Rotten Mango - #63: Yosemite National Park Serial Killer (Case - Steven & Cary Stayner)

Episode Date: May 13, 2021

Why do so many people go missing in National Parks? Alien conspiracy theory? Government experiments? Or just lost in nature?  In this case - it’s none of the above. It’s a serial killer that leaves a trail of bloodshed and a decapitated head bobbing in a stream in Yosemite.  Once they catch the killer that’s when the real mystery begins - wasn’t his little brother a national hero? Didn’t they make TV shows about this family?  How did one brother become America’s sweetheart and the other America’s heartless serial killer? Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or case description starting at 12.99 per month. Butterbeam Butterboomb. I feel like there's only three types of people out there and it all pertains to national parks.

So there's one type of people, my friends like this, okay? She will go to a national park by herself in her van, live out her best dreams, literally cook and ramen outside with her little tiny dog that cannot guard her, and she's completely fine with it. Not a single thought of danger, okay? And then you've got people who are on TikTok right now saying, national parks, that's where you go missing. There's like a whole account for national parks slander dedicated on TikTok, where they just say, do you guys know why so many people go missing?

And they start listing theories. It's Bigfoot. Yeti, there's a group of people living inside of National Parks that have never met people like you or I. They have never been into a town, a small town, a city, nothing. And they'll just, they'll kill you. You know what, these are all theories I'm seeing. And then I think you have the people in the middle,

kind of like where I am, where I'm like, well, I think maybe it's the bear. Maybe you got lost, maybe that's what the problem is. I mean, think about it, look at how dense that forest is. I would get lost in point two seconds. Where do you guys fall on this? Or are you the small group of people that's like, it's definitely serial killers,

because I saw that on Reddit. Some people are like 100%, there is a network of serial killers operating in the shadows of the national parks. And today we're talking about something that has nothing to do with the nature, that has nothing to do with slipping and falling and breaking your ankle, getting lost off trail, and has nothing to do with getting attacked by a bear. It has something to do with crime. So let's talk about it.

I'm going to drop you off in the middle of the crime, but don't worry, we're going to come back and answer all these questions because it gets intense. This case is like a case inside of a case, and honestly, I thought about making it two parts because they could have just been full stories on their own, but I want to give you every single detail. So it all starts with a woman by the name of Carol Sund. Carol, she has this teenage daughter by the name of Julie Sund. She decides that Julie and her best friend, Sylvina Polasso, they're gonna go to Yosemite. They're gonna drive there, they're gonna rent a red

Pontiac and she's gonna take the kids around, let them sightseeing. So Julie's best friend, Sylvina, is from Argentina and so she was like, I want to show this kid the most beautiful parts of America. Yosemite is the place to go. So they rent this tiny little room at the Cedar Lodge. Now, because it was like the winter time, there was an entire lot of people. It wasn't filled with tourists and all these, you know, Instagrammers with their little cameras ready to go. They got a room on just like the far,

darkest corner of the lodge, away from the lobby, away from the restaurant. And they kinda liked it. I mean, it's included. You've got your own little space. After a long day of exploring, the mom and the two kids, they decided, right? Let's go back into the motel room. Let's go, let's wash up, let's watch some movies, and that's exactly what they start doing.

When all of a sudden, there's a knock on the door. Maintenance. So the mom, Carol, she goes up to the front door and she opens it like a crack. You know, she just like sticks one eyeball out and she sees this man. And he does look like a maintenance man, you know, he's got all the gear He's got his little toolbox and he says, you know, there's been a leak upstairs I need to come in and I need to check it out Carol's a little bit hesitant about this. Carol's like the girls are in their PJs. They're ready to sleep

I mean, I didn't get a call about this and nothing's leaking if something is leaking. I'll let you guys know I mean, it's a leak. I would hear it. I would probably see it, right? But he keeps insisting he's like no no, but listen, think about it. If you guys don't see the leak now, and you see it three hours from now, you're gonna have to wake the girls up, we're gonna have to put you in a different room, you're gonna grab your bags up. I mean, do you really wanna do that in the middle of the night? I mean, I guess I don't really wanna do that in the middle of the night, so she lets

him come in and she's like watching him, okay? She's being very, very mindful of her surroundings. He goes straight into the bathroom where he believes the leak is going to be, but when he comes out, he pulls out a gun. And he tells them, hey, I want your money and I want those car keys for that Pontiac downstairs. Carol, the mom is like, yeah, take it all. I mean, whatever you want.

So she starts giving him money. She starts giving him the car keys. And he gets the two young teenagers at gunpoint, throws them into the bathroom, locks it up, now he is alone with Carol the mom in the room, so he grabs his duct tape from his toolbox and starts duct taping her, her arms together, her legs together, and then he pulls out rope, wraps it around her neck and he strangles her to death. Now when he's done he grabs bedsheets, wraps it around her neck and he strangles her to death. Now when he's done, he grabs bedsheets, wraps Carol's body up in it, and puts her in the trunk

of the Pontiac that Carol had rented. Go back into the room, pulls out that gun again, and for the next couple of hours, he will then sexually assault both of the teenage girls. Now, Sylvina, who happened to be the family friend, she was absolutely hysterical. She's screaming bloody murder, asking for help. So he drags her into the bathroom because he's, you know, scared someone's going to hear this. And he leaves Julie the daughter in the room by herself. She knows that they're in there together, but she has no idea what's going on.

And he grabs yet again another piece of rope and strangles Sylvina to death in the bathroom, while her best friend is sitting on the bed outside just outside the door. So for whatever reason this maintenance man decides that he does not want Julie to know that both of these people are dead. He doesn't want her to know that her mom is in her trunk. He doesn't want her to know that her best friend is dead in the bathroom. So he grabs Julie and takes her to the next room over.

So this is when we can confirm that he does work for the Cedar lodge. And he opens up that door and he places her in that room and says, you stay put or I'll kill you. Go is back into the original room. Go is back to Sylveena's dead body in the bathroom. Raps her body up in sheets and he too puts her in the same trunk where he had just placed Carol's body. So now there's two bodies in that red Pontiac trunk. He goes to get Julie and she has no idea where these people are. You know she has no idea where her mom or her best friend is and he says come on we're leaving. We've got somewhere to be. So she's freaked out. She gets into the passenger seat with him. She has no idea that they're in the trunk and they start driving. They start driving into a secluded area near your Seemedy Park and he drags her out and slits her throat

So he killed her too? Yeah, then why did he do it separately? He um, well, this is the strange part so he carried her out of the car like a bride That's what he said later like a bride put her down in the middle of the woods Assaulted her again and then slither throat And he said at that point the, the morning sun was coming out so he couldn't help but admire it. Because the morning sun is so pretty at Yosemite. It's just so strange, right?

So he gets back into that car. Now he has two bodies in the trunk. He drives 70 miles away from where he leads. Where's the girl? He just leaves her in the middle of the wooded area, like off trail at Yosemite. So he gets into the car and drives 70 miles away from Julie's body, has been left now,

and he lights the car on fire, with the two bodies in the trunk. He walks to the nearest pay phone and orders himself a taxi. So the taxi comes and picks him up. Now he's not sweating, he's not bloody, he doesn't look like he just murdered three people viciously, he gets into the the cab and he just starts talking about

You know, I came out to you somebody with my beds and they just abandoned me What a bunch of assholes. They keep driving towards you know the lodge again And he starts pointing at these cabins like you know, I saw big foot over there She's like this guy. I mean the taxi driver she said this guy was pretty normal like there was nothing I'm normal about this He wasn't even one of her creepier clients that she would remember. Like, he didn't seem that offensive.

He didn't seem overbearing or aggressive or anything. He just seemed really strange. Just kind of like obsessed with Bigfoot. But they get to the lodge. She drops him off. And she thought that she would never think about this man again. She thought that this would be nothing in her life story. Well, not too long after, he shows up all over the news.

Not only did he kill those three women that day, but he killed another one afterwards, and he walked into the FBI station, sat down with a bunch of FBI agents, they had pizza together, and he said, you know, I am a serial killer. I'm the one you're looking for, you know, the Yosemite serial killer. And I'm gonna, I can't confess to all of this. I'll tell you the full details of what I did and what happened. I can give you all of that. So you guys get a slam dunk case. Then that sound good. The FBI agents are like, hell yeah, that sounds good. But I just have one thing. I just have one little thing that I want from you guys. I want to see some child pornography.

I know you have it, you know, you take it in for evidence My god, I don't want to see one or two images or see a good stack of it Um And if you give me that I will confess to all of the murders just a slam dunk case So of course, I mean the press go crazy over this. They're like what? Yosemite serial killer national park serial killer. He said what in the FBI agents office? What is going on here? He's hunting woman at a national park and then now he's asking for child pornography We need to know everything about this serial killer. We need to know his history. What's his childhood? Was he abused as a kid? You know like the whole deep dive into serial killers past?

That's what the press wanted to do to him. And they found his name, I mean it is Carrie Stainer. Carrie Stainer, the Yosemite serial killer. Wait a minute guys, do you think Stainer's a, where have we heard that name before? We know this family. This family has been on the national headlines multiple times. The Stainer family. So they find out when Carrie was only 11 years old. His seven-year-old little brother was kidnapped by a sex offender.

Like a random sex offender, kidnapped Steven Stainer held him captive for seven years. And then he escaped. So like this is the most confusing story. That's why I'm saying it's like a case in a case and it just makes me so confused. And I think the only way to tell it is like the full picture. So you got- Did they catch the sex offender? Yeah, they had the trial, they had everything, and then he got arrested for being a serial killer. So it's so confusing.

The Stainer family, they will show up on national headlines three times. So Steven Stainer is the younger brother who is kidnapped. So that was like the first time they were thrust into national headlines. Like, oh my god, seven-year-old kidnapped. What do we do? What do we do? Seven years later, he escaped from his kidnapper. That kidnapper was caught.

Yeah, so, I mean, it was like this random sex offender that we're gonna get into. But he escaped from his kidnapper and this made national headlines again. He's alive. Now he's 14 years old. He escaped how heroic they made TV shows about him. All of that they made these TV shows It was all of every news. He had book deals coming in. It was intense and then they were thrust into the national headlines one more time

Because Carrie Stainer his older brother turned out to be the Yosemite serial killer It's so confusing. Is there like a cause and effect right? Because after Carrie Stainer was arrested, he contacted journalists and he said, do you guys want to make a series about me? Because you guys did that with my brother. Oh my god. So it gets really weird.

I don't know. I mean, this is like so atypical of like a serial killer background story. I mean, I just don't understand. How is there a hero child and then also a serial killer background story. I mean, I just don't understand. How is there a hero child and then also a serial killer child? But I guess we'll find out. Maybe some of this will make sense. It all takes place in Merced, California.

So this is in the central valley of California. And they call it the gateway to Yosemite. Apparently, it's freaking beautiful. Apparently, it's gnarly over there. Like, they've got almond farms. They've got peach farms. Yeah, peach've got almond farms. They've got peach farms Yeah, peaches not in Georgia. They've got all these peach farms They've got these peach canning sections and the stainer family they decided okay. This is where we're gonna call home So the family consisted of the dad by the name of Delbert

But he goes by Dell and then the mom her name is Kay So they've got five beautiful children together. So we have Carrie the Yosemite Syruah Killer who is also the oldest and in the mom, her name is Kay. So they've got five beautiful children together. So we have Carrie, the Eosemite serial killer, who is also the oldest in the family. Then we've got the middle child, Steven Stainer. I don't think we can call him a beautiful child, right? Oh yeah, he's not one of those. And then we've got Steven Stainer, who is a middle child.

That's the one that gets kidnapped. And then they have three sisters. So these are just the two sons, and that's who we're going to be mainly focusing on. So the dad, Dell, he worked at this peach cannery and he was just like, uh, this is crazy. I mean, for serial killer story, he was such a good dad. Like, he was an outdoorsy type. He loved being around people. This is the type of guy who worked 18 hour days, six days a week to support his kids. That's what he did. Now, Kay on the other hand, the mom, she kind of took the role of like the

disciplinarian of the house, but she was like, not Edgine's mom, okay? She's not crazy. She's not gonna be beating you up because you uttered the word sex in the house. She's just the type that's like, hey, go clean your room, wash your face. What are you doing?

You're stinky. What's going on over here? She was just... Like a normal mom. Like a completely normal mom. Some reports did say that maybe she raised her kids with a little bit of coldness. I mean, I think that she was just trying to make sure

that they were raised well. Now, they called Steven Stevie. This was the dad's pet name for him because he loved the dad. Steven and Delbert were like two peas in a pod. I don't know what it was, but Steven just followed his dad around like his dad was the best thing that God has ever created. Like it was so cute. They called him the little puppy, Del's shadow. That's what everyone called him.

He went chase after his dad when his dad drove off to work. He was just like, Dad, no! And he just loved him so much. So at one point in their childhood, they grew up on this massive almond farm. So they leave the suburbs of Merced and they rent this almond farm. So they start farming these almonds. Del's still working at the peach canry, which is crazy. So he's doing crazy work days. And Stephen loved it there. I mean, it was 20 acres of just beautiful farmland. He would just run around with his big dog. They would get lost. They would show up for dinner. They were raising cows, goats, pigs. The pigs would get lost. They would have to chase after them in the roads.

But nothing like the pig farmer. I mean, this was much more wholesome. So one morning, while Steven is just following his dad around, okay, he's like, oh, well, where are you gonna go? We're gonna eat breakfast. Okay, I'm gonna do that with you. And they eventually end up in the bathroom. And that is where Delbert suffers from a slipped disc.

He just falls straight to the floor. And for whatever reason, Steven, I mean, being young, he's like, my dad just had a heart attack He didn't realize that this was a slip disc. He was like something's going on They rush him to the hospital. He has back surgery. So because of this back surgery You know Dell can't work at the peach canry and then come home and harvest these almonds like it's just too much They've got to give up this almond farm They've got to just get like a small little house and were said and just settle down there

So that's exactly what they do and it was just a really hard time for Steven. I mean he hated it, he had to change schools, he had to give away his pet dog because that dog was used to 20 acres of land and now they gave it like a backyard. And it got so bad that that dog was just doing circles in the backyard. Just like pacing in the backyard so the family sat down and was like, hey, we love our dog, but our friend has a farm. We should probably give, you know, our friend the dog because this dog is not happy here. No matter how much you love this dog, I mean, that's like pretty good parenting, no? Yeah. But the dog first, meanwhile, our dogs, we try to get them to go outside. They're not having it.

