Latest / Beyond The Horizon / Mega Edition: Cary Stayner And The Yosemite Village Murders (9/17/26)

Transcript

Mega Edition: Cary Stayner And The Yosemite Village Murders (9/17/26) · Beyond The Horizon

0:00
Speaker 1: And welcome back to the program recently we were talking
0:04
Speaker 1: about Stephen Stainer and the incredible story about how he
0:08
Speaker 1: was kidnapped and then escaped after seven years in captivity
0:13
Speaker 1: well I want to follow that up with talking about
0:16
Speaker 1: his brother Cary Stainer who is remembered for something a
0:21
Speaker 1: lot more horrific So let's jump into this article from OutsideOnline.com
0:29
Speaker 1: and let's go back to 1999 and let's dive into
0:33
Speaker 1: this long and extensive article. Get yourselves a cold beverage,
0:39
Speaker 1: a little snack, and buckle up. This article was authored
0:43
Speaker 1: by Joshua Hammer. Headline, The Yosemite Horror. In a setting
0:50
Speaker 1: of beauty and grandeur, a twisted soul was on the loose.
0:54
Speaker 1: A murderer who revived gnawing fears that our national parks
1:00
Speaker 1: are no longer safe. New evidence reveals the confessed killer's
1:04
Speaker 1: tortured past and his bizarre obsession with Bigfoot. So right there,
1:10
Speaker 1: right off the jump, even if this didn't have anything
1:13
Speaker 1: to do with the Stephen Stainer story, You're dealing with
1:16
Speaker 1: somebody who's a bit of a, let's say, bizarre, right?
1:20
Speaker 1: When people start talking to me about Bigfoot, my eyes
1:23
Speaker 1: glaze over.
1:24
Speaker 2: I just can't do it.
1:25
Speaker 1: If there was a gigantic ape-like creature running around in
1:28
Speaker 1: the forests, where are all the clear pictures of this
1:32
Speaker 1: ape-like creature? So, on Thursday morning, July 22nd, Dr. Desmond Kidd,
1:38
Speaker 1: Yosemite National Park's medical director, had just finished a busy
1:42
Speaker 1: 24-hour shift at the park's clinic. It was, after all,
1:47
Speaker 1: the height of summer tourist season, and the 36-year-old physician
1:51
Speaker 1: was beat. But not long after he arrived back at
1:54
Speaker 1: the log cabin he shared with other park employees in
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Speaker 1: Yosemite Village, his pager went off. Kidd called into the
2:02
Speaker 1: park dispatcher and was asked to join a search for
2:05
Speaker 1: a missing person. A search, the dispatcher said, with law
2:10
Speaker 1: enforcement implications. Now, Probably not the call you want to
2:15
Speaker 1: get over the radio.
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Speaker 2: Right. If you're the park doctor.
2:18
Speaker 1: And so he's hanging out down in Yosemite Village, which
2:23
Speaker 1: is where all of the action takes place as far
2:26
Speaker 1: as commerce and, you know, people living. And obviously it's
2:30
Speaker 1: a lot different now than it used to be.
2:32
Speaker 2: But still.
2:35
Speaker 1: In two and a half years of working in Yosemite,
2:37
Speaker 1: Kidd had helped rescue a number of hikers who had
2:40
Speaker 1: lost their way. But before he headed out of Yosemite
2:43
Speaker 1: Village in a convoy of four-wheel drive vehicles towards the
2:49
Speaker 1: nearby hamlet of Foresta, he learned that this search was different.
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Speaker 1: Five months earlier, three female tourists had vanished from their
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Speaker 1: hotel room at the Cedar Lodge near Yosemite's entrance and
3:02
Speaker 1: had been found a month later brutally murdered. Now, Kidd
3:07
Speaker 1: was told, another young woman had disappeared. Joy Ruth Armstrong, 26,
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Speaker 1: a strawberry blonde naturalist at the nearby Yosemite Institute and
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Speaker 1: a casual acquaintance of Kidd's, had been planning to spend
3:22
Speaker 1: the weekend visiting friends in Sausalito. Armstrong had never shown up,
3:28
Speaker 1: and her friends feared something had happened to her.
3:31
Speaker 2: Well, when you have.
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Speaker 1: Other murders that have already occurred at the park, it
3:36
Speaker 1: definitely stokes the fear. And it's certainly something you have
3:41
Speaker 1: in the back of your mind if you're going on
3:43
Speaker 1: a trip here, right? You know, oh shit, a couple
3:45
Speaker 1: people have been murdered, taken out.
3:47
Speaker 2: Of their hotel rooms.
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Speaker 1: So, especially females that are traveling without men.
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Speaker 2: And you hear this kind of news?
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Speaker 1: Certainly not good for the tourism of the park, and
4:02
Speaker 1: certainly not news that anybody wants to hear, that's for
4:05
Speaker 1: damn sure. Turning left off the main Yosemite Highway, Kidd
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Speaker 1: steered his Jeep down an unmarked road into Foresta. 30 cabins,
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Speaker 1: inhabited mostly by park employees, scattered across the bottom of
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Speaker 1: a wooden glen. A forest fire had roared through the
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Speaker 1: area in 1990 and many of the pine trees here
4:28
Speaker 1: were still blackened and skeletal. When I was in Yosemite
4:32
Speaker 1: last in 2000 and I want to say 16, it
4:37
Speaker 1: was they had a controlled fire area where they had
4:41
Speaker 1: a fire rip through and it was like that. You
4:44
Speaker 1: could see all of the skeletal remains of these trees.
4:48
Speaker 1: And it was pretty stark in contrast to all of
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Speaker 1: the other big trees and the green lush trees all
4:54
Speaker 1: over the place. So it's pretty crazy when you see
4:57
Speaker 1: these big burned out spots, either from controlled burns or
5:02
Speaker 1: from forest fires.
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Speaker 2: For the past year.
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Speaker 1: Armstrong had lived with her boyfriend, another Yosemite Institute naturalist,
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Speaker 1: along with a second roommate, in a green cabin set
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Speaker 1: by itself at the edge of a golden meadow. Rangers
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Speaker 1: had cordoned off the area around Armstrong's secluded house with
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Speaker 1: yellow police tape. Her white pickup truck was still parked
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Speaker 1: in the driveway, packed with her luggage, for her trip.
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Speaker 1: So she didn't even get a chance to go on
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Speaker 1: the trip before she was kidnapped and murdered.
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Speaker 2: And her friend here, Dr. Kidd, imagine?
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Speaker 1: You're just going about your business of your day, down
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Speaker 1: at the village, waiting for somebody to break their arm,
5:46
Speaker 1: some sprains, some burns, whatever it is. You know, food poisoning,
5:50
Speaker 1: someone got, you know, poison ivy. You don't expect to
5:54
Speaker 1: get the call to go join a search party, to
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Speaker 1: go and look for somebody you know. Having decided to
6:01
Speaker 1: begin their search in the immediate area, the squad split
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Speaker 1: up into five groups. Kidd and four other members of
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Speaker 1: the search party walked the woods along Crane Creek. Beneath
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Speaker 1: the hot noonday sun, they bushwhacked through the dense brush,
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Speaker 1: watching for rattlesnakes and looking for signs of the missing woman.
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Speaker 1: After only a few minutes, they spotted footprints, broken saplings,
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Speaker 1: trampled ferns, and grass. All evidence of a recent run,
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Speaker 1: perhaps a chase, through the woods. Suddenly, one of the
6:34
Speaker 1: rangers noticed something metallic.
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Speaker 2: What's that, he asked.
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Speaker 1: So, you know, you run through the woods in one
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Speaker 1: of these densely populated areas, and there's trees everywhere, limbs, brush.
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Speaker 1: You can tell that somebody has come through here. And
6:49
Speaker 1: especially for these park rangers and naturalists, they know what
6:53
Speaker 1: they're looking for, right? In a narrow ditch filled with
6:58
Speaker 1: three feet of still water, Kit spotted a key ring
7:02
Speaker 1: glinting in the sun. Just beyond it lay something else.
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Speaker 1: A woman's body clad in a white t-shirt and blue jeans.
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Speaker 1: As Kidd drew closer, he noticed something that really made
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Speaker 1: him gag. Jesus, he said, and ran back to the
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Speaker 1: ranger in charge. We have an 1144, he said, using
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Speaker 1: the police code for a dead body. And she's been decapitated.
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Speaker 1: So imagine this scene. You're at Yosemite National Park. And
7:31
Speaker 1: for those of you who have never been there, it's
7:32
Speaker 1: one of the most incredibly beautiful places... I've ever been.
7:37
Speaker 1: You have just an epic, epic place of gigantic mountains,
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Speaker 1: running water, animals everywhere.
