Latest / True Crime California / TCC 16 Steven and Cary Stayner, Part 2

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TCC 16 Steven and Cary Stayner, Part 2 · True Crime California

0:04
Speaker 1: Dark Cast Network. Out of the shadows come the best
0:07
indie podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm
0:17
your host, Cindy, and I'm glad you're here. Welcome back,
0:30
everybody to True Crime California. I am your host, Cindy,
0:34
and we are just going to jump on into part
0:37
two of the Stephen and Carrie Stainer stories. Now, both
0:41
of these stories are tragic for very different reasons, but
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it was just really interesting to cover this case or
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these cases, because how often do multiple members of a
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family have different and basically unrelated true crime stories that
0:57
are compelling and well known within the true crime community.
1:02
So I wanted to cover these. Like I said, Stephen's
1:05
story oftentimes is sort of a footnote to carry story,
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and I don't really think that's fair because Stephen's story
1:10
was huge news at the time and is a very interesting, terrible,
1:14
and compelling story on its own. So I'm very happy
1:17
to be telling both stories. The first part, I should say,
1:24
was more focused on Steven, although I did start by
1:27
talking about Carrie, and this episode is going to really
1:30
focus on Carrie, and I'll do a quick recap Before
1:34
I do that, I want to say thank you to
1:35
everybody for listening. Please like, rate, review, follow us on Instagram,
1:39
us being me the Royal we It's just me, you know,
1:43
Share with your friends. This is a lot of work
1:45
and I want to get the podcast out there. If
1:48
you hate what I do, then don't listen, but please
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don't leave me a bad review. Just move on. Indie
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podcasts are a lot of work for very little return.
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So if you like what I do, please tell everybody
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you've ever about this podcast, send them links, encourage them.
2:04
Pretend that this is a pyramid scheme and you're gonna
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get money if you share with them. I will not
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pay you, but just pretend that it will incentivize it.
2:13
I don't know what I'm talking about. It's been a
2:15
long fucking week and I'm tired. I don't have anything
2:18
of interest to say about my own personal life, which
2:21
is probably good because we can just get into the story.
2:23
But I did want to take a moment to say
2:24
thank you to everybody who listens, and please tell your
2:27
friends and family. All right, so I'm going to kind
2:29
of talk about Carrie Stayner again as a reminder. He
2:32
was born I think nineteen sixty one, eldest of five
2:36
siblings and really felt the brunt of his parents' shittiness
2:40
and inability to show love, which is a really shitty
2:45
thing to way, a really shitty way to be. When
2:48
you have children, you got to show them love. So
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I think where we left off was Carrie had just
2:55
finished high school and got a job working as a
2:59
glass installer for a window company. He had been living
3:03
with his uncle, Jesse, who died under suspicious circumstances. And
3:08
now he's just kind of a young adult. I think
3:11
he's like twenty six or so, maybe a little older,
3:14
just sort of hanging out, meandering through life. So, like
3:18
I said, he was working at this glass company, and
3:21
at one point he told somebody that he fantasized about
3:24
killing all of the people at his job and then
3:26
burning the place to the ground. Now, soon after this,
3:30
I think, in about nineteen ninety five, Carrie checked himself
3:33
into a hospital for help with his mental health. Now,
3:36
at this hospital, he was seen for a while, a
3:38
short while, and they prescribed him some pills, which of
3:41
course he did not take, which is very unfortunate because
3:44
they probably would have helped him. I mean, he's dealing
3:46
with the death of his uncle, he's dealing with the
3:48
death of his brother just a few months before, and
3:51
as we've mentioned, his family was not into therapy. They
3:54
didn't want their kids to talk about their problems because
3:56
they were like a private family, very stoic. And also
4:00
so Dad was a molester. He abused his daughters and
4:06
it actually came out I believe in nineteen ninety six
4:10
that this was going on. So this was a secret
4:13
