Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Dumped Bodies At The Park - Serial Killer Documentary

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Dumped Bodies At The Park - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:02
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, Carrie Stainer's crimes caused shock waves
0:06
Speaker 1: to rip through Paradise.
0:08
Speaker 2: Those kinds of things don't happen. It was shocking.
0:12
Speaker 1: His series of appalling murders baffled investigators.
0:16
Speaker 3: There was no forensic evidence really found. There were no leads.
0:22
Speaker 1: This unlikely killer had surfaced from the shadows of celebrity.
0:27
Speaker 4: He was always quiet. You didn't always know what he
0:30
Speaker 4: was thinking.
0:32
Speaker 1: Just how had Staina come to commit these brutal.
0:35
Speaker 3: Acts, even have a young child? He had thought about
0:38
Speaker 3: killing and molesting And was Carrie Staina born to kill?
0:44
Speaker 5: After he had killed her, he marveled at the sunrise
0:48
Speaker 5: over the reservoir.
1:34
Speaker 6: Yssemite is awe inspiring, even for us who live here.
1:42
Speaker 6: There are three thousand feet high granite walls in a
1:46
Speaker 6: one mile stretch of valley. A beautiful river runs through it.
1:53
Speaker 6: There are nearly extinct species of wildlife. It's really something
1:58
Speaker 6: that you cannot replicate anywhere else.
2:02
Speaker 2: Yasemini is one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
2:08
Speaker 3: It was considered extremely crime free, extremely safe, one of
2:13
Speaker 3: the pristine parts of our country. It attracted tourists far
2:19
Speaker 3: and wide from all over the world just because of
2:24
Speaker 3: its beautiful vistance and because it was a safe, pristine
2:28
Speaker 3: area of immeasurable beauty.
2:37
Speaker 1: In February nineteen ninety nine, Carol Sound would be one
2:41
Speaker 1: of those attracted to the peaceful majesty of Yosemite.
2:48
Speaker 7: Carol was our metal child five. She was a very
2:52
Speaker 7: special person.
2:54
Speaker 8: She was an advocate for abuse children and go to
3:01
Speaker 8: the courts and stand up for them.
3:05
Speaker 7: She just was really busy helping in the community, and
3:09
Speaker 7: that's what she really wanted to do with her life,
3:11
Speaker 7: making the community better.
3:14
Speaker 8: Tried to do everything right.
3:17
Speaker 1: Joining Carol on the trip was her fifteen year old
3:20
Speaker 1: daughter Julie and sixteen year old Sylvina Peloso. The two
3:25
Speaker 1: girls had been friends since they were babies.
3:30
Speaker 7: Julie and Sylbina. They got along just great.
3:35
Speaker 9: Julie was.
3:38
Speaker 8: A very strong personality. She was much like Carol. She
3:45
Speaker 8: wanted to compete in everything and wanted to be the
3:49
Speaker 8: best at it.
3:51
Speaker 7: She was in this cheerleading group and I can remember
3:55
Speaker 7: it when she first got started doing it, laying on
4:00
Speaker 7: the floor and I said, what's wrong with you, Julie?
4:02
Speaker 7: And she says, Oh, I ache all over. I just
4:06
Speaker 7: ache all over because she wasn't used to doing all
4:09
Speaker 7: that jumping up and down and stuff, but then she
4:14
Speaker 7: loved it. She really was pretty good at it.
4:20
Speaker 1: The trip was supposed to be an unforgettable visit to
4:23
Speaker 1: one of California's natural wonders. It would result in a
4:27
Speaker 1: tragic mystery that would baffle investigators for months.
4:34
Speaker 5: Carol, Julie, and their friend Sylovena had originally driven to
4:39
Speaker 5: Stockton to look at the University of the Pacific. Julie
4:44
Speaker 5: was a cheerleader and they wanted to look at the
4:45
Speaker 5: cheerleading program. And then after exploring the University of the Pacific,
4:50
Speaker 5: they came down here to Alpertal to the Cedar Lodge
4:54
Speaker 5: and they did some tourist activities at Yosemite.
5:00
Speaker 1: After visiting the park, the party were due to return
5:03
Speaker 1: their rental car and meet Carol's husband at an airport.
5:08
Speaker 7: Carol didn't show up, and it was surprising because Carol
5:13
Speaker 7: was always very organized and on time.
5:19
Speaker 1: Police were quickly notified of their disappearance.
5:24
Speaker 3: There was not much to go on. The room that
5:27
Speaker 3: they had stayed in had been left. The tourists had
5:31
Speaker 3: not checked out. There was no forensic evidence really found
5:36
Speaker 3: in their room. Wet towels were found on the floor,
5:40
Speaker 3: but no clothes.
5:42
Speaker 5: The towels in the bathroom appeared to be wet, as
5:46
Speaker 5: if someone had used them and then left. It gave
5:49
Speaker 5: the general appearances if someone had stayed there and left.
5:54
Speaker 3: So there wasn't much to go on. There were no leeds.
6:01
Speaker 1: Carol, Julie and Sylvina had vanished off the face of
6:05
Speaker 1: the earth.
6:12
Speaker 3: It was winter, The roads were snowy, and many winding
6:17
Speaker 3: roads in and out of use, so many were treacherous
6:19
Speaker 3: because of their curves.