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Speaker 2: Such a peaceful, beautiful place.
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Speaker 1: I don't even understand how anyone could be moved to
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Speaker 1: violence in a place like this. It's almost religious for
7:58
Speaker 1: me when I'm in a place like Yosemite. You know,
8:02
Speaker 1: it's crazy that people are You can decapitate somebody here?
8:07
Speaker 1: I mean, anywhere, honestly, but in a place like this,
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Speaker 1: shouldn't you be going here and be calm, relaxed, enjoying yourself?
8:15
Speaker 1: Even my dad, who is from the Bronx and hates
8:18
Speaker 1: the outdoors, literally hates the outdoors, doesn't want to go
8:22
Speaker 1: on any kind of camping trip, doesn't want to go
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Speaker 1: ever outdoors. I got him to go to Yosemite on
8:27
Speaker 1: this trip when we went. Me, him, my mom, and
8:31
Speaker 1: my girlfriend went. And my dad was even blown away
8:34
Speaker 1: by what he was seeing. The people climbing El Cap,
8:38
Speaker 1: it was just, I mean, it's almost a religious experience
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Speaker 1: for some people. For law enforcement and park officials in
8:47
Speaker 1: and around Yosemite, the gruesome discovery of Armstrong's corpse marked
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Speaker 1: the return of a nightmare that most had thought was
8:55
Speaker 1: long over. Five months earlier, the disappearance of Yosemite visitors,
9:00
Speaker 1: Carol Sund, 42, of Eureka, California, her daughter, Julie, 15,
9:06
Speaker 1: and Julie's friend, Silvina Peloso, a 16-year-old visiting from Argentina,
9:12
Speaker 1: had touched off one of the biggest searches in the
9:15
Speaker 1: history of the Sierra Nevada. The three tourists had last
9:20
Speaker 1: been seen on February 15th at the Cedar Lodge, just
9:24
Speaker 1: outside the park, and evidence at the motel indicated that
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Speaker 1: they had been abducted. Now, how terrifying is that shit?
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Speaker 1: Right outside of the park? And these people are abducted.
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Speaker 1: So you think there's a calm, right? Five months go by.
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Speaker 2: All right. Maybe it was a one-off.
9:45
Speaker 1: Maybe the person who did this is long gone and
9:48
Speaker 1: they're never coming back. You get lulled into a sense
9:51
Speaker 1: of security almost, right? Then bam, this other woman is found.
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Speaker 2: Now it's four.
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Speaker 1: For weeks, hundreds of FBI agents, California Highway Patrol officers,
10:08
Speaker 1: and National Park Service rangers combed Yosemite's rugged backcountry with
10:13
Speaker 1: dogs and helicopters. Two dozen FBI agents commandeered part.
10:17
Speaker 2: Of the headquarters... of the.
10:19
Speaker 1: Stanislaw Hotshots, a forest fire fighting squad based in the
10:24
Speaker 1: old gold rush town of Sonora, to sift through the
10:27
Speaker 1: little evidence they had been able to collect. TV crews
10:31
Speaker 1: and reporters swarmed over the Yosemite region and descended on
10:36
Speaker 1: the Modesto Holiday Inn, where the families of the missing
10:39
Speaker 1: tourists maintained a vigil. I remember when this was happening
10:44
Speaker 1: on the news.
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Speaker 2: It was crazy.
10:46
Speaker 1: Obviously, I wasn't into the news as much back then.
10:48
Speaker 1: I was 19 years old or whatever. But I remember
10:52
Speaker 1: seeing it on the headline news and stuff and saying,
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Speaker 1: what the hell?
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Speaker 2: Who does that?
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Speaker 1: Who kidnaps three people, burns them in a car? And
11:01
Speaker 1: now to think back. There was like a whole, it
11:06
Speaker 1: was a whole thing, right? It was national attention. It
11:09
Speaker 1: really caught the nation and people were really interested in
11:14
Speaker 1: finding out who the hell this murderer was and getting
11:17
Speaker 1: some justice for these people. On March 19th, a hiker
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Speaker 1: found a burned out Pontiac on a logging road near
11:26
Speaker 1: the northeastern edge of the park, about 100 miles from
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Speaker 1: the Cedar Lodge. It was Carol Sun's missing rental car,
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Speaker 1: and her charred, bound body was found stuffed in the
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Speaker 1: trunk alongside the.
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Speaker 2: Body of Peloso.
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Speaker 1: One week later, the FBI, acting on an anonymous tip,
11:44
Speaker 1: discovered Julie Sun's corpse dumped in a heavy underbrush by
11:48
Speaker 1: an overlook on the Don Pedro Reservoir several miles from
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Speaker 1: the logging trail where the car had been found. Her
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Speaker 1: throat had been cut. So he took Julie away from
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Speaker 1: the other two and did whatever he did. You imagine
12:07
Speaker 1: the terror, this poor girl, her mom. I can't even,
12:13
Speaker 1: it's not even something that you can fathom, right? Being
12:17
Speaker 1: in a position like this, a situation like this. And
12:20
Speaker 1: as somebody who hikes, this is always like my biggest fear.
12:23
Speaker 1: stumbling on something like this, like a dead body or, man,
12:27
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I would do because half
12:28
Speaker 1: the places I'm at, I have no phone service. So
12:31
Speaker 1: I'd have to, you know, trek back out and get
12:35
Speaker 1: to a place with phone service to call back. It's
12:39
Speaker 1: crazy to even think about. The murders were particularly unsettling,
12:45
Speaker 1: of course, because of where and how they occurred. Not
12:49
Speaker 1: only do such crimes violate our sense of an idyllic setting,
12:53
Speaker 1: but they represent everyone's worst wilderness nightmare come true. The
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Speaker 1: unseen predator who creeps out of the darkness and then
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Speaker 1: disappears back into the shadows of the forest without a trace.
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Speaker 1: It hardly helped that fears are belied by statistics. Of
13:10
Speaker 1: the 4 million visitors to Yosemite last year, just 15
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Speaker 1: were victims of violent crimes, a 70% drop from six
13:17
Speaker 1: years earlier. And I just don't get it. Again, crimes
13:21
Speaker 1: at national parks is just so foreign to me, but
13:24
Speaker 1: I know it happens. And I know that people do
13:28
Speaker 1: go crazy and kill people and murder people in national parks,
13:32
Speaker 1: but I just don't understand how you're in a place
13:36
Speaker 1: like this and that's what you want to do. Homicides
13:43
Speaker 1: in the 54 national parks are rare. Indeed, 64.5 million
13:47
Speaker 1: visitors thronged through the parks in 1998, and remarkably, there
13:52
Speaker 1: were no murders. Before Armstrong's death, the last homicide inside
13:56
Speaker 1: Yosemite's boundaries occurred in 1987 when a man pitched his
14:01
Speaker 1: wife off a precipice to collect on her insurance policy.
14:05
Speaker 1: According to a statistician at the University of Florida, the
14:08
Speaker 1: odds of being murdered in a national park in 1995
14:12
Speaker 1: were about 1 in 20 million. Less than the odds
14:15
Speaker 1: of drowning in one's own bathtub. And that just speaks
14:19
Speaker 1: to the fact of what I'm talking about. If you
14:21
Speaker 1: go to national parks enough, and you're camping, and you're hiking,
14:24
Speaker 1: and you're trekking, and you're adventuring, you meet a bunch
14:27
Speaker 1: of people, and I've never met anyone, I'm not even being,
14:31
Speaker 1: you know, silly here when I say this, I've never
14:33
Speaker 1: met anyone where I've been, oh man, this person's off.
14:37
Speaker 1: I need to keep an eye on this person. In fact,
14:40
Speaker 1: Whenever we go to a campsite, like a public campsite,
14:45
Speaker 1: it'll be the same story, right? People are cool as hell.
14:49
Speaker 1: People will come over to our campfire. We'll talk to them.
14:51
Speaker 1: We'll go to their campfire, whatever it is. And it's
14:55
Speaker 1: all fun. I don't ever worry about leaving my gear
14:58
Speaker 1: at the campsite. Never mind worried about getting murdered. Until
15:03
Speaker 1: the Yosemite murders, perhaps the most terrifying crime against women
15:07
Speaker 1: in the national parks occurred in May of 1996, when
15:11
Speaker 1: two experienced backpackers, Julianne Williams, 24, and Lolly Winans, 26,
15:18
Speaker 1: were knifed to death at their campsite a few hundred
15:20
Speaker 1: yards off the Appalachian Trail in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park.