that finally came out. So Carrie's got a lot of
4:16
shit going on, and I think just the lack of
4:21
help and just all these compounding problems really sent him
4:24
off the deep end. Now I didn't mention this before,
4:27
but as a weird aside, Carrie was really into Bigfoot
4:31
to the point of where that was sort of his
4:33
icebreaker with people like this is how he would like
4:37
introduce himself to people like, I'm Carrie, do you believe
4:39
in Bigfoot? Which is an interesting way to go about
4:42
meeting new people. And also, unlike a lot of enthusiasts,
4:46
and not to say there aren't enthusiasts many who do
4:49
believe this, but Carrie really really believes or believed, I
4:54
don't know that Bigfoot was out there, and that he
4:56
had even seen him at one point. He has taken
5:00
it to like another level. He's also getting really into
5:03
smoking weed. And weirdly, he was a naturist. This is
5:09
another term for nudist. So Carrie really enjoyed being naked
5:14
out in nature and around other people, basically in public. No,
5:19
he wasn't necessarily like streaking through the streets, but he
5:22
would get naked when like at the lake or the
5:26
river or on a hike. He'd lay out nude and
5:29
he would do this in front of whoever he was with,
5:32
and he didn't see a problem with it, and a
5:34
lot of people don't see a problem with it. But
5:35
it's just kind of another facet of his personality that's
5:38
like not common now. He even visited a naturist resort
5:43
in the Sacramento area, and he would go there to
5:46
be with his people, you know, to be with others
5:49
who enjoyed being naked in mixed company. Now, as mentioned
5:56
in the last episode and briefly just a minute ago,
5:59
his uncle had recently died under suspicious circumstances, and to
6:03
this day his death is officially ruled an accidental death,
6:06
wherein Jesse shot himself while cleaning his shotgun. But as
6:10
I mentioned, it's still some people believe Carrie maybe did it.
6:15
So now Carrie is really just kind of meandering. He
6:20
doesn't have his brother, he doesn't have his uncle. He
6:22
suffered all this tragedy, and he's just kind of doing whatever.
6:26
And to be honest, like for the next few years
6:29
between like nineteen ninety five and nineteen ninety seven or
6:31
in ninety eight, we don't really know what went on
6:34
with Carrie. I think he just kind of existed. But
6:37
this all changes in nineteen ninety seven when he is
6:40
hired as a handyman at the Cedar Lodge Hotel, which
6:44
is located in El Portal, California, which is just near Yosemite,
6:49
like eleven twelve miles away, eleven and a half I
6:51
think miles from Yosemite. It's a tiny town of only
6:55
around three hundred people and is mostly used by tourists
6:58
as a place to stay while visiting Yosemite. So for
7:01
his line of work working in a hotel, this is
7:04
a really busy place. So he's got steady work and
7:07
at least outwardly at this time, this is probably the
7:10
most stable time in Carrie's adult life, because not only
7:14
did he have a good job. He also started making
7:17
friends and even for the first time in his life,
7:21
he got himself a girlfriend. Now, Carrie was like thirty
7:25
six at this point, so that's a pretty big deal.
7:28
And to be honest, Carrie was a good looking guy,
7:32
and I think he had had like flings. He definitely
7:34
wasn't like a thirty six year old virgin. Like we're
7:36
not making a comedy about his life. Sorry, that was
7:40
a forty year old virgin of reference anyway, But it
7:43
was the first time he ever had like what could
7:45
be considered like a stable relationship. So outwardly, again, we're
7:49
dealing with a guy who's kind of ticking all the
7:51
boxes for like a normal life. He's got the job,
7:55
the friends, the girlfriend, he's you know, young, good looking.
8:00
Everything's kind of going his way, seemingly. His girlfriend, whose
8:04
name I probably could find at this point, but chows
8:06
not two because they don't want to be known, like
8:08
she doesn't want to be known, was a waitress at
8:10
a local diner who had two young daughters, and all
8:14
three of them loved spending time with Carrie. The little
8:18
girls I'm sure saw him as a father figure because
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he would do really thoughtful things for them, like bring
8:22
them hand drawn cartoons, and he brought them a beanie
8:25
baby almost every time he saw them, so you know,
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he really took care of them, showed them that he
8:31
was thinking of them, and was basically just like a
8:33
really fun friend. Also, obviously their mom really liked him,
8:36
so that probably helped. Meanwhile, while all of this wonderful
8:40
stuff is going on, internally, Carrie is completely spinning out
8:45
and his desire to kill women is becoming out of control.
