I Know My First Name Is Steven: The Abduction of Steven Stayner

In classic literature—and in soap operas, too—there are a lot of families who become lightning rods for misfortune. Sometimes it really strains your suspension of disbelief—like, come on, one family could never go through this much tragedy. But every now and then, a family just seems to be haunted by something sinister. From February through July of 1999, the bodies of four women turned up around Yosemite National Park in California—all brutally murdered and mutilated. The killer was a handsome, likable guy named Cary Stayner, who confessed to the four murders once they had him in custody, and is suspected of quite a few more. And during his confession, the investigators realized why his name had seemed familiar to them. Cary was the brother of Steven Stayner, kidnapped by a pedophile in 1972, forced to change his name to Dennis and held captive for years, until one night in 1980 when he walked into a police station and said, “I know my first name is Steven.” That case captured the world, with books and documentaries covering Steven’s years-long ordeal and the courage of his escape. Now, nearly 20 years later, the Stayner family was once again in the throes of a nightmare. Would Cary have become a serial killer if his brother had never been kidnapped, or was that evil always lurking inside him? It’s a Shakespearean tragedy of a story, and we’ll be telling it in two parts. This is part one--the abduction of Steven Stayner.

Big thanks to Mike Moran of the Confessional Podcast for doing much of the work/research on this one! 

Sources:
All That's Interesting: https://allthatsinteresting.com/steven-stayner
Wikipedia: Kenneth Parnell
The Crime Reel: Part 1 of 2: Steven Stayner. The Troubled Lives of the Stayner Brothers
Casefile (podcast): Ep. 154, Steven Stayner
This Is Monsters (podcast): The Story of Kenneth Parnell, the Kidnapping of Steven Stayner

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, campers, grab your marshmallows, and gather around the true
crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney,
and we're here to tell you a true story that
is way stranger than fiction or roasting murderers and marshmallows
around the true crime campfire.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
In classic literature and in soap operas too, there are
a lot of families who become lightning rods for misfortune.
Sometimes it really strained your suspension of disbelief, Like, come on,
one family could never go through this much tragedy. But
every now and then a family just seems to be
haunted by something sinister. From February through July of nineteen

(00:42):
ninety nine, the bodies of four women turned up around
Yosemite National Park in California, all brutally murdered and mutilated.
The killer was a handsome, likable guy named Carrie Stainer,
who confessed to the four murders once they had him
in custody, and is suspected of quite a few more.
And during his confession, the investigators realized why his name

(01:03):
had seemed familiar to them. Carrie was the older brother
of Stephen Stainer kidnapped by a pedophile when he was
seven years old, forced to change his name to Dennis,
and held captive for years until one night in nineteen
eighty when he walked into a police station and said,
I know my first name is Stephen. That case captured

(01:24):
the world with books and documentaries covering Stephen's years long
ordeal and the courage of his escape. Now, nearly twenty
years later, the Stainer family was once again in the
throes of a nightmare. Would Carrie have become a serial
killer if his brother had never been kidnapped? Or was
that evil always lurking inside him? It's a Shakespearean tragedy

(01:45):
of a story, and we'll be telling it in two parts.
This is part one. I Know my first name is Stephen.
The Abduction of Stephen Stainer. Stephen Stainer was born on

(02:06):
April eighteenth, nineteen sixty five, to Key and Delbert Stainer
in Merced, California. Stephen was one of five kids, sisters Cindy, Jody,
and Corey, and older brother Carrie, who Stephen was the
closest with. Father Dell was an army vet and mechanic,
and mother Key worked in different service jobs over the years.

(02:27):
The Stainers were Mormons, always keeping close with the church.
They loved outdoorsy stuff like camping and fishing. They liked
to pile into the family car and go exploring. In
early December of nineteen seventy two, like most kids, seven
year old Stephen was stoked for Christmas, even though it
was still weeks away. He was still so excited he

(02:48):
could barely sleep. But there was something nobody knew. Stephen
was being watched that winter by a man named Kenneth Parnell.
Parnell had been stalking around the outside of the elementary
school where Stephen went, just a few blocks from the
Stainer's house. From his old white buick, he scoped out

(03:09):
all the young boys as they made their way home
from school. Every day. He decided which ones he liked
and which ones he thought would make easy prey. He
took note of who got on the bus, who got
picked up by their parents, and who walked home. Sadly,
Stephen checked all the boxes he was on the prow
for and one day Parnell somehow managed to convince a

(03:32):
mailman to tell him Stephen's full name and a little
bit about the Stainer family, which sounds completely insane to
us now, But you know, in nineteen seventy two, it
probably never would have occurred to the mailman that somebody
might ask about this stuff for a sinister reason. All
this was going on as the Stainers happily went about
their lives making plans for Christmas. And then on December fourth,

(03:55):
as Stephen was walking his usual route home, a strange
man approached him him. This wasn't Kenneth Parnell. This was
a man named Irvin Murphy.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
See.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Kenneth Parnell was what you might call a master manipulator. Irvin,
with a developmental disability that made him more trusting than
the average person, was the perfect mark to act as
a buffer between Parnell and the boy he planned to kidnap.
Ken didn't want to be the one seen on the
street talking to a child just before that child went missing.

(04:27):
He'd instructed Irvin to hand out religious pamphlets to the
kids walking around after school. He'd pointed out Stephen specifically. Okay, Irvin,
he'd said, when you get to him, ask him if
his parents have anything they'd like to donate to the
needy through the church. Tell him you'll be happy to
give him a ride home and talk with his folks directly.

