so on March first, that's a
couple of weeks later, while Parnellwas at work, Stephen took Timothy and
hitchhike to Yukaia, where Timothy wasfrom. Yay yeah, But the little
boy was too young to remember wherehe lived, So after searching for Timothy's
home unsuccessfully for a while, Stephentook the little boy to the police station
(08:03):
and helped him inside, planning toturn around and leave, but the police
saw them and took them both infor questioning. It was there that he
told police the title of that movieI know my name is Stephen. He
went on to say he thought hislast name might be Stainer, but he
wasn't sure if he had a middlename or not. He told the police
(08:26):
about the torture he'd endured. Hetold him the whole story and everything that
he could remember. In a laterinterview, he said that he couldn't see
Timmy suffered. I just didn't thinkit was right for him to have to
go through the same thing that Idid. He really didn't have to.
There was someone there who could stopit himself. When Stephen returned to his
(08:48):
family, he had a lot ofissues. Of course, many were the
result of the abuse he'd sustained atthe hands of Parnell, but also at
the new discipline he was subject toand the rules he wasn't used to having.
He'd grown used to having little orno supervision and no rocks, right,
So adjusting to come back to hisfamily and his home was complicated,
(09:11):
and it was further complicated by theconstant media attention he received. I mean,
I can remember back then, thereporter you know, every day almost
it seemed like anyway there was somethingon TV about him and about his story,
right, because this is so unusualat that time, Right, Reporters
came from all over the country andactually all over the world, Europe and
(09:35):
everywhere, and Stephen only had afew counseling sessions with a psychologist after he
got home, and nothing in theway of psychotherapy to deal with the years
of mental and physical abuse he'd hadto move through. He once joked that
he didn't see the need to spendone hundred dollars an hour on a therapist.
He said, I've been talking toreporters for nine years. It's a
(09:56):
pretty good substitute. But he reallyneeded that counseling. He had difficulty fitting
back home, as I said before, but also difficulty at school passing his
classes, you know, discipline issuegrades, until he finally dropped out.
(10:16):
He was kicked out of his parents'home a couple of times because of his
failure to want to live by therules. He was smoking and drinking.
By the time he was nineteen,He'd massed about eleven hundred dollars in traffic
tickets that he had to work offchopping wood for the parks department, but
(10:37):
he kept on getting traffic violations,so eventually his license was taken away.
Now Stephen worked at everything from pizzadelivery guide to working in a meat packing
plant, all minimum wage jobs,but then something happened. He met and
fell in love with a girl bythe name of Jody Edmondson. She seemed
to stabilize him, and even thoughthey had their u s downs, he
(11:01):
was finally settling down and settling inand I were married when he was twenty
and she was seventeen. And Ithink we're going to take a break here
and have a word from our sponsors, and then we'll be back in just
a few minutes to go to theevil side of this story. Oh more
evil I can't imagine. Be rightback. Hey, everyone, you're invited
(11:33):
to Harpy Hour. I'm Tracy,I'm Liz, I'm Steph. We are
the Harpies, and Harpy Hour isour new podcast featuring ridiculous stories in history,
science, and entertainment. Were youever suspicious that pigeons were secretly spying
on you? How do you knowwho to eat first? If you survive
a shipwreck, do problematic musicals sendyou into an uncontrollable rage? If so,
(12:00):
then Harpy Hour might be your newfavorite podcast. That's h a r
p y for Harpy and New episodesair every Tuesday wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can also find us on allsocial media at Harpy Hour Pod and
check us out on Harpy Hour podcastdot com. Okay, bye, okay,
(12:35):
thanks for coming back. Now.Back to what I said earlier about
Parnell and Murphy working in a resortat Yosemite, Well, Stephen's older brother
Carry worked at Yosemite as well,at a motel just outside the park,
and that odd it is. Carriewas eleven when Stephen disappeared, and he
felt a certain amount of resentment towardsStephen both before and after his return.