8:50
While he spent time with his girlfriend and her daughters,
8:52
he also spent time stalking at least two sets of
8:55
women in the area, planning to kill them, but eventually
8:59
a band the idea for one reason or another. And
9:03
around this time he also put together a kill kit
9:05
consisting of rope, tape, a knife, and a gun, which
9:08
he put into a backpack that he carried with him everywhere.
9:13
So he's definitely getting from you know, when he's seven
9:16
years old, as I mentioned in part one, he has
9:20
these feelings, but he does not want to act on them.
9:22
And now almost thirty years later, he's getting to the
9:25
point where he's like, no, I gotta do this, I
9:27
gotta kill some women. This is just what I'm gonna do.
9:30
So finally, after failing to find these random victims, for
9:34
whatever reason it fell through, Carrie decided that he would
9:38
quote unquote have to kill his girlfriend and her daughters,
9:43
which is absolutely fucking nuts. Like even like the worst
9:49
serial killers generally do not kill their own families, and
9:54
some of them do. I'm not saying they don't, but like,
9:56
in this context, this is really strange because there's so
9:59
many serial killers who have families and they never know
10:03
that these guys are serial killers. They're never victimized. So
10:06
Ted Bundy had a girlfriend with a daughter BTK, which
10:10
is like one of the worst people ever Israel Keys,
10:13
Like all these people, they're living this double life, and
10:18
it seems that Carrie is sort of doing that as well,
10:22
but he decides to cross that line and kill his
10:26
girlfriend and her daughter's which is nuts. So anyway, he
10:30
decides the day after Valentine's Day is the day he's
10:32
going to kill him, and on that day in nineteen
10:35
ninety nine, he goes. So also nineteen nine nine, they've
10:38
been together for like two years and these old girls
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were like ten and eleven at this point, so he
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knew them since they were like eight to nine years old.
10:44
It's fucking crazy. So anyway, he goes to their house,
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which is on a large piece of land in the area,
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which means very removed from everything, with his kill kit
10:55
and he's ready to go. Fortunately, when he arrived unannounced,
11:01
he found a man there who I believe was a
11:03
handyman and got scared and called the whole thing off.
11:08
So the girlfriend and her daughters are doing fine. However,
11:12
Carrie was so excited by even the idea of killing
11:15
these three poor people he decided to drive back into
11:20
town and find himself another victim or victims, and unfortunately
11:25
that's exactly what he did. For whatever reason, he decided
11:29
to go to the Cedar Lodge where he worked, which
11:31
is pretty empty at this time of year due to
11:34
the weather. February definitely isn't a big tourism month, especially
11:37
in the colder areas like Yosemite, and there are people
11:39
who go there all year round. It's not like it's
11:42
super slow, but I would say February it's just after
11:44
the holidays, so there's not going to be a lot
11:46
of action. That being said, there was one lone car
11:50
in the lot parked in front of a room with
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a woman and two teen girls inside. The woman, Carol Sunn,
11:58
was on vacation with her daughter Julie, and their exchange student,
12:02
Sylvina Paloso, who was from Argentina. Carol, who's then forty two,
12:07
and her husband Yenns, had four children, three adopted and
12:10
one natural. I believe Julie was their natural born daughter,
12:14
but I'm not positive, but she was their youngest at
12:17
only fifteen years old. At this time, Sylvina was sixteen
12:21
and was the catalyst for the trip, as the family
12:23
wanted to show her Yosemite before she returned home to Argentina,
12:27
which is so fucking sad. The family was actually from Eureka,
12:31
which is in northern California and Humboldt County, so not
12:34
super far from Yosemite, but in any case, they decided
12:37
to fly to Yosemite and rent a car for the weekend.
12:40
Yenns couldn't make it, but had planned to pick the
12:42
three up at San Francisco International Airport on the sixteenth,
12:46
so the very next day. Sadly, this was not to
12:51
be because Terry, when Carrie Stainer realized there were three
12:56
women alone in a hotel room with nobody around, he
12:59
finally kept his nerve and put his plan into action.
13:03
He moved his kil kit from his backpack to his
13:05
toolbox and went to knock on doors surrounding their hotel room,
13:09
pretending there was a leak in one of the rooms upstairs.