(04:47):
Stephen was a sweet, soft hearted kid, and he immediately
wanted to help out. My mom will probably be interested
in donating, he told Irvin. He was a little apprehensive
about the whole getting a ride home thing. He pointed
out how short of a walk it was, but it
was starting to rain, so he decided, what the heck
this guy seemed nice? How insane is it? By the way,

(05:09):
if it hadn't started raining right then, Stephen Stainer might
never have gotten abducted, just that little hair's breadth of chance.
So Irvin walked Stephen over to the buick. The little
boy was surprised to see Ervin get in On the
passenger side. Of course, Kenneth Parnell, a man Stephen had
never met before, was behind the wheel. Stephen was even

(05:32):
more confused as Parnell started driving not to Stephen's house,
but out of town and onto Highway one point forty.
But Ken squelched any concerns of Steven's and agreed that,
you know, it was probably a good idea to stop
at a payphone and call his parents, so he pulled
over and pretended to do that. When he came back
to the car, he assured Stephen his parents were happy

(05:53):
to let him come hang out with this weird guy
he just met. Of course, why wouldn't they be. He
could even spend the night. There are lots of cool
toys at my house, Parnell told him, we'll have a
great time. So, of course our skin is crawling as adults,
but remember Stephen is seven. He was a little bewildered,
but he was trusting in the way that kids tend

(06:14):
to be with adults, so he stayed calm the whole
way there. Around nightfall, they pulled up to a small
cabin in a trailer park in Mariposa County, about thirty
seven miles from the Stainer's house in Merced, Coincidentally, this
was the same trailer park Stephen's grandfather was currently living in,
just a short walking distance away, but none of them

(06:35):
knew that at the time.

Speaker 3 (06:37):
As promised, the cabin was filled with new toys purchased
by Parnell and Irvin Murphy for the sole purpose of
keeping their kidnapping victim calm and compliant. As Parnell talked
with Stephen, he learned that his parents had been worried
about money lately, and that Stephen had been getting in
trouble here and there. Of course, being the viper he is,

(06:58):
Parnell used this to explain to Stephen why his parents
weren't coming to get him. He convinced the poor kid
that they'd sent him away for a while. They needed
a break from his behavior and some financial relief too.
One less mouth to feed. Oh, my lord, Kenneth Parnell
abused Stephen for the first time that night. So who

(07:19):
was this monster?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
He was born in Amarillo, Texas, in nineteen thirty one,
right in the heart of the dust bowl of the
Great Depression, along with his mother and several half siblings.
The family eventually moved to Bakersfield, California after Kenneth's dad
left when he was six. Mother Mary Parnell kept the
household afloat in Bakersfield by managing a boarding house. Parnell

(07:42):
seems to have had pretty severe mental issues his whole life.
He tried to remove his own teeth with pliers at
age four, and attempted suicide twice at just nine years old.
The first time he shot himself in the abdomen, and
the second time he actually jumped off a barn directly
onto a row of spiked boards. Somehow, he was only

(08:02):
mildly hurt in both attempts.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
That's really rare for a child at young, isn't it
to attempt suicide?

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Yeah, that's wild, especially like serious attempts.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
To oh yeah, with a firearm. That's bonkers.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
His mother later referred to this time in her son's
life as the troubles. Well, guess what, mom, the troubles
are just beginning for young Ken. Really, you could just
refer to his whole life as the troubles. He is
the trouble. Kenneth would soon become familiar with another kind
of boarding house, the Juvenile Detention Center. He ended up

(08:40):
there for a number of different offenses, stealing cars, burning things,
and showing people his no no square yeah. In addition
to pyromania and grand theft auto, Ken was a fan
of whoopen and out in public for shock value. The
results weren't favorable, and Ken often found himself taking long

(09:00):
vacations to places where the doors locked from the outside.
It's not a huge surprise that Ken really started acting
out around age thirteen. Records show that before his fourteenth birthday,
he was institutionalized for quote, performing oral sex on another
older man.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Wow, Hey, nineteen forties justice system, did it occur to
you that the grown man might be the one at
fault here, not the underage boy?

Speaker 3 (09:29):
No great teenage Kenneth later got caught engaging in public
sex acts with males multiple times. In one of his
stints behind bars, he tried to drink disinfectant in another
attempt on his life, but yet again, he was unsuccessful.
During a brief lull in incarcerations, in nineteen forty nine,
when Ken was eighteen, he married a fifteen year old

(09:52):
girl named Patsy Joe Dorton, which, holy shit, that's young.
Not super uncommon at the time, but still yikes. You know,
Patsy got pregnant two years later, and like a lot
of pregnant women, Patsy found herself pretty uninterested in sex,
you know, because she was busy three D printing an
entire human being. This made Ken feel pretty annoyed.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Oh bless his heart.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
So Ken, in his own words, swear to God, he said,
this had to find another outlet.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah. Well that outlet was a nine year old boy
named Bobby Green, whom Ken would employ his trademark manipulation
on convincing the boy he was a cop and that
Bobby fit the description of a boy who'd recently escaped
from juvie. For this twisted little ruse, parnellit actually bought
himself a fake police badge at an army surplus store.

(10:46):
He assured Bobby that if he wasn't the escape bee,
he had nothing to worry about and they'd clear it
all up at the station. He then proceeded to take
this poor little boy out to the middle of nowhere
and assault him. Afterward, he dropped Bobby back off at
the same place he picked him up from. Unsurprisingly, Bobby
and his parents quickly called the police and had Parnell arrested.