Get off the bed. They're the type that will just stop in the middle of a walk, they do not care. Now Steven himself, regardless of this move, he was considered a super, just normal kid, like never really did anything out of line, I mean, who's seven years old. He was, everyone called him just, Del Shado, that's about it. He's kind of shy, doesn't really talk to strangers. Now one thing that's really important in this entire story is that Steven was very, very respectful of authority figures, very respectful of adults,

which I feel like is such a good thing, right? But I feel like these days, I don't know, it's so scary. So anytime you would see a teacher, a preacher, a cop, a police officer, he would show them the utmost respect just because they're an authoritative position. Like he would listen to anything that they had to say. He would follow their lead. Like, that's just how he was raised. Later his teacher would come forward and say that he was kind of, um, he needed special

attention. Like he's the type of kid that you can't just, you know how if you have a class of 30 kids, you know, some of them are just in the corner talking to each other, they could care less about what the teacher is doing. Then you've got like the class goofs. Then you've got like the teacher's pads. And then you have some of the kids that like being quiet, but they just need a little push. So that's kind of what Stephen was. You know, she would give him a little wink.

She would make eye contact with him. She would walk over, give him a little touch on the shoulder. And with that, I mean, he just did so well in school. It's almost like he wanted the teachers approval. Like he wanted the teachers approval. Like he wanted these adults to say, hey, you're doing good, kid. That's what he needed to grow. And that's also really important.

Now, at the time that Steven disappears, he was getting in trouble, though. There was one thing that he was doing that was driving his parents up the wall. They were going crazy because he had this routine. He would walk to school with all of his siblings. And then after school, he walks back with his siblings. But Steven decided, you know what, I'm seven years old now, I pay my bills, I'm grown, I'm actually not going to do that. I'm going

to go walk to my friend's house immediately after school and I will tell no one. I won't even tell my siblings. So he starts doing that and his parents, they start freaking out. At the end of the night, why do we have four kids? Where's the fifth one? Where's Steven? What the fork? So they get in their car, they start driving up and down the night, why do we have four kids? Where's the fifth one? Where's Steven? What the fork? So they get in their car, they start driving up and down the street, they find him. Finally, at like the third friend's house they visit, and he's just sitting there casually playing games. Not a care in the world, he did not tell them where he was going.

So they give him his first couple of spankings for the first time, like really bad spankings. And he was just so emotionally upset by this. This becomes important in trial later, which is just blowing my mind. So the whole time I think Stephen's parents are just trying to tell him like, there's weird people out there. There's really weird people out there. And they were right because at Yosemite Park at the time that this took place, I don't know how it is now, over 40% of the employees of the Yosemite National Park were convicted felons. What?

To be fair, I'm all on the train of his and you know, once you get out, I definitely think you should have so many job opportunities. But not everyone! And some of the people that they hired were really questionable. So for example, Kenneth Parnell, and he is going to be the man that kidnap Steven Stainer. Ken Parnell, he was working for the accounting part of Yosemite lodge Like he was a night auditor. He would go in for the graveyard shift and do the bookkeeping. Now I'm gonna give you his background because it's gnarly the fact that they hired him at Yosemite like where all these families go It's like a beautiful place to go and then you've just got Ken the working in the shadows working there like this doesn't make sense So he was born in Texas and very similar to Stephen. He was obsessed with his dad

His dad was like the light of his life and his mom was incredibly abusive That's what he claimed he did not like his mom But when he was about five years old the mom was like I'm leaving your daddy We're gonna move from Texas forget your dad I'm moving to California with my new man, okay, and you're just gonna love him. He's gonna be your new step daddy and your force to love him. He hated this so much that he started grabbing pliers. Like, you know, the handy tool. He's five years old and just starts pulling out his own teeth one by one. And he said it took several hours to pull out each one. He lost like five teeth in this before his mom

stepped in and was like, hey, what are you doing? Um, that is more than alarming. At eight years old, he gets this really bright flashlight and just puts his eyeball right up in front of it because he wants to blind himself. It didn't work, but that was his intention. Later, he goes on top of his shed, like he climbs up to the roof and at the bottom, he had placed all of these piles of lumber so lumber is like used wood I guess and they had a bunch of nails sticking out of them and he jumped onto the pile of lumber in order to injure himself like he was just doing a lot of crazy stuff so he moves to Baker's field with his mom and his mom starts up abort boarding house in California. Yeah, I mean,

it's not Dorothy, but I mean a boarding house. So they started getting in a bunch of different borders. Again, not the best cream of the crop. If that's what you call it, not the best people. And one of the borders decided, hey, I'm a middle aged man, but that 13-year-old Ken over there looks like he could be my best friend. So he starts befriending 13 year old Ken and eventually he sexually assaults Ken. So I don't know if this was his first sexual assault, it seems like it was, but he starts going on a destructive path after this. Almost immediately after he sets fire to a local field, just like completely sets it ablaze

He lives in California, which is so dangerous, but just like sets it ablaze. He gets arrested They're like, okay, well you're 13 so we can't really hold you that long Just don't do that again. They give them a little slap on the wrist on his 14th birthday. He steals a car Goes to jail again So it said in jail at this time after he stole that car that he started participating in what he called and I quote Homosexual behavior passively and aggressively and so after that he's on and off arrested he's in prison just non-stop at one time he tried to drink disinfectant while he was in prison in order to end his life I mean

there's just a lot of turmoil so by the time he's 19 years old he gets released and he decides I am gonna be I'm be something crazy. So he finds this little nine year old boy by the name of Bobby Green and flashes him a little deputy sheriff's badge and says, Hey, I'm a deputy sheriff. I need you to come with me. Now Bobby, he's nine. So he's like, Oh my God, am I in trouble? What's going on? Like, am I arrested? So he gets into the car with Ken and they drive to a remote area where he is then sexually assaulted I Think the craziest part about all of this though is that after he gets arrested, right?

He admits to the police. He tells the police. You know, I thought about killing Bobby I thought about killing nine-year-old Bobby after I sexually assaulted him because I didn't want him to snitch I Thought about it. Yeah, and the method would have been strangling. I wanted to strangle him to devs. But then I decided, you know what? Maybe he won't say anything, so I put him in my car and I drove him to the hospital and I dropped him off.

But sure enough, I mean, Bobby went to the hospital. He called his parents and he told them everything. So he'd get to rest it. He pretty much just tells them all of this and now all of the psychiatrists are really intrigued. Like, what is going on? Why is this 19 year old telling us that he's sought about killing his victim?

Like, this is insane. So they come up with a report that says this. This patient is a sexual psychopath and it is our opinion that he should be committed to an institution for such unfortunate patients. I mean, they also mentioned that he is good intelligence, he is like deep rooted disturbances and he searches for trouble and punishment. They just like couldn't understand it. One more time, he's like deep rooted disturbances, and he searches for trouble and punishment.

They just like couldn't understand it. One more time he searches for trouble and punishment. That's what they said. I mean, he just has all of these like, he's very emotionally unstable. That's what they kept mentioning. And it kind of was proven true because he escaped from multiple mental hospitals. Like at one point, he sought off a law from one of his rooms, escaped. And then he hitchhiked for three months. Like he hitchhiked to the other side of the country and just started working as like a chef in a restaurant. Like he caught a job after he esc- I don't even know. So he- he sent to prison again because something happened in Utah.

I think he like robbed a bunch of people in Utah by gunpoint. So in prison he gets his GD and he finishes college level accounting. And that is when he applies to work at the Yosemite lodge. Moose back to California and is like, hey Yosemite, I want to work here. As a knight auditor, I can be a bookkeeper, I can do all of this. And he completely lied on his resume. He said nothing about his felony convictions, he said nothing about prison or the years of mental hospital stays, nothing. They didn't even do a background check. He got the job. So he starts working there. And even all of his co-workers thought that he was a strange dude. Not the most likeable, just kind of off-putting, just not the most pleasant. Now the other co-worker that everyone loved at Yosemite Lodge was a man by the name of Irvin Murphy. Murph, for short, that's what everyone called

time, Murph, and he was the kitchen cleaner. So he too worked the graveyard shift just all night scrubbing these huge cooking ovens at Yosemite lodge. And the whole time he's just trying not to fall asleep while he's on the job. And he really had, yeah. And so his entire childhood was really intense too. I mean, he was super abused as a kid.

He had nine different siblings. And at one point, the mom was like, I don't think I like any of you, like all ten of you. So she just like packs up and leaves. He just had a fend for himself for as long as he knew, and he turned out to be kind of the opposite of Ken, in the sense that he was really well-loved at work, and everyone said that Murph is the type of guy. Let's say you come up to him and you say, hey Murph, I need $25. He looks in his pocket, he only has $20. He's like, okay, hold on, hold on, I'll be right back. He goes and asks around to borrow $5, comes back and gives you not only his last $20,

but the $5 that he just borrowed from someone. What? They just said that he's incredibly moldable. Interesting, right? Yeah. So is he super nice or super nice? But because later in trial, I mean, he does have psychiatrists who evaluate him and there was no diagnosis, but people kind of the way that they talk about him and all these sources hint at the fact that maybe there is some sort of mental disability there, but very, very trusting, very, you know, just that type of person.

So that day, December 4th, he misses the bus into Merced. So the way that it works is after his graveyard shift, he stays at Yosemite Park, you know, the lodge gives him a room to stay in. All of the employees get their own little room and he misses the bus to Merced. This is the only bus he has to take because you have to go to Merced to get groceries.

They don't have a grocery store at Yosemite. He needs to be on this bus so he's like damn it. I miss a freaking bus. What am I going to do? I'm just going to like starve. I mean I guess I could just scrounge around and see what I can do. But Ken's outside in his trunk and he's like hey hey Merf what you doing? You look lost.

Merced like yeah man I miss the bus. Well why don't I give you a ride? You know, I'm headed into Merch's set. We can do some grocery shopping together. And it'll be fun. So Merch is like, yeah dude, he gets into the car and they start driving onto Merch's set. So they do their little grocery run. And then finally, Ken says, listen, I drove you around here, I took you to the grocery store.

Now can you do a huge favor for me, Merch? Yeah, what is it? Can you please help me hand out these gospels? So he opens up the little compartment in his car and he's like, I've got all these like brochures, these gospels, and I want to specifically hand these out to the elementary school kids walking home. And I want you to do it.

I'm gonna stay in the car, but I want you to hand out those brochures. And Murph is like, oh, huh, okay. I mean, yeah, I'll do it, that sounds good Now, to Murph, this was not unusual Like, I feel like to us, it's like, what? That makes no sense That seems scary and alarming But to Murph, Ken had already prepped him Ken had molded him into like the perfect accomplice

So for weeks now, Ken had been talking to Murph about how he had always wanted to raise an underprivileged little boy, like a little kid. He just felt like, you know, Ken's like, I would be an amazing dad. I would be better parents than any other parents that these kids and Merced have. Just, I'd be the best at, dad of the year. I want to raise them up in this like religious type household. And I just kind of want to pick one off the street. You know I don't have a wife, but I don't have time to date, I'm always working, but I know I'd be a good dad. And Murph was like, huh, that's a little weird, but Ken would keep telling him, you know Murph, you told me that you were

abused as a kid. I was abused as a kid. Do you really think none of these kids are abused? Oh, yeah, some of these young boys abused at home. And if I can just take one, I can show them a different life. Wouldn't you have wanted someone? Murph, to take you as a kid and just show you some love. Give you a beautiful house to live in. And some murphs like, oh, well that does make sense. I was abused as a kid and I wish someone just plopped out of the sky and took me into their house to raise me nicely.

So they shop at a gas station less than a quarter mile away from the elementary school that Steven is supposed to walk home from. And Ken stays in the car, Murf gets out and starts handing out these gospels. Now, it seems like Murf is trying to kidnap someone. Like, it seems like he knows what's going on. He's not just handing out gospels

because the first two boys that he handed out these gospels to, he started engaging in a conversation and he looked over at Ken sitting in the car and Ken's like giving him the no-go sign. He was like, nope, don't do it. So then he tries again. So finally, Murf sees a little boy named Stephen, you know, but he doesn't know his name yet. So he sees Stephen walking.

Now Stephen said at the time, he was at the age where he's just looking at his feet. You know when you're so young, you don't really look around at your surroundings. You're just looking at the way that your know when you're so young, you don't really look around at your surroundings. You're just looking at the way that your feet are moving and the ground moving underneath you. So he bumps into this old man by the name of Merf. And he's like, whoa, this guy's in my way. This guy's like here, take this brochure.

So he takes it because he's a polite kid. And now Merf wants to know, do you have any donations for the church? Brown, like seven, he's like, what are you talking about? He's like, no, but I don't have any money, sorry. And Murf's like, well, what about your mom? Maybe your mom has donations. Where is your mom?

Where do you live so we can go ask your mom? He's saying, well, I live around the block. I guess my mom would give you guys donations. Yeah, she's pretty charitable, right? He's like thinking, okay, I mean that makes sense. So then Ken pulls up in the car and says, hey, I'm the minister. Why don't I bring you home to your mom so we can pick up the donation? So Steven, being the polite kid that never says no to authority, gets into their back seat with them and he starts telling them where to drive. So they start driving

on that way and it's literally only like a quarter mile walk. It's so fast. I mean a drive. So they start driving on that way and it's literally only like a quarter mile like walk. It's so fast. I mean a drive. So it should be super quick but they just zoom past to a street. So this is when Stephen is like, where were we guys? That's my house. Like we're missing my house. I don't know if you guys are in me but like that's my house what's going on and Ken starts telling him, oh well we're just gonna go back to my place. We're gonna go back to my place because I want to call your mom and see if you can spend the night. I want you to spend the night. So he's like, why don't we just go back and ask my mom if I can spend the night?