13:13
He did this so that the girls and Carol would
13:16
hear him and expect him and think this was just
13:18
like a routine thing. When he knocked on Carol's door,
13:21
she at first didn't want to let him in, and
13:24
it actually took some convincing to get her to let
13:27
him in. I believe that I read actually that she
13:30
called almost called the front desk, but Carrie somehow convinced
13:35
her not to, which is just the fucking worst thing
13:38
I've ever heard, because had she done that, I think
13:41
things would have been very different. Unfortunately, though, she did
13:44
let Carrie into the room, and he at first went
13:46
into the bathroom to kind of pretend to do some work,
13:49
but instead took his gun out. Before returning to the
13:52
main room. He held the three at gunpoint, then forced
13:56
Julie and Sylvina into the bathroom while Carol remained on
13:59
the bed. He told them he was going to rob them,
14:02
then tied the girls up and closed the bathroom door.
14:05
He then went to Carol, who was on the bed,
14:07
and just strangled her to death. Just that's it. That's
14:11
all he did. Took the rope that he brought with
14:13
him and killed her. There was no robbery, there was
14:17
no sexual assault. He just wanted to kill her. This
14:22
took longer than he expected, but he enjoyed every minute,
14:26
and before going back to get the girls, he took
14:28
Carol's body to her own rental car and threw it
14:31
in the trunk. He then brought the girls out of
14:33
the bathroom and told them Carol was downstairs in the car,
14:36
which wasn't technically a lie, but he wasn't telling them
14:40
her condition. He then raped both girls on the bed. Unfortunately,
14:46
Sylvina was making too much noise for Carrie. She was
14:48
crying too much and she was too scared, and this
14:51
really upset him because his fantasy always involved docile women
14:55
who gave him whatever he wanted, so to have this
14:58
sixteen year old sobbing really put a damper on his assault, which,
15:02
like poor fucking guy, He finally decided to put Julie
15:05
back in the bathroom, then strangled Silvina to death with
15:08
the same rope he used to kill Carol. He then
15:12
took Sylvina's body to the trunk of the car, then
15:14
came back up and took Julie out of the bathroom,
15:17
wrapped her in a blanket, and put her in their
15:19
rental car. Now, actually, before he did this, he raped
15:22
her in the hotel room for multiple hours, which is
15:27
so fucked And Carrie had an issue with impotency, so
15:31
he was kind of dealing with that while he was
15:34
raping her, and this is what made it go on
15:38
for so long because he was having issues. So he
15:41
then puts her in the rental car. Julie didn't know
15:43
where her mother or her friend were, and Carrie definitely
15:46
didn't offer up this information. Instead, he drove her to
15:49
Lake Don Pedro in nearby Moccasin, California, where he brought
15:53
her out of the car and laid her on the
15:55
blanket on a hill overlooking the mountains. He found this
15:59
to be a Roman gesture, as he had decided that
16:02
he loved Julie and told himself he didn't want to
16:06
kill her. However, he knew he had to otherwise he
16:09
would be caught for his crimes. He sexually assaulted her
16:12
again then decided it was time. He kissed her on
16:16
the forehead and told her that he loved her. He
16:18
then slit her throat, as he thought that was a
16:20
better way to die than being strangled, now that he'd
16:23
seen what goes what happens when someone is being strangled. However,
16:28
Julie took a very long time to die, much longer
16:31
than the two he had strangled, and Carrie just sat
16:34
there and listened to her suffer until she stopped making noises.
16:39
He later said he couldn't watch her die because he
16:41
loved her, which like fucking die in a fire, Dude,
16:44
you're such a piece of shit. After she died, her
16:47
body fell over because apparently she was sitting up and
16:51
rolled down the hill, and he just left her there
16:53
because he loves her so much. Right. He then drove
16:57
the rental car with the two bodies in it to
16:59
a room area covered by brush and abandoned it there.