(11:08):
Kenneth was charged with quote child stealing, crimes against nature,
and copulation of the sexual organ. Couldn't you just call
it sexual abuse of a child? Did that term not
exist back then? It sounds like they were more concerned
with the homosexuality part to me. It's like that has
just bananas to me. But it was illegal back then.
In fact, gay sex wasn't legal across every state in

(11:30):
the US until Buckle Up for this two thousand and three,
which is just bananas. I had no idea that it
was that reson. That is crazy. In nineteen fifty two,
Ken pled guilty to lude and lascivious acts with a
child under the age of fourteen.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Okay, okay, so they let the gay shit go and
got him on the correct charges.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah, the state declared him to be a sexual psychopath
and handed him a ridiculously light three and a half
year sentence, not even in prison, but to be served
in another mental institution. And that shit still goes on, Like, yeah,
people get the most offensive sentences for abusing children. It's
just it's definitely a hole in our system. It's horrible.

(12:16):
And that time included five months that he was on
the lamb mid sentence after a successful escape that he
made by breaking a lock in a laundry room.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
My god.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
He was eventually recaptured, and later the state went on
to release Ken on parole under the condition that he
continue his psychiatric treatment, which he never once showed up for.
And did anybody keep track and go haul his ass
in for parole violation? Apparently not.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
Was this place what Arkham Asylum was based on, Like,
they're just walking out And I looked it up because
I had to know. Arkham Asylum made its first appearance
in the Batman comics in nineteen seventy four, so this
they could have based it on this, Yes, Like, what
do you mean? He oka lock in the launder room
again and just waltzed out.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Ken Parnell's first wife, Patsy, appears to have divorced him
and taken their daughter with her sometime after Ken returned
from his latest prison stint. Evidence is sketchy for this.
We basically only have Ken's word, which is worth about
negative nothing in my book. But supposedly he married a
couple more times over the next decade and had another daughter.
He got arrested again for armed robbery, this time in

(13:26):
nineteen sixty nine, and his third wife left him. If
she existed, we're not sure. When he got out of
prison that time, the state of Utah made him promise
to never come back, and eventually Ken ended up in
California Yosemite. The National Park was a nice isolated place
for a guy like Ken to find employment if he

(13:47):
was willing to fudge a little on his resume, obviously,
which he was. It was while working at Yosemite in
nineteen seventy two, that Ken befriended his coworker, Irvin Murphy.
Irvin was developmentally delayed, a little too trusting of others,
and exactly the kind of person a psychopath like Parnell
could play like a fiddle, and Ken was going to

(14:09):
need somebody like Irvin to pull off his latest obsession.
He wanted a boy to take home raise as he
saw fit and used to satisfy his disgusting sexual urges.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Ugh.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Over time, Parnell was able to convince Irvin Murphy that
he was in the process of becoming a minister and
was hoping to adopt a young boy to raise as
a sort of spiritual protege to quote, raise him in
a religious type deal is how Ervin later described it
to the courts. Ken, who insisted Ervin call him reverend,
claimed that God had ordained this plan and that the

(14:44):
boy's quality of life would be way better under his watch.
And so we circle back to December fourth, nineteen seventy two,
when seven year old Stephen Stainer had the horrendous misfortune
of crossing paths with these two men on his way
home from school. He even was soon on his way
to a new childhood. He'd never asked for, and the
rest of the Stainer family were about to fall headlong

(15:06):
into a living nightmare. Stephen's parents were of course worried
when he didn't come home from school that afternoon, but
they figured he probably went over to a friend's house
without telling them. This was something he did sometimes, it
was part of the reason he'd been in trouble lately.
After a few hours, they started calling his friends houses
and then drove around the neighborhood looking for him. They

(15:28):
reported Stephen missing at five PM.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Though their concern was growing as the evening approached. The
police assured the Stainers that he'd probably turn up soon
and that stranger abductions were very rare, which is true.
The police and family, now joined by a handful of volunteers,
continued to search into the night. When the sun rose
the next morning and there was still no sign of Stephen,

(15:51):
things started to get real. The police had parents Delbert
and Kay, take polygraphs and installed recording equipment in their
house in case of a ransom call, and of course,
the media soon got wind of the story. The family
was in a panic. As the days went by, speculation
ran wild. Some people even thought Stephen's parents might have

(16:13):
sold him to help with their financial problems.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Holy shit, yike.

Speaker 3 (16:19):
Statistically, when a child goes missing, it's usually the parents,
so plenty of suspicion was flying around about the stainers,
but the external search was still going strong, as the
whole town worried sick about Stephen. It was a rainy
day in December with the temperature dropping every day, and
everybody knew he might die of exposure if he was
lost somewhere outside. The local Mormon church helped look for him,

(16:40):
as did on and off duty police, regular citizens, boy scouts,
and even inmates from the local jail, which the last
one is just bizarre to me. I assume they got
the non violent offenders who were maybe doing work release anyway,
or like they were just the you know, drunk tank
that were out.

Speaker 2 (17:00):
I would think. So I'm picturing like Chief Wigham from
the Simpsons, like, Okay, i'll let you out for tonight,
but you have to pancake swear you'll come back.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
My thank you, good, Chief Wigham.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
That's all right.

Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah, But apparently people could just leave jail back then,
so you know, who knows. The police also investigated the
known sex offenders in the area. Parnell had somehow been
able to avoid being listed as a sex offender in California,
despite never making any attempts to change his name arrogant prick.

(17:36):
After a week, the police dropped a devastating bomb on
the Stainers. The official search was being called off. Obviously,
the investigation would continue, but they just couldn't keep combing
the area on foot forever. And if Stephen were lost
in the wilderness somewhere, he would have died by now.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Damn. I mean, I understand you can't keep a ground
search going forever, but a week just seems so fast
to me. What if it was your kid, you know? Hey?