6:21
Speaker 7: We originally thought that they'd gone off the road an accident,
6:26
Speaker 7: and that they were stuck in the car and couldn't
6:29
Speaker 7: get out.
6:31
Speaker 1: The disappearance of the tourists baffled the authorities and would
6:35
Speaker 1: spark a massive search and rescue effort.
6:39
Speaker 3: There was a big search. Foul play wasn't suspected initially.
6:45
Speaker 5: Search and rescue mobilized and searched, you know, high and low,
6:50
Speaker 5: narrow and wide.
6:52
Speaker 3: People were looking rivers. People look in the sides of
6:54
Speaker 3: the roads because there are hundreds of miles of winding roads.
6:59
Speaker 8: I got a car and when looking for them, I
7:02
Speaker 8: had ropes and blankets and guns in the car everything
7:08
Speaker 8: because I didn't know what I was getting into.
7:11
Speaker 5: This is extremely ruggy and dangerous wild terrain.
7:16
Speaker 7: It was scary.
7:18
Speaker 5: He actually brought in navy facilities. A P two plane
7:22
Speaker 5: flew overhead, so it was a tremendous search.
7:28
Speaker 1: The mystery began to make national headlines.
7:31
Speaker 3: No one had in recent memory received media attention of
7:35
Speaker 3: disappearing like they had.
7:38
Speaker 1: No one, that is since a disappearance in a nearby
7:41
Speaker 1: town some twenty seven years earlier, in nineteen seventy two,
7:53
Speaker 1: seven year old Stephen Stainer had similarly vanished without a trace.
8:01
Speaker 4: Stephen was coming home from school. He was walking down
8:06
Speaker 4: the road called Usemity Parkway. This is the street that
8:10
Speaker 4: we would travel all the time to go up and
8:12
Speaker 4: down to school at the elementary school up there at
8:14
Speaker 4: Charles's right the day that Stephen Stainer was kidnapped, though
8:18
Speaker 4: it was right here in this corner.
8:22
Speaker 2: I remember it so clearly.
8:26
Speaker 6: I was five years old, and that is really my
8:29
Speaker 6: first recollection of a news story. And I think that
8:31
Speaker 6: was because my parents made.
8:33
Speaker 2: Us stop walking to school. It was a.
8:37
Speaker 6: Horrible crime, and it made them very aware that something
8:40
Speaker 6: could happen to us in the same way.
8:43
Speaker 4: The news channels nationally known, ABC, CBS, NBCO all came
8:47
Speaker 4: to Merceta, interviewed people constantly. Law enforcement, FBI got involved
8:51
Speaker 4: in it.
8:53
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was huge. A bunch of friends got together
8:57
Speaker 10: and started looking for him. Everybody in the town was searching.
9:03
Speaker 1: It would be an event that would effect not just
9:06
Speaker 1: Stephen's family, but the whole community.
9:11
Speaker 4: This is Betty Street. This is where Carrie and the
9:13
Speaker 4: family grew up at and I actually grew up on
9:16
Speaker 4: the other side. But different neighborhood now than it used
9:20
Speaker 4: to be.
9:20
Speaker 3: You know.
9:21
Speaker 4: We used to have kids and fun and frolic around here,
9:23
Speaker 4: and it seems to be much more controlled than what
9:27
Speaker 4: it was when I was growing up. His mother left
9:30
Speaker 4: Stephen's room exactly the way it was when he was taken.
9:34
Speaker 4: Nobody would go in there because that was Stephen's room,
9:37
Speaker 4: but his father would would go in there and stand
9:40
Speaker 4: in the doorway and look around. He would and get
9:44
Speaker 4: very solemn over It.
9:47
Speaker 1: Hit hard by the disappearance. Was Stephen's older brother, Carrie Steina.
9:53
Speaker 4: Carry and I were sitting in his backyard one day
9:55
Speaker 4: and I kind of brought that up, and he kind
10:01
Speaker 4: of talked about it, but didn't really want to talk
10:02
Speaker 4: about it. It was just so raw and so heart
10:07
Speaker 4: wrenching for him, I'm sure as an older brother knowing
10:11
Speaker 4: that he should have done something, even though he didn't
10:15
Speaker 4: have any way of knowing that type of situation.
10:19
Speaker 1: Carrie and others searched high and low for his brother,
10:23
Speaker 1: but Stephen seemed to be gone for good.
10:27
Speaker 6: After seven years, most people had sort of given up
10:29
Speaker 6: any hope that he would ever be found, or that
10:30
Speaker 6: he was even alive.
10:34
Speaker 1: But the story of Stephen Steiner would have a dramatic twist,
10:40
Speaker 1: and unbeknown to everyone, it would be connected to the
10:44
Speaker 1: disappearance of the Yosemite tourists. Over twenty years later. In
10:56
Speaker 1: February nineteen ninety nine, Carol sunnd teen year old daughter Julie,
11:01
Speaker 1: and her friend, sixteen year old Sylvina Ploso, had mysteriously
11:06
Speaker 1: vanished during a trip to California's majestic Yosemite National Park.
11:12
Speaker 1: A massive search effort was mounted to try to find
11:14
Speaker 1: the three tourists.
11:17
Speaker 5: When Carol and the girls went missing. No matter whether
11:23
Speaker 5: it was a crime or whether it was an accident,
11:28
Speaker 5: still the exigent need was to find them. There was
11:36
Speaker 5: a tremendous search going on, looking all over Yosemite for them.