It's right there. No, no, no. Well, I have some things that I got to do at home. So we're just going to go there and call her from there. Yeah? It's even scary. I mean, he's terrified, especially when they get on to the highway. He knows that something's wrong, but he doesn't know what to do. He's just kind especially when they get on to the highway, he knows that something's wrong,

but he doesn't know what to do. He's just kind of freaked out. And I think that there was a part of 7-year-old Stephen who truly believed maybe this person is going to call my mom. What kind of adult just so blatantly lies like this. Even when he was dealing with his friends' moms, they always say, yeah, we'll call your mom. Let's call your mom when we get home. So there's a little part of him that's like,

yeah, he's gonna call my mom. And to sell this story even more, Kenneth pulls off, off of the highway, in the middle of his drive, goes to a pay phone. So Steven and Marfa are sitting in the car watching him. He walks up to this pay phone, pretends to dial a bunch of stuff, talks to someone on the phone,

and he gets back into the car and he says, well, perfect news, Steven. Your parents say you can spend the night. No Steven's still like, uh, really uncomfortable about this but again, like what is he gonna say? What is he gonna do? So they proceed to drive further down. They drive further down even where Ken works, like 50 miles away into a place called Kathy's Valley. This is deep in. They get out of the cart. Now the thing with Kathy's Valley is that they had rented this tiny little red cabin and it stands out because it's three red cabins. So like just this trio of cabins and then right in front of it there's a trailer park. No, like I

said, because it's the winter. There wasn't a lot of people. They were the only cabin that was occupied. The other two were completely empty. So Steven is walked into this red cabin and he sees a bunch of just like flea market toys all on the floor. So he gets so excited, he like jumps onto the floor and starts playing with these toys, you know, because he's seven, he forgot what's going on. So he's like playing with these toys and the saddest part is he keeps picking out a toy being like, ah, I can't wait. Can I bring this home for my little sister? Like, can I bring this home for my older brother, Carrie? Like, I think he's gonna love this one. He just kept saying that. And Ken would get mad

at him. Like, no, it's only for yourself. So Ken bought these toys just to lure a kid? Yeah. Wow. So as he's playing with these toys, Ken pulls Murph aside and he straight up tells him, you'll go down if you tell anyone you're just as guilty as I am. If anything, I will tell the police that it was all your idea. So Marth's like, don't worry, I'm not gonna tell anyone, I'm just excited that you have a kid now. He's just like, you're gonna be a great dad, pretty much. Like, baby shower, just weird.

He was just going along with it. I don't know how to feel about this. Meanwhile, Marth said it's freaking the fork out because the stainer house, they realize that holy shit, Steven hasn't come home from school. All of his siblings are here where the fork is Steven. Now at first they said that they were incredibly angry. They were like, he has gone to his friends house again. Oh, nope. We've told him so many times what is going on with this kid. So they drive up and down the street to the neighbors to every single one of Steven's friends and nobody has seen him

So this is when the panic sets in they drives to school. I mean there's This isn't really what they think happened, but maybe there's a chance he's at school So maybe he just like is staying there for some reason so they drive to school He's not there But the teachers help and they put together the directory. They're like here These are all the numbers of all the parents at this school. Give them a call. So they one by one call every single parent and nobody has seen him.

One of his classmates said, oh yeah, I saw him at the Red Ball service station, like the gas station where he was talking to Murf, but they saw him before he was talking to anyone. So he was like, he was just walking through the station. So that's it. And this is literally the route that he takes to go home. So it's not like he was going on a different route, a different direction. How come he didn't go with the brothers and sisters?

They were all just kind of going with their friends and getting scattered, you know? And especially Carrie, apparently people said that he felt a lot of guilt because he was supposed to watch his youngest siblings, you know, walk to and from school. But being like a- The serial killer?

Yeah, being like an older kid, he wanted to hang out with his friends. So he would just like ditch them whenever the mom wasn't looking. I'm very curious of how his relationship with the brothers are. Oh, it gets really weird. Yeah.

So the family called the police and the whole community, they start freaking out. They get the reserve police officers involved, the local boy scouts come, they start searching. I mean, there was a ton of construction sites along Yosemite Parkway, which is the massive road that he was on. The gateway to Yosemite is what they call it.

And so they track where you'd be walking back to his house and the police even bring in the dad, Dell. And they just slam their hands down on the table, like, did you kill him? Because sometimes you do look at the parents first. And they're like what are you talking about? No! Find my son! He even took a polygraph test and eventually after the police realized okay it's not the parents. They hooked up like a telephone extension to their house to record any ransom calls maybe. They told them hey, don't open your mailbox carelessly. Like if you see a letter pick it up by the corner because we don't

know we don't know what's about to happen meanwhile in Kathy's Valley Ken is grilling grilling Steven just asking him five bajillion questions about the family who are your siblings where what is your house like what are your parents like just getting all this information? And finally they sit down for dinner. Why is that? Why is he asking so much? Because I think he wants to know like how big this urge is gonna be. Like who's gonna freak out? I think he just wants to know the setup and they start eating green beans, ground beef, and bread for dinner.

Now here's the thing with Steven. He hates green beans. So of course he's like eating the bread, he's eating the ground beef, just like not eating the green beans. And Ken gets so pissed And he threatens him. Steven, if you don't need those green beans, I will spank you. Please start eating those green beans. I mean, it's just so strange, right? So he really tries to be this dad? Yeah. Just like, you would never think that this is like what a kidnap her does. I feel like we're so used to the idea that they like lock you up in a box and then just like abuse you right away. You're not feeding you.

Not like giving you toys and feeding. It's just so confusing. Now at the same time, like literally right after I said that, they take a shower and he forces Steven to get naked and crawl into bed with him for the night. And this is when Ken performs oral sex on Steven. This is the first of thousands of sexual assaults that he will endure for the next seven years. There is just something about summertime. There's something in the air that makes everyone around me and so many people I've talked to want to improve themselves, not for anybody else, but for themselves.

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counselors in all 50 states. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Rotten Mangle listeners can get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash rotten. Now here's what's crazy. Do you remember the trailer park that I was talking about across from these three red cabins? So that trailer park is less than 200 feet away from the cabin that Steven is being held captive in.

And one of those trailers at the trailer park is Steven's Grand Paul's trailer. Is he in there? He's in there. He had just gotten a little space for that trailer at this specific trailer park I mean, it's crazy. So the same night that Stephen is getting sexually assaulted, right? Del the dad he drives up to Cathy's Valley Parks at the trailer park less than 300 feet away from the cabin that his son is being held at and Tells the grandpa. Hey your grandson is missing. Like we need you down in

Merced, we need your help. Oh my God. Is that not crazy? Like how does that even happen? How does this make sense? Oh my God, that is so sad. Yeah, 300 feet away. And so the next day they wake up and can force this Stephen to perform oral sex on him. So there is like an escalation of sexual assaults that just get stranger and stranger. So for the first few weeks of Steven's captivity, I mean, Ken's got to go to work, you know? Now, work is 50 miles away from the cabin. Ken doesn't feel safe about leaving Steven in the cabin 50 miles. You know, he doesn't know that the grandpa's in the trailer park,

but he knows there's some people there. He doesn't want him to run out and do anything crazy. So he decides to bring Steven to work. How? So every single employee at the assembly lodge, they get this little room. And it's just like a private room. So he just carries Steven in there and just leaves him there. Now most of the time he was carried in there completely nude for whatever reason.

So now you've got this kidnap boy who's making all the news in the local Mercedes area being held nude in a dormitory at your somebody lodge like it's just crazy. Maybe if he's nude that he can run out of the room. But the fact that he has the balls to just even like bring him to that workplace. Yeah. So he would just you know stockppile sleeping pills give him cough syrup so that Stephen would knock out. He goes to work, Murph would show up and check up on him. He had to pee inside of a bucket because he didn't want Stephen using like any of the, the, yeah, the restrooms just in case someone saw him. So it was just the strangest thing. Meanwhile, the police have no leads. I mean, they have searched a bunch of sex offenders' houses in the area.

They even found a bunch of CP in some of these houses, like Holy shit, what's going on, right? They started taking tips from psychics. Okay, here's the thing with psychics. I fully support psychics, except when it comes to people that are missing. People are dying. Like, things are time sensitive, things are emotional, you know, it seems like a little bit too... I feel bad. I feel bad, you know? But one of these psychics kept coming to the police and are emotional, you know, it seems like a little bit too, I feel bad.

I feel bad, you know? But one of these psychics kept coming to the police and was like, you need to take me somewhere because I keep having this like feeling that I know where he is. So the police because they have no leads and I'm like, all right, get in the car. So he starts driving and she leads him straight to Kathy Valley, straight to Kathy Valley, straight to those three. This is like 50 plus miles away from her said Okay, Kathy's Valley to the three little red cabins and she keeps saying I lost my trail here So he's like come on like you let me all the way up here I drove up, you know highway 140 with a heck like you're just gonna say you lost your trail

No, I don't think so so he's like get back in the car. She gets back into the car I drove up, you know, highway 140 with a heck, like you're just gonna say you lost your trail? No, I don't think so. So he's like, get back in the car. She gets back into the car. He starts driving around every single time. She loses her trail in front of these three cabins. I usually don't believe in stuff like this, but holy shit, I believe in stuff like this. And then they didn't search, though.

Yeah, for whatever reason, for the next seven years, they never searched those cabins. I just don't understand. Wow. Now, another huge slip up is that Ken was never registered as a convicted child molester as required by California law. I don't know what happened there. So his name would have ended up on the list of sex offenders that the police would have been searching,

but he wasn't registered as a sex offender. Even though he should have been registered, I don't know if it was like a systematic issue where someone in the system was like, oh, I forgot this one. You win some, you lose some. I forgot to like enter him in in the database, but like his conviction is there.

So if you look him up by name, you can see that he was convicted for child molestation. But he's not registered as a sex offender. Huh, okay. So it's just the strangest thing. So the police also then go to Yosemite and they ask the Curry company, which is now go to Yosemite and they ask the curry company Which is now called the Yosemite Park Company, right? How many times am I gonna say Yosemite in this one?

And they ask for a list of all of the employees that work there and for some reason they only give them half of the employees Okay, so let me ask the Employees oh because like I said unfortunately at the time more than 40% of the employees that worked at Yosemite had Fell any arrest and or conviction so they're like, you know, we can never be too safe, right? So they give them only half of the names because they were on an alternating payroll So half the employees were getting paid this week and then the other half next week But for whatever reason the employee that was working with the police only printed out one week's payroll So it didn't include the other half of employees, literally only 50% of the employees were listed on there,

but they were presented to the police as this is the full list, and the police investigate every single one of them, and all of them are cleared. Guess who wasn't on that list? Ken or Murph? Neither of them were on that list. Oh my god, these employees. So then the police, they go to all of these Yosemite companies and they're like, hey, here's a bunch of missing posters for this little boy by the name of Stephen. Can you please just like hang them up? Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Nobody that has ever worked at the park or has gone to the park during that time.

Remember, ever seeing even one poster inside of the park. Why? That doesn't make sense to me, right? And there's a lot of Reddit threads that talk about park rangers and how there's a lot of drama between FBI and park rangers that I just, that's crazy to me. So apparently the FBI and the local police were not on good terms with the park rangers that you're somebody. So it seemed like it was a situation of where the FBI was on

this case and you're somebody was like, oh yeah, it was sucks to be you. We've got shit going on too. And maybe it's not the best marketing. To be like, welcome to our beautiful, limitless park. People go missing. Here's a missing poster. You know, maybe? I don't know.

That's true. Yeah, I mean, like if I went to a park and I saw missing posters, I might not be like, Yeah, let me stay here in a tent. Okay. Right. Yeah. Some places, I guess it's just not appropriate, like Disneyland. Yeah, Disneyland.

Exactly. Have you seen this boy? Yeah. So maybe that's why they didn't hang it up, but I don't know. The FBI just said that they were on very, very sour terms. So there was not any cooperation going on. So then weeks into this, you know, Uncle Murphy gets called over. That's what Stephen calls him. He's forced to call him Uncle

Murphy. So, Murphy gets called over and Ken says, I need you to watch the boy because I'm going on my set, right? I'm going into town. So he goes to the gas station near Stephen's house, like literally a quarter mile from Stephen's house. And he sees all of Stephen's missing posters all on the walls of this gas station. And he starts taking mental note of some things. His middle name, his birthday, and his main description. His main description is that he has Shaggy Light Brown hair. Shaggy Light Brown hair, right? So he remembers this. Then he stops by at another place to pick up a six-week-old dog. It's really weird, okay? So he now he's got this little puppy in his car and he's memorized his entire missing posters, drives up back home into the cabin and he presents Stephen with his new puppy.

He says, I just got you a new puppy, don't you love it? And Stephen, I mean, he's seven, he's like, thank you, thank you, thank you, this is amazing. And he names that puppy, Queenie. And this puppy will be with him for the next seven years, his only source of comfort, like his best friend Forever he comes back for that puppy. It's like a whole thing, okay? And so at this point Ken's like here come here sit on my lap Steven creepy So Steven sits on his lap and he says do you do you want to know where I was today?

How's that the courthouse? You know? I just had so many meetings at the courthouse and I saw your parents there Yeah, the judge gave me custody of you. Do you know what that means? That means that your parents don't want you anymore. Your parents can't afford you anymore. So the judge says that I have you now and I have to take care of you now. Do you get that? So of course Stephen's like, no, that doesn't make sense.

No, my parents need me. Like, no, my dad would never. My dad loves me. Like, I don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy. Like, this doesn't make sense. No, my parents need me like I know my dad would never my dad loves me Like I don't know what you're talking about you. You're crazy like this doesn't make any sense But he keeps pushing and Ken says no, no Stephen. It makes perfect sense and by the way your name is no longer Stephen It is now Dennis Gregory Parnell, which is interesting because Gregory is Stephen's middle name So he kept that detail in for some strange reason And he says and you will call

me dad. So Steven's sobbing, he's crying. He drags him over, adds the little boys crying, and he gives him a haircut at home to get rid of that shaggy look. Then he pulls out a box of hair dye, and he dies his hair from a light brown to a dark brown. So now with this new look, I mean, Ken's feeling very bossy. He says, why don't you go outside to the front of the cabin and play with your dog while dad takes an app while your dad, me, takes an app. So guess where Steven goes? In front of the cabin, 200 feet away from his grandpa playing with his dog in plain sight. Wow. So after he tells Stephen, your name's Dennis, call me dad. He starts sawdemizing his quote son. And I think like a haunting detail in this whole case is that there he always had with him like this giant jar of Vaseline and

it was like entered into evidence and it was just like the creepiest thing. It's still like haunts a bunch of like case workers to this day. Now Stephen said at this age he had no idea what was happening. I mean he knew that it was just like the creepiest thing. It's still like haunts a bunch of like case workers to this day. Now, Steven said at this age, he had no idea what was happening. I mean, he knew that it was painful and he knew that it wasn't right. He didn't know that it was sex or sexual assault. He just felt like, oh, I haven't done this yet. So it must be wrong. Like it must be strange.

Like I've never heard about this. This doesn't make any sense. And it hurts. So it's just like my natural inclination to like think that this is wrong, right? But he didn't really know the full impact until later. So randomly, around this time, Ken's outside and he's talking to these randos.