15:26
Speaker 1: The two women, Had been out for a five day
15:29
Speaker 1: circuit hike. In the park when they were attacked. No
15:32
Speaker 1: suspect has been arrested. In those killings. So we're going
15:36
Speaker 1: to talk about those. At some point too. As we
15:39
Speaker 1: talk about some other national park.
15:42
Speaker 2: You know.
15:43
Speaker 1: Missing people and stuff like that. It's definitely a story.
15:47
Speaker 1: We're going to add to the catalog.
15:49
Speaker 2: At some point.
15:50
Speaker 1: Because it's another one of these unsolved mysteries. An unsolved murder.
15:55
Speaker 1: Seems to me that there sure are a lot of those.
15:59
Speaker 1: With the murders in Yosemite Valley, the dual nature of
16:02
Speaker 1: the wilderness, the threat lurking behind the beauty, came again
16:06
Speaker 1: into unnerving focus. By last spring, the FBI was centering
16:10
Speaker 1: its investigation on two suspects from Modesto, ex-convicts and methamphetamine
16:16
Speaker 1: users who had violent run-ins with the police in the
16:19
Speaker 1: days after the Sons and Peloso vanished. Michael Larwick and
16:24
Speaker 1: his half-brother Eugene Dykes were both being held in the
16:27
Speaker 1: Modesto County Jail, Larwick, on charges of shooting a Modesto
16:31
Speaker 1: police officer, Dykes, for drug possession and parole violations. On background,
16:37
Speaker 1: FBI agents told reporters the two men had been linked
16:40
Speaker 1: to the murders through acrylic fibers analyzed at the FBI
16:44
Speaker 1: laboratory in Washington and through self-incriminating statements made by Dykes.
16:51
Speaker 1: In June, the chief of the FBI's Sacramento office, James M. Maddock,
16:56
Speaker 1: confidently announced that we have all of the main players
17:00
Speaker 1: in jail, but we are in no rush to charge them.
17:03
Speaker 1: The hubris by law enforcement sometimes just makes me just
17:07
Speaker 1: shake my head.
17:08
Speaker 2: You have all the players, huh?
17:09
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, they didn't have the player, and the person who
17:12
Speaker 1: was responsible was still running free, and in fact was
17:18
Speaker 1: right in their grasp. Then Armstrong's mutilated body was discovered.
17:25
Speaker 1: Although the clumsiness of that crime contrasted sharply with the
17:30
Speaker 1: methodical cover-up that followed the Sund Palaso murders, Armstrong's beheading
17:35
Speaker 1: spread fear through Yosemite that the killings were connected and
17:40
Speaker 1: that the FBI's investigation had gone awry. Park rangers received
17:44
Speaker 1: a flood of phone calls from parents and youth group
17:47
Speaker 1: leaders asking if certain areas of the park should be avoided.
17:51
Speaker 1: Requests for guided hikes, especially from women, rose sharply. It's
17:57
Speaker 1: the same story that you'll see if there's a serial
17:59
Speaker 1: killer on the loose, like when Son of Sam was
18:02
Speaker 1: going bonkers in New York. Nobody was going out by themselves, right?
18:08
Speaker 1: And certainly nobody was hanging out in the car. Almost immediately,
18:13
Speaker 1: authorities received a lucky break. A park employee had noticed
18:17
Speaker 1: a blue and white 1979 International Scout parked near Armstrong's
18:22
Speaker 1: house the night of her death, and police had issued
18:25
Speaker 1: a be-on-the-lookout alert for the vehicle. On the afternoon of
18:29
Speaker 1: July 22nd, two rangers spotted the Scout parked on the
18:33
Speaker 1: shoulder of California 140 in the Merced River County, about
18:38
Speaker 1: 12 miles from the western entrance of the park. Descending
18:42
Speaker 1: to the rocky riverbank, one of the rangers, accompanied by
18:46
Speaker 1: a Mariposa County detective, came upon a handsome, solidly built
18:50
Speaker 1: man smoking a joint and sunbathing in the nude. Dude's
18:54
Speaker 1: having the time of his life, huh? Let me just
18:56
Speaker 1: go ahead and get rid of all my clothes, hang
18:59
Speaker 1: out right here, you know, in the middle of the wilderness,
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Speaker 1: in the buff, and puff on this bone and just
19:06
Speaker 1: hang out for a little bit after I murdered a
19:08
Speaker 1: bunch of people. He calmly identified himself as Cary Stainer
19:13
Speaker 1: and said he was employed as a handyman at the
19:16
Speaker 1: Cedar Lodge. The officers confiscated his marijuana and let him go.
19:20
Speaker 1: I bet you those cops smoked it. But shortly after
19:23
Speaker 1: that encounter, FBI investigators compared tire tracks at the crime
19:27
Speaker 1: scene with photographs of Stainer's treads, and they got a
19:31
Speaker 1: perfect match. Two days later, the handyman was eating lunch
19:36
Speaker 1: at Laguna del Sol, a clothing optional resort near Sacramento,
19:40
Speaker 1: when the cops took him into custody, drove him to Sacramento,
19:44
Speaker 1: and booked him on suspicion of murder. Stainer, 38, confessed
19:48
Speaker 1: to the murder of Joy Ruth Armacost. and then dropped
19:52
Speaker 1: the bombshell. He had also abducted and murdered Carol and
19:56
Speaker 1: Julie Sund and Silvina Peloso. He told the FBI that
20:01
Speaker 1: he had fantasized about hurting women since he was a
20:04
Speaker 1: child and that he had been unable to stop his
20:07
Speaker 1: compulsion to kill. All right, folks, that's going to do
20:11
Speaker 1: it for part one. Part two will be on its
20:15
Speaker 1: way very, very shortly. If you'd like to contact me,
20:19
Speaker 1: you can do that at bobbycapucci at protonmail.com. That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I
20:27
Speaker 1: at protonmail.com. You can also find me on Twitter at
20:31
Speaker 1: B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The link that we discussed in this
20:38
Speaker 1: episode can be found in the description box. What's up
20:41
Speaker 1: everyone and welcome back to the program. In this episode,
20:45
Speaker 1: we're going to pick up where we left off with
20:48
Speaker 1: the Carrie Stainer story. So, let's jump right back into
20:53
Speaker 1: this article from OutsideOnline.com. For five months, it now appeared,
21:01
Speaker 1: the killer had been living under the noses of investigators,
21:06
Speaker 1: fixing leaks and handing out bed linens at the Cedar Lodge,
21:10
Speaker 1: until the urge to murder had struck again. Agents had
21:14
Speaker 1: interviewed Stainer twice in the early stages of the probe,
21:17
Speaker 1: but had dismissed him as a suspect. He seemed like
21:20
Speaker 1: too nice of a guy, too ordinary, they said. Not
21:23
Speaker 1: only that, but Stainer's background... his own family had been
21:27
Speaker 1: victimized by similar monstrous crimes, made the idea that he
21:32
Speaker 1: had metamorphosed into a violent predator almost unimaginable. So their instinct, right,
21:39
Speaker 1: their gut instinct, the police, was it couldn't be Cary
21:42
Speaker 1: Stainer who committed these murders. He's already went through his
21:46
Speaker 1: own situation where his brother was kidnapped. It's almost unthinkable
21:52
Speaker 1: that somebody would then go on to commit these kinds
21:56
Speaker 1: of crimes. Cary Anthony Stainer was born in Merced, California,
22:04
Speaker 1: an agricultural town of 65,000 people that sprawls across the
22:09
Speaker 1: eastern flank of the San Joaquin Valley and calls itself
22:13
Speaker 1: the gateway to Yosemite. Stainer, his three sisters, and his
22:18
Speaker 1: younger brother were raised in a little green shingled house
22:22
Speaker 1: on Bett Street, a lower middle class neighborhood at the
22:25
Speaker 1: edge of town. Delbert Stainer, their father, was a mechanic,
22:29
Speaker 1: who worked for various canneries. Their mother, Kay, ran a
22:33
Speaker 1: daycare business and worked at food service jobs and high
22:36
Speaker 1: school cafeterias. So you're run-of-the-mill, basic, average growing up, right?
22:42
Speaker 1: Lower middle class upbringing, dad's working class, blue-collar guy, wake
22:46
Speaker 1: up every morning, put on his work boots, head out
22:49
Speaker 1: to work. Could have been anyone's life, basically. Merced is
22:55
Speaker 1: the kind of place where Residents pride themselves on being
22:59
Speaker 1: free from the urban ills that beset Los Angeles and
23:02
Speaker 1: San Francisco. But in December of 1972, the Stainer's family's
23:09
Speaker 1: own sense of security was disrupted forever, with results that
23:13
Speaker 1: many believe helped shape the person Stainer became. Carrie's younger brother,
23:20
Speaker 1: seven-year-old Steven, disappeared without a trace one afternoon while walking
23:24
Speaker 1: home from school, alone down the Yosemite Highway. The distraught
23:29
Speaker 1: parents became consumed by the quest to find him. They
23:32
Speaker 1: put up billboards, passed out leaflets, consulted psychics, and according
23:37
Speaker 1: to family friends, were never the same again.
23:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think? I mean, imagine your kid goes missing.
23:44
Speaker 1: I would think that it would change you in a
23:46
Speaker 1: way and in a manner that could never be fixed. Kay,
23:54
Speaker 1: a Roman Catholic who raised her family as Mormons, became
23:57
Speaker 1: cold and distant, seldom displaying physical affection toward her children.
24:03
Speaker 1: Delbert was openly devastated by the loss of his favorite son. Carrie,
24:08
Speaker 1: who was 11 when his brother disappeared, would sometimes find
24:11
Speaker 1: his father rummaging through Stephen's dresser drawers, weeping. Stephen had
24:17
Speaker 1: been the apple of his father's eye, a close family
24:19
Speaker 1: friend says. Mike Eccles, author of the 1991 book, I
24:24
Speaker 1: Know My First Name Is Steven, about the Stainer case,
24:27
Speaker 1: wrote that Delbert once chewed Carrie out for painting over
24:31
Speaker 1: the name Steven that his younger brother had scratched into
24:34
Speaker 1: the garage door. So, the thought is that this whole
24:40
Speaker 1: entire scenario where Steven was kidnapped and held hostage, that
24:46
Speaker 1: played a huge part in Carrie Stainer becoming sick animal
24:51
Speaker 1: that he became. But we know from his own words
24:54
Speaker 1: that he's had these feelings and these thoughts of hurting
24:59
Speaker 1: and murdering since he was a little kid. So I
25:02
Speaker 1: don't know how much I put into that. Maybe it
25:04
Speaker 1: was something that helped him along the way become more
25:09
Speaker 1: of a detached psychopath. But Some people are just broken,
25:13
Speaker 1: like we talk about all the time. You come off
25:15
Speaker 1: the conveyor belt and you're just busted. Well, that's certainly
25:19
Speaker 1: this dude here. He is one of them people that
25:22
Speaker 1: was broken anyway. And this was just a, you know,
25:27
Speaker 1: what ignited him into becoming somebody who put his fantasies
25:32
Speaker 1: into reality. From the time Carrie was a small boy,
25:37
Speaker 1: the Stainer family vacationed together in Yosemite and the surrounding
25:41
Speaker 1: high country. piling into the family van and driving 60
25:45
Speaker 1: miles east to camp, fish, and hunt in the mountains.
25:49
Speaker 1: Carey entered his teen years as an avid and accomplished outdoorsman.
25:54
Speaker 1: In high school, he also found a measure of self-expression
25:58
Speaker 1: as the cartoonist for the high school newspaper The Statesman,
26:01
Speaker 1: showing so much promise that classmates assumed he would someday
26:06
Speaker 1: draw his own comic strip professionally. His cartoons are scattered
26:10
Speaker 1: throughout the 1979 yearbook. Humorous pictures of his fellow students
26:16
Speaker 1: playing tennis, done with a deaf style, and a cheerfulness
26:20
Speaker 1: that offers no insight into the mind of a future
26:23
Speaker 1: serial killer. These guys are great chameleons. These serial killers
26:28
Speaker 1: and people who end up becoming serial killers, they're able
26:31
Speaker 1: to hide inside of society and sometimes even within their
26:35
Speaker 1: own family unit without anyone even knowing who or what
26:38
Speaker 1: they are. That's what makes them so dangerous. And that's
26:41
Speaker 1: why they're able to kill for so long without getting caught.
26:46
Speaker 1: But besides from those flights of fancy, Stainer is remembered
26:51
Speaker 1: as shy and self-effacing. In a yearbook photo of the
26:55
Speaker 1: statesman's staff, Stainer is half obscured in the back row,
26:59
Speaker 1: his skinny frame in a slouch, his head covered by
27:02
Speaker 1: a baseball cap. Jack Bungert, the paper's sports editor, once
27:07
Speaker 1: tried to engage him in a conversation about his brother.
27:10
Speaker 1: He made it clear that he didn't want to talk
27:11
Speaker 1: about it. Calls Bungert, well, can you blame him for that?
27:15
Speaker 1: Why would this dude think it's a good idea to
27:18
Speaker 1: try and talk to him about his brother who went
27:21
Speaker 1: missing and probably not the conversational starter piece you should use.
27:28
Speaker 1: On March 2nd, 1980, Cary Stainer was returning from a
27:31
Speaker 1: camping trip in Yosemite with friends when he heard a
27:34
Speaker 1: radio report that 14-year-old Steven had escaped from his abductor
27:39
Speaker 1: and would be arriving in Merced that afternoon. Carrie later
27:43
Speaker 1: told reporters that he almost drove his car into the
27:45
Speaker 1: Merced River in excitement. That day, Stephen came home to
27:50
Speaker 1: a hero's welcome and moved back into the tiny bedroom
27:54
Speaker 1: he had shared with Carrie. Carrie's euphoria over his brother's
27:58
Speaker 1: return soon faded. Stephen became a celebrity. There was a
28:03
Speaker 1: national newspaper and television coverage, as well as a book
28:07
Speaker 1: and TV miniseries chronicling Steve in seven years as the
28:12
Speaker 1: sex slave of Kenneth Parnell, a drifter, convicted pedophile, and
28:17
Speaker 1: former employee of the Yosemite Lodge inside the National Park.
28:22
Speaker 2: Isn't that nice? Real comforting.
28:25
Speaker 1: Hopefully they've changed their hiring practices before I go back
28:29
Speaker 1: to Yosemite later this summer. Carrie simmered silently. So he
28:34
Speaker 1: saw his brother getting all of these accolades. He saw everybody,
28:38
Speaker 1: you know, loving on his brother and he didn't like it.
28:40
Speaker 1: He felt jealous and that switch inside of him was ignited. Oh, well,
28:47
Speaker 1: he got all of this notoriety by being kidnapped. Maybe
28:50
Speaker 1: if I do something like this on the flip side,
28:53
Speaker 1: maybe if I'm the kidnapper, well, maybe I'll get some
28:57
Speaker 1: of this notoriety as well. Maybe people will want to
28:59
Speaker 1: talk about me too. And when you have that kind
29:02
Speaker 1: of psyche and you're already mentally fragile, it doesn't take
29:07
Speaker 1: much to launch.
29:08
Speaker 2: You into orbit.
29:10
Speaker 1: In an interview with J.P. Miller, a screenwriter who spent
29:14
Speaker 1: a long period with the Stainers doing research for the
29:16
Speaker 1: 1989 NBC miniseries, he vented his frustrations.
29:20
Speaker 2: About his brother.
29:22
Speaker 1: His head was all bloated out, Carey told Miller. We
29:25
Speaker 1: never really got along well after he came back. All
29:28
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Steve was getting all these gifts, getting
29:31
Speaker 1: all this clothing, getting all this attention. I guess I
29:34
Speaker 1: was jealous. I'm sure I was. I got put on
29:36
Speaker 1: the back burner, you might say. So he couldn't abide
29:39
Speaker 1: by it. that. And instead of being on the back burner,
29:45
Speaker 1: being in the background, he decided that he was going
29:48
Speaker 1: to do something about it. By then, Stainer, in his
29:52
Speaker 1: early 20s, had abandoned any ambitions he may have had.
29:55
Speaker 1: He showed me his cartoons, Miller says. I said, why
29:58
Speaker 1: don't you submit some of this stuff to colleges? Maybe
30:01
Speaker 1: you'll get a scholarship. He said, nah, I don't think
30:04
Speaker 1: they'd like this stuff. He didn't feel he had a chance.
30:07
Speaker 1: He stayed in his room and smoked grass, and he
30:09
Speaker 1: went out camping in the mountains with his pals. The
30:12
Speaker 1: mountains were the only place where he could have some
30:14
Speaker 1: freedom to feel like a person and take control of
30:17
Speaker 1: his destiny. Well, the mountains do provide that for a
30:20
Speaker 1: lot of people who might not feel comfortable in society
30:24
Speaker 1: or people who might be bullied or not fit in.
30:28
Speaker 1: The mountains certainly provide a place for you to go
30:31
Speaker 1: and forget about all of that. It was around this
30:36
Speaker 1: time that Stainer surprised friends and family members by claiming
30:41
Speaker 1: to have seen Bigfoot, the legendary half-man, half-ape of the
30:45
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest that the Indians of British Columbia had called Sasquatch.