(12:56):
He said he felt neglected like hisparents grieved for the loss of Stephen and
didn't have time for him. Theydidn't pay enough tention to their other children,
and in nineteen ninety one, atthe age of thirty, he attempted
suicide. He was arrested in nineteenninety seven for drug possession marijuana and meth,
but the charges were eventually dropped.It was nineteen ninety seven that he
(13:20):
began working at the motel Cedar Lodgein el Portal on Highway forty, just
outside the park. Like I said, he worked as a hendyman and fixed
issues with rooms. Oh Now,on February fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine,
three guests at the motel went missing, Carol Sunned forty two, her daughter
(13:43):
Julie, fifteen, and Julie's friend, and an exchange student from Argentina by
the name of Sylvina Palasso, whowas sixteen. They questioned some people,
including the motel handyman, Carry Stainer, but no one was arrested. Stainer
had been laid off since January.He wasn't at the motel working and he
didn't have a record of any kind, so they let him go. They
(14:05):
couldn't find anything on him to incriminatehim. On March eighteenth of that year,
Carol's Sun's rental car was found withCarol's and Sylvina's charred bodies in the
trunk. They didn't find Julie untilMarch twenty fifth, a week later,
when an anonymous letter came in witha hand drawn map showing them where she
(14:26):
was located, about an hour away. Hidden in a thicket along with the
map was a note that said wehad fun with this one. Oh No.
Then, on July twenty second,the beheaded body of a part naturalist
Joy Armstrong was found inside the parkjust outside her home. This time,
though there were witnesses who saw ablue nineteen seventy nine International Scout parked outside
(14:52):
her cabin. Detectives traced the ownerof that car, and the owner turned
out to be guess, oh myCarrie sticks brother, Stephen's brother Carry.
On July twenty fourth, they trackedcarry Standard down to the Laguna del Soul
nudist resort. Seems he was apart time nudist or a voyeur, one
(15:15):
of the two. Oh yeah,well, I kind of think probably,
yeah, it's easy to be apeep in time on a or on a
dude, be to give me aflasher, and oh my god, mind
boggles. So he was taken infor questioning, and he had a backpack
and he wouldn't let them see it. So they took him in for questioning
and took the backpack, and toeverybody's surprise, including FBI agent Jeff Rennick
(15:39):
who was questioning him, he confessedto four murders. Oh wow, that's
when he realized he'd also killed thethree tourists back in February. At first,
he refused to give Rennick or Rennick, I'm not sure. I think
it's Rennick and fellow FBI agent JohnBowles a complete confession unless they brought him
a big stack of child poor oh, particularly little girls pictures and videos.
(16:03):
Oh my goodness. He also wantedhis family to get the two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars reward that Carols Soun'sparents had offered for information leading to the
killer. No that the agents toldhim, that's something that's out of their
control, and they all though,they also said they had to go to
a higher authority for the kiddie porn, which they had no intention of giving
him of quote, of course notm So instead the agents ordered pizza and
(16:29):
they talked him into confessing. Theywere like, look, you're probably going
to get the death penalty for Joy'sdeath anyway. We know you did that,
and there's enough evidence to prove it. So why not completely come clean
and get the others off your conscience. I feel relieved if you do.
And so, after he lamented aboutit for a while and the fact that
he'd miss having pizza and he'd neverseen Star Wars and all that jazz,
(16:53):
he did confess to the murders.Evidently, Stainer had thought about doing this
since he was child, since before, since before Stephen went missing at seven,
he'd had fantasies about putting a neighborgirl in a pit and keeping her
there. Oh my god. WhenSteven went missing, he felt those thoughts
were the reason why that somehow Stephen'sdisappearance was linked to him imagining doing something
(17:18):
that evil. H sounds like adoesn't sound like a tiny bit of remorse,
but na really, Yeah, hethought about killing his girlfriend and her
two daughters, ages eight and ten, but instead, it seems, on
February fourteenth, the day before Caroland Julie and Sylvina were murdered, he'd
followed another family around town, afamily with four girls. But these girls
(17:41):
were with a man, and thatdidn't pan out. He didn't He wasn't
gonna He's a coward. He wasn'tgoing to attack girls with a man exactly.
He wanted women alone. So thenext day he saw Carol and the
two girls while he was peeping throughthe window at the motel. He went
to the room under the guise offixing a bathroom fan, and so,
(18:03):
of course they let him in.I believe the two girls were watching a
movie Jerry Maguire maybe, and themom was reading a book. He immediately
pulled a gun, told him hewas desperate and had them lay face down
on the beds. He bound themwith duct tape and gagged them. He
then took Julie and Sylvina into thebathroom. He strangled Carol the mom,
(18:26):
with a three foot length of rope, and said it took about five minutes.