And one of them is like, hey, you know that guy that lives at the trailer park literally right across from your cabin? God, poor guy. I think his name's like Bob, but Bob's grandson is missing in Merced. I know, maybe we should bring him like a casserole or something. Whoa. And he's like, what do you mean missing in Merced. I know, maybe we should bring him like a castle or something. And he's like, what do you mean, missing in Merced?

Yeah, that boy, I think, what was his name? I saw his posters in Merced when I went to town. I think it's like Steven or something. His grandpa is living in the trailer right there? Yeah, so sad, huh? So that day Ken's like packing up the bags. He's like, we gotta get out of here, right? So he doesn't tell Steven any of this. He's just like we're gonna leave. Let's get in the car pack your stuff

Get your dog. He calls this work and he's like I'm not gonna be coming in anymore. I'm quitting my job And he just books it out of there. So once they move they move like I want to say the close to a hundred miles up north Right, they'll keep moving during all of this and I don't want to be like a GPS for you because I feel like that's too much Right, so they keep moving and Can had to find work. I mean he's no longer working at the lodge. He needs money So he deadass hired local babysitters and paid them to watch Stephen while he goes to work Yeah, I mean the level of this is also confusing especially because I feel like most cases that we've covered You know these evil people will hold people captive

Maybe they'll chain them up while they're at work. Maybe they'll put them in a box. Maybe they will put them in an impenetrable room. But he hires babysitters and I'm not saying this as like, oh, so compassionate. But I'm saying this as, wow, so bossy. I just don't understand the audacity. Like it just, it's crazy to me. And he told Stephen, if you tell anyone the truth, if you even say your real name, you're going to be sent to like an orphanage and Stephen being seven. He was like that sound scary an orphanage sounds Terrifying so he must really understand Stephen's personality Yeah, right and like really just got in his head about everything and like I said all of those little points about Stephen's personality Was so important and if you think that you know Ken is already so Balzy, he gets even Balzier. So that now there are 170 miles away

from where Stephen grew up, and he enrolls him in the school, in the local school district as Dennis Parnell. Dennis Gregory Parnell uses his same birthday. He didn't even change his birthday, and enrolls him into that school. Now here's the thing with the school district. This is even crazier. The Stainer family had sent a bunch of missing posters to all of the nearby school districts. So this was not the specific school district that Steven Stainer had attended, but this is a nearby jurisdiction. So they sent all of these school boards, all of these missing posters and they just threw them out. They didn't even look at them. They didn't even take mental note.

They didn't tell their teachers, hey, just a heads up. I don't think anything's gonna happen, but this kid's missing in Marseille. He's seven years old. He looks like this, because I think if they had done that, this would have been stopped, like a year in, not even, right?

So he gets enrolled to this school, and the teacher writes in her notes, Dennis has adjusted quite well to the work and the routine of our classroom. And I think that this just goes to show how moldable and adaptable he was, especially at seven years old. They said that he's really well liked by the other children, and I'm glad to have him here.

So eerie. Yeah. And the school secretary thought that something was strange. She was kind of the only one that had the alarm bells going off at first, and it wasn't even about Dennis, it was about Ken. She said, here's the thing, every day Ken would call and say, hey, this is what's going on. He can ride the bus today. Then the next day he'd call and say, I'm picking him up today. Next day he'd call and say, the babysitter is picking him up today. And she just thought it was strange. I mean, most

parents they do have a schedule, but they don't call it every single day. Like this just feels almost obsessive. This almost feels a little bit strange So she asked someone day the secretary is like hey, why do you call every single day? Like we kind of get the gist like if we see the babysitter we know her she's on our list now if we see you You know we get it we know what's going on and he says and I quote Dennis might be picked up by someone weird off the street. You can never be too careful, you know? He might be picked up by some weirdo off the street. You can never be too careful.

What? Yeah. You think he's genuinely scared that someone else might kidnap him or the dad or the mom might show up? I don't even know. I feel like someone else might can that him. That's what I think because he's getting so ballsy. So around this time, Steven gets sick, right?

And he gets the mumps and he's super sick. Like I'm talking, he is missing 27 days out of 39 days of school. So now he has to be taken to the doctor because the school board's not just gonna be like, oh, your kids missing school, that's fine. We're not gonna call CPS. We're not gonna do anything about it. That's when they're gonna try to like see what's going

on at the family home. So Ken is forced to take him to his first doctor's appointment since his kid napping and he's staying with him in the room the whole time. He's saying, well, my name is Dennis Parnell, like he's going along with the whole script and this is especially scary because this is a pediatrician. He should know about Mason kids, he knows when kids are in distress. The pediatrician, if they also gave him a full exam, he would find evidence of sexual assault, right? But nothing happened. So Ken gets more ballsy.

I mean, this boosted his confidence. He starts taking out Steven to, you know, eat at all these restaurants specifically on the highway. The major highway that runs through California, up and down California, he would go to the Denys on the highway, even though there's other Denys. And this is crazy because this is the type of freeway Denys that you would, you know, you would stop at during a road trip. So a ton of people from Merced, from Los Angeles, like a lot of people would end up there. Why is he doing that? He's just that Balzy. He just thinks that this proves that he can get away with it.

Now, meanwhile, Steven is really settling into his role as Dennis Parnell. There's some psychological aspects about it that we'll get into later, that a lot of psychiatrists thought. I don't know anything, okay? And they said that you have to remember that he's seven years old. This is his primary caretaker. He's adaptable. These kids are moldable. They're made to try to adapt to the setting. They're not trying to run away at 7 and that's why kids in abusive households, they will

internalize all of this trauma and they'll just try to survive. That's it. That's what kids do. He was also never raised to question authority and Stephen had this strong love for a father figure. Remember at home, he was Del's shadow. So it seemed like at this point, he's just trying to replace that void. This is like his biggest thing in life at seven years old.

He needs something to fill this like emotional void and he will get even the smallest thing to fill it. Even if it's like the most evil thing, that's just like what your brain is doing. You just want to fill that void. So by the time that Dennis is eight years old, he has his first runaway attempt. So that particular night, he was sexually assaulted and it was really, really bad. Now, Ken falls asleep. Stephen gets dressed in the middle of the night, makes sure that he's sleeping and slowly opens the front door and runs, just books it. And he makes it to a main street, and he makes a turn, and another turn, and another turn,

and he starts getting lost. There's no one else out on the street. He's by himself, and he's lost, and he's eight years old. So he starts panicking, and he finally finds his way back to the house, and he's sobbing and shaking with fear. And I think it's a situation of the unknown is so much scarier. At least he knows what the life with Ken is like, even if it involves abuse, but this unknown as an eight-year-old, you're like, what is even out there?

It's like full of monsters. So he makes it back home. Ken thankfully did not wake up during any of this, and this would be his last attempt for many, many years. Wow. So a lot of people say this was kind of like the end point. He really tried to become Dennis because as a kid it's easier to do that. You know, it's psychologically speaking.

So he starts making friends. I mean, he starts kind of having a life. He made a best friend by the name of Kenny. No, because it's confusing. Yeah, the dad's name is Ken. Now his best friend's name is Kenny. We're just going to call him the best friend, okay? Now, the friend had a ton of siblings like a big bustling family life the mom Barbara was always there She was always cooking and the dad Bob was always home. So you know, he really liked this

Stephen was really gravitating towards this family like I want to hang out with them and Ken liked it because he didn't have to pay for a babysitter He would just be like, yeah, go play with the Mateus family, go go, go with your best friend. Now, Ken himself starts becoming super close with this family. I mean, it's so strange because in certain aspects, it just feels like a normal, normal thing to do. You get close with your kids,

quote unquote, kids best friends, family, right? So Bob Mateus, the dad of this family, they would do a lot of business ventures together. So Ken was like, hey Bob, we need to buy some calves, baby cows. We're gonna fatten them up and sell them as livestock. Some big fat juicy cows. So they buy, they go have these on these two baby cows and they start feeding them. And they decide, they don't need shelter. Cows don't need shelter. What the heck is that? So they leave them

outside and the cows just died of exposure within a couple of days. He just had so many failed business ventures. So Ken, I mean, he was obsessed with flea markets, so he opened up his own flea market, but he would just upcharge for used junk. Like, he'd be like, look at this used tissue paper. It's $50. No one bought anything. Okay, they were like, this is overpriced. This is a scam.

Then eventually he opened up his own Bible company, which is ironic. This was strange for a lot of reasons. The community never saw him as religious. Know that I'm even saw him as like an upstanding citizen. But now if you're looking for a Bible, why would you buy it from him? That seems like a sin in and of itself, right? They were just confused by this. On top of that, he would just kick people out of his store when he decided I'm gonna close right now. In the middle of business of business hours I'm done I'm just gonna close the shop

so they'd be kicked out and he would close the place down and he would do all of these strange business ventures and he starts getting closer and closer with this family and it's not because he was best friends with Bob not because he's just like man this is my buddy for life because he wanted to sleep with Bob's wife the mom what he wanted to sleep with Bob's wife. The mom. What? He wanted to sleep with Barbara the mom and he wanted to sleep with Steven's best friend the nine-year-old. No. Yeah. So he wants to sleep with Barbara the mom but also her nine-year-old son. It's so confusing.

And his plan was kind of working because Bob would beat his wife Barbara when he got drunk. Like Barbara would constantly run away, Ken would have to watch the kids which he got so excited because he wanted to try to like make the moves on the 9 year old best friend, right? And then eventually the fights would get so bad that Ken would have to intervene. Bob would be yelling at his wife and Ken's like, come on, come on, like break it up, break it up you two. And Bob would look at him and say, Ken, you stay out of this.

This is a family matter. I know you think you're like family, but this is between me and my wife. And then he would turn around and slap Barbara across the face in front of the kids in front of Ken. I mean, it was just really bad. So one day it could even worse. And Barbara decides, I'm not having this anymore. And she runs away straight into Ken's arms. Now Ken at the time was working at a motel so he's like let me get you in the room in the motel. We can just stay here with you me and my son Steven. Forget your kids, forget your husband so they rent this little motel room. Now inside of this room there's two double beds so you're thinking okay like the kid gets one and the couple gets one right that makes sense. They're couple well Ken and Barbara. They're like trying to be a couple now, right?

Yeah, and so Barbara likes him too. Yeah, she just like ran straight into his arms Now that night Steven the first night that Barbara ran into Ken's arms Steven's just playing with his little GI Joe set watching TV in this motel room and the two of them they start making out Ken and Barbara they just start making out in front of this little kid. And then eventually they start getting naked and they start doing it in the bed behind this kid. So okay, your, like his eyes are wide open right now and it's shocking but it gets worse. So out of nowhere Ken says, hey Steven or hey Dennis, why don't you come over here? And he forces Stephen to take off all of his clothes and crawl into bed with them. Then he rolls Stephen on top of Barbara and they tell him how to move essentially.

Oh my god. So this little... So Barbara is this? Yeah. And she'll never get arrested for any of this. What? So he was then sexually assaulted by this full-grown woman, his nine-year-old best friend's mother. And Ken's like, what a beautiful family we have. So he decides that they're really going to present themselves as a family.

So he buys this little tiny little trailer for them and now Ken, Barbara, and Steven, you know, man, wife and child, that's what Ken was presenting to the world. We're gonna live in this trailer together. There was only one bed. So all of them would sleep together in this one bed. Now during all of this, Steven said that there was probably eight different occasions where he was forced to participate in sexual activities with this old couple. He did claim even though this was all taking place, you know, the 18 months that Barbara was living with them was still probably the better of the times, because Ken was so distracted

with Barbara that the sexual assaults from Ken to Steven weren't as frequent. So prior to this, it was multiple times a day, a lot of the times, but now it was maybe once a month if they had some alone time, if somehow Ken had put them in the car and drove them into town and they found like a secluded spot, you know, like Ken being a creep. But other than that, he said that it was a strange arrangement. So Barbara is super unlikable. They said that she's the type of person that is really stupid, but she thinks she knows everything. Just like really one of those and keeps on talking.

You know, she would also do this thing where she claimed that all of these men were trying to peep into her shower while she's, you know, showering at the trailer park bathrooms and they wanted to see her naked. So she hated using the bathroom, she stopped showering and instead of peeing in the designated toilet section, she just started going out to the back of the trailer and peeing up against the back of the trailer.

Which I don't know if that's more secluded, less secluded, I don't know, they just said it was very very strange. Now I think what's really strange about all of this is that Ken really egged on Barbara to assault Steven because Ken wanted to watch. So that's like a side note, very, very strange. And it almost seemed like Ken was trying to persuade Barbara into kidnapping another boy for them. So there was at least one instance where Barbara tried to lure a boy into their car, but every single time the boy ran away.

So I mean, I don't know what's wrong with Barbara. I just don't understand. So after their last failed attempt, where they tried to kidnap a boy from the Santa Rosa Boys Club, they move a carindah. So they move 80 miles north to a different school district. And Steven's parents had sent letters yet again to this district with please of help with missing posters,

you know, but they threw away their mouth. So this is the second school district that could have caught something, but they didn't. So he gets admitted into this school district and starts, you know, still being a dentist. And around this time is when he learns about what homosexual means, that word. He also learns the F-slur and the dyk-e-slur, you know,

for all these homosexual slurs, right? And as a kid, he said that he refused to talk about anything that related to sex. So I think what's confusing is that Steven Stevens trying to have somewhat of a normal childhood and all of these kids are talking about sex, but he's so scared to even talk about things like this, even if they're important in his development, because he said that he was scared that just the mention of sex would make him want to do it to Ken. He was so scared that anyone even brought up sex in the household, like someone casually brought it up as a word,

that Ken would hear the word sex and then he would go and rape Stephen. Like that's how terrified he was. And he started inviting friends over and sometimes they would talk about sex and he would just get so scared. Because he was like, did Ken hear that? Sometimes friends would come over and they would use the F'sler and he would panic. Because he's like, oh my god, like, you know, Ken is gay, right? Is he gonna get pissed? Is he gonna try to, you know, what is he gonna do? So he would be like, let's go play outside. Like, he was just going through so many struggles

at that age. Now eventually, Barbara's kids are forced to live with Barbara. Like, Bob had lost custody of the kids. So now we've got like five more kids that are supposed to move into this trailer that only has one bed. So they scrap up enough money to buy this old school bus that was gutted and it just has like a bunch of beds inside. It's like a giant bed. It sounds fun, but apparently it was really really nasty in there and not fun at all and just really messed up in there, okay? So they park this trailer right next to the school bus, and all the kids are sleeping in the school bus, and the couple sleeping in the trailer.

