American homicide, picked up by the police on 7/24/1999 for the murder of Yosemite park naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26. Her decapitated body had been found two days prior in a drainage ditch about four miles from the park lodge, near where she lived in park housing, and her death was established as occurring on 7/21/1999.
Stayner also confessed to the murder of three park sightseers, Carol and Julie Sund and their friend Silvini Pelosso, who had been last seen on 2/15/1999. The women’s bodies were found a month later, charred beyond recognition and left in the trunk of their rental car. In his confession, he described how he had felt the urge to kill women since he was seven years old. The four women had just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Stayner was working as a handyman, living nearby to the Cedar Lodge in El Portal at the western edge of Yosemite. He had lived and worked at El Portal since 1977. At the time of the disappearance of the three women, he had been questioned and released as the FBI focused their investigations on several other suspects. He was arrested while staying at a nudist colony near Sacramento, 7/24/99.
The eldest of five kids and the son of a cannery worker, Cary was the older brother of Steven Stayner who was kidnapped by a convicted sex offender and kept prisoner from 1973 to 1980, from the time he was 7 until he escaped at 14. Steven Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1989, at 24. In 1990, an uncle of the boys died as a suicide. Cary was investigated for that death and exonerated. On 8/06/1999 he pleaded innocent to the murder of Joie Armstrong. During questioning the end of August, told the FBI that he had sexually assaulted Silvini Pelosso and Juli Sund before killing them.
Stayner was sentenced to life in prison on 11/30/2000. He read a statement of apology to the families of his victims, saying that “I gave in to the terrible dark dreams that I tried to subdue. The craziness that lurked in my mind for as long as I can remember became a reality …. I wish I could take it back but I can’t. I wish I could tell you why I did such a thing but I don’t even know myself.” On 8/26/2002, he was found guilty of 1st degree murder of Carole and Juli Sund and their friend Silvini Pelosso.
Link to Wikipedia biography