11:42
Speaker 2: People were searching.
11:43
Speaker 6: They were looking at the river canyon, they were looking
11:44
Speaker 6: in the park. We were pretty much convinced that they
11:48
Speaker 6: had had some kind of an accident somewhere.
11:51
Speaker 8: I drove up and down the rivers looking for a car,
11:54
Speaker 8: into the woods and talked to everybody I could meet.
12:01
Speaker 1: Despite the extensive search, no trace of the Sun party
12:05
Speaker 1: or their rental car was found. Thoughts inevitably began to
12:10
Speaker 1: turn to the prospect of abduction or murder.
12:14
Speaker 5: In my opinion, the last place you know your victims
12:19
Speaker 5: to be is where you start, and in this instance,
12:22
Speaker 5: the last place we actually knew of them to be
12:24
Speaker 5: was the Cedar Lodge.
12:28
Speaker 6: Cedar Lodge is one of two very large motels just
12:32
Speaker 6: outside the park entrance in Alpertel. There is not very
12:36
Speaker 6: much there. It's very remote in the wintertime, very empty.
12:42
Speaker 1: Carol's father had his own suspicions about events at the motel.
12:47
Speaker 8: I worked in all the garbage cans for bloody sheets
12:52
Speaker 8: or stuff. I went across in a park and did
12:56
Speaker 8: the same thing. At the time, I saw the maintenance
13:02
Speaker 8: man looking around corners peeking at me, and it didn't
13:07
Speaker 8: seem right that somebody was peaking around the corners at me,
13:12
Speaker 8: kind of hidden, and I asked him to investigate him.
13:16
Speaker 8: I didn't think that was proper procedure, and nobody ever did.
13:25
Speaker 1: That maintenance man was thirty seven year old Carrie Staina.
13:30
Speaker 5: There was no crime scene to speak of, so the
13:33
Speaker 5: reality was everyone expected it to be a car accident,
13:37
Speaker 5: that they had accidentally driven off of a cliff or
13:40
Speaker 5: something like that.
13:43
Speaker 1: But local history had proved that some people presumed missing
13:47
Speaker 1: forever do return. In nineteen seventy two, seven year old
13:56
Speaker 1: Stephen Stainer had vanished from the streets of mess Ed.
14:00
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy nine, the unimaginable happened. Stephen returned, bringing
14:07
Speaker 1: with him five year old Timmy White and a tale
14:11
Speaker 1: of seven years captivity at the hands of pedophile Kenneth Parnell.
14:17
Speaker 4: When Stephen got back, it was a big deal on
14:19
Speaker 4: news media. It was a circus. There were probably three
14:23
Speaker 4: hundred people in their yard.
14:27
Speaker 10: Everybody was just so happy, and it was like, where
14:31
Speaker 10: could it be been in this whole time?
14:35
Speaker 6: Stephen was sexually abused almost from the time of his abduction,
14:41
Speaker 6: when Stephen had sort of outgrown the age at which
14:46
Speaker 6: his molester was attracted to him anymore. He went out
14:49
Speaker 6: and got another child, Timmy White. Stephen realized what was
14:53
Speaker 6: going on and didn't want another child to be a victim,
14:57
Speaker 6: and that's when they ran.
14:59
Speaker 3: He had the courage to take that child and leave
15:02
Speaker 3: and escape and bring them both to safety.
15:07
Speaker 4: This is a park here called Stephen's Park. He became
15:13
Speaker 4: an instantaneous hero and celebrity for more than anything else
15:16
Speaker 4: when he was returned to Marcead. Movies were made about him,
15:20
Speaker 4: books were written about him.
15:23
Speaker 2: It was huge, it was huge. He was a hero.
15:31
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, in nineteen ninety nine, the story of
15:35
Speaker 1: Stephen's miraculous return had become local legend in marced and
15:39
Speaker 1: might have given some hope to the families of the
15:42
Speaker 1: missing tourists, Carol, Julie and Sylvina. But after more than
15:47
Speaker 1: a month without a single sighting, the investigation was beginning
15:51
Speaker 1: to wind down.
15:53
Speaker 7: We were actually going into the FBI headquarters at a
15:56
Speaker 7: hotel in Modesto. We were just heartbroken almost. It was
16:03
Speaker 7: going to be a cold, cold case kind of thing.
16:07
Speaker 7: So when we were walking in, the phones were ringing.
16:12
Speaker 6: I remember the deputy district attorney at the time telling
16:15
Speaker 6: me that they had found the car. They didn't know
16:19
Speaker 6: at that point what was happening, and that was when
16:22
Speaker 6: everything shifted.
16:29
Speaker 11: This is it.
16:30
Speaker 5: We're really close. When we eventually arrived at the scene,
16:35
Speaker 5: which was in Twylomane County, the car was literally completely
16:41
Speaker 5: obliterated by fire. The fire was so intense it went
16:47
Speaker 5: twenty five feet in the air and sends the branches
16:50
Speaker 5: twenty five feet above the car in the trees. They
16:55
Speaker 5: estimated that the temperature of the fire might have reached
16:58
Speaker 5: up to two thousand degrees. Everything that the paint literally
17:03
Speaker 5: liquefied and came off the car. The tires blew, the
17:07
Speaker 5: wheels melt, everything comingled into being one big molten lump.