So the best friend gets propositioned by Ken. Ken is propositioning Barbara to bring her own child? No, not Barbara. Just go straight up to the best friend. He's 11 now, and just go straight up to that kid, and it was like, hey, do you want me to touch you? Like he said something along the lines. He wasn't just straight up trying to take off his clothes. It wasn't necessarily physically forceful, but he was just like, do you want to try this?

And he said, oh no, so he runs away and runs straight to his buddy, Steven, and says, hey, did you know that your dad's gay? And he said, he tried to grab my balls. He tried to get me to suck his, you know, and perform oral sex on him. Like that's what he was saying. Like your dad just asked me if I wanted to do that. And I told him, no, now Stephen gets so embarrassed. Because again, like you're dealing with a kid who has all of these, like sexuality is becoming a thing to him. And then now he's like so confused about what's going on. This is technically his quote unquote, dad. And he's so confused about what's going on this is technically his quote unquote dad and he's just like what are you talking about

no he's not gay no he didn't ask you that and he just gets mad and he runs away. Now this time Ken comes back to the best friend and starts robbing his shoulders and then out of nowhere just quickly slid his grubby little hands into Kenny's pants and grabbed his private area. So the best friend he jumps up, he's super pissed and he runs inside and he leaves his little brother who is nine years old alone with Ken. So now this little brother was dragged into the room with Ken

and he told him to take off his clothes, get down on the bed and I quote, face down and continue to scream at him while he grabbed his jar of facileene. So when Barbara gets home the nine-year-old Lloyd, he tells her everything. And she decides, you know what, I'm gonna take my kids and I'm gonna move out of here. I don't know why this. So people kind of give her a little bit of praise for this but don't her a praise because she was actually seeing someone else at this time And she had plans on moving in with another man anyway, but this doesn't matter man. She yeah, that's what I'm saying

Like some people are like, oh, well finally, at least she stood up for her own kid But no, like she was straight updating someone else and I don't think that she left Ken because of her I mean the moment that she touched yeah because of her care. I mean, the moment that she touched, yeah. I mean, yeah. So yeah. And she did go to the police and reported the abuse and the police did not believe her. They were like, oh, this is some sort of like a romance

situation where you're leading him for a different man. Stop. So she went to the police and said, what? That, you know, Ken, my ex boyfriend just sexually assaulted my son. OK. And they're like, well, you also son. Okay. They're like, well... You also assault her.

Yeah, they're like, well you sound like a scorned woman, like a scorned girlfriend, get out of here, and they didn't believe it. So now meanwhile in Merced, the stainers, they're having a really hard time. He's been missing for multiple years, and the news outlets are just kind of forgetting about this whole situation, and their life is just not moving on Especially the dad Dell. He's just having the hardest time He said that he couldn't even stand to do normal things with the rest of his children Because he felt like there's always one missing so all of these Christmas's was like the hardest

They would all still get presents for Steven because it just felt like it wasn't right if they didn't give him a present It was them admitting that they thought that he was dead and he was never going to do that. So he would sit around and he'd watch all of the rest of his kids, carry in the three sisters, open their presents, but he couldn't do it. So every Christmas in the middle of opening presents, the dad would just leave the room and go into the bedroom and talk to Stevens, pictures pictures and cry. Just sob. He made sure that nobody was allowed to paint on any of the walls in the house because Steven had signed his name on them.

This is something that they were really mad at him for because he signed Steven's stator on the walls like with crayons. And he almost got his spanking for it. But now the dad cherished it. You could not even go anywhere near that wall. You couldn't even paint it. You couldn't dare spill anything on it. He had to keep this. He never washed Steven's clothes, made sure that they smelled like Steven so he could smell it still. I mean, just so sad. And at the same time, you know, the mom, she's getting even

more detached from the kids. She feels like she has to put on this brave front and it's just hard. I just can't even imagine. And although out of this is happening, the world is moving on. They kept writing to NBC and CBS and they were told that the story is too old now that they can't keep airing it. How's um, Kerry? Okay, so Kerry. He's very interesting during all of this, right? Oh, side note, there was some scandals that made it worse for the family. So, Del was having the hardest time, like I said.

He's taken out his anger on his wife and the kids. He wasn't getting along with anyone. He just like couldn't describe it. He felt like everything hurt. He lost his religion because he didn't think that this was fair. None of this made sense. And there was so many bad leads. There was a supermarket, if you ask go, right?

A local supermarket. These two brothers were running it. They get into a business fall out. They stop talking to each other. One of them goes to the police station and says, Hey, my brother is responsible for that missing kid. He killed that kid, dismembered the kid, and stuffed the kid into the sewage system underneath our grocery store. So they bring in the other brother who refuses to take a polygraph test, so then the police are forced to dig up the sewers in the vicinity, nobody, or body parts were found. So it's just like this is adding to more stress for the family. Now, Carrie in high school, he seemed to be doing well from the outside perspective. He

was voted most creative. He was really well known for all of these little cartoons that he drew. He worked for the school newspaper, all of that. There was always two things about him though. Other than being creative, there was two things that nobody could forget. He was the missing boy's brother. And he always wore a hat. What people didn't know is because he was wearing that hat, he was pulling out his hair. He was compulsively pulling out his hair, just like how Ken was pulling out his teeth. So he wore a hat, because he had these little bald patches,

he just couldn't stop pulling out his hair. Why is he? Which is something that people do when they're stressed apparently. Yeah, but you think this came, okay, I guess it's a combination of everything that's going on in his life. Yeah, so he claimed that ever since he was seven, he started having these strange fantasies that he would kill women.

Seven. Yeah. How? I don't know. It's so strange. But it doesn't seem like he was abuse, right? No. So he starts pulling out his hair and I don't know if it's because these fantasies.

I don't know what it is. He starts showing some other strange signs. Now, the problem with Carey is that he is athletically handsome, like he's a well-built dude. He is conventionally handsome, but he just never had a girlfriend. It's not that he's socially awkward either. It just, he never really could make a connection

with these girls that he tried to date. People thought it was so strange. Now one day. Wait, he did try. Yeah, he did try. But he couldn't form this connection with these girls. Now one day, Wait, she did try. Yeah, he did try, but he couldn't form this connection with these girls. Now one day, his little sister invites a 14-year-old girlfriend over.

Her name's Victoria. And so Victoria is sleeping on a cot. And he shows up, crawls underneath the cot, puts his hand up and starts grooping her. So she freaks out and she wakes up and she's like, hey, go away, like what are you doing?

You're so weird. And he went away, but a couple minutes later, she sees like little light on, so she looks over and he's standing at the doorway, but naked. Just watching her. So she's like, go away, you're, go away, so he goes away. That's so creepy, wah.

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That's THREDUP.com slash Rotten for 30% off your first order. ThreadUp.com slash Rotten for an extra 30% off today first order. Threadup.com slash run for an extra 30% off today. Turns apply. Now, back to Stephen, right? This whole time, eventually, Ken tries to convince Stephen to kidnap someone else for him, especially now with Barbara Gone. It seems like he wants another young boy, and Stephen's getting a little bit too old. So Ken would take into the mall and they would spend hours. Ken would say, hey, go talk to that young boy and Stephen's getting a little bit too old. So Ken would take him to the mall and they would spend hours. Ken would say, hey, go talk to that little boy and see if he wants to come home with you,

right? And so he'd go up to this little boy and Stephen never really did it. He would just say things like, hey, little boy, have you seen my mom? And little boy would say, no, I haven't seen your mom. And he'd say, thank you so much. And then he'd come back to Ken and be like, no, I asked him to come with me and he didn't want to. So he would just like fake these things.

And Ken would never get mad, but they would spend hours. Just hours doing this. And along with that, the sexual assaults were getting more frequent. Because like I said, Barbara's gone, right? So eventually they moved to a place called Comche, California. They get their own little place. And for the next three years, it seems like, you know, Steven said he was relatively happy. He had his first girlfriend, went to the movies with her.

Yeah! I mean, it's so strange because a part of this is like he's almost living a regular childhood. Meanwhile at home, there's something so dark and sinister going on that nobody can put their finger on and it's very confusing. So he goes to the movies with her, boys, parents are sitting behind them just like supervising. He starts, you know, smoking marijuana with his friends, doing all of these things. Now one of his friends' parents did say that something was odd about that family. Something was odd about that dad and that son.

She just didn't know what it was, but just something was odd. Another teacher was suspicious because in class they were going over an article about missing and lost children. And after the discussion all the other kids they didn't care they ran out, right? But Steven was standing there talking to his friend and he said, you know when I was young my parents didn't want me anymore. And so the teacher walked over and said, do you ever visit them anymore?

And he just had this like weird smile and said, no. He just, I mean that was so strange, right? So he walks into the teacher's lounge and he's just, I mean, that was so strange, right? So he walks into the teacher's lounge and he's like, God, that's, you guys, let me tell you guys what happened. So he tells all the other teachers and one of them is like, wait a minute. I heard that same conversation in my class with Steven. So it seemed like this was not the first time that he said this, which kind of puts more proof to it.

Cause you know, when you're like 12, maybe you do blur it out random things. But I mean, what's going on here? But for whatever reason, they did not look further into it. Steven would say that this time was very strange. Because of the sexual abuse, I was always scared of Parnell. And a lot of the time, I felt violence towards him. It's like he had this split personality. When the urge hit him, he was somebody different.

After he'd done it with me He would just always go on like nothing happened. We would just sit down and eat a meal like normal And he said it was hard because even though technically his dad would his quote-unquote dad Ken would buy him all these amazing gifts for Christmas and birthdays He just emotionally couldn't go to him because of all of the assaults like it's just was the strangest thing now Ken starts trying to rape all of Stephen's friends Yeah, and he would start pressuring Stephen to invite his friends over like the ones that he picked out at the little school yard And is like hey, you know ask your friend to come over and then it Charles would come over and he'd say hey Stephen Now you scudaddle go to your other friend's house I want some alone time with Charles so Stephen hated this he tried to make sure that this didn't happen

But sometimes Ken would just make it happen sometimes he would just pick up kids on the street and be like, hey, yeah, Stephen wants you to come over. I'm supposed to pick you up. And he did rape them? Some of them, yeah. What? So Stephen confided in a friend during all of this, what has happened? One of them had been propositioned by Ken and confronted Stephen and was like, hey, your dad literally just offered me money or tried to touch me, what's going on. And Steven said, and I quote, we've already had sex with each other. And then he went on to tell him how Ken was sexually molesting him and how he didn't

want to do it, but Ken made him do it, and all of the specific things that they did, and the kid was like, why don't you turn them in? I can't. He's my dad. So after a couple of years at this place, they decide to move to the middle of nowhere. I believe it's called like Manchester. That sounds like a really pop and urban place. Manchester California. So they move to the middle of nowhere in this tiny little shack. So it's the caretaker shack on a place called Mountain View Ranch. It's completely isolated. When I say isolated, they would be the only ones living in this shack for 4,400 acres. That's how big this ranch was. The owners of the ranch were not going to be living on the

ranch. They would stop by once in a while and they have their massive house on the ranch. But Stephen and Ken are forced to live in the caretakers ranch. Just make sure nothing bad happens. It's speculated that the ranch owners were growing marijuana there, so they just wanted someone on the property, free rent, you know, it's a free housing, but they would just make sure no one's trying to steal any plants, no cops come around. That was the whole spiel. So they start driving to this place and the cabin itself was absolutely shitty It was a small box. It had indoor water. The shower was out back The toilet was an old-fashioned outhouse outside. There was no electricity for miles

I mean it was complete isolation Steven said he could count the number of cars that he saw on a daily basis on his hands Just nothing so he's no longer in school So he starts going to school, So he's no longer in school. So he starts going to school, but it's like an hour drive. It's like a shit show. He has to hitchhike to school. I'm like, yeah, like 13 years old.

He's hitchhiking to school. Ken starts working at the motels in the closest town, which is called Yucaya. He would have to commute an hour every single way and work the graveyard shift. But it seemed like Ken kind of liked it. Now, at this point, it starts amping up. He keeps saying we need to kidnap someone. Like I need another son. He's telling Steven this and every single time Steven is refusing

until he meets one of Steven's friends by the name of Sean Aporman. Now Sean is an absolute ash hole. He loves marijuana and he loves money and he has no morals, okay? So this kid is like hey what's going on? Like, are you guys having marijuana farm or something at that ranch? Like, let me help you sell marijuana. So Ken and Sean go into business in that aspect. And Ken starts telling Sean, hey, how much would I have to pay you to kidnap a little boy for me? How old is Sean?

14. Okay. Yeah. He's only 14. Is that not crazy? He's like, yeah, really want a little boy five or six years old Just straight off the street. I just want to adopt a little boy So he gives the same spiel that he gave to Merff

I just want a little set now shun's a little bit smarter than Merff So he's like wanting to just adopt a boy then why are you trying to snatch one off the street? That's creepy. He says well, that's that's a lot of work That's a lot of money out to go through a process. I don't want to do that. Just snatch me a little boy. So he paid him $400 to snatch him a little boy and Ken started preparing. He bought more little toys like he did with Steven. And this time he bought girls clothes because maybe he thought we snatched a little boy, dress it up like a girl, no one will know.

Like that was his thought process. So finally, Sean's stalling. It seems like Sean didn't necessarily want to do it. So Ken picks up Sean randomly one day and is like, today's the day. We're going to do it today. It's Valentine's Day. I need me a little boy. So he gives him a little hat.

And that's it. They drive into Yokaya. They drive to the town past the elementary school where Timothy White, a five-year-old platinum blonde, was walking with his good friend. So he's walking to his babysitter's house and eventually Kristi, his friend was like, oh, well I gotta go this way. So they parked their corners and Ken is watching this little boy like a hawk. He parks and he says, okay, Sean, get out of the car and pretend that you're fixing

a tire. A 5 year old is walking alone? Yeah. Like one blocked his babysitter's house. Huh, okay. Sean gets out of the car, pretends to fix the tire, and once Timothy passes, he says, oh, hey, could you help me just hold this for a second?

Like, I'm just fixing up my car. No, Timmy white is smart. He says, no, he screams, and just starts booking it down the sidewalk. He's like, I'm not having this today. But Shawn is a teenager. He runs faster. So he catches up to Timmy white, and Timmy is, at this point,

he's grabbing onto a chain link fence. Just, he's holding onto it. Sean grabs him by the legs and his arms are holding onto this fence and he prizes hands off and runs back to the car and throws him in the back seat and they start driving back home to the little shack and he's freaking out in the car. I mean, he's screaming. He's like, what's going on? What are you, where are you guys taking me? And they're like, your mom's sick. We're taking you to the dentist.