17:03
He came back two days later and burned Carol and
17:06
Sylvina's bodies, then closed the trunk back up and left
17:09
for good. He also took Carol's wallet at this time
17:13
and drove to nearby modesto, where he threw it in
17:16
the street, and he did this because Modesto is a
17:19
gnarly place and at that time especially had a lot
17:22
of crime, so it was sort of his attempt to
17:24
throw police off the trail, which was smart, to be fair,
17:28
and something he picked up from watching true crime shows
17:30
on Discovery, which is interesting. He was really really into
17:34
true crime shows and he actually used them almost as
17:36
like a teaching like a learning method, so that he
17:40
could learn how to not get caught after killing people,
17:44
which doesn't actually work, but apparently it helped him cover
17:48
up his his you know, cover the evidence, cover his
17:53
trail for these three murders. He then went on with
17:57
his life, stayed with his girlfriend, and kept working at
17:59
the He also paid attention to the news and saw
18:02
the women were reported missing very quickly by YenS, and
18:06
because they potentially disappeared in a national park, the FBI
18:10
were involved right away, which is pretty crazy. At first,
18:16
YenS believed the three had been victims of a car
18:18
crash since the car was also missing, but less than
18:22
a week after their disappearance, Carol's wallet was in fact
18:25
found in Modesto, leading both YenS and authorities to assume
18:29
there was foul play involved. At this point, there were
18:32
search parties all over the place and police were rounding
18:35
up the usual suspects in Modesto trying to find any
18:38
leads related to these missing women. They didn't have a
18:41
lot of luck, but finally, about a month later, on
18:44
March eighteenth, a target shooter out on a walk stumbled
18:48
upon the car containing Carol and Sylvina's remains. He called police,
18:53
who opened the trunk and found the ashen remains of
18:55
the two. This was obviously devastating, but also very frustrating
19:00
because where was Julie. Carrie was also frustrated by this,
19:04
as he wanted Julie to be found because again, he
19:07
loved her. Right after Carol and Sylvina were found, Carrie
19:13
wrote a letter with a map indicating where to find
19:16
Julie and sent it to the police. In the letter,
19:19
he wrote, quote, we had fun with this one, so
19:23
again to throw police off, and I'll tell you now
19:27
again it worked. Police were very much looking for men
19:30
with criminal histories in the Modesto area and were looking
19:33
for a crime duo as well. That being said, the
19:38
note or the letter, i should say, did allow police
19:41
to recover Julie's body, which they did exactly one week
19:44
after Carol and Sylvina were found from here, police began
19:48
focusing in on a group of meth users from Modesto
19:51
with violent pasts, and ended up focusing specifically on two
19:55
half brothers, who they arrested on unrelated charges as a
19:58
way to get them in prison before they charged them
20:00
with the murders. Police were so confident in these arrests
20:04
that they told the public at the time that they
20:07
planned to charge these men imminently, and Carrie was extremely
20:10
pleased to know that someone else was taking the blame.
20:13
This is because one of the men actually admitted to
20:16
the killings, but that was likely due to a drug
20:19
induced state of paranoia or hallucinations, because again, these men
20:22
were big metheusers. But whatever the reason, police thought they
20:27
had their men. Unfortunately, for everyone but those two men, Carrie,
20:32
Saanner wasn't finished with his reign of terror. That being said,
20:36
the silver lining is that the next murder does in
20:38
fact get him caught, so at least there's that. So
20:43
I believe at this point he had fully finally decided
20:48
against killing his girlfriend and their daughters, likely not because
20:51
he cared about them, and more because he'd realized he
20:54
would immediately be caught, because I should note that he
20:58
was in fact interviewed with the three women went missing.
21:02
It was more procedure than anything, because he worked at
21:04
the hotel where they went missing, and at no point
21:06
was he considered a suspect thanks to his clean record
21:08
and helpful attitude. But I think this put things in
21:11
perspective for him and he became more choosy with his victims.