Speaker 3 (18:03):
That Christmas was a dark one for the Stainers, for
a lot of the community too. Everybody was heartbroken about
Stephen's disappearance. Sympathetic neighbors tried to cheer up Stephen's four
siblings with extra gifts, but it didn't really help much.
Stephen's presence sat unopened under the tree in the hope
he would soon be home to open them. Although the

(18:26):
official search parties were no longer active, the investigators and
lots of volunteers kept up a relentless pace to try
and fight at Stephen. They put missing persons posters up everywhere,
not just in town, but in every neighboring town. They
could for hundreds of miles. Frustratingly, Yosemite National Park refused

(18:47):
to cooperate much. They said it would be bad press
for the park, so they wouldn't hang the posters, which
is extra awful because that's exactly where Parnell took Stephen next.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
A few days the kidnapping, Parnell bundled Stephen into the
buick and moved him to the dorm room he'd be
staying in while working at Yosemite. He hid him there
with a bucket for a toilet, since he couldn't usher
him back and forth to the bathroom without his co
workers noticing. He often sedated Stephen with sleeping pills to
make sure he didn't get too loud. Irvin Murphy would

(19:21):
bring food and toys to Stephen and hang out with
them while Parnell was at work. In those first days
and weeks of Stephen's new life with Parnell, he became
more and more upset and anxious. He wanted to go home.
He wanted to see his mom and dad and his siblings.
He didn't want to stay with this weird man anymore.
He cried and begged, but Parnell told him he wasn't

(19:43):
going home to his family just yet. I don't think
they really need you right now, he said. After a
few weeks, Parnell and Irvin put Stephen in the car
again and they all three went back to the cabin
for a few weeks. Parnell had a surprise for Stephen,
a new puppy he named Queenie. Whatever joy Stephen might
have had about his new puppy didn't last long, though.

(20:06):
This was a strategically timed gift given to cut down
the shock of the latest lie. Parnell was about to
tell Stephen that he had a new dad now. Parnell
himself a judge, granted me legal guardianship over you. Kenneth
told him we're family now legally. Stephen must have been
devastated and confused. It's a trick from page one, paragraph

(20:29):
one of the abuser's handbook, as we've talked about before,
Isolate your victim from their support system. Convince them you're
all they've got, nobody else wants them. Parnell worked hard
to brainwash seven year old Stephen convincing him that his
parents had agreed to the adoption, they didn't want him anymore,
they just couldn't afford to raise him. So not only

(20:50):
is this baby torn away from his family at seven
years old, but this piece of shit manages to make
him believe that his family didn't love him anymore, weren't
going to look for him. It's just absolutely monstrous. It's
almost as bad as the sexual abuse, that kind of
psychological violation. Parnell cut Stephen's hair in a new style

(21:11):
to disguise him and told him that his new name
was Dennis. He should refer to Ken as Dad. Meanwhile,
the Stainers continued to follow up on any and every
lead that came in. They even checked out all the
claims of the psychics who'd contact them, even though that's
not a thing they really believed in. That's how desperate
they were to find their lost boy. Key and Delbert

(21:33):
Stainer continued contacting every news outlet they could, But as
the months rolled on, the media is slowly lost interest
in the story. Many many families of missing people have
to confront this exact same pattern, and I can only
imagine how frustrating and just heart wrenching it is, but
the family enlisted the help of all their supporters to

(21:54):
raise money for a five thousand dollars reward for any
information leading to Steven's return. They also asked the ever
helpful Yosemite National Park for a list of all their
employees to check for themselves if anyone had a suspicious record,
And wouldn't you know it, they mistakenly left off about
half of their workers, including one Kenneth Parnell. Anybody else

(22:17):
want to smack the shit out of Yosemite management. It's
like they were trying to do everything humanly possible to
make sure this kid stayed captive.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
I'm so mad. I can't even talk. People talk about
wanting to go back to the good old days between
the seventy style racism, sexism, and flat out bureaucratic negligence.
I think we're doing better now. Okay, I appreciate national parks.
I think they're cool now. I think they're doing a
better job. But to be like h, I think missing

(22:49):
missing person's posters would make us look bad. And then
also like you can have some of our employee names
like what are you fucking doing?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
It's ridiculous. The Stainer's house was full of painful daily
reminders of Stephen's absence, but they refused to move on
the off chance that Stephen would find his way home
one day. If this miracle wherever to happen, they wanted
to make sure it was them he came home to.
They wrote his name on items all over the house,

(23:16):
refusing to forget him even for a minute. And although
they tried to stay as positive as possible, their hopes
and fears seemed to ebb and flow at different times.
One day, he confidently told a reporter, we know that
someday we'll be family again. On a less optimistic day,
she pleaded with Stephen's potential killer, if he's dead, please

(23:38):
let us know this. Not knowing is enough to drive
you insane.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Despite all the love that fueled this relentless search for Stephen,
the Stainer house was becoming increasingly tense. Dell was irritable, hostile,
and severely depressed. He was obsessive in his search for
Stephen and would load the whole family into the car
at a moment's notice to track down an alleged sighting,
no matter how far away or how far fetched. One time,

(24:31):
with family in toe. Dell slammed on the brakes of
the car and pulled over to the side of the road.
He'd noticed a suspicious looking man standing on a random
amount of dirt and staring off into space. Dale began
to obsess over the idea that Stephen was buried there.
He begged the police to dig, but was told there
was no evidence or reason to believe anything was there.