Like, just completely different stories. And Timmy White is like, he's five, but he knows something bad is happening. So they give him sleeping pills. They give him fruit punch. He knocks out. They get back to the cabin and Sean has paid his money and he hitchhikes a ride from a friend to go back home. Now what's crazy is that this friend who dropped off Sean said that he was not phased at all.

He was just talking about movies that he wanted to watch. Starting from night one, Cannot Force Timmy to sleep in the same bed as him, and Timmy hated it. He was always clothed through, though, and he said that he was never sexually assaulted during this time. He just hated sleepingness to this creepy guy that just kidnapped him. I mean, this doesn't make sense. So you know, Stephen meets Timmy and he's really alarmed by all of this.

Like what is going on here? What is going to happen to this kid? He was so terrified that Timmy was going to get sexually assaulted. So during the day, it was up to Stephen to watch him when he's not at school. You know, because getting a babysitter was too dangerous at this time, especially because the search for Timmy was insane. There was helicopters everywhere. There was SBI involved. I mean, it was intense TV radio announcements from Ucaya to San Francisco. There were pictures of this little boy everywhere to the point where they died his hair dark brown.

Just like, you know, what they did to Stephen. So you think Stephen know,, no, at this point that he was kidnapped? Yeah, I mean, I think he knew, but he, it was better to suppress it. But I think the minute that he sees Timmy White, it's where everything kind of changes for him. Yeah, okay.

So he sees Timmy White, you know, and he's trying to take care of him most of the day. Timmy said that most of the day he would just sit there. He saw a phone, but there was like a dialogue on it, so he couldn't literally call anyone. He wanted to run away, but he was scared of what Ken would do. I mean, he was just freaking out. Steven was so scared that Timmy was gonna get sexually assaulted

that he pretty much stopped going to school. He just wanted to be with Timmy to make sure that he was not touched by Ken at all times. He started carrying a knife around. I mean, he said that he didn't know what he was going to do. I mean, if Ken started assaulting Timmy, what was he going to do with that knife? He doesn't know, but he just felt better

with having this knife. So during the day, the two of them, they would climb trees. He would read comic books to Timmy to try to calm him down and make sure that he's not too scared, and eventually buy the fifth day. Timmy felt like, this is my older brother. I can trust him. That's what he said he felt like, you know. So he says, can you take me home and Steven promised, I will take you home. Now at the same time, people who knew Ken

said that Ken wanted to kill Steven. He didn't like the fact that Steven was getting close to Timmy and they had pre-dug a grave nearby in the fields and they wanted to just kill Steven, get rid of him because he's too old now and Ken would move to Arkansas with Timmy. Who'd say this? An accomplice of Ken. He was paid to help dig a grave, but apparently they couldn't reach the gravesite because it was raining nonstop. So they're like even if we kill them, we couldn't bring the body to the grave because of the rain. So the plan was getting delayed.

So the day of the escape, Saturday, Ken leaves for his overnight job in Yucaya at the palace hotel, right? And Stephen knelt by his little dog, Queenie, that had been with him for the past seven years. And told her, I will be back for you, do not worry. And he makes sure that Timmy has more clothes on because it's rainy, it's windy outside, it's very scary outside.

It's, I mean, it's dark, okay? So he's got all these clothes and they start walking down the desolate road. There's no electricity for miles. And because of how hilly it is, they felt like they walked miles, but they had only covered like a quarter mile. So at this point, Timmy keeps stopping,

he keeps crying, and so, you know, Steven's carrying him the whole way. And finally, they start hitchhiking. They get to the main road, he sticks out his thumb, and this car pulls up. And it's a Mexican man who did not speak much English. This is kind of pertinent. So he's just trying to like tell him in broken English, like, where are you guys going? Oh, you guys are headed to Ucaya. I can take you there, right? So they get into the front seat. At this point, you know, Timmy's sitting on Steven's lap. And Timmy was so scared because he was like what if

this man just kidnapped us too like I don't trust anyone now meanwhile Stephen scared for another reason he knows that he can't go back now he's gonna be on the run for the rest of his life I mean he's alone now he has no family he doesn't have his real family, he doesn't have Ken. Where will I even sleep? Like he's just thinking about all these things, but he's like, okay, don't freak out, like you're gonna freak out. He's only 14.

He's like, okay, don't freak out, don't freak out. Just think about Timmy, let's just get him home safe, that's it. Then we'll figure it out. So they get into Ukaya and Timmy keeps insisting, no, I don't want to go to the police office, let's go to my babysitter's house. So they get dropped off safely at the babysitter's house, but nobody's home. So Jimmy's like, listen, Steven, I know,

I know where my parents live, so we can just walk there. So they start walking and walking and walking, and it's obvious that Timmy doesn't know. Right? It's obvious that they're getting lost. So Steven is like, come on, Timmy. We just have to go to the police station. It's not going to be scary. Is that okay? So he's like, okay, fine. I'll go to the police station. It's not going to be scary. Is that okay?

So he's like, okay, fine. I'll go to the police station. So they start walking towards the closest police station. And in order to get there, they have to pass the palace motel. That's where he works. So they walk past and Stephen is clutching his knife and he said he had no idea what would happen I've can walked out if can saw them but he was terrified So thankfully they get past the motel they end up at the police station and Stephen stops at the parking lot and says okay to me

You run in and tell an officer your name and they will get you home, okay? They will get you home. He wasn't going to go in? No. And so he said, okay. So Young Little Timmy runs to the front door and it's like all glass, right? So he opens it and he just lets out a scrape and closes it and runs back to Stephen. He's just like, nope, I'm just scared of not doing it.

No, one of the officers, officer Warner saw this. He's like, okay, that's a five year old. It's like the middle of the night. What's going on? Why is there a teenager in the parking lot? Why did he just come in here, scream, close the door, and then leave again. We obviously need to look into this,

but he didn't want to run out of the station because they could run. They could try to escape. So he called for backup and there happened to be a patrol car that was about to pull into the station So that car parks in front of them stops them officer van Voorhees pulls out and says hey What's that young boy's name and Steven says Timmy white? And he was shook this is the little blonde boy that's been missing for over two weeks. Who are you?

I think my name is Stephen Stainer because he's been going by Dennis. I've been missing from Merced for seven years. You think? I know my first name is Stephen. So they get taken into the police station. Timmy is placed into the interrogation room and Stephen is placed into the booking room because they don't know if this crazy story is true. I mean, what if he kidnapped Timmy? We can't be too sure.

We don't understand anything that's going on. So they start calling them or said police department. They start freaking out. And like seven years has passed, there's new officers that weren't working on, you know, the Stephen Stainer case. They're like, hey, you guys know about a Stephen Stainer? Like it was just an absolute chit-chou. So the police, they kept asking Stephen, like, what's going on? Who's this man that you were saying, kidnap to you for seven years and kidnap Timmy?

And Stephen was having a hard time. Because he said, it feels wrong. It feels wrong because he did take care of me for seven years like what am I gonna do just turn them in and the police kept saying if he's sick we're gonna get him help so that's when he told them where he was and the police just rained down on that motel and they they walk in and they say hey is there a Kenneth Parnell working here that's me and they rest time for kidnapping so he gets brought into the station into a different

room. Now this is where it gets really crazy. So Ken is super calm during all of this. He does not care that he, I mean, what is going on? Like he's just chilling. He thinks that he's going to have an excuse. So they need Stephen to identify the guy Ken. So they bring him up to a window in the room where Ken is staying. It's like a two-way window, I believe. It's not even a one-way. And the police officer is like, is that him or not? And Steven just couldn't look at him. So he keeps looking away.

And the officer is like, is that him or not? So he looks through the window and says, yeah, that's him. And he tries to walk away. The officer grabs Steven by the arm, slams open the door, throws Steven into the room room face to face with Kenneth Parnell and says, are you sure that's him? Take a good look. What the fuck is wrong with this cop?

Yeah. And Stephen, this by the way, 14, 14 years old, he says, yes, yes, that's him now. Give me out of here. Oh, fuck is wrong with this, dude. So the whole time before they got confirmation from the Merced Police that this indeed was Steven Stainer and not just some random kid saying that he was Steven Stainer, they treated him like a suspect in Timmy White's kidnapping. So he's re-traumatized by the police, initially. So he's like, yes, yes, get me out of here, like sobbing. So during this entire time, because this is in the town of Yukai, Timmy's parents came, because they live in Yukai out.

And they stayed with Timmy during his whole statement. And it's so sad, because Timmy kept telling the police that this guy said that he knew my parents. You know, Ken kept saying he knows you, Mom. And he said, I didn't know big people lie. Like adults, he said, I didn't know adults lie. Meanwhile, Steven is 14 and completely alone in this booking room. Just completely alone.

He has this fear that he's going to be considered a suspect for the kidnapping. But before Timmy was done with his statement. So after he's done, you know, the police are like, all right, Timmy White and your family, you can leave. Timmy White's mom goes into the booking room and she runs up to Stephen and gives him a kiss on the cheek and they leave. So when the Merced Police finally got on the phone

saying that they're on their way, driving all the way up here, they were able to talk to Stephen and his first question to the Merced Police because remember when his dad had that slip disk? that's all you could remember at that point and he kept saying is my dad still alive and they said yes he's alive so his statement the very first words of his statement were I know my first name is Stephen I'm pretty sure my last name is Stainer and if I have a middle name I don't know it so at first he lied to the police saying that he hadn't been sexually abused.

He tried to make the whole thing seem pleasant, so he said, you know, I called him dad. He never did that to me. He was never mean to me. He never told me why he stole me or Timmy. And for weeks he would stick by this story. And a lot of psychiatrists think that this is completely normal. You know, especially being 14 going through sexuality changes But also, you know, this is the story that you were stuck with And I think to admit all of that trauma happened is such a big Shockwave that's gonna hit you so your brain's like absolutely not. We're not doing this And the police noted that Stephen was incredibly mature for his age

He showed no motions for a 14 year old. He was so collected during all of this during all of the questioning if anything he seemed very positive You know Eventually the past goes crazy. They start holding a conference. Steven is holding his trembling dog They got Queenie back for him once once they could identify him. Where's the parents by the way? They're still in Merced waiting for him. Oh, okay. So they had a press conference before even reuniting? Yeah, in Yucaya. So he's holding Queenie on his lap and he's just, you know, parent Timmy would go from

sitting on his parents lap and then would walk over and sit on Steven's lap. So Timmy was just really saw this as like his hero and savior. Yeah. Wow. And Timmy told the press that Steven was his best friend. He read him comic books in the cabin. So now it's time for Steven to go back to Merced. You know, he's clutching his little dog, wondering, I'm gonna remember my parents. Like, do I? He didn't really remember his siblings' names. He kind of vaguely remembered what they looked like. Because you know, he's seven. He kind of vaguely remembered what they looked like because you know

He's seven and his thing was like are they gonna remember me? So finally once they pull up to Merced I mean it was like a sea of journalists They had this huge welcome home Steve banners all over the place and the police were so concerned the police kept telling the stain our parents You are gonna think that it's your little baby coming home your parents, you are going to think that it's your little baby coming home. But your son is very grown up now. He's a young man. He's somewhat independent. He's a 14 year old near adult and you have to recognize that. You cannot treat him like the seven year old that disappeared. And it's just going to cause a lot of problems. So finally, after 2,645 days, he was reunited with his family.

So that night his very first night back home he decided that he was going to sleep on the living room floor. That's where he felt comfortable and Carrie, his older brother, wanted to sleep on the couch. And Carrie said that he had a hard time sleeping that night because he just kept waking up and looking at Steve and listening to Steve breathe and he couldn't believe that Steven was back home. This is so strange. Weird. Now Steven, he's immediately a national hero.

Not only did he survive seven years himself, but he saved Timmy White. He saved Timmy White from the worst predator ever. And so within days, he's on Good Morning America. He's doing tons of press conferences and the whole family was in on these videos and they were just so ecstatic I mean it was insane but there's different reports so a lot of Kerry's friends when they were interviewed they said yeah Kerry was so happy that his you know little brother came home he kept saying that I was wishing on a star every single night for him to come home and now he's finally home but in a press conference in front of their house, he is standing in the back with a hat

on not smiling at all. The only one in the family, not smiling. Maybe it's a press. Could it just be a bad picture? I mean, it's like a video. Maybe it's a press. Maybe he's stressed. But people thought it was a little bit eerie.

So then there was a book about Steven, a series about him called, I know my first name is Stephen, and this was a critically acclaimed series. People loved it. There were just so much going on. Stephen went back up to meet Timmy, and there's this beautiful picture of Timmy standing on a stool. So when Timmy went missing, there was a $15,000 reward for anyone who, you know, found him and had any tips.

And so Timmy is presenting Stephen with the $15,000 reward check for saving him. Wow. Now, the whole time, Carrie and Stephen, they start developing a strange relationship because they had to share a room together. You know, it's the two brothers, and they would constantly be fighting

because Stephen had a problem with the rules. You think that it's just like this easy breezy, like, oh're back to regular life right? But Stephen just I mean he was this only child for a little while. His dad was to supply him his quote unquote dad Ken would supply him with beer and drugs to try to get his friends to come over you know. So now he's living in this structured house where they're like absolutely no marijuana. What are you talking about? You can't be drinking beer at 14 years old. And he just didn't understand how to deal with that. And when he goes back to high school, he hits bullied. What?

He's being called homosexual slurs. All sorts of names. He almost got into a ton of fights at school. And the same question they kept taunting him with is why didn't you just run away? they would say things like well Steve is gay and Steve let can do those stuff to him and there would be a point where you know eventually people rallied behind his side um Steven said that there was this really crazy moment where one of the kids called him a slur and the whole class just stood up ready to jump this kid and he said that he was laughing so hard that he wasn't even upset about the slur anymore.

And it was just a lot and I think that the way that Stephen was dealing with all of this is that he never had any guy friends. He stayed away from making connections with any guy friends. He went on a spree updating girl after girl after girl and never forming a connection with any of them. It just felt like he was trying to prove his sexuality to the world. At one point you know right after high school he gets hospitalized for a few days because he was drinking so much that he tore up his entire stomach lining and it caused severe internal bleeding. So from that day forward, he was like, okay, I'm gonna stop drinking,

but he was still smoking like one to two packs of cigarettes a day, still smoking marijuana. And it just wouldn't stop. The trauma wouldn't stop because you know Barbara, the woman. Mm-hmm, yeah. She showed up randomly at the family house with a crew of TV reporters.