17:15
Speaker 3: They found no bodies in the car. The car had
17:18
Speaker 3: been burned in extreme heat.
17:21
Speaker 7: We couldn't figure out why they would be there where
17:25
Speaker 7: the because it was quite a few miles away, in
17:30
Speaker 7: a completely different area than where they had been last seen.
17:35
Speaker 5: The evidence Response team for the FBI began going through
17:39
Speaker 5: the car. They went through the inside and then they
17:43
Speaker 5: opened the trunk.
17:45
Speaker 8: Two bodies were in the trunk.
17:56
Speaker 5: There were skeletons in the trunk, so they knew that
17:59
Speaker 5: too people had been in the trunk.
18:07
Speaker 1: The bodies were identified as sixteen year old Sylvina Paloso
18:11
Speaker 1: and forty three year old Carol sund, but there was
18:15
Speaker 1: no sign of her fifteen year old daughter, Julie.
18:19
Speaker 3: Some shoes and some clothes were strewn along this path,
18:24
Speaker 3: which made it seem that people were leaving because someone
18:27
Speaker 3: had left, and that Julie son was still perhaps alive.
18:34
Speaker 3: That gave the family hope. They had a certain amount
18:37
Speaker 3: of hope at that time.
18:39
Speaker 5: For us, that almost sent us into a frenzy because
18:41
Speaker 5: we felt there was a third victim that was still
18:44
Speaker 5: out there and maybe we could try and recover that
18:47
Speaker 5: third victim.
18:53
Speaker 1: While the investigators searched. The discovery of the bodies had
18:57
Speaker 1: plunged the people of Yosemite and the surrounding area into panic.
19:03
Speaker 6: People come to you you don't expect there. It's like
19:06
Speaker 6: going to Disneyland. You don't expect there to be crime.
19:09
Speaker 6: Everything is supposed to be perfect. The scenery is perfect,
19:12
Speaker 6: that the animals are perfect, the people are perfect.
19:15
Speaker 2: That's the perception. Those kinds of things don't happen. It
19:20
Speaker 2: was shocking and it was very scary.
19:23
Speaker 1: One of those local residents having to cope with the
19:25
Speaker 1: atmosphere of fear was twenty six year old Joey Armstrong.
19:31
Speaker 9: She grew up with fears that she have to overcome.
19:37
Speaker 9: She was scared of doing something. She would do it
19:40
Speaker 9: ten times more than anybody else.
19:43
Speaker 1: Joey Armstrong had embraced all challenges and achieved her dream
19:47
Speaker 1: of becoming an instructor at Yosemite National Park.
19:51
Speaker 3: She was a naturalist who worked in Yosemite, and she
19:55
Speaker 3: and another lady lived in this remote cabin that teacher
20:01
Speaker 3: naturalists have lived in throughout the years in Yosemite, out
20:06
Speaker 3: in this gorgeous meadow.
20:10
Speaker 9: Joey was exquisitely happy in Yosemite. She loved what she
20:17
Speaker 9: was doing and she was doing it really, really well.
20:23
Speaker 9: She was lighthearted and very creative. She would tap dance
20:28
Speaker 9: in her hiking boots for her students. Everything she did
20:33
Speaker 9: she did with a flare. She was She was awesome.
20:42
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, the hunt for the missing fifteen year old Julie
20:44
Speaker 1: Sund had little to go on other than a camera
20:48
Speaker 1: found near the burnt out rental car. Investigators developed the
20:53
Speaker 1: film and scanned the photographs looking for clues. They showed
20:57
Speaker 1: the group enjoying their visit to Yosemite, then returning to
21:01
Speaker 1: their hotel room at the Cedar Lodge, then nothing more,
21:07
Speaker 1: so might the answer to the riddle lie? At the hotel, me.
21:11
Speaker 10: And this cook were standing outside talking to a caretaker
21:15
Speaker 10: about the murders, and I said to him, the worst
21:19
Speaker 10: part about all of this is that the other girl
21:22
Speaker 10: that's still not found their parents. You know, they still
21:25
Speaker 10: have a daughter out there missing.
21:27
Speaker 1: The caretaker Tony Jones was speaking to was Carrie Stainer,
21:33
Speaker 1: and he.
21:33
Speaker 10: Said to me, Oh, yeah, I know what that's like.
21:36
Speaker 10: My brother went missing and merced years ago. And I
21:40
Speaker 10: said this, you know, it's got to be the worst
21:41
Speaker 10: feeling for a parent not knowing where their child is.
21:46
Speaker 10: And I think I heard a couple days later there
21:49
Speaker 10: was a letter since.
21:52
Speaker 1: In a sickening twist, Julie's abductor was about to reveal
21:56
Speaker 1: her whereabouts. Yosemite tourists Carol Sund, Julie Sund, and Sylvina
22:10
Speaker 1: Peloso had been missing for over a month when on
22:13
Speaker 1: March the eighteenth, nineteen ninety nine, their car was discovered
22:17
Speaker 1: burnt out, with the bodies of Carol and Sylvina in
22:21
Speaker 1: the boot, but with no sign of Carol's fifteen year
22:24
Speaker 1: old daughter Julie. Investigators believed she may be being held
22:28
Speaker 1: captive somewhere.