(24:52):
Both parents later admitted that they probably neglected their four
other children in Stephen's absence. Can you really blame them? Though?
Though they obviously could have used it, the Stainers weren't
the tight to seek professional help for their constant emotional stress,
or to talk about their feelings with each other.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, most people didn't back then, and.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
This is just beyond the pale. Kay's own father even
told her that she should be glad with one less
child to feed and clothe. Apparently he'd always thought she
was irresponsible to have so many children.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Wow, thanks dad, that's helpful.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
To say that out loud to somebody.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
It's unreal. I can't even believe it.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
Unconscionable. I can't. I can't. Stephen's disappearance hit his older
brother Carrie extra hard. He'd walk the streets of their
neighborhood at night and wish on the stars for his
little brother's return. Carry a tricotylomania, an anxiety driven compulsion
to pull out your own hair before Stephen was kidnapped,
and the stress of the situation made it even worse.

(25:57):
Drawing cartoons was one of the ways he dealt with it,
and he was good contributing illustrations to his high school newspaper.
He was even voted most artistic in the yearbook. As
months turned into years, the leads slowed down, but never stopped,
and even as the media coverage waned, they still received
several tips a week. There was even a false confession

(26:18):
at one point, but none of them led anywhere. It
was like Stephen had vanished into thin air, and yet
the stainers continued to take comfort in the fact that
a body never turned up. As long as this was
the case, there was still hope. As all this pain, hope,
searching and praying went on and mercied, Stephen was still

(26:39):
a shockingly short distance from home. Unbeknownst to them, Stephen
and his family were separated by a quick drive up
route one point. Eventually, though Kenneth Parnell, Irvin Murphy, and Stephen,
going by Dennis now moved from the trailer park to
another cabin in Yosemite went on. When he was eight,

(27:01):
Stephen got really sick, and Parnell had no choice but
to take him to the doctor. He must have been
shitting his pants thinking he was about to get caught.
If the doctor recognized Stephen from the news or noticed
any signs of abuse, or if Stephen said the wrong
thing or forgot to call himself Dennis, it would all
be over for Ken.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
But unfortunately for Stephen slash Dennis, the doctor was fine
with letting the boy's father do most of the talking.
He sent the two on their way with a diagnosis
of the mumps and a prescription for antibiotics. Realizing he
should probably move further away than Yosemite National Park if
he wanted to not get caught, Parnell moved them again
to Santa Rosa. Irvin Murphy wasn't invited this time. There.

(27:47):
Ken enrolled Stephen in school, and much to his relief,
they didn't ask for any of Dennis's school records or
a birth certificate. Though the Missing Persons flyers his parents
sent everywhere had reached the elementary school he was now attending.
They'd long been thrown out without being passed around.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
So were they just not wasting enough paper? They thought
they could just waste a little more by throwing it
out by not looking at it twice? Good good, cool, cool, cool,
Glad the school has the kid's best interest in mine.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
It's so upsetting there were so many missed opportunities in
this case. Despite all he was going through, Stephen was
still likable and optimistic. He made friends easily wherever they moved,
and he was a good student too, which says a
lot about the inner strength of this kid. My god,
to be going through what he was going through behind
closed doors and still managed to have a sort of

(28:40):
normal school life like having to hold in all that horror.
It's just amazing to me that he was able to
hold onto his spirit. After his Yosemite job, Parnell worked
the front desk at a holiday inn and sold bibles
door to door, which just adds a whole other layer
of creepy to this story. For me, imagining this fucking
weirdos showing up at my door and asking if he

(29:02):
could come in and talk to me about the Lord
h Later that year, Ken's cruel lies about Stephen's family
got another update. Your dad died, he told Stephen one morning,
just that casual. Ken said. Stephen's mom and siblings had
moved away right after the death to a new city.
Stephen felt hopeless. He'd come to believe that Ken was

(29:26):
the only one who wanted anything to do with him,
and that is a powerful chain to put around a
person's neck, especially a young person. Stephen had a lot
of chances to escape over the years, and though he
thought about it all the time, he never really tried.
Kenneth Parnell had warped his mind, shrunk his whorld down
to just the two of them. He had the temporary

(29:49):
escape of school, but he'd come to accept that this
was his life now and it wasn't just the psychological
manipulation that kept the invisible leash on Stephen. There was
also the very real threat of getting beaten by Parnell,
who could get violent whenever he felt like it. He
realized early on he could stay on Ken's good side

(30:09):
and be rewarded with toys and later on drugs, or
he could act out and get a whipping. Stephen quickly
learned to stay in line as much as possible, though
he once got caught shoplifting and was driven home by
the cops. Imagine that Parnell berated him, told him how
ashamed he was that his son had become a criminal.

(30:30):
This asshole is not acquainted with the concept of irony.
Is he just think about that ride home in the
squad car like? Imagine how badly he would want to
cry out for help. Ugh. Despite all the violence and brainwashing,
Stephen once found the courage to sneak out of the
trailer and walk into the pitch black night in hopes

(30:50):
of finding his real family. Sadly, he only made it
a few blocks before he got scared, turned around and
went back. Thankfully, Parnell had slept through the whole thing
and never even knew it happened. In nineteen seventy four,
two years into the abduction, Parnell quit his job at
the Holiday Inn. Want to know why, because they stopped

(31:12):
letting employees smoke at the front desk. Ken was just outraged,
What is this commi bullshit? So he flounced and took
up the time honor tradition for forty three year old men.
Everywhere he became a paper boy. Also that year, Parnell
attempted for the first time to try and get Stephen
to help him kidnap an even younger boy to join

(31:34):
the two of them. He took nine year old Stephen
to a shopping mall and instructed him to train and
get a kid to come out to the parking lot
with him. Stephen just wandered around the mall for a
while and later lied to Ken, telling him he tried,
but he was unsuccessful. Hell, yes, Stephen, You're awesome. As
the years passed by, the two continued to move around