30:50
Speaker 1: He talked about Bigfoot all the time, recalls Kathy Amy,
30:55
Speaker 1: Stainer's cousin.
30:56
Speaker 2: He absolutely knew that it existed. You couldn't have told
31:00
Speaker 2: him anything different. Oh boy. Really, Bigfoot? I mean, look.
31:06
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Like most situations, I'm pretty agnostic, right?
31:11
Speaker 1: But you mean to tell me in all these years,
31:14
Speaker 1: all of these Bigfoot sightings, we don't have any quality pictures?
31:18
Speaker 1: Everybody has a camera on their phone now. Every phone
31:21
Speaker 1: is 150 bazillion megapixels.
31:24
Speaker 2: So we don't have one single decent picture of Bigfoot.
31:29
Speaker 1: But you want me to believe that this gigantic ape-like
31:32
Speaker 1: creature is lurking around in the forests of America? Well,
31:36
Speaker 1: my friends, that is a bridge too far. The effectless
31:42
Speaker 1: way that Stainer talked about the creature made it difficult
31:45
Speaker 1: to know whether he feared it or identified with it.
31:49
Speaker 1: At the very least, however, it seemed a mark of
31:52
Speaker 1: the whole that the wilderness had over Stainer's imagination, taking
31:57
Speaker 1: him far from the oppressive atmosphere of Bet Street. And
32:01
Speaker 1: for kids or people who were bullied... They're always looking
32:04
Speaker 1: for that place where they can go and be safe, right?
32:07
Speaker 1: The comfort of the wilderness or the comfort of the familiar.
32:13
Speaker 1: Stainer would later tell both the FBI and a San
32:16
Speaker 1: Jose TV reporter that he had first violent fantasies about
32:20
Speaker 1: women when he was seven years old. On a shopping
32:23
Speaker 1: trip with his mother, he envisioned opening fire on the
32:25
Speaker 1: supermarket cashiers, slaughtering them en masse. His cousin Ronnie Jones,
32:31
Speaker 1: a camping companion, and perhaps his closest friend, recalled how
32:35
Speaker 1: Stainer would often doodle pictures of naked girls in a notepad. And,
32:40
Speaker 1: you know, you hear about these people, these killers, these murderers,
32:45
Speaker 1: these psychos, and then when you go back and look
32:48
Speaker 1: at it all in hindsight, their behavior.
32:51
Speaker 1: There are so many signs. Anyone that's sitting around while
32:55
Speaker 1: they're out camping and doodling pictures of naked chicks in
32:58
Speaker 1: a notepad is somebody that I'm going to keep an
33:00
Speaker 1: eye on.
33:01
Speaker 2: What are you doing, man?
33:03
Speaker 1: It's like Prince Andrew going to the golf course and
33:06
Speaker 1: spending three days in a guest bedroom watching porn. What
33:12
Speaker 1: is wrong with people? The two frequented the Merced River together,
33:17
Speaker 1: but when Ronnie would run down to Skinny Dip with
33:20
Speaker 1: the girls, Carrie refused to join him. He apparently dated
33:23
Speaker 1: several women for short periods of time, but he seemed
33:27
Speaker 1: incapable of establishing any lasting relationship. And there's a lot
33:32
Speaker 1: of people who commit these murders or are serial killers
33:37
Speaker 1: who can have a family at the same time, but
33:39
Speaker 1: there are others who just can't do it. Their mental state,
33:44
Speaker 1: their Their, you know, disease basically of having to kill
33:49
Speaker 1: and murder prevents them from having any kind of serious relationship.
33:53
Speaker 1: But there are psychopaths who are able to flip that
33:56
Speaker 1: switch where they can be absolutely normal where there's no tells.
34:00
Speaker 1: You don't even have any idea that it's a murderer
34:03
Speaker 1: in your midst. And then there's people like this that
34:06
Speaker 1: are odd, they're loners. And then when you look back at,
34:10
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that they're the killer, it all
34:13
Speaker 1: makes sense, right? By his mid-twenties, Stainer had settled into
34:18
Speaker 1: a job repairing windows for Merced Glass and Mirror, sharing
34:22
Speaker 1: a house with Jerry Stainer, his father's brother, a truck
34:25
Speaker 1: dispatcher for a hay company. In 1989, Stephen, who friends
34:30
Speaker 1: say never really put his life back together after his ordeal,
34:33
Speaker 1: though he got married and fathered two children, was killed
34:36
Speaker 1: in a motorcycle crash. What do you mean he never
34:41
Speaker 1: put his life back together? What's he supposed to do?
34:43
Speaker 1: Can you imagine going through what this kid went through?
34:45
Speaker 1: Seven years as a child being held as a sex
34:48
Speaker 1: slave to some sick fucking pedophile? Yeah, pretty sure that
34:52
Speaker 1: putting your life together would be a difficult task. The
34:55
Speaker 1: fact that he was able to get married and have
34:57
Speaker 1: a couple of kids alone is a triumph. And in
35:00
Speaker 1: that new documentary that is out on Hulu, his children
35:05
Speaker 1: are in that documentary and so far, I'm... I don't know,
35:09
Speaker 1: an hour and a half or so into it. And
35:11
Speaker 1: it's very, very well done. Unlike a lot of these documentaries,
35:15
Speaker 1: it focuses a lot on more of the story from
35:18
Speaker 1: the family and that perspective, which is pretty cool. Carrie,
35:24
Speaker 1: like the rest of the family, was said to have
35:26
Speaker 1: been devastated. Then in 1990, police discovered Jerry Stainer sprawled
35:32
Speaker 1: dead in the bedroom of the house where he lived
35:34
Speaker 1: with Carrie with a shotgun wound to the chest. Carey
35:38
Speaker 1: was questioned about the killing, but he had an alibi.
35:41
Speaker 1: He said he had been at work when the shooting
35:43
Speaker 1: took place and was not considered a suspect, says a
35:47
Speaker 1: Merced detective who worked on the case. Police focused their
35:51
Speaker 1: investigation on an unknown vagrant whom Carey claimed was lurking
35:55
Speaker 1: around the house shortly before the killing. But the vagrant
35:59
Speaker 1: was never found and the murder went unsolved. yeah, you're
36:04
Speaker 1: living with a serial killer, you end up dead, nobody
36:07
Speaker 1: ever finds the person who killed you, chances are the
36:10
Speaker 1: serial killer did it. Stainer seems to have maintained a quiet,
36:16
Speaker 1: unexceptional existence for the next several years. Then, one day
36:20
Speaker 1: in 1996, a co-worker went out into the yard of
36:24
Speaker 1: Merced Glass and Mirror to find Stainer slamming his fist
36:28
Speaker 1: against a piece of wood and bleeding from cuts on
36:31
Speaker 1: his hand. He said he felt like he was having
36:34
Speaker 1: a breakdown and said he was all nervous and didn't
36:37
Speaker 1: know why.
36:38
Speaker 2: The colleague later told the San.
36:40
Speaker 1: Francisco Chronicle, he said he felt like getting in his truck,
36:44
Speaker 1: driving into the office and killing everyone there and torching
36:48
Speaker 1: the place. Stainer's boss drove him to the Merced Psychiatric
36:52
Speaker 1: Center where he spoke to a therapist. Stainer never went
36:56
Speaker 1: back to his job again. He told former co-workers that
36:59
Speaker 1: he was thinking of moving to Santa Cruz to pursue
37:02
Speaker 1: a cartooning career. And you could see the slow breakdown
37:07
Speaker 1: of Cary Stainer. And with the death of his uncle,
37:12
Speaker 1: I think that that was the turning point. My theory is,
37:17
Speaker 1: or my guess is, that he killed his uncle and
37:19
Speaker 1: then that was the beginning of.
37:21
Speaker 2: The murder spree.
37:24
Speaker 1: Instead, he headed east to the Sierra, back to the woods.
37:27
Speaker 1: By then, his father had lost his job at a
37:30
Speaker 1: Merced tomato cannery, and he had moved with Kay into
37:34
Speaker 1: a trailer park in the town of Atwater, where two
37:37
Speaker 1: of Stainer's three sisters also lived. Stainer appears to have
37:41
Speaker 1: told few people outside of his immediate family where he
37:44
Speaker 1: was going. In El Portal, just west of Yosemite National Park,
37:49
Speaker 1: he found a job as a handyman at the Cedar Lodge.
37:53
Speaker 1: a sprawling complex of rustic pine bungalows that straddled the
37:57
Speaker 1: Merced River. Now, the Merced River runs all the way
38:00
Speaker 1: through Yosemite National Park, and it is just a beautiful,
38:06
Speaker 1: beautiful scene. He rented a room above the Cedar Lodge
38:12
Speaker 1: Restaurant and Lounge, a 1950s-themed diner with red banquets and
38:17
Speaker 1: a vintage jukebox, and did odd jobs around the motel.