And she was offered money to do an exclusive interview with Stephen and his family. Do people know what she did? Yeah, I mean, it's out there, but she never got arrested for it. So of course, the family slammed the door in her face. I mean, but it was just a lot. Now, to the outside world,

Stephen didn't have any visible trauma. There was none. Like, he didn't show that to the world. He just kind of held it in. And authorities said that he had two feelings towards Ken that they could pinpoint one that Ken was paternalistic. Like some of this love hate relationship that you would have with like a dad. And then two, they said that if he was given the chance, he probably would have removed Ken's head. So there was a heavy level of hatred there. So it's like this really complex,

you know, unfortunate thing going on. Now with all of this, the biggest punch in the face I think is that the family was really against counseling. They did not want Steven to go through any counseling. So the only information that we have from psychiatrists is because of the trial, because Steven had to be examined. But his parents repeatedly shut down doctors and police who told them that Stephen needs something like this. He needs counseling and they kept saying that his mental health was just fine. Why is that you think? Maybe they're really old school.

That's what I can only think. And also on top of that, maybe Stephen wasn't showing any visible trauma, so they were like, oh yeah, for sure. No really. I don't know because there was no one talked about it at home that's what the sister said no one ever brought up what happened. Just acted like it didn't happen. Wow okay. So the few examinations that he had done they said that he had very conflicted feelings about sexual matters. There was a lot of just turmoil about it. And then he ranked really high

on the overly perfectionistic view of presenting himself. So this is the type of person that doesn't want to burden people. This is the type of person that wants to show the world. No, guys, like I'm happy. I'm well adjusted. Thank you. He doesn't want to show them like, hey, I'm in trouble.

Something's going on inside. There was one point where Steven tried to bring it up with his family. They were eating dinner and he said, I think I want to go visit Ken and Jail. And they all stopped and the parents stared and they completely ignored him and continued talking as if he did not say that. Never addressed it again. Never asked him why he felt that way. Nothing. Just. Wow. Come on. Now another psychiatrist said that Stephen was essentially trapped. They believed that he was trapped in the mind of Dennis at a young age. He resorted to just accepting this identity because it was

the only option for him. But when Dennis saw the distress of little Timmy, that is like when the whole myth started falling apart. And he could no longer you know, maintain this facade of being Dennis. It's no longer going to protect him from trauma. Yeah. Now if there's any more disservice, you would think that it ends here, but it doesn't. Ken gets tried for Timmy White's kidnapping, and then later for Steven. So there's two trials, and the whole time, he just keeps saying that no force was ever used. No force, so they could have left, you know,

but they wanted to stay. They wanted to be there, and because they had a shitty, D.A., a shitty prosecutor, they were just all about getting their names out there. They did not care about their job. They declined to go after any sexual assault charges. Ken would never be tried for the sexual assaults that he forced upon Stephen Stainer. I mean, the DA's office was really shitty on this one day. The judge had put a gag order and said, hey, DA's office, defense attorney, no

one is allowed to talk about this with the press, with anybody, okay okay this is a tight-lipped case until the trial happens we want everything day by day but the prosecutors they would straight up just start talking about the case in front of the courthouse in front of these like just talking to newspapers doing the absolute most they would go to these very famous restaurants amongst DAs and defense attorneys and just talk loudly about the case. Why is that? They just didn't care. That's odd. With such a big case, wouldn't you think they're... Yeah, there's like a little bit of speculation that they just wanted the name of being a DA of being a prosecutor,

but they didn't necessarily care to do the work. So the trial for Timmy White's kidnapping Ken claimed that Sean had just brought the kid to the cabin and he was like, oh Sean, what's this little boy doing here? What's going on? I don't know what's happening right now. And so because Ken had two prior felony convictions, the judge gave him the longest sentence possible, second degree kidnapping, which was seven years, for the abduction of Timmy White. Now the second trial had to try Ken and

Irvin Murph at the same time for conspiracy to kidnap and kidnapping for whatever reason they couldn't get separate trials. Now the defense attorney had this really weak stance that Stephen wanted to run away. Little seven-year-old Stephen wanted to run away because his daddy spanked him for going to his friend's house without coming home. Remember how I said that was going to be important later in the trial? Like what? So he starts this whole little case and overall total Ken Parnell was given seven years because back then you couldn't stack kidnapping convictions in saying nowadays the laws have changed.

So you can get seven years for the first kidnapping seven years for the second kidnapping, but back then you couldn't stack them. So he got seven years, but he only served five years before getting out early. Can you imagine like this boy is traumatized? Kinnab tortured, assaulted for seven years, and he only gets five years. But you want to know what's worse? The seven years most of it was for the kidnapping of Timmy, because that trial happened first.

So on paper, he was only given like 18 months for the kidnapping of Stephen, which I know it's not about on paper, but like when you think about it like that, it's so infuriating. For seven years of Stephen's life, 18 months, who are we protecting in this judicial system? What's going on here?

Irvin Murphy was sentenced to five years, but he was paroled after two years. Sean Porman, the guy who helped Ken nap Timmy, he was sentenced to working at a juvenile work camp for like a little while. Barbara Mateus was never charged. Now the problem that people have with this is that they think that Ken has actually killed kids.

That he is a serial rapist. There must be more victims than just Steven Stainer and Timmy White. Because there was a book that Ken kept around in all of his, you know, he would move it from home to home. It was an old law book that he had penciled in defenses. Like literally wrote into it a defense that he would have for four different crimes. Kidnapping, rape, robbery, and murder. A lot of people, a lot of people that are experts in this

said that child molesters who kidnap and keep their victims are the rarest types. So if we had, you know, caught Ken three times, we don't know if that means he did it 13 times or 300 times, but I'll bet that there are a whole lot of incidents that we don't know about where Ken did one thing or another. If Ken took a kid and that kid fought back or tried to run away, or for some reason Ken thought that that kid wasn't going to work out, or perhaps he was in danger of being caught,

I think Ken is fully capable of killing a kid to protect himself. So later, the author of the book, I know my first name is Steven, approached Ken, found him after he got out of jail, and told him, you know, what about the sexual assault charges? You claim that Steven wanted to live with you, but what about the sexual assaults? Steven said that you assaulted him over 700 times. And guess what he said?

He, oh, Steven was never really good at math. It was more like 3,000 times. So, Steven, after the trial, I mean, his life was falling apart. He's dealing with this trauma. He is just trying to drink and party and, you know, ride these fast cars. He got so many speeding tickets, crashed a bunch of cars. Just very addicted to drugs. And finally, he's like, you know what? I need to get my life on track. So he marries a woman by the name of Jody

Lynn Edminson and they have two beautiful kids together, Ashley and Steven Gregory Stainer, the second, and they call him Stevie. And he gave multiple appearances. He started giving these talk shows of missing and sexually abused children. He was raising awareness with his powerful story and then 10 years after he had escaped. He had just finished his shift at Pizza Hut and he was getting ready to go home. It was about 5 p.m. He gets on his motorcycle and it's a 15 minute ride home to his wife and kids.

And a car pulls out in front of him. Hits him. It flips his motorcycle over. He's thrown 45 feet from his motorcycle, and he was pronounced dead. At the sea. Are you kidding me? Ten years after his escape. He was only 24. What happened? The car stalled, and it hit his motorcycle and it flipped. And normally he would wear a helmet, but the helmet that he wore was stolen just three days before this accident.

Where'd they drunk? Like what is it? No, he was like a dude driving his friend's car that he didn't know how to drive. 5 p.m. He wasn't drunk. He just was like, I don't know how to drive this car. And to make things worse, Timmy White died at just 35 years old from a blood clot.

So almost immediately, after Stephen's Daener's death, their uncle gets shot and killed at home. This is like unsolved, okay? So not long after Stephen's death, the uncle, he gets shot. Now, guess who is living with that uncle? Carrie, Carrie's Daener, the older brother. Now, we don't know if Carrie's Daer's shot and killed his uncle, right? But they were living together. And after, you know, his little brother died, his uncle, Jerry, was murdered. He starts having these nervous breakdowns and he starts working out all these

different places and a colleague at Carrie's workplace said that Carrie just kept slamming his fist into plywood, just bleeding all over his hand. And he was like, Hey, Carrie, what's going on? What's wrong? And he says, I'm just so nervous, so I don't know why. I feel like getting into my truck and driving it into the office and killing the boss and everyone else in there. I just want to torch this place.

So the colleague was like, do you want to come with me? So he gets Carrie into the car and drives him to like a mental hospital. And he gets checked out and just like leaves quits his job. He starts retreating to Yosemite because he's like, you know what, fork this. I'm going to start working at Yosemite. I want to be with nature. He gets a job as a handyman at the Cedar Lodge. Ken Parnell worked at Yosemite Lodge. This is a different lodge, but just very interesting. He starts working at the Cedar Lodge in Yosemite and he was just having a blast.

He was sunbathing naked at the park. He was, you know, making friends with his coworkers. All of that. Everyone really trusted him, especially the female employees. The only person that didn't like him is the woman running the restaurant at the lodge because she was like, I don't know,

he just keeps looking at my teenage daughters, strangely, but that was not it. Everybody else loved him. So this is around the time that Carol Sund brings her daughter, Julie Sund, and her best friend, Silvina Paloso, to Yosemite. So they check into the Cedar Lodge, and that night they have dinner at the restaurant. They go back up to their room, and they start watching that movie. So I'm gonna breeze through this.

You know, they got a knock on the door. It's maintenance. It's carry. He says it's maintenance. There's been a leak I need to check your bathroom. So with enough persistence He's able to gain access to their room. He kills Carol puts her in the trunk sexually assaults the two teenage girls for hours then puts

Salina in the trunk drives Julie to the random like cliff in your semity like this really remote Place that he used to go with his dad, carries her like a bride, like in his arms, you know? And just drops her on the ground, assaults her, slits her throat, and then he said that the morning sun was coming up and he just couldn't help but stare, because the morning sun at your semity is just so beautiful.

How do you do that? Gets into the car. Ditches it. 70 miles away from Julie's body. Light it on fire. Takes a cab back to your semity. Things are opening back up and I see people going outdoors, enjoying that warm weather. I see people going on trips again.

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There you'll get 15% off of your entire Raycon order and that's such a great deal. You'll want to grab a pair for you and a spare. That's 15% off at buyraycon.com slash rotten. Buyraycon.com slash rotten. So Carol, Julie, and Selvina, they were supposed to meet Carol's husband at the San Francisco airport the next day, but they didn't show up, so the husband starts freaking out. He's like, oh my god, it's wintertime. Maybe they crashed, you know, the roads at Yosemite, they're crazy. There's cliffs, there's ice.

We need to do something, so they start contacting the police and everyone starts freaking out about this. This is super mysterious. Three women disappeared at Yosemite. So this ensues one of the largest searches in Yosemite ever. How do three girls, well three women in a red car just vanish? The car hasn't even been found yet, this doesn't make sense. So for the longest time, the public refuses to believe foul play. I think this was during the time where Yosemite was seen as like this just this beautiful place.

You can't go wrong there. So the police interview everyone at the lodge, including the helpful maintenance man. Carie, so helpful, he actually opened up all the room stores for them so that they could gather evidence. No leads. So one month later, there's a break in the case. 70 miles away from the lodge, they find the Pontiac. The car was so burnt that there wasn't even paint or rubber in the car anymore. They knew that there was two bodies in the trunk, but they could not ID them. But it matches the car. Yeah.

They do find a camera and there was one last picture of Julian Sylvina hanging out in their PJs that was taken 20 minutes before the knock on the door. So that verifies it's done. Yeah, but they don't know is it Carol and Julie is a Julian Salvina, you know, what's going on here. So the car was just a short walk from that pay phone that Carrie used to call the cab. So this becomes a huge story.

What's going on in your 70? This is supposed to be a safe family place. Finally, the bodies are identified as Carol and Salvina. So where is Julie? So the search starts getting more intense because now you know there's foul play. You've got a car that's been torched. Two bodies in the trunk.

What happened to Julie? Is she being held captive? What's going on here? Even the locals stopped going to your semiddy. They were like, no, thank you. I'm not going there. So the police search all over the place, ditches, ravines, they have helicopters, they have search dogs, and then they get a letter to the police station. And it says, it's a lined piece of paper and it says, we had fun with this one. And it was a little

hand-drawn map to where Julie's body would be. And it said, we had fun with this one. So this kind of makes them feel like we, there must be multiple people involved. So within 10 minutes of reading that letter, they find Julie. They start searching, they find Julie's body. And the FBI immediately makes an announcement saying that we have the killers in custody. There are no more associates out there that are free.

They are all in custody for this charge or for a different charge. So this is a huge relief, you guys. Don't freak out. They fit the box of what we have for the Yosemite killers. Well, as soon as they found Julie's body, they announced that? Yeah, almost immediately, like a day or two after because they had two suspects in custody. They were half-brothers, they had criminal records.

They were violent offenders, okay? And this just made a total sense. They had, you know, they had actually assaulted people before, so it was like this whole thing. And the FBI just had tunnel vision on this. They were like, these are the two brothers, they sent a letter, we had fun with this one, we, we, we, we, it's gotta be that.

They did not care to even investigate anybody else. And they told the public, don't freak out, Yosemite is completely safe, we've got these nasty people in jail. Meanwhile, Carrie's still working at the lodge at Yosemite. So Carrie feels like I just got away with murder, with triple murder. So I'm just going to keep going. So there was this little cabin that was called the green cabin that was away from the lodge. Now this was inside of Yosemite Park, like inside the park grounds.

And a woman by the name of Joey Armstrong, she decided, I'm going to take a job there. I'm going to stay at the green cabin. And her job was essentially to take children around Yosemite and teach them about the nature, teach them about the beauty of Yosemite. And she was not afraid. Her family and friends were like, well, what about those three women that died in your somebody? And she even wrote in her diary, the monsters are gone. FBI took care of it.

So this is technically his coworker? I mean, they don't really work together. So he just works at the lodge, but she works on the park. Okay. So he takes a back road from the lodge, and this back road just like trails through a lot of different areas, and one of those areas is Passing the green cap and that she's staying it. So this is really a crime of opportunity He didn't necessarily plan this so he's taking that back road and he's looking for bigfoot that day

That's what he said he was doing. He's looking for bigfoot, okay? I see serious about this big foot like super serious And he sees this little cabin and he sees this woman who's this petite young blonde woman who's packing up her truck. So that day, Joey was headed into town to meet up with some friends and she was super excited. She hadn't left this cabin in like a long time. She's like finally human contact, right? So he's he's watching her. He wants to make sure that she's completely alone. So once he finds out that she is there's no no male voice, there's no other girl's voice that he hears. He grabs his backpack. Inside of that backpack is a gun, knife, duct tape, rope, all of that.