(31:56):
a lot, though never leaving the state of California. They
bounced from cabins to hotel rooms to trailer parks.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Starting as early as fifth grade, Parnell openly encouraged Stephen
to drink, smoke and get high. They often did it together.
At one point, while living in Fort Bragg, Parnell's mom
gave him money to open a Bible store called Triple
A Bibles, Books and Gifts, which quickly failed get out.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I can't imagine why that wasn't a roaring success. I
think maybe it had anything to do with the freaking
creep lurking behind the counter because I don't know if
y'all have seen picks of Kenneth, but just picture John
Wayne Gacy's like creepier cousin.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Yeah, he's got like a cubric stare and he's just
staring at you, chain smoking, trying to sell you fucking
like smokes, cigarette smoke scented bibles stained yellow, like are
you kidding me? In nineteen seventy five, Ken Parnell got
bit by the love bug again and started dating Steven's
friend Kenny's mom Mathey's. But if Stephen held out any

(33:02):
hope that Kenneth might stop abusing him now that he
had a wife, no, Barbara joined in on the abuse.
Now Stephen had two tormentors. It was horrible, but Stephen
later said that this arrangement was actually slightly better for him,
that there was less abuse overall after Barbara, I guess

(33:24):
she curbed some of Ken's perverted sex drive. In May
nineteen seventy five, Kenneth requested Barbara get him a boy
from the boys club Stephen belong to. She tried, but
the kid she targeted was creeped out by her and
ran the hell away. Good for him. Ken was furious
when Barbara came home empty handed. In spring of nineteen

(33:47):
seventy six, Barbara got custody of her four kids and
they came to stay with the Parnells. By this point,
they were living in an old, broken down school bus
full of bunk beds. What a fucking nightmare.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Even worse, Parnell abused several of Barbara's kids. This latest
incarnation of the Parnell household didn't last long, though. By June,
Barbara had met another man and moved her family in
with him. Huh, Kenneth, will he ever find his soulmate?
Is love in the cards? I hope not.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
By this point, Stephen was in the seventh grade, and
every now and then when he was with his closest friend, Damon,
a little of the truth would trickle out. One day,
Damon approached their teacher after class and said, Dennis says
he was taken away when he was real young, and
his parents said they didn't want him anymore. If you're driving,

(34:46):
you might want to pull over so you can take
a moment to scream. Because the teacher didn't pursue this,
nor did she tell anybody else in authority.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yeah, and I have no idea why. I mean, if
Damon put it exactly like that, then maybe she just
thought like CPS had taken the kid away, not like
a kidnapper. But I wonder how she felt when the
truth came out years later. My god, what does it
hurt to say something at least question the boy about it.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Yeah, that's why we have mandated reporter laws now, Like
if you even get a sis, if you can get
a cent, even if you have a bad feeling, you
got to report it, like Jesus, lady, come on. Stephen
continued to have an active social life, playing football for
his high school team and dating girls. Once he got
drunk with a girlfriend and told her he missed his

(35:34):
real family, she thought he was just wasted making stuff up.
In July of nineteen seventy nine, Parnell moved yet again
to Mendocino County to work as a guard on a
cannabis farm. Believe it or not, growing cannabis in the
seventies and eighties was considered maybe just a notch and
a half below manufacturing meth on Society's list of evils.

(35:55):
Hell Kenneth probably would have gotten more jail time for
that than he did for his abusive children, Like how
fucked up is that if you ever watched like any
nineteen seventies like school scare films of like marijuana, they
really make it seem like marijuana will like melt your face.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
This was actually one of the better living situations for Stephen,
all things considered. He had his own room, and there
was a beautiful garden with rabbits and chickens. Stephen and
his beloved dog, Queenie always loved running around outside.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
While on guard duty. Parnell would of course steal as
much weed as he could get away with, so really
he was the one that the farm needed guarding from.
As Stephen was now into his teenage years and going
through puberty, Parnell found himself less and less attracted to
the young man. Uugh. The good news was he was
abusing Stephen less often. The bad news was he became

(36:51):
more determined than ever to kidnap a second child, and
he wanted Steven to help him do his dirty work. Unsurprisingly,
Stephen wanted no part part of it. He intentionally flogged
several more attempts at grabbing a kid, and Parnell bitched
at him for his incompetence as a criminal. He must
have been really disappointed in his son for being a

(37:11):
decent human being. Parnell then decided to enlist one of
Stephen's classmates and fellow Stoner, a guy named Sean Porman.
Stephen was sort of friends with Sean, though they weren't close.
They kind of just hung out every now and again
and got high. Sean, in fact, seemed to have hit
it off better with Ken, mainly because of the booze
and weed he provided and let the kids use it

(37:33):
his house. Did you ever have that friend as a
teenager whose parents would let you drink, smoke, get high
whatever as long as you did it like at their
house under their watch. I had a friend like that.
I thought it was pretty damn cool at the time,
but it's kind of weird if you think about it.