38:21
Speaker 1: He was a cool guy who mixed easily with the
38:24
Speaker 1: rest of staff, according to a waitress at the diner.
38:27
Speaker 1: At night, we'd all hang out, watch a video in
38:29
Speaker 1: somebody's room.
38:30
Speaker 2: He was totally likable. He was ordinary.
38:33
Speaker 1: And that's how they do it, right? They're chameleons. Even
38:37
Speaker 1: the people with the sickest psyches, the sickest of these
38:40
Speaker 1: serial killers. They're someone's friend. Someone hung out with them
38:44
Speaker 1: at some point. In the dead of winter, when snow
38:48
Speaker 1: dusts the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada and the
38:51
Speaker 1: night temperature drops below freezing, the Cedar Lodge is often
38:55
Speaker 1: nearly deserted, with most of the staff on hiatus until spring.
39:00
Speaker 1: Last February, Stainer was still living in his room above
39:04
Speaker 1: the lounge when he saw Carol and Julie Sund and
39:07
Speaker 1: Sylvina Peloso arriving in their bright red Pontiac Grand Prix rental.
39:13
Speaker 1: The trio of tourists had spent a long day admiring
39:15
Speaker 1: El Capitan, Half Dome, and other granite monoliths, ice skating
39:20
Speaker 1: in Curry Village in the Yosemite Valley, and taking snapshots
39:24
Speaker 1: along the Merced River Gorge. So, those are some of
39:28
Speaker 1: the biggest draws inside of the park. El Capitan, known
39:32
Speaker 1: for some of the most epic free climbing runs ever.
39:36
Speaker 1: You have Half Dome, which is very prominent. When you
39:40
Speaker 1: come into the park, you can't miss it. And then,
39:43
Speaker 1: of course, Curry Village down in Yosemite Valley, where all
39:48
Speaker 1: the action takes place. The girls were happy, remembers Carol's father,
39:55
Speaker 1: Francis Carrington, who spoke to them on the telephone that day.
39:59
Speaker 1: They were having the time of their lives. They had
40:02
Speaker 1: dinner at the Cedar Lodge restaurant and then strolled back
40:05
Speaker 1: along dimly lit pathways lined with wooden statues of bears
40:09
Speaker 1: and bald eagles to room 509. In the far west
40:12
Speaker 1: wing of the hotel. Now imagine these ladies.
40:15
Speaker 2: These girls.
40:17
Speaker 1: They're here on a little adventure. The last thing you're
40:19
Speaker 1: thinking about. Is that there's some sick fucking murderer lurking around.
40:23
Speaker 1: Who works in the hotel. That you're staying at. Based
40:28
Speaker 1: on what Carrie Stainer told the authorities.
40:30
Speaker 2: In his confession. This is what happened next. Around 11pm.
40:34
Speaker 2: Stainer who was carrying a toolbox. With duct tape.
40:38
Speaker 1: Rope.
40:38
Speaker 2: A knife.
40:39
Speaker 1: And a gun hidden inside. knocked at the door of 509,
40:42
Speaker 1: and identified himself as the hotel handyman. There was a
40:47
Speaker 1: leak in the room above, he explained, and he needed
40:49
Speaker 1: to check whether water was dripping through the ceiling. So
40:53
Speaker 1: who the hell would really, you know, think anything of this, right? Oh,
40:58
Speaker 1: there's a handyman here? There's a leak somewhere else? Ah, shit, alright,
41:01
Speaker 1: I better open my door. Suspicious, Carol's son looked around
41:05
Speaker 1: and confirmed that there was no signs of a leak,
41:07
Speaker 1: but Stainer kept pleading with her through the locked door. finally,
41:11
Speaker 1: she let him in. Stainer chatted with her, fiddled around
41:15
Speaker 1: in the bathroom for a minute or two, then emerged
41:18
Speaker 1: brandishing a gun. So my advice would be, if this
41:22
Speaker 1: ever happens to you, do not let anyone in your
41:24
Speaker 1: room call the office first, confirm that they have somebody
41:28
Speaker 1: at the door, and if not, well, barricade that motherfucker and,
41:33
Speaker 1: you know, lock yourself in the bathroom and wait for
41:36
Speaker 1: the authorities to come, whatever it is, or however you
41:38
Speaker 1: can get out, but Don't ever, ever, ever, ever let
41:42
Speaker 1: anybody into your room without proper identification and checking first
41:46
Speaker 1: with the front desk. He told Carol and the girls
41:51
Speaker 1: not to panic. He had only come to rob them,
41:53
Speaker 1: he said. Then he bound and gagged them with duct tape,
41:57
Speaker 1: placed Sylvina and Julie in the bathroom, and turned to
42:00
Speaker 1: Carol Sund, who was lying on the bed. Silently, quickly,
42:05
Speaker 1: he strangled the woman with a rope. He took her
42:09
Speaker 1: car keys, dragged her corpse out to the dark, deserted
42:13
Speaker 1: parking lot, and heaved it into the trunk of the Pontiac.
42:17
Speaker 1: Stainer then separated the girls, killed Peloso the same way,
42:21
Speaker 1: and placed her body in the trunk alongside Carol's sons.
42:27
Speaker 1: Now imagine the fear that these girls are feeling. You
42:31
Speaker 1: have Carol's son, who was murdered first, then goes and
42:36
Speaker 1: murders Peloso, Now, Julie is the last one alive. She's
42:41
Speaker 1: seen all of this happen. Her friend and her mom
42:43
Speaker 1: both murdered. Can you imagine the fear in this poor
42:47
Speaker 1: girl's heart right now? What's going through her head? Around
42:51
Speaker 1: 4 o'clock in the morning, Stainer carried Julie's son outside
42:55
Speaker 1: and put her in the front seat of the Pontiac. Oh,
42:58
Speaker 1: she still didn't know her mother and Sylvina had been killed,
43:01
Speaker 1: Stainer told the FBI.
43:02
Speaker 2: Well, that's good.
43:03
Speaker 1: At least she didn't know that, according to him, but
43:06
Speaker 1: I have my doubts. Either way, imagine being put in
43:11
Speaker 1: this Pontiac. Say you didn't know that your mom had
43:13
Speaker 1: been killed or your friend, but now you're separated from
43:16
Speaker 1: them and you're in the front seat of this Pontiac
43:18
Speaker 1: by yourself. The absolute terror is just almost too much
43:24
Speaker 1: to imagine. At some point, he removed the tape from
43:29
Speaker 1: her mouth. He drove west along the Merced River Canyon,
43:33
Speaker 1: unclear about his exact destination, making small talk with his captives.
43:38
Speaker 1: Just before dawn, Stainer turned off the two-lane road near
43:41
Speaker 1: the town of Moccasin and parked in a deserted parking lot.
43:45
Speaker 1: He lifted Julie from her seat and carried her up
43:48
Speaker 1: a steep hill toward the Don Pedro Reservoir overlook. He
43:53
Speaker 1: told the FBI that Julie had asked him to carry
43:55
Speaker 1: her because of the cold and indicated that he had
43:58
Speaker 1: lifted her in his arms in the manner of a
44:01
Speaker 1: bridegroom carrying his bride across the threshold. That's the kind
44:05
Speaker 1: of psyche that he had, right? In his brain, that's
44:08
Speaker 1: basically what he was doing. Oh, I'm doing her a solid.
44:10
Speaker 2: It's cold. I'm going to carry her out here. Meanwhile,
44:13
Speaker 2: you're the reason she's out there in.
44:14
Speaker 1: The first place, you sick, disgusting, perverted fuckbag. A law
44:20
Speaker 1: enforcement source says that Stainer's account may reflect his own
44:23
Speaker 1: distorted hold on reality. It fit in with his fantasy
44:27
Speaker 1: that there was some relationship between him and Julie, or
44:30
Speaker 1: he thought he was Bigfoot kidnapping her.
44:32
Speaker 2: How about that?
44:33
Speaker 1: We all know he was sick with Bigfoot dreams. Upon
44:36
Speaker 1: reaching the overlook, Stainer said he grabbed his victim from
44:39
Speaker 1: behind and drove his knife blade across her throat. He
44:43
Speaker 1: hit her lifeless body with its nearly severed head in
44:47
Speaker 1: the underbrush. It's too bad that Bigfoot didn't show up
44:53
Speaker 1: and eat him or rip him apart limb from limb.