He stated he didn't know how.He didn't know at the time that
it took that long to strangle aperson. Then he put a ball.
Yeah, it is to hold arope around somebody's neck tied enough to strangle
them for five minutes. That's ittakes a strong person. That's a time.
(18:49):
Your microwave, it's personal, right, Yeah, I challenge everybody put
a timer on your microwave or yourfar and see how long five minutes is.
It's a long time. Yeah,you can stop it any minute.
Then he put her body in thetrunk of her rental cart and went back
(19:11):
inside. He brought the girls outof the bathroom cut and tore their clothes
off. He demanded they perform sexacts on each other, but Sylvina was
so distressed she was crying, whichirritated him, so he took her back
into the bathroom, had her kneelin the bathtub and strangled her. He
then returned to Julie sexually assaulted her, then took her to another room at
(19:34):
the motel and did it again,saying he didn't want her to see Sylvina's
dead body. He left her tiedup on the bed with the television on
while he cleaned up the crime sceneand put Sylvina's body in the trunk with
Carol's. Wow. When they askedhim where he'd learned how to clean up
a crime scene so well, becausethey couldn't find anything, he said he
(19:55):
watched the Discovery channel, Oh mygoodness, and that's where he learned how
to up and get rid of evidence. Oh my goodness. So at about
four am, he took Julie,who was now wrapped up in a blanket,
and put her in the passenger seatof the rental car. They talked
as he drove round aimlessly. Thenhe told her he loved her and that
(20:15):
he wished he could keep her,and then he slid her throat. Well,
of course, oh my goodness.He stood there and watched her gesturing
at him as she bled out forabout twenty seconds, and then he left
her body in the thicket. Ah. He then drove the car with Carol
and Sylvina's bodies back into the woodsas far as he could and set it
(20:36):
on fire with a can of gasolenehe'd gotten on the way. Afterward,
he took a cab back to Yosemitewith one hundred and fifty dollars he stole
from Carol's purse. Wow, standardpled not guilty by reason of his sanity,
Well, of course he did it. Seems his family had a long
history of mental illness as well aspedophilia. He claimed his uncle had molested
(20:59):
him when he was eleven. Healso claimed, and I don't doubt this,
that he felt a tremendous amount ofguilt when Stephen was kidnapped, like
he was the big brother and heshould have protected him. I think that's
pretty common in situations like that.The older siblings think they could have done
something, the parents think they couldhave done something right. His parents had
sort of pulled away in the yearsafter Stephen's disappearance. They were centered on
(21:22):
finding their son. His father evengoing so far as to say his real
son was gone. That must havemade the guy feel good. Why Delbert
Stainer has been in trouble for molestinghis daughters in order to get counseling.
So evidently pedophilia went back five generationsin this family. So it's kind of
ironic that Stephen was kidnapped by apedophile. Oh that's horrible. And Carrie
(21:49):
Stainer had peeped in on his sistersand cousins had groped one of his sisters
inappropriately at one time or another.But most it was the feeling that he
wasn't there. I think that heThey concentrated the family everything on finding Stephen,
and there was nothing left over forhim. And I'm not excusing his
(22:11):
behavior. That's no excuse. That'sjust how he felt. It's right,
it's invisible. So he pled guiltyto Joy's murder. He didn't really have
much choice. They kind of hadhim red handed. I'm not sure if
what they found in the backpack.I think there was a book about a
serial killer and a few other things, but it was enough to convince him
(22:33):
to plead guilty to that and toJoyce family. He said, I wish
I didn't do this terrible thing.I gave in to terrible dark dreams that
I tried to subdue. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you why
I don't even know myself. Iwish Joy was here, but she isn't.