22:30
Speaker 3: The authorities, the FBI, along with the Mariposa Sheriff's Department,
22:35
Speaker 3: were still looking for Julie and any signs. In the meantime,
22:40
Speaker 3: a letter was assent to the FBI headquarters. It was unsigned,
22:45
Speaker 3: but directed to the FBI task Force who was looking,
22:48
Speaker 3: and in it was a crudely drawn map of the
22:52
Speaker 3: Lake Don Pedro Reservoir.
23:00
Speaker 5: It's coming up here.
23:02
Speaker 2: This looks familiar to me.
23:05
Speaker 5: Here it is mocked to some point.
23:13
Speaker 7: This is it.
23:16
Speaker 8: They found the letter with a diagram where to find Julie.
23:21
Speaker 8: I felt, how we found her.
23:23
Speaker 5: You can tell you'll be able to see a path
23:25
Speaker 5: coming in. Yes, the map came to hear. The FBI
23:32
Speaker 5: brought the dog to this area, and the dog immediately
23:35
Speaker 5: hit on Julie's body.
23:42
Speaker 3: Her throat had been cut.
23:50
Speaker 7: It was very difficult hearing that they'd found the body
23:55
Speaker 7: and that, you know, we knew that there wasn't any
24:00
Speaker 7: hope any longer. No, We've that's really hard.
24:12
Speaker 1: It was clear Julie's body had been lying there for
24:14
Speaker 1: more than a month, but within weeks an announcement by
24:18
Speaker 1: the FBI meant the fear that had gripped the community
24:22
Speaker 1: began to dissipate.
24:24
Speaker 3: Carol's sons driver's license was found in Modesto got buy
24:29
Speaker 3: some children walking at a major intersection.
24:33
Speaker 1: Suspicion fell on a group of known methamphetamine users, one
24:37
Speaker 1: of whom appeared to be making incriminating statements.
24:43
Speaker 6: There was three paroleis in Modesto who were rounded up
24:48
Speaker 6: and arrested, and the FBI made it pretty clear that
24:50
Speaker 6: they everyone was out of danger. They had these people
24:54
Speaker 6: in custody, no, nothing to worry about.
24:59
Speaker 1: It would be reassured news for Yosemite naturalist Joey Armstrong.
25:05
Speaker 9: Her best friend told me that she asked Joey if
25:08
Speaker 9: Joey was afraid when she was there in Yosemite. I
25:11
Speaker 9: did too when I went to see her because of
25:15
Speaker 9: these women that had been murdered at the motel, and
25:19
Speaker 9: she said no, because they've caught them. It's all in
25:22
Speaker 9: the news. They've caught them.
25:23
Speaker 2: They're down in.
25:25
Speaker 9: Modesto in jail.
25:28
Speaker 6: At that point, on a local level, people were a
25:30
Speaker 6: little bit relieved, Okay, it's not one of us, it's
25:33
Speaker 6: not someone here.
25:34
Speaker 2: If this is not someone in our community, who's still
25:36
Speaker 2: at large.
25:40
Speaker 1: But in July nineteen ninety nine, all that changed.
25:51
Speaker 9: I'm home from work and there is a knock on
25:53
Speaker 9: the door and it was a police officer and he said,
25:59
Speaker 9: I'm here because I've gotten a call from Yosemite and
26:05
Speaker 9: they would like you to call them. Oh, so I called,
26:13
Speaker 9: and somebody else gets on the phone and goes, do
26:18
Speaker 9: you know your daughter is missing? I said no.
26:30
Speaker 2: Jerry Armstrong went missing in July.
26:33
Speaker 6: She was supposed to go to the Bay Area, didn't
26:36
Speaker 6: get there, was reported missing by her friends.
26:40
Speaker 3: The authorities out in Yosemite went out to the cabin
26:45
Speaker 3: and they found her truck there, but they did not
26:49
Speaker 3: find her there. She had things personal belongings in her
26:54
Speaker 3: truck that she had obviously been loading, and that caused.
26:58
Speaker 1: Alarm Across the meadow. Search as made a grim discovery.
27:04
Speaker 3: They found like body in a nearby creek. They're not
27:09
Speaker 3: too far from the house.
27:13
Speaker 1: Despite her distinctive looks, the authorities seemed unable to identify
27:17
Speaker 1: the body as Joey's.
27:21
Speaker 9: I had to ask, do you have ready hair?
27:24
Speaker 11: He said they didn't know, and they said they would.
27:37
Speaker 9: Get back to me.
27:45
Speaker 3: It was particularly gruesome. It was very very horrific for
27:50
Speaker 3: everyone involved.
27:53
Speaker 9: I get to the San Francisco airport and I said,
27:56
Speaker 9: let me see the newspaper and it said you semi
28:11
Speaker 9: naturalist beheaded. That's how I learned.
28:39
Speaker 2: Her head wasn't found until some time later.
28:45
Speaker 3: The second event had now happened in Yosemite, in this
28:48
Speaker 3: set of alarms amongst everyone, because now the local people
28:54
Speaker 3: were not and authorities weren't sure did they have a
28:56
Speaker 3: serial killer about.
29:01
Speaker 1: Then investigators got a break.
29:06
Speaker 3: A fireworker had been driving by the greenhouse when Joey
29:13
Speaker 3: went missing and he noticed this unique international harvester SUV.