Speaker 3 (37:46):
I had a friend, yeah, who like hosted a party.
I was so freaked out by it because like, yeah,
my parents were like pretty like, oh, do you want
to sip up my drink? Like it wasn't ever like
taboo or like I would get in trouble. So it
was very like uncool to me to like get hammered.
So like for her to be like, Yeah, if you

(38:06):
kids want to smoke weed, just do it outside. I
left ashtrays. I was like, what the fuck is your
mom doing? Like, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
It was weird.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
I didn't like it.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
Ken convinced Poorman he merely wanted to adopt a kid
from a troubled home, but the adoption process was such
a pain in the ass. He needed Sean to help
him help a child have a better life. He's an
angel in human shape, are Kenny. He offered Sean fifty
dollars and some drugs to help him out, which is
a lot of money back then, and Sean initially got

(38:35):
on board, probably while stoned off his nuts. When Seawan
tried to back out later realizing the complete insanity of
what he was actually being asked to do, Parnell did
what he did best and manipulated, this time using physical threats.
On Valentine's Day nineteen eighty in Ukaya, California, five year
old kindergartener Timmy White was walking the short distance from

(38:58):
his school to his babysitter's house. He was carrying a
lunch box full of Valentines he'd made with his class
that day. Parnell and Sean Porman pulled up just ahead
of Timmy, and Sean got out and pretended to check
a damaged tire. Hey kid, Sean said to Timmy, can
you help me out? I think I've got a flat.
Timmy was only five, but he was old enough to

(39:19):
know that two grown ass dudes don't need automotive assistance
from a kindergartener. He said, uh no, Anne kept on walkin.
Sean rushed him and quickly overpowered this poor little guy
as he screamed, bloody murder. Timmy still wasn't going to
go without a fight. Sean ended up having to pry
him off a chain link fence. He and Parnell forced

(39:41):
the little boy into the car, where they shoved a
sleeping pill down his throat and wrapped him in a blanket.
Once the pill kicked in, they re dressed Timmy in
little girl's clothes they'd bought just before the abduction and
headed back to the cannabis farm. God, just picture in
these two idiots shopping in the kid's section of a
clothes clothing store for a cute little dress. It's just no, please,

(40:04):
it's nightmare. Fuel. Timmy's babysitter immediately contacted his parents when
the little boy didn't show, and the police quickly began
an investigation. As with Stephen, the police assured the family
he was probably in the area somewhere playing, though as
the hours wore on, the terrifying idea that maybe he

(40:24):
had fallen into a nearby creek began being whispered around.
Search dogs were sent out but didn't turn up anything,
partially because it was raining really hard that day. Looking back,
I wonder if Parnell intentionally chose rainy days for both
of his kidnappings just for this very reason. As the
hours and eventually days passed, Timmy's terrified family quickly scrounged

(40:49):
up a fifteen thousand dollars reward, but found not a
shred of evidence pointing in any direction. Panic began to
set in. Later that afternoon, and many miles away. Stephen
was absolutely appalled when a drugged Timmy White was brought
to their cabin home. Stephen had put up with years

(41:09):
of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse from this monster, and
he had managed to survive by immersing himself in school
in sports, but now seeing this captive little boy something
and Stephen snapped.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Once Timmy came to and met Stephen. They immediately bonded.
Stephen tried his best to soften the shock of what
he was going through. He understood better than anybody else
on earth what Timmy was feeling. He read him comic
books and showed him all the farm animals on the property.
At one point, the little boy looked up at fourteen
year old Stephen and said, I want to go home,

(41:46):
and that was it. Stephen decided then and there that
Parnell was not going to hurt this child the way
he'd hurt him. He looked into Timmy's eyes and promised
him he would get him home, and he meant it.
But they had to bide their time and do this
the right way. He knew Parnell would do anything to
stop his disgusting secrets from being revealed, and he could

(42:07):
be a very dangerous man. Stephen started secretly brainstorming how
to pull off and escape. Meanwhile, Parnell started with his
old tricks on Timmy, dyeing his hair dark brown, renaming
him Tommy, and convincing him he was his new dad.
Stephen did everything he could to put a healthy distance

(42:28):
between Ken and Timmy and made it a point to
keep them from being alone together. Kenneth's latest job was
working third shift on another hotel, so Stephen knew they'd
have to escape at night. The scary part was the
hotel was in Yukaya, the exact place Timmy was from,
and right where they needed to go. They gave up
the first attempt after making it a few blocks. It

(42:49):
was pouring rain and Timmy started crying. Stephen tried carrying
Timmy as long as he could, but he was too
heavy to carry for long. Steven soon got tired and
they had to go home for the night. Thankfully, they
made it back before Parnell did. They waited till the
weather was clear on March first, two weeks after Timmy's abduction.

(43:11):
Before he and Timmy left, Stephen knelt down in front
of his beloved dog, Queenie. I'll come back for you,
he whispered, I promise, oh my. Then the two boys
ran off into the darkness. Stephen knew they had to
hitch a ride to get Timmy back to his hometown,
and just in case Parnell somehow caught up with them,
Stephen kept his sharpened buck knife tucked into his waistband.

(43:34):
Whatever happened. He was not going to let Kenneth get
to Timmy. Thankfully, they happened upon a friendly truck driver.
The guy didn't speak much English, but he was happy
to let them ride with him the forty miles to Yukaya.
He was going that way anyway. Though they couldn't communicate much,
the driver could tell something was wrong. These kids needed help.

(43:57):
He let them off in town. Stephen quickly realized that
Timmy didn't remember his home address, but for some reason,
he could remember his babysitters. So Stephen let him lead
the way. But when they knocked on the door, nobody answered.
Stephen decided his best bet was to drop Timmy off
at the police station, which meant they'd have to walk

(44:17):
right by the hotel where Ken Parnell was working. Oh lord,
Stephen didn't really know what he was planning to do
with himself. Later he said he thought he'd probably go
back to Parnell at some point, which may seem strange,
but think about it. Parnell had been the only home
he'd known for seven years. When you can brainwash a

(44:38):
kid that young for all those years, it's gonna distort
his sense of reality.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
For me, this really shows what an incredible person Stephen was.
I mean, he was willing to do all of this
for the sole purpose of saving this kid that he
just met from abuse. He's not even trying to save himself.
Steven said his goodbyes to Timmy in front of the
police station. Just go inside and tell them what happened,
he said. He watched the little boy walk to the