44:57
Speaker 1: Stainer ditched the car a few hundred yards down a
44:59
Speaker 1: little-used logging trail off California 108, walked two miles into
45:04
Speaker 1: Sierra Village, and telephoned for a cab after dawn. The
45:08
Speaker 1: cab driver, Jenny Paul, was bemused by the haggard-looking man
45:12
Speaker 1: who asked to be driven to the Yosemite Lodge, the
45:15
Speaker 1: former workplace of his younger brother's abductor.
45:18
Speaker 2: A 90-mile, $ 125 trip.
45:22
Speaker 1: She never reported the trip to police until after Stainer's arrest,
45:26
Speaker 1: but months later, she remembered the unusual conversation that transpired
45:31
Speaker 1: along the route. Do you believe in Bigfoot, her passenger asked. No,
45:35
Speaker 1: she replied. You should, he said, because he's real. I mean....
45:41
Speaker 2: Come on.
45:42
Speaker 1: It just, again, it shows you the kind of person
45:44
Speaker 1: we're dealing with here. Somebody that is absolutely and utterly
45:47
Speaker 1: detached from reality. Now, don't get it twisted. There's always
45:51
Speaker 1: sympathy for somebody who lost their brother to a kidnapping
45:53
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but that only goes so far.
45:58
Speaker 1: This guy is completely responsible for his behavior, and I'm
46:02
Speaker 1: glad he was held responsible for it. The Yosemite Institute
46:07
Speaker 1: lies a few miles up the road from the Cedar Lodge,
46:10
Speaker 1: a rustic encampment of wooden cabins and trailers set in
46:13
Speaker 1: a clearing in a pine forest. It's a cheerful place
46:16
Speaker 1: with a communal dining room that fills each morning with
46:20
Speaker 1: visiting school groups and two dozen nature instructors in their 20s.
46:25
Speaker 1: Joy Armstrong, who grew up in Orlando, was one of
46:29
Speaker 1: the most popular members of the staff. A bright, energetic
46:34
Speaker 1: young woman who led kids on hikes through Yosemite's backcountry,
46:38
Speaker 1: sharing her knowledge about the park's history and indigenous plants, animals,
46:43
Speaker 1: and insects. You know, I'm not really a big fan
46:45
Speaker 1: of those kinds of tours, but when you get a
46:48
Speaker 1: good guide giving you one of those tours, it makes
46:51
Speaker 1: all the difference in the world. One of these guides
46:53
Speaker 1: who's engaged, happy to be there, really enjoys the topic,
46:57
Speaker 1: it makes these trips great. And from all accounts, that's
47:00
Speaker 1: exactly who Joy Armstrong was. Armstrong and her boyfriend, Michael Raffelli,
47:06
Speaker 1: another instructor, commuted a few miles to the Institute from
47:10
Speaker 1: their pine cabin, which they called the greenhouse. Conditions at
47:14
Speaker 1: the greenhouse were primitive. They chopped their own firewood for
47:18
Speaker 1: heat and hauled water up from the Crane Creek. But
47:21
Speaker 1: Armstrong was content. I love it here in this house,
47:25
Speaker 1: she wrote to a friend in Florida earlier this summer.
47:28
Speaker 1: I love Michael with my soul and every last cell
47:31
Speaker 1: in my body. I love the Big Meadow with all
47:33
Speaker 1: of its daisies and its incredible history.
47:36
Speaker 2: All of that and her whole life ahead of her and.
47:39
Speaker 1: This sick, disgusting, stupid monster, Carrie Stainer had to steal
47:43
Speaker 1: that from her. Several miles away in El Portal, Carrie
47:48
Speaker 1: Stainer was apparently enjoying the fear and confusion he had created.
47:53
Speaker 1: A few nights after the killings, the handyman returned to
47:55
Speaker 1: the logging road and set fire to the Pontiac. The
47:59
Speaker 1: same week, he dropped Carol's son's wallet on a street
48:02
Speaker 1: in Modesto in a bid to throw off authorities. Later,
48:06
Speaker 1: he wrote an anonymous letter to the FBI directing them
48:09
Speaker 1: to the place where he had dumped Julie's son's corpse.
48:13
Speaker 1: Sounds like the kind of guy that wants to get caught,
48:15
Speaker 1: doesn't it? At the Cedar Lodge, he maintained a cool facade,
48:19
Speaker 1: even escorting FBI agents from room to room so they
48:22
Speaker 1: could gather fiber samples. The only time he seems to
48:26
Speaker 1: have commented on the killings, says a female co-worker, was
48:29
Speaker 1: the afternoon he cast an annoyed glance at a pair
48:32
Speaker 1: of FBI agents having lunch in the diner. Why didn't
48:36
Speaker 1: they ever search for my brother.
48:37
Speaker 2: He muttered.
48:38
Speaker 1: So... This was a man who harbored all kinds of deep,
48:43
Speaker 1: dark thoughts. And when he talked to that therapist and
48:49
Speaker 1: told them, you know, what was going on, how he
48:51
Speaker 1: had thought about killing and murdering since he was a
48:54
Speaker 1: little kid, a lot of times when you see people
48:57
Speaker 1: like this, that's the case, right? They've had these fantasies,
49:01
Speaker 1: these thoughts since they're little kids. On July 21st, First,
49:07
Speaker 1: Joy Armstrong arrived at the Yosemite Institute around 8 a.m.,
49:12
Speaker 1: worked a normal day, and drove the five miles home.
49:15
Speaker 1: Her boyfriend and her other roommate were away.
49:18
Speaker 2: Aware of the.
49:18
Speaker 1: Murders of the 320, at the Cedar Lodge, she had
49:21
Speaker 1: told colleagues at the Institute that she'd worried about spending
49:25
Speaker 1: a night alone in her isolated cabin. Just before dusk,
49:30
Speaker 1: she packed up her car for her trip to Sausalito.
49:33
Speaker 1: A blue and white international scout came down the dirt
49:36
Speaker 1: road towards her house and stopped. According to his confession,
49:42
Speaker 1: Stainer stepped out of his vehicle, approached Armstrong's pickup truck.
49:46
Speaker 2: And said hello.
49:48
Speaker 1: Stainer apparently attempted to put the wary young woman at
49:51
Speaker 1: ease by asking if she had ever seen Bigfoot in
49:54
Speaker 1: the area, adding that he had once spotted the creature
49:57
Speaker 1: in the fields just beyond her cabin. When he realized
50:01
Speaker 1: Armstrong was alone, he pulled a gun and ordered her
50:04
Speaker 1: inside the cabin, where he bound her hands and gagged
50:07
Speaker 1: her with duct tape.
50:08
Speaker 2: Now imagine.
50:09
Speaker 1: This lady coming home like this and running into this monster.
50:15
Speaker 1: Packing up her car to go on a vacation. She's
50:18
Speaker 1: living her life. Same thing you or I would be
50:21
Speaker 1: doing every single day. Then he ordered her back outside.
50:26
Speaker 1: In the gathering darkness, he shoved her into the front
50:28
Speaker 1: seat of his scout and began to drive back up
50:31
Speaker 1: the road. But this time, Stainer's victim was able to
50:36
Speaker 1: attempt to escape. At a parking area where the dirt
50:40
Speaker 1: track from her cabin joins the forest road, Armstrong managed
50:43
Speaker 1: to open the scout's passenger door and leap out of
50:46
Speaker 1: the moving vehicle. She staggered to her feet and began
50:50
Speaker 1: running through the bush and trees along Crane Creek, heading
50:53
Speaker 1: toward a cabin where friends lived a few hundred yards away.
50:57
Speaker 1: Stainer jumped out and crashed through the woods in pursuit.
51:01
Speaker 1: Armstrong made it 150 yards before he caught her. Grabbing
51:05
Speaker 1: her from behind, he drew a long knife and cut
51:08
Speaker 1: her throat, continuing to slash until he had decapitated her.
51:12
Speaker 1: He dumped the body in the drainage ditch and discarded
51:15
Speaker 1: the severed head.
51:16
Speaker 2: 40 feet away.
51:18
Speaker 1: So in the first episode, we heard in the beginning
51:22
Speaker 1: how the bush by the cabin looked like people had
51:24
Speaker 1: been running through it.
51:25
Speaker 2: There was a chase.
51:27
Speaker 1: And now you see why. Imagine what she was feeling
51:32
Speaker 1: when she got out and she was running from him.
51:39
Speaker 1: Stainer returned to his scout and fled back up the
51:41
Speaker 1: road toward the Yosemite exit. He didn't get very far.
51:45
Speaker 1: On El Portal Road, a few miles short of the
51:47
Speaker 1: Cedar Lodge, his vehicle broke down, and he flagged down
51:51
Speaker 1: a ride from a passing Yosemite park ranger. The ranger
51:55
Speaker 1: later recalled that Stainer had been easygoing, affable, and calm. Incredibly,
52:01
Speaker 1: nothing had seemed amiss. Imagine having such hubris and being
52:05
Speaker 1: so brazen that after you murder somebody in such a fashion,
52:09
Speaker 1: you wave down a park ranger and get in their
52:12
Speaker 1: car of your own will to.