29:23
Speaker 3: So the authorities now put a lookout for let's find
29:26
Speaker 3: this vehicle, and they knew by checking records that there
29:29
Speaker 3: were only two of these vehicles that were registered in
29:33
Speaker 3: the valley. In the Assemite Valley.
29:36
Speaker 1: The owner of the vehicle was found to be the
29:38
Speaker 1: maintenance man at the Ceaty Lodge motel. His name was
29:42
Speaker 1: Carrie Stainer. Carrie was the older brother of Stephen Stainer,
29:50
Speaker 1: the boy who'd so famously been kidnapped twenty seven years earlier.
29:56
Speaker 4: This is Mercede High School. Carrie and I went here
30:00
Speaker 4: together for four years. This is also the same high
30:02
Speaker 4: school that Stephen came to when he came back.
30:07
Speaker 1: Matt Cohne attended the same Mormon church and had been
30:10
Speaker 1: friends with Carrie Steiner since they were ten years old.
30:14
Speaker 4: Carrie was liked by most people. He didn't really have
30:17
Speaker 4: a lot of problems, wasn't into a lot of fights
30:19
Speaker 4: and things. Did his artwork. Did our annuals are yearbooks
30:24
Speaker 4: that we used to do here. Well, Carrie was on
30:28
Speaker 4: the school newspaper and he's did a lot of caricature
30:32
Speaker 4: and artwork for the newspaper. It is truly amazing when
30:36
Speaker 4: you think about it. You know the art work that
30:38
Speaker 4: he was able to do, and it's all freehand. Carrie
30:42
Speaker 4: was always quiet, but always had a mischievous side to
30:46
Speaker 4: him that was this undertow of mischief. You didn't always
30:51
Speaker 4: know what he was thinking.
30:54
Speaker 12: He was diagnosed with having high functioning autism, which probably
30:58
Speaker 12: was Asperger's disorder. You would have difficulty reading them because
31:02
Speaker 12: they don't have the same depth of emotion or bonding,
31:06
Speaker 12: social bonding, or ability to interact with other people, even
31:11
Speaker 12: reading other people's emotions.
31:14
Speaker 4: Mister and missus Stayner did the best that possibly could
31:16
Speaker 4: with the kids. Everybody was clean. You know, well fed, loved,
31:21
Speaker 4: basically didn't really seem to have a lot of dysfunction
31:25
Speaker 4: until after Stephen was kidnapped.
31:28
Speaker 1: Stephen Staina's kidnap had a profound effect on the entire
31:31
Speaker 1: Staina family.
31:33
Speaker 3: His family spent a great deal of his childhood and
31:38
Speaker 3: their free time looking for his brother, and that search
31:44
Speaker 3: dominated the parents' days as well as his own.
31:49
Speaker 1: But it appears that Carrie Steina had problems even before
31:53
Speaker 1: his brother had gone missing.
31:56
Speaker 3: He had a disorder called trichotillomania of hair pulling, and
32:03
Speaker 3: that was something that he was burdened with early on
32:07
Speaker 3: in his childhood.
32:08
Speaker 4: He had a nervous rolling of hair. He would wear
32:12
Speaker 4: a hat all through high school, and he said it
32:16
Speaker 4: was because he was growing bald like his father.
32:19
Speaker 12: I think the fact that Carrie Stainer had this compulsive
32:24
Speaker 12: disorder of pulling out chunks of hair indicates agitation, perhaps anxiety,
32:32
Speaker 12: but it does say something about physiologically that something is
32:37
Speaker 12: amiss and something is imbalanced in him.
32:41
Speaker 1: The older brother of the hero, Stephen Stainer, was now
32:44
Speaker 1: a suspect in the murder of naturalist Joey Armstrong. FBI
32:49
Speaker 1: agent Jeff Reinick was sent to detain Carrie and drive
32:53
Speaker 1: him to the FBI offices for questioning. It was a
32:57
Speaker 1: meeting that would prove faithful.
33:01
Speaker 5: It seems like I don't know people, just feel his
33:04
Speaker 5: need to open up to me. I become emotionally intimate
33:07
Speaker 5: with everyone I interviewed because I genuinely care about people,
33:11
Speaker 5: and that comes out.
33:12
Speaker 3: He and mister Ronnick started talking about his brother, because
33:18
Speaker 3: Jeff Reinick, the detective, had been involved in child abduction
33:21
Speaker 3: cases with the FBI for a long time and he
33:24
Speaker 3: was interested in doing from a law enforcement perspective, how
33:28
Speaker 3: did the stain Or family feel about law enforcement's treatment
33:31
Speaker 3: of them.
33:31
Speaker 5: He said that Kenneth Parnell and his partner, who were
33:36
Speaker 5: the ones who took his brother, were only sentenced to
33:38
Speaker 5: seven years, and they held his brother for seven years,
33:42
Speaker 5: and he didn't think that was fair, and I frankly
33:44
Speaker 5: agreed with him. I explained to him my experience working
33:48
Speaker 5: these cases, how they had affected me, the idea of closure.
33:54
Speaker 5: I offered to get him counseling. You could tell he
33:57
Speaker 5: was hurting.
34:00
Speaker 1: Stina. The return of his brother Stephen may have been
34:03
Speaker 1: as traumatic as his original disappearance.