(45:05):
front door of the building, then started to walk away,
considering what he should do himself, but he didn't get far.
Timmy got as far as the glass door of the
police station, but then he got scared and ran back
to Stephen. And as Stephen was deciding what to do next,
an officer who had noticed the young kid outside approached
them and asked what was going on. He took both

(45:27):
kids into the station for a minute. There, they actually
thought Stephen was the kidnapper and detained him accordingly. But
soon things began to unfold during the interview, and the
mystery of what happened to Stephen Stainer and Timmy White
slowly began to unravel. I know my first name is Stephen,
he famously told the cops. I think my last name

(45:48):
is Stainer. He could remember his parents' names, but not
all of his siblings, and he wasn't sure of his
old address. Timmy's folks were over the moon to get
that phone call in the middle of the night, and
they rushed to the police station to see their son
for the first time in two terrifying weeks. For a moment,
his mom thought the cops had made a mistake. The

(46:09):
little boy huddled in a chair didn't look like their son,
Timmy was filthy, his hair dyed dark brown. But when
she looked closer, yeah, it was her baby. She hugged
him for twenty minutes straight. Not long after Kenneth was arrested.
At work, the hotel was literally within walking distance of
the police station. Ken's shocked co workers said they'd always

(46:32):
accepted that Steven Slash Dennis was his son, and they
all remembered him saying he wanted to adopt another one.
At the station, Stephen spotted Parnell through glass and identified
him immediately, but for some bizarre reason, the cop he
was with decided he needed to go into the room
with Parnell stand face to face with him to do
a proper identification. Stephen had been holding it together with

(46:57):
supernatural strength up to this point, But as this cop
pressured him to go into that room, he lost it.
Let me out, he screamed, over and over again. And
I hope that cop got his entire ass handed to
him for that, and I hope the whole police force
got their asses kicked for this too. Before they would
even let him see his family, the investigators insisted that

(47:18):
Stephen go with them to Parnell's pig stye of a
cabin to show them the place. What the fuck, for
God's sake, really, this kid hasn't been through enough now
you won't even let him get a shower and a
hug from his mom before you make him help you
collect evidence cheese and crackers. The one good thing about
this was that Stephen got to keep his promise to Queeneye,

(47:38):
the dog who had been his comfort and best friend
through this whole ordeal. Over the years, Stephen's family had
been handed a lot of false leads, a lot of
hopes had come crashing back down. It's not that unusual
for a random person to turn up at a police
station and claim to be a missing person, and actually
happened just recently in the Timothy Pittson case. So when

(48:00):
they got the phone call that their son had walked
into the police station and asked for their help. Stephen's
parents were cautious at first, but it didn't take long
for them to realize this was the real deal. By
the time the police drove Stephen to his childhood home
and Mercett at midnight, the whole town seemed to have
shown up at the Stainer's house, celebrating a homecoming that
most people had never expected to see. Lots of reporters

(48:24):
and cameras were there to capture Stephen's first hugs with
his parents and siblings. It was like the whole community
had just won the lottery twenty times over, and of course,
Stephen joined in the celebration. He even finally got to
open the presents that had been waiting for him since
Christmas of nineteen seventy two. But that night was a
preview of the bonker's media circus that was soon to

(48:46):
follow him around as if he'd just started dating Kim Kardashian.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
That much attention probably isn't super helpful when you're a
teenage boy trying to get back to normal after years
of trauma. Stephen was excited, but overwhelmed too big brother.
Carry later said, I had a hard time trying to
get to sleep that night. I stayed up a long
time just looking at Steve as he slept and listening

(49:11):
to him breathe. I just couldn't believe that my brother
was home again. I walked outside that night and walked
several blocks away and looked up at the stars and
started to wish on one again, but then remember that
Steve was back home, and so I thanked the star instead.
The next morning, it became clear that this media circus
was not going to go away anytime soon. The story

(49:33):
spread all over the world, and soon Stephen was being
constantly hounded by reporters. Book deals were offered, interviews were
begged for Stephen was a national hero. He'd selflessly risked
his own life to save Timmy. In an early press conference,
Timmy sat on Stephen's lap and told everybody that Stephen
was his friend. It's really cute. You can look it

(49:54):
up on YouTube. When the reporters asked him about Parnell,
a lot of people were surprised to hear Stephen say
he felt bad for his abductor and that he probably
would have gone back to him if the cops hadn't
brought him in for questioning. Stephen had been through something
very few people can relate to. Children often feel love

(50:16):
for their parents despite them doing terrible things, and let's
face it, for better or worse, Parnell was Stephen's only
father figure for seven of his most formative years. I
can't imagine that kind of emotional confusion. Timmy White, on
the other hand, was able to get back to normal
life pretty quickly thanks to Stephen. Parnell hadn't had time

(50:36):
to manipulate him the way he'd intended. He seemed to
enjoy the media attention, so by early March of nineteen eighty,
Timmy and Stephen were both back with their families. Stephen
was a national treasure for his rescuing of Timmy. He
was even given the fifteen thousand dollars reward for bringing
Timmy home to be put into trust for his eighteenth birthday,

(50:58):
and Kenneth Parnell was securely locked away in a prison cell.
Happy endings, at least as much as you can have
in a story like this. Everybody thought the Stainer family
had come through the worst nightmare our family could go through,
but the worst was still to.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Come next week, we'll look at the second half of
the Stainer Saga, where basically everything that could go wrong
does Once the thrill of Stevens's return wears off, the
reality of what he'd been through begins to spread, its poison,
secrets begin to emerge, and the aftermath will shatter not
just the Stainer family but many others too. So that

(51:38):
was a wild one, right, campers. You know we'll have
part two for you next week, but for now, lock
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(52:00):
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