I am so sorry. But likeI said earlier, he pled innocent
to Carol, Julie and Sylvina's murders. Basically, you know, not guilty
(22:57):
by reason of insanity. His lawyercited the family's issues with molestation and mental
illness. The fact that he askedfor child pornography in return for his confession
was another thing that they brought up. No normal person would do that,
right. They said he had OCD, mild autism, and paraphilia, which,
(23:18):
according to Miriam Webster, is definedas a pattern of recurring, sexually
arousing mental imagery or behavior that involvesunusual and especially socially unacceptable sexual practices,
such as sadism or pedophilia. Sohe kind of did have those traits,
but the jury didn't buy it,and on August twenty second, two thousand
and two, he was convicted offour murders in California court and sentenced to
(23:42):
death or he's probably still sitting.Yes, he's still sitting there, and
he's fifty nine years old, closeto sixty. He tried appeals, saying
the jury members weren't victims of molestation, so they wouldn't understand. But that
didn't pan out either, So he'ssitting there, like I said, for
nineteen years, going on twenty.Stephen Steiner, as I said earlier,
(24:06):
was married to Jody, not hissister's sort of like my family Kim and
Kim, right, But he ismarried and had two or three children,
and he had his life finally backon track. He held down two jobs,
one as a janitor and another asa pizza delivery guy, and he
talked to kids at school about howto stay safe from people like the ones
(24:27):
who took him. Oh, that'sso sweet. He testified in front of
the State Ways and Means Committee onstiffer penalties for child abduction, requiring fingerprints
for children. Basically, he wantedparents to get their children fingerprinted so that
if something did happen and they disappeared, they might be able to find them.
He could have been found if there'dbeen fingerprints on record for him,
(24:48):
probably right. I remember there wassome sort of program like that way back
then, and we're trying to geteverybody to get their kids fingerprinted. Yeah,
oh yeah, we had our fingerprintedbecause they that was and they gave
out little cards with their school picturesthat had all their violent information on it,
which was awesome, and he enjoyedthe media attention at first, until
(25:11):
it became too much and he justwanted a normal life without people watching his
every move. He bought a motorcycle. Yeah, of course, he bought
a motorcycle with some of the thirtythousand dollars he received through rights to his
story. It was a blue andwhite nineteen eighty nine Kawasaki e X five
hundred, pretty neat bike. Ashe left work on rainy day in September
(25:34):
sixteenth, nineteen eighty nine, hisboss told him to take one of the
delivery trucks instead of his bike sohe could stay dry on his way home.
He was anxious to get home,though, and he reminded his boss
that he didn't have a license atthe time and he didn't want to cause
any problems for the store if hegot pulled over. Instead, he headed
home to his wife and kids onhis motorcycle. He was going less than
(25:55):
the speed limit when a car pulledout in front of him, and Stephen
slammed into it. When I wastwenty four years old, when he died,
Oh my god, that's horrible.Yeah. Ah, Timothy White,
remember the little boy, the fiveyear old that he rescued. Yes,
at this point was around fourteen yearsold, and he served as a Paul
(26:15):
Bury at his funeral. Oh that'sso sweet. Timothy went on to become
an La County Sheriff's deputy. Wellthat's awesome. Unfortunately he passed away too
on April first, twenty ten froma pulmonary embolism. He was only thirty
five years old. Oh my gosh. And yeah, the evil one is
(26:36):
still alive. That's right, theevil standard is still alive, sitting in
prison getting his three a day.Hmm. I do kind of love that
Stephen was delivering pizza and Carrie wasall stressy that he would never have pizza
again. I love that, Yeah, I gotta, I love it.
But yeah, it was about tenyears later that he committed those murders,
(27:00):
ten years after Stephen passed away.Oh wow, that was so sad.
So that was my story this week. Well, wow, it's a Debbi
Downer. I can remember this kidfrom when we were kids, and yeah,
I mean yeah, basically I recallsome of this vaguely, but of
(27:21):
course, as we were kids,we're not paying much a tension either.
But I remember because our parents wereall our parents were worried because they were
watching the stuff, even though wemight have it and watch and they're like
and I hope that they'd have beena lot more protective of us. I
mean, we both had good parents, So yeah, thank god for that.
(27:42):
But thanks Kim. Hey, yeah, do you have any comments about
this episode? Go to our websitecuts to killers dot com and make your
comments there and drop your email intothe email information right there on the front
page age of the website, andwe will be sending out a monthly newsletter
(28:03):
starting at the end of this monthfor you to keep up with us what
we're doing and things we're working on, and also some other podcasters you might
be interested in. Well, thanksagain for being with us, and we
hope that you join us again everyTuesday and Friday. And in the meantime,
please don't bury the bodies without us. Bye'all, Bye y'all.
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