34:06
Speaker 12: I'm sure there were moments when they believed he was
34:09
Speaker 12: dead and they have to get back to living their lives,
34:14
Speaker 12: and suddenly his brother returns, not just returns is an
34:19
Speaker 12: international sensation.
34:21
Speaker 3: They're a news conference where Stephen and the family were
34:25
Speaker 3: addressing the news, and Carrie was at this news conference,
34:30
Speaker 3: and then Carrie Stayner moves away, pulls out of the
34:34
Speaker 3: kind of the crowd, and leaves.
34:36
Speaker 12: Very likely anger has set in, resentment has set in,
34:41
Speaker 12: feelings of nobody's even thinking about me. He probably also wondered,
34:46
Speaker 12: did my father wish it had been me instead of Stephen,
34:49
Speaker 12: because that would be an inevitable sibling kind of thought.
34:54
Speaker 1: After his brother's return, Carrie Stainer, who'd once had ambitions
34:58
Speaker 1: of being a successful cartoonist, began to drift.
35:02
Speaker 4: The last time I saw Carrie Steiner was actually about
35:05
Speaker 4: three years out of high school. I was working at
35:08
Speaker 4: a local fast food restaurant and he came walking through
35:12
Speaker 4: and said that he was going to start his own
35:16
Speaker 4: religion where they allowed the smoking of marijuana and some
35:21
Speaker 4: of the Mormon background that he had tied end with
35:23
Speaker 4: it believed in plugging me and I kind of looked
35:28
Speaker 4: at him strange, and I thought, where did that come from?
35:31
Speaker 4: Still makes you wonder.
35:37
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine, when Carrie was twenty seven years old,
35:41
Speaker 1: his brother Stephen was killed in a motorcycle collision. Now
35:45
Speaker 1: ten years later and working as a maintenance man, Carrie
35:49
Speaker 1: was a suspect in a brutal murder at the FBI offices.
35:54
Speaker 1: He asked to speak with Agent Jeff Reineck alone.
35:59
Speaker 5: When I went into the room, Carrie was sitting there
36:02
Speaker 5: and he was kind of sitting in the middle of room,
36:04
Speaker 5: facing corner, and he was kind of just very slumped,
36:09
Speaker 5: and he just didn't look good. And I said, what's wrong,
36:12
Speaker 5: what's up? And he said, you know, I'm a bad person.
36:16
Speaker 5: I've done bad things. Sometimes I think about world peace
36:20
Speaker 5: and world love, and other times I think I could
36:23
Speaker 5: kill everybody in the world. And I said, Carrie, people
36:27
Speaker 5: do bad things, doesn't mean they're bad people. Good people
36:32
Speaker 5: do bad things all the time. And he said, I
36:35
Speaker 5: can give you closure about this. And then for the
36:40
Speaker 5: next six hours, Carrie Steiner told us how he had
36:46
Speaker 5: abducted and murdered all four women.
36:51
Speaker 1: What Carrie Steiner would go on to reveal would torture
36:54
Speaker 1: the victims' families and shock the Yosemite community. To its core.
37:05
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, motel maintenance worker Carrie Steina confessed
37:10
Speaker 1: to the brutal murders of Yosemite Park, naturalist Joey Armstrong,
37:15
Speaker 1: and tourists Carol and Julie sund and Sylvina Peloso. He
37:20
Speaker 1: would calmly describe his actions in minute and shocking detail,
37:24
Speaker 1: admitting to having had violent fantasies since he was seven
37:28
Speaker 1: years old.
37:30
Speaker 3: He described them as having them all o his life.
37:35
Speaker 3: I even have a young child that he had thought
37:37
Speaker 3: about killing and molesting.
37:41
Speaker 5: Terry. Stainer made a conscious decision that he was going
37:44
Speaker 5: to satisfy his fantasy. He made that decision a year
37:48
Speaker 5: before he acted out on it.
37:51
Speaker 1: In February nineteen ninety nine, Steina decided that time had come.
37:57
Speaker 3: He had a girlfriend who had two young daughters. It
38:02
Speaker 3: was always his fantasy to have molass and kill two children.
38:07
Speaker 5: He went to his girlfriend's house for Valentine's Day with
38:10
Speaker 5: the intention of killing his girlfriend and her two daughters,
38:15
Speaker 5: but there was another groundskeeper and he didn't have his opportunity.
38:20
Speaker 3: So Stainer left her place and went back to the
38:24
Speaker 3: Cedar Lodge and he started prowling.
38:28
Speaker 5: From five h nine. He looks in and the curtain
38:32
Speaker 5: is just a little bit of jar and he it's
38:34
Speaker 5: enough for him to look in, and he sees Carol
38:36
Speaker 5: and the girls, and this is what he's been waiting for.
38:40
Speaker 1: Stina bluffed his way in on the pretense of investigating
38:43
Speaker 1: a leak. With Julie tied up in another room, he
38:47
Speaker 1: strangled her mother Carol, and then her friend Sylvina, and
38:51
Speaker 1: proceeded to sexually assault Julie. As morning approached, he placed
38:58
Speaker 1: Carol and Sylvina in the boot to that car and
39:01
Speaker 1: prepared to leave with Julie.