52:13
Speaker 2: Get a ride home.
52:16
Speaker 1: On August 6th, two weeks after his arrest, Cary Stainer
52:19
Speaker 1: shuffled into a courtroom at the U.S. District Courthouse in
52:23
Speaker 1: Fresno to answer federal murder charges in the death of
52:26
Speaker 1: Joy Armstrong. Delbert and Kay Stainer sat motionless, hand in hand,
52:31
Speaker 1: eyes fixed on their son as he stood before the
52:34
Speaker 1: federal magistrate, clad in a yellow prison jumpsuit, his wrists
52:38
Speaker 1: and ankles shackled, and entered a plea of not guilty.
52:42
Speaker 1: A strategy that left the door open for an insanity defense.
52:46
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine the mom and dad too. All of
52:50
Speaker 1: this is just so horrible. The whole entire scenario. First,
52:54
Speaker 1: with Steven going missing, then everything afterwards. It's almost like,
53:01
Speaker 1: how could people even survive through this? Like the family, right?
53:04
Speaker 1: His mom and dad. You would think that, man, I
53:07
Speaker 1: don't know. This is the kind of thing that could
53:09
Speaker 1: absolutely break people. His mother cried softly and rested her
53:15
Speaker 1: head against her husband's chest. Their son, grim-faced, avoided any
53:19
Speaker 1: eye contact with his parents. Stainer now awaits trial in
53:24
Speaker 1: a solitary confinement cell in the Fresno County Jail. He
53:27
Speaker 1: could face the death penalty for the Armstrong murder and
53:30
Speaker 1: will almost certainly be charged soon in the Son Peloso case.
53:35
Speaker 1: In a letter to the Fresno Bee that he sent
53:37
Speaker 1: from his jail cell in mid-August, Stainer wrote that... Look,
53:40
Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with him wanting
53:43
Speaker 1: this notoriety as well. I'm convinced of that. After seeing
53:45
Speaker 1: his brother.
53:58
Speaker 1: You know, be turned into a hero. He wanted a
54:00
Speaker 1: little taste and he had no idea how to do that.
54:02
Speaker 1: So the only way he could do that was to
54:05
Speaker 1: live out his disgusting dark fantasies. Earlier in what seemed
54:10
Speaker 1: a twisted bid to match his late brother's celebrity, he
54:13
Speaker 1: had told the San Jose TV reporter that he wanted
54:17
Speaker 1: a bidding war for a movie of the week about
54:19
Speaker 1: his crimes. I realize that the money would be little
54:22
Speaker 1: consolation for the loss of their loved ones, but until
54:25
Speaker 1: the jury, judge, and executioner fulfill their role in this matter,
54:29
Speaker 1: it is all I have to offer, he wrote.
54:31
Speaker 2: Here's an idea.
54:32
Speaker 1: How about you never kill anyone in the first place,
54:34
Speaker 1: you sick fuckbag? And as far as a movie, no thanks.
54:37
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to see it. Since Stainer's confession, police departments
54:42
Speaker 1: across the Yosemite region and the Central Valley have reopened
54:46
Speaker 1: several long dormant murder cases, including the unsolved 1990 killing
54:51
Speaker 1: of Stainer's uncle. Some criminologists say it's highly unlikely that
54:55
Speaker 1: a serial killer would begin his spree by confidently targeting
54:59
Speaker 1: three victims at once, though Stainer insists that he had
55:02
Speaker 1: never killed before.
55:04
Speaker 2: I don't buy that. They're right about not opening up
55:07
Speaker 2: the way he did.
55:08
Speaker 1: Usually there's a murder or a couple of murders before
55:12
Speaker 1: that as they warm up. Sources at the FBI, which
55:20
Speaker 1: has come under intense criticism for its work in the
55:22
Speaker 1: San Peloso investigation, say that the Bureau still considers the
55:27
Speaker 1: case open and that investigators are still not completely convinced
55:31
Speaker 1: that Stainer acted alone.
55:34
Speaker 2: All right, well. I guess.
55:37
Speaker 1: On my trip to Yosemite in August, just days after
55:39
Speaker 1: Joy Armstrong's murder and Stainer's arrest, I found the campgrounds, hotels,
55:44
Speaker 1: and gift shops in and around the park filled to capacity.
55:48
Speaker 1: But there was a different mood a few miles away
55:51
Speaker 1: in Foresta. Driving along the El Portal Road, past dramatic
55:55
Speaker 1: views of the Merced River flowing through a granite-walled gorge,
55:59
Speaker 1: I found my way to the unmarked road leading into
56:02
Speaker 1: the hamlet. Looking for someone to talk to about Armstrong,
56:06
Speaker 1: I parked and walked toward a cluster of homes where
56:09
Speaker 1: an elderly woman spotted me as I approached. She seemed
56:12
Speaker 1: too tense and then darted inside a cottage and slammed
56:15
Speaker 1: the door behind her.
56:17
Speaker 2: I don't blame them.
56:18
Speaker 1: Imagine living here in this nice peaceful little place and
56:21
Speaker 1: then this murder occurs and all of these journalists just
56:24
Speaker 1: dive in and start showing up and knocking on your
56:27
Speaker 1: door like they're Taylor Lorenz from the Washington Post. Down
56:32
Speaker 1: by the meadow in front of the simple green cabin
56:35
Speaker 1: where the young naturalists had lived, cardboard signs urged visitors
56:39
Speaker 1: to let Forresta heal. On a tree stump at the
56:43
Speaker 1: edge of the meadow near Joy Armstrong's cabin, three white candles,
56:47
Speaker 1: bits of colored glass, and purple flowers were arranged as
56:51
Speaker 1: a shrine. In the stillness of that summer morning, the
56:54
Speaker 1: only sounds were the songs of meadowlarks and clear water
56:58
Speaker 1: rushing over smooth rocks in the creek. not far from
57:02
Speaker 1: where the spot where Armstrong's body was found. So a
57:06
Speaker 1: nice little memorial was set up for her, and that's
57:08
Speaker 1: a good thing, right? When you love the outdoors and
57:11
Speaker 1: the wilderness like that, there's no better place to be
57:13
Speaker 1: put to rest. By his own account, Cary Stainer seems
57:18
Speaker 1: to have been obsessed with the idea that these mountains
57:21
Speaker 1: and forests were the stalking ground of a malevolent Bigfoot,
57:25
Speaker 1: the incarnation of our primal fear of the wild. that
57:29
Speaker 1: terrifying yet oddly alluring symbol of the deep woods. But
57:34
Speaker 1: it's impossible to know if the beast was really on
57:36
Speaker 1: his mind that evening. He says he murdered Joy Armstrong.
57:41
Speaker 2: What?
57:42
Speaker 1: The Bigfoot thing is weird and stuff, but I don't
57:44
Speaker 1: find that as, you know, something that has to do
57:47
Speaker 1: anything with these murders. This is just a sick guy
57:50
Speaker 1: who his psyche was launched into a different plane with
57:55
Speaker 1: the situation with his brother and then the after effects.
58:06
Speaker 1: And if a deranged conviction that the mythical Sasquatch lurks
58:10
Speaker 1: in Yosemite truly did possess his imagination the night the
58:14
Speaker 1: Sons and Pelosos were killed, or perhaps Stainer's Bigfoot was
58:18
Speaker 1: just one more ruse in a cruel game, another way
58:22
Speaker 1: to distract the world from the simple, twisted heart of
58:26
Speaker 1: a murderer. Well.
58:30
Speaker 2: With the.
58:31
Speaker 1: Stephen Stainer story coming out and us discussing that, I
58:35
Speaker 1: figured that we'd put a bow on it and, you know,
58:39
Speaker 1: complete the story with these two episodes about Carrie Stainer.
58:46
Speaker 1: So now you folks have an overview of the whole
58:49
Speaker 1: entire story. And let me tell you, it is one
58:53
Speaker 1: of the most crazy defy imagination stories ever. If you'd
58:59
Speaker 1: like to contact me, you can do that at bobbycapucciatprotonmail.com.
59:03
Speaker 1: That's B-O-B-B-Y-C-A-P-U-C-C-I at protonmail.com. You can also find me on
59:11
Speaker 1: Twitter at B-O-B-B-Y underscore C-A-P-U-C-C-I. The link that we discussed
59:18
Speaker 1: can be found in the description box. All right, folks,
59:21
Speaker 1: I'll be back later on with a little bit more.
59:23
Speaker 1: I hope