21:15
So it's just a couple months later, we're looking at
21:17
July twenty first, nineteen ninety nine. So the women, you know, Carol, Julie,
21:24
and Sylvina were murdered February fifteenth, they were found in March,
21:28
and then on July twenty first, nineteen ninety nine, Carrie
21:31
decided he wanted to kill again. He always had his
21:34
kill kit with him and he was driving to a
21:37
small town for work or some other thing, I'm not
21:40
really sure what when he stumbled upon the cabin of
21:43
twenty six year old naturalist Joy Armstrong. To be clear,
21:48
a naturist and a naturalist are in no way the
21:51
same thing. One likes to be naked, like Carrie and
21:54
the other studies nature, which is what Joey did. Joey
21:58
was an absolute badass of a woman. In her twenty
22:03
six years, she lived more life than most people do
22:06
in a full lifetime, including myself, which is really great
22:09
but also really sad because I feel like she's the
22:14
type of person who would have really made the most
22:16
of all of her years. Joey was smart, fun, loved
22:21
by everyone who knew her. She cared about the world,
22:24
and her actions showed how much she cared. She loved
22:27
nature and wanted to study it to help with its preservation,
22:30
which is what brought her to Yosemite, to this little
22:32
cabin where she lived alone. She was a teacher at
22:36
the Yosemite Institute which is now called Nature Bridge, and
22:38
lived in Yosemite as part of her job. And I
22:41
do want to mention that they have a scholarship in
22:43
her name that they give out every single year, so
22:45
a really cool way to remember and celebrate her. Anyway,
22:50
on this day, she was packing up her car for
22:52
a trip to visit friends in Saslito, which is in
22:55
the Bay area, so not a super quick drive. It
22:58
would take her like she would arrived same day, but
23:02
you know it would have taken her sometime. She was
23:04
packing a bunch of items as she planned to be
23:06
there for a while, and while Carrie was driving by,
23:09
he saw her, and he saw her going in and
23:12
out of her house to her car, moving things back
23:15
and forth. So he decided to park his Blue Scout,
23:19
which is a large jeep style vehicle, and watch her. Eventually,
23:24
Carrie got out of his I'm gonna call it a truck.
23:26
He got out of his truck with his backpack on,
23:29
which had the kill kit inside, and approached Joey. He
23:33
started off with small talk and even asked her if
23:35
she had seen Bigfoot at any point. She engaged with him,
23:39
seemingly cautiously, but she was friendly. The two spoke for
23:43
a while, then when she had her back turned, Carrie attacked.
23:46
He pulled a gun and then forced Joey inside of
23:49
her house. He then bound and gagged her with duct
23:52
tape and took her to his truck. He put her
23:55
in the truck and started driving, likely to a secluded
23:58
area like he did with Julie, so that he could
24:01
rape and murder Joey. However, joe did not plan to
24:05
go easily. The entire time she was in her house,
24:08
she fought him, and once in his car, she didn't
24:11
give up. Carrie had the windows down, and at one
24:15
point Joey threw herself out of the car head first.
24:18
She got up and began running into the woods. Carrie
24:23
of course pulled over and gave chase, and unfortunately he
24:27
was able to catch Joey very quickly, which sucks. He
24:32
then took a knife out and angrily shoved it at
24:34
her throat. Carrie was upset that Joey was fighting because
24:37
he wanted to live out that fantasy that we kind
24:39
of talked about of, you know, the woman being complicit
24:43
and allowing him to have his way, and Joey just
24:46
was not gonna give him that, and he was fucking pissed.
24:48
But also, like, that's a real weird expectation to have
24:51
in this situation. It's pretty fucking ridiculous. In any case,
24:55
even in this moment, while under attack, tied up and
24:57
in the woods, Joey did not give up. She continued
25:00
to fight and even put her chin down as hard
25:03
as she could against her chest to block the knife
25:06
from her throat. Sadly, this did not work, and Carrie
25:10
did slit her throat. Even then, Joey continued to struggle
25:15
and fought to the very end. Carrie later said that
25:18
he started to drag her deeper into the woods by
25:20
her leg and she was still fighting hard at that point. Frustrated,
25:26
Carrie stopped again and cut deeper into her throat, and
25:30
he said that this time she stopped moving pretty much
25:33
right after that. He then decapitated her. He left her
25:38
body and her head in the woods, though he did
25:40
briefly consider keeping her head. Instead, he shoved it into
25:43
some brush and attempted to cover the bloody trail left
25:46
behind with some pine needles and dirt. He then left
25:51
the scene, leaving behind her body, all of the blood
25:54
and a ton of evidence in her house, including his
25:57
red hat and some broken sunglasses, which, of nothing else,
26:00
showed signs of a struggle. As I mentioned, Joey had
26:04
plans to visit friends in Saslito, and when she didn't
26:07
show up, they immediately called the police. Police went to
26:10
her home and found the scene, and then basically followed
26:13
the trail into the woods where they found her body.