39:04
Speaker 3: He then went back in the room, packed up the
39:06
Speaker 3: suitcases and loaded those in the car as well. He
39:11
Speaker 3: then wet some towels and left them on the floor
39:14
Speaker 3: to stage it as if they were leaving.
39:16
Speaker 6: In a hurry.
39:19
Speaker 5: And he drives up forty nine with Julie in the
39:21
Speaker 5: passenger seat and Carol and Sylvina dead in the back
39:25
Speaker 5: of the car.
39:31
Speaker 1: FBI agent Jeff Reinick would eventually take Carrie Stina out
39:35
Speaker 1: to drive exactly the same route he'd taken that morning.
39:39
Speaker 5: I mean, this is where he drove her. Now, when
39:42
Speaker 5: he drove her here, it was dark. I mean, just imagine,
39:46
Speaker 5: how would you feel in thirty forty degree weather, not
39:49
Speaker 5: knowing whether your mother and friend are and all that's
39:53
Speaker 5: clothing you is a pink blanket and that's it. And
39:57
Speaker 5: you've been sexually assaulted for the past two to three hours.
40:01
Speaker 5: I don't think anyone has the ability to imagine that
40:05
Speaker 5: level of terror. So they pulled up here. You see
40:09
Speaker 5: the flowers.
40:09
Speaker 10: It's the memorial.
40:12
Speaker 5: Gets out here, goes up this path and he carries her.
40:17
Speaker 5: He's carrying her, and he brought her out here. They
40:26
Speaker 5: laid out the blanket and then he laid on the
40:29
Speaker 5: blanket with her and he told her how he loved her,
40:32
Speaker 5: and you know, wish it could be different. He saw
40:36
Speaker 5: the lights starting to come up and he realized that
40:40
Speaker 5: it couldn't continue. So at that point he, you know,
40:45
Speaker 5: he sat her up and he killed her. After he
40:49
Speaker 5: had killed her and her body is laying down there,
40:54
Speaker 5: he marveled at the beauty of the sunrise coming up
40:57
Speaker 5: over the reservoir.
41:00
Speaker 1: Stayina was a depraved killer with no conscience, and he'd
41:04
Speaker 1: fooled everyone he'd ever come into contact with. When his
41:08
Speaker 1: identity was finally revealed, it stunned the community.
41:14
Speaker 10: It was pretty pretty weird. Chilled the bone when I
41:18
Speaker 10: think about talking to this guy.
41:20
Speaker 4: I did see him on television. I looked at his
41:23
Speaker 4: eyes because they assumed in on his face, and when
41:26
Speaker 4: I looked at him into his eyes, he just sat
41:28
Speaker 4: there and went there is nothing there. There's no mind,
41:31
Speaker 4: there's no personality. He's gone. It was just shocking.
41:39
Speaker 1: Carrie Stainer's confessions led to a life sentence for the
41:43
Speaker 1: murder of Joey Armstrong and the death penalty for the
41:47
Speaker 1: murders of Carol Sund, Julie Sund and Sylvina Peloso. But
41:52
Speaker 1: was this man who'd fooled friends, family, and the authorities
41:56
Speaker 1: for so long, who'd claimed to have fantasized about murder
42:00
Speaker 1: since he was seven years old, born to kill.
42:06
Speaker 5: Carrie Stayner, in my opinion, had a sexual fantasy. And
42:10
Speaker 5: what makes guys like Carrie Stainer and serial killers different
42:16
Speaker 5: is that they commit to carry their fantasies out even
42:18
Speaker 5: though they know they're crossing the line and they're going
42:21
Speaker 5: to take a life or it's going to be illegal.
42:23
Speaker 13: There's many many individuals walking around now who do have
42:28
Speaker 13: these very dark, perverse and violent sexual fantasies, sexually aggressive
42:35
Speaker 13: fantasies who never act out that just stays internal their
42:38
Speaker 13: entire life.
42:41
Speaker 12: If you think about a child at the age of
42:44
Speaker 12: seven having fantasies of murdering women, where's that coming from.
42:51
Speaker 12: There was never a time when the fantasies that began
42:55
Speaker 12: early were diverted, and he got through that and passed
42:59
Speaker 12: it behind him him they stayed with him. So yet
43:02
Speaker 12: in that case, he's born to kill. Clearly there were
43:07
Speaker 12: environmental influences that moved him into the opportunity to do so.
43:12
Speaker 1: Carrie Stina currently resides on San Quentin's Death Row, as
43:17
Speaker 1: infamous as his brother once was famous. His legacy for
43:24
Speaker 1: innocent lives snuffed out.
43:28
Speaker 7: Carol's daughter put on the gravestone memories you carry in
43:35
Speaker 7: your heart are there forever, and I think that's I
43:41
Speaker 7: think the town remembers Carol very well, and I think
43:45
Speaker 7: I think our kids do.
43:48
Speaker 4: And we do.
43:52
Speaker 12: Not.
43:52
Speaker 9: Only did I get a lot of letters, Yosemite National
43:58
Speaker 9: Institute started getting a lot of money anyway, they put
44:03
Speaker 9: together a program called the Armstrong scholars It's a program
44:07
Speaker 9: to empower young women to start believing in themselves and
44:12
Speaker 9: finding out WHOA I can do this, I can do
44:16
Speaker 9: so much more than I ever thought so. She still
44:19
Speaker 9: goes on touching lives, but I'd rather have her