26:16
They also found the hat and the sunglasses, as well
26:19
as tire tracks, and these tracks were very specific, as
26:23
Carrie had four different tires on his car, so each
26:27
tire left a specific tread in the dirt, so they
26:33
basically just had to find the vehicle that matched these
26:35
four tires. There were also witnesses who saw his truck
26:39
in the area that day and even saw it parked
26:42
outside her house. Police found and interviewed Carrie that same day,
26:47
but again let him go. He had no record, nothing
26:50
on him to indicate he did anything wrong, and he
26:52
was a smooth talker. Carrie, knowing it was only a
26:56
matter of time before he was caught, left Yosemite and
26:58
went again to the nudest colony to get away and
27:00
hide out. Police let him go, but they continued investigating him.
27:05
At this point, I think they knew it was him,
27:07
and it was one of those things where they just
27:09
needed to collect evidence. And two days later they were
27:12
looking for him again. They put something out on the
27:16
news saying he's basically wanted for questioning, essentially kind of
27:19
like a fugitive. You know, at this point they knew
27:23
they knew he was their man, at least for Joey's murder. Now,
27:26
remember they have the two men arrested for the murders
27:30
of Carol, Julie and Sylvina, so you know, they at
27:36
least have him for this one, right, So now they
27:41
are on the lookout. They're looking for Carrie and he's
27:44
hiding out in this nudist colony. Well, he made the
27:47
mistake of making friends with a woman at the newtist
27:50
colony and she then saw him on the news and
27:53
she turned him in. Immediately, she called the FBI said, hey,
27:57
he's here with me, come get him. The police arrived,
28:01
arrested carry and brought him in for questioning. I actually
28:03
don't know if they arrested him at that point, but
28:05
I think he kind of knew. And I say he
28:08
knew because pretty much immediately after they brought him in
28:11
for questioning, he admitted not only to killing Joey, but
28:16
also to killing Carol, Julie and Sylvina as well. Of course,
28:20
at first he tried to deny everything, but he found
28:23
the FBI agent he was talking to, a man named
28:25
Jeffrey Reinick, easy to chat with and trustworthy, so I
28:30
think he knew he was caught. But also the way
28:33
that this man interacted with him helped him to confess
28:37
to the other murders, which he maybe wouldn't have otherwise
28:40
been arrested for. So very good police work here. I
28:45
will admit that being said. Before he confessed, he asked
28:49
for three favors. The first favor he asked for was
28:55
that the death penalty be taken off the table. He
28:58
also asked that his family be given the I think
29:00
it was like five hundred thousand dollars in reward money
29:03
offered in relation to the case, and he said that
29:06
they deserved it because he turned himself in, so essentially
29:09
he was solving his own case, which is kind of ridiculous.
29:13
But as ridiculous as that request was, his last request
29:16
was really over the top. He requested that the agents
29:22
give him child pornography, namely showing little girls. He said
29:29
he knew they dealt with that stuff in the FBI,
29:31
so they must have it somewhere, you know, in their
29:33
case files or evidence lockers, and they could share it
29:37
with him. The agents later said that they were beyond
29:40
disgusted by the request, but had to hide that to
29:43
keep things cool with Carrie. After a little while, finally,
29:47
agent Ryanik was able to convince Carrie to confess without
29:50
any of his requests by appealing to who he called
29:53
quote good Carrie, a man he had seen a glimpse
29:56
of during the interview. He told Carrie it would clear
29:59
his concent and allow him to find some peace. Carrie
30:03
relented and confessed. During his confession, Carrie said he at
30:08
one moment would feel such a love for life, his friends,
30:11
and everything in the world, and the next moment he
30:13
felt like he could kill everyone alive and not feel
30:16
a thing. He then confessed to all of the murders,
30:19
giving details of each one very matter of factly. He
30:23
did not seem to have any sort of emotion about it,
30:26
and even when asked about the emotion, he kind of
30:30
was like, no, I didn't like it. I didn't dislike it.
30:32
It's just it is what it is. It's sort of
30:35
kind of how he approached the situation, which I find,
30:38
you know, deeply disturbing. It would almost be better if
30:41
he said he enjoyed it, because then at least there
30:44
would be some sort of reasoning for what he did.
30:46
But he definitely did not do that, and he just
30:49
kind of said, yeah, it is what it is, and
30:51
this is why I did it. I just wanted to
30:54
so pretty pretty fucked up. Sorry, if you guys hear
30:59
my dog's bar working in the background, there's no good
31:01
place for me to record today, but I'm doing my
31:03
best anyway. So Carrie then was arrested and tried. He
31:08
was tried in federal court for Joey Armstrong's murder because
31:11
it happened on federal land. He actually worked out a
31:14
plea deal there and avoided the death sentence because he
31:18
pled guilty to first agree murder fell any first agree murder,
31:21
which I didn't know was different kidnapping resulting in death
31:25
and attempted aggravated sexual assault resulting in death. He was
31:29
given life without parole for this, and in a really
31:33
weird twist of events, he broke down in tears in
31:36
the courtroom and apologized. He said, quote, I wish I
31:40
could take it back, but I can't. I wish I
31:42
could tell you why I did such a thing, but
31:43
I don't even know myself. I'm so sorry. I wish
31:46
there was a reason, but there isn't. It's senseless. Joey's
31:52
mother began crying as well, so they were both crying
31:55
in the courtroom, and afterwards she said that she believed
31:58
his apology was genuine, and I have to say, like,
32:02
knowing what I know about him, I do believe there
32:04
are two sides to him one that is very deeply
32:07
evil and the other that is just like a wounded person.
32:10
And so I do believe that it could be genuine.
32:14
Do I think that means that he wouldn't do it again. No,
32:16
I do think he would probably do it again. But
32:19
you know, they say oftentimes that serial killers and murderers
32:22
want to be caught because they are deeply conflicted about
32:25
what they're doing. And I think that after getting away
32:28
with the first murder, he did the opposite with the
32:32
second murder. He made it very very easy to catch him.
32:36
And I don't believe that was on accident, because obviously
32:39
he knows how to hide what he's doing. So I
32:43
think there's this sort of fight between good and evil
32:46
going on inside of him. Anyway, the other murders were
32:51
just California because they happened just in a California town,
32:55
So he was not getting the same plea deal for
32:59
these ones. So for these he pleaded not guilty by
33:02
reason of insanity. They said, you know, the mental illness
33:06
and sexual abuse, compulsive obsessive compulsive disorder, you know, all
33:10
of this stuff. They even pointed to him asking for
33:12
child porn in his confession as like a show that
33:15
like he doesn't know right from wrong, or he doesn't
33:18
understand what he's doing is wrong. Obviously, I do think
33:22
that that is not true. You can have mental illnesses
33:27
and still know what you're doing is wrong, and I
33:29
think his apologizing for the murder of Joey's sort of
33:32
shows that he does know what he did was wrong.
33:35
So in any case, he was found guilty of first
33:39
degree murder with special circumstances. He was found or three
33:43
counts of first degree murder and one count of kidnapping
33:46
August twenty seventh, two thousand and two, and he was
33:49
given the death penalty. He of course has not been
33:53
put to death because there is a moratorium on executions
33:58
in the state of California. So so, I mean, the
34:00
last time anyone was put to death in California was
34:02
two thousand and six, which feels way too recent for
34:05
me personally, but not since then, and there is no
34:09
plan to resume executions. Obviously, if we get a different governor,
34:14
something could happen, but as of right now, he's sitting
34:18
pretty on death row and we'll never see freedom again
34:23
as long as he lives, however long that may be,
34:25
and whatever happens to him. So that's got the conclusion
34:29
of this crazy tale of two brothers who both had
34:33
very unfortunate beginnings and very tragic ends in different ways.
34:39
I hope you guys enjoyed this story and that I
34:41
covered it well and did justice to all of the
34:44
victims and the family, the families and the Stainer family
34:48
in fact, and whatever the hell is going on with them.
34:52
Thanks again for listening. Please like, rate review, share with
34:55
your friends and family, and until next week, stay safe.