And he starts approaching her. So now they're standing in front of her cabin and her door's open, so he's talking to her, but he's also just looking inside the door to see, in my sure no one's here. Now I mean, she didn't think anything weird was gonna happen. He's really nice. He's conventionally attractive. He's authentically built. And it just seemed okay until he pulled out a gun

and told her to go back inside the cabin. So they go back into the house and he forces her into a room and it seems like he's trying to tie her up to sexually assault her, but she fights back with everything she has and he was barely able to tie her up to sexually assault her, but she fights back with everything she has, and he was barely able to tie her up with duct tape. He pushes her into his car and drives away. So Joey's friends, I mean, they start freaking out. They call you a Samadhi. They're like,

hello, my friend was supposed to meet me today. What's going on? She's not here. I don't know what to do. I mean, three people went missing and then were murdered there, and we were worried about her. We told her not to take this job. Can you please help me? So the police, they show up at her cabin and they find on the ground, but broken sunglasses.

A red mechanics rag. And it's super concerning. It seems like something has happened. She didn't just leave it like this. Her truck is there. She was supposed to meet friends, but she's nowhere to be found. So they start looking around the cabin and very quickly, see in the stream there's like an object like bobbing up and down in the stream, the river and they walk closer and it's Joey's

decapitated head. Now because it looks like Joey had fought a lot there was a lot of evidence near there near the creek there was footprints fingerprints I mean just a shit ton of evidence and this was going to be they need to solve this quick because this time The murder happened inside of the actual park. I mean people are gonna freak out. Are they connected? The FBI would come forward and say no, no, no, there's no link at all between the three women and Joey There's nothing don't cause panic. That's fine. Nothing's happening So witness comes forward and says I saw a really unique car driving past that same road.

It's like this blue and white car. I don't know. I mean, you guys should look into it. So, they start looking into it. The tracks are similar to this car. They realize that there's an employee at the Cedar Lodge that drives this car and it's carry. So, they start looking for him, but he's dipped out of town.

Because he knows, he's left a lot of footprints, a lot of fingerprints. So, they find word that he's at a nudist community in California called Laguna del Sol. So they go into a bar and he's there. So that FBI agent in plain clothes arrest him. He happened to be in Laguna del Sol. He saw a below out for him, you know,

puts him in his car. He's sitting in the front seat because this FBI is not in a patrol car. So Jeff is the name. Jeff the FBI agent just puts Carrie into the front seat because this FBI is not in a patrol car. So Jeff is the name. Jeff, the FBI agent, just puts Carrie into the front seat. And there's just driving. This is going to be like a two-hour ride to the Sacramento office, the FBI field office. So he's just really good at connecting with people. I think the scariest thing is he had no idea the magnitude of this guy's crimes.

He knew that the FBI wanted to talk to him. He had no idea that this is the assembly serial killer. So this FBI agent is just casually driving with his dude. And he said that it was a rather pleasant experience. It was just two dudes stuck together for a long ride. And he was like, what's your name? So he doesn't even know what he's arresting him for. Yeah. What's that?

So he's like, what's your name? Carrie Stainer. Stainer? Do you know? Do you have any relation to like a Steven Stainer, the kid that was kidnapped, and suddenly Carrie gets super upset. And he's like, yeah, my brother was kidnapped for seven years, and then the kidnapper only got seven years.

You think that's fair? And so the officer's like, no, absolutely not. I think that's horrible what happened. So they start bonding from that moment. They start talking about movies, and they just have a blast. So they drive to Sacramento. They go into the field office, and the FBI agents had ordered pizza. Now they claim that this is not something that they normally do but they had no

idea where to start with this. They had really no solid evidence how are they gonna walk him into a confession. They need a confession. They need to link all of this you know. Does he have anything to do with the first three murders? We need everything. We need to put him in a corner but how do we do that? So the pizza was just stalling time, right? And that is when in the middle of this pizza meal, Carrie says, this is going to be my last meal as a free man. And all of them just stop. Like, what?

We thought he was going to be like, I don't know what you guys were talking about. And so they look at him and he says, I can give you closure. I can give you answers about Joey. So he starts dangling a confession in front of them. And he says, the only condition is that I want to see child pornography, a stack of it. Not just one, not just two images.

He's insane. Now, what the fork is that? Okay, I have so many issues with this. We know that his little brother was molested as a child. I mean, I don't even understand. I wonder if that is a direct link to this though. If that spread a seed in his mind made him curious about that. You think because I thought it would be the opposite, you know, but,

so there was like a situation. Okay, this is going to sound so stupid. But there was a situation where my sister was in a car accident and one of her friends broke a collarbone, right? Meeting a sister, witnessing all of this on the sidelines, I was terrified of cars for a while. Like, just even being in a car, right? Right, but I wonder if that sometimes these events, you know, it does weird things to people,

especially it also sounds like they suppress these things at home I think he definitely had something going on and maybe it just triggered it even deeper Oh, yeah, you know the rest of the siblings they seem to be doing just fine. Yeah, yeah It's just so strange and so you know the FBI agents they say never say no They did not want to show him CP. They weren't allowed to show him CP. The head office was like, yeah, if you do, you're getting fired. Okay, absolutely not.

Imagine trying to explain that in trial. Imagine trying to explain that to the world. Yeah, we showed this violent serial killer, CP, that we had in the evidence file. Like, that's insane. But they start buying time. They say, we will get you that, OK? We're going to get it to you. But we need time.

You know, you know how corporate works. We got to head up to our boss. Our boss has got to go talk to the bosses, bosses, bosses, boss. And we're just going to take a minute. But why don't we start talking before we get the approval on that? So he starts telling them about Joey in the meantime. And Jeff continues to interview him.

The same guy that just had this car ride with him, now he's like, what the fuck's going on? Now I'm interviewing this guy. Then I thought it was just a totally chill guy in the car. And he starts talking about his backpack, how he just packs it with this rape kit, this murder kit. And then she turned around, she freaked out, he's super calm. And Jeff is so good at not being judgmental.

The whole time, he keeps saying, you're doing really good. This is so brave of you right now to open up. Keep going. And so he keeps going. He just keeps saying, I didn't hit her. I just used the gun to subdue her. She kept fighting me.

I wasn't beating her. I was just using the gun. And he said that as he was driving, she was just jumping all over the place while she was tied up. In the back of the car, he couldn't control her and she just fell through the window. Now, that's what he says, but we know that she didn't fall through the window. She flung herself out of this moving vehicle to try to save herself while she was tied up. And so he said that he slammed the car down and she started running into the woods so he took out his knife, caught her,

slid her throat. He didn't mention the decapitation and because she fought so hard, he left all that evidence. So then Jeff keeps encouraging him. He's like, I can see the change in you already. You know, after you just set that, I already see it. Whatever is inside of you, you need to get it out. So without even seeing the CP, he starts telling them about the first three murders. And he kept mentioning to the police about the sexual assaults that they were being cooperative. Julie never cried. She did everything I wanted her to. So he kept trying to mention this as if she didn't deny what he wanted.

Besides the fact that she's held at gunpoint, but he was like, but she didn't cry. As if there's a relationship between them. So he tells them all about the first three homicides, right? But then he goes on to tell them, that wasn't my initial plan. My initial plan was to kill the woman that I was dating, so that I could assault her two young daughters that were about 10 years old at the time. So he was dating a full grown woman in her 30s. She was a single mom. She thought that she had met the man of her dreams This amazing nice person, Carrie Stainer, and he was plotting up this sick, twisted plan to murder her Assault her children and then kill them, but they happened to be busy that day

Like something happened. He didn't get around to it So he was walking around the lodge super pissed off that night. Like, oh, I didn't get to murder my girlfriend and assault her kids. And that's when he saw a light on in the furthest corner of the motel. He saw one car. He looked through the curtain and he saw that there was three women alone. Julie, Carol, and Silvina. Is that not crazy? So the daughter of that girlfriend, the 10 year old girl, she grew up and she said it was very disturbing. I see two little, very innocent, very pure girls that were very much loving towards this man that wanted to do horrible things to us. I had to learn at a young age that you can't trust adults. He was just right under everyone's notes the entire time.

So he claimed to the psychiatrist that he had been playing, he had been feeling this way since he was seven years old. He wanted to rape and kill a woman, but he resisted it for as long as he could. But now in his mid-30s, he just, he had to do it. He almost said it as if it's like a praise of like, wow, you resisted for that long? And then he would later ask journalists, will I get a movie about me? There's a movie about my brother. I want one too. What does the psychologist think about that seven-year-old or whatever that he's talking about?

Do they think that's real? Do they think that's a real thing for some people? So they think the seven-years-old is kind of like a defense that he's creating. It sounds like more he's trying to do an insanity plea with the seven-year-old, but they do think that there may have been previous victims. They don't know for sure, but they know that he would have killed more. So they said that it usually starts around in like the early to mid 30s. I don't know if this is true, but that's kind of when all these serial killers get triggered.

They get cracked, you know, they say, oh my god, is this what my life is going to be? No, I can't have this be my life. And they can't handle the pressure of knowing that this is their life. So they start killing people. So they think that it's possible that there's more, maybe the uncle that he was living with, but they know for a fact that if he hadn't been caught, he would have killed again and again. But they don't know if it goes as, you know, young as seven years old. I think what's interesting is that he wants a movie about him, like his brother. I think that's such an odd thing to say and such a disconnect.

So like, you should know that his brother got a movie, not because he made national headlines because he was a hero. He saved someone. You killed people. I mean, I still wonder like how much of his, this whole killing is affected by the brother situation, right? Is it, is it 80% or is it 10%, you know what I mean? I feel like it's like a situation where he had problems with his parents not showing him

enough love after Stephen was kidnapped. You know, we kept talking about how Dell just really pulled away, both of the parents really pulled away. He was having problems in high school. I think that he was genuinely upset about what happened to his brother. But I think that once his brother came back, he's even more in the shadows. Even when Carrie Stainer was arrested,

the parents' public apology, like not apology, but public statement, mentioned Steven still. They said, I wanna thank the community for all the support, for helping Steven come back back home all of that. So it seems like you're going to get into that right? No, I mean, it just seems like he just got what did the parents say? Oh, just like we just want some privacy at this time.

They didn't say anything about carry. They were just so sad about it. They just said, we should just feel so sad. We just need a, we don't know what's going on. They didn't say much. It was very PR. And then they mentioned the other Yeah, so I think it's just he just felt like more and more neglected maybe and he just I don't know

Okay, so what happened at this point after oh, okay, so then he goes to trial He's found guilty and he's sentenced to death now. This is California. So the death penalty He's on death row, but it's been umalled. So he's not going to be executed. No one's executing anyone in California right now, but he is technically on death row. How old is he? He's alive? Yeah, he's alive. He was 37 when he was arrested in 1999.

He is 59 years old. Wow. Now, there was an interesting mix up because Merced wanted to dedicate something to Steven Stainer And they had this beautiful park and they came up to the Stainer family and they said hey We have this beautiful park. We want to make a tribute to Steven Stainer and they said yeah Okay, we want to name it Stainer Park and The government the city they pulled out because they said people are not gonna remember Steven They might remember Kerry and we don't want anyone to think that we named a park after a serial killer

so that park ended up going to somebody else. Other thing is what did the brother Carrie? Is there more information Carrie talked about his brother, younger brother, Stephen? Yeah, there's like a bunch of books on it and it's hard to say because I feel like he flip flops. It's like there's times where he tells and it's hard to say because I feel like he flip flops. It's like there's times where he tells his friends that he was so sad about his brother leaving and then there's times where he seems really callous about it and he just wants his own show.

So I just don't understand which one of him is telling the truth. Maybe he feels both. Is that possible? Yeah, but it still doesn't really clarify things for me. I think the whole time I'm like looking for an answer. I'm like, how much of this made this happen? Like how much of his, you know, disappearance and him being held captive impacted you to become a serial killer, but there's no clear cut answer, which makes me so frustrated. Even psychiatrists are like, we really can't

say. We can say that it definitely played a role, but we really can't say like how much of a role. We can't even say if Steven Steven's Dana wasn't kidnapped would carry still be a serial killer Maybe he'd be a bigger serial killer. Maybe he'd be less of a zero We don't even know It's just the strangest thing now here's the kicker of it all Ken Parnell He was released like I said after five years and he started suffering from massive diabetes He suffered a stroke. He required 24 hour nursing care in his apartment. So he had this 24 hour caregiver. In 2003, he convinced, tried to convince that

caregiver to buy him a four year old boy. He was 71 years old at the time. So the caregiver goes immediately to the police and she does a sting operation. She gets wired up and she goes up to Ken and he keeps saying, I want a little boy, but make sure he's four years old and has a clean rectum, which indicates clear sexual intentions. He said, I only have $500. I need a four-year-old little boy. So he was immediately arrested. Now he has no idea that she had wiretapped all of this, like she had gotten all of this on audio, right? So he just keeps telling the police, I just wanted a family. I just wanted a son. So he was finally sentenced to 25 years to life in prison when he was looking for his third victim. And he died in 2008 in prison of natural causes. Crazy. It's freaking crazy.

It's crazy that he was free to even do this. I mean, I know that technically there wasn't even a third victim that he had chosen, I guess, but it's just how do you even that could have been any kid? What is happening? It's crazy, huh? I think this whole thing is crazy. Like people like that? Truly 71 year old still. I am kind of on the boat that I do not think pedophilia is treatable or curable. I think things can be done where they're less likely to actually act out their wants. Is it treatable though? Do you think that is something treatable?

So the way that some people have, I don't know if there's like, okay, I'm not an expert in this, but I did find out that some way to treat it is to lower their sex drive. So their hopes is lower a pedophile sex drive enough that they have more willpower to not actually commit these illegal offenses. But there's like technically no treatment for pedophilia. Like there's not a pill you can take where it's like suddenly you are only into over age girls, you know, over age boys. There's not, nah, there's nothing.

I don't know if maybe like cognitive behavior therapy works, but I feel like I doubt it. Because I feel like even CBT doesn't really work for things like anxiety. I'm scared to research this. You don't research. Yeah, I think that's enough. I'm strange Googling for the week.

I did a lot of Googling for this one too. So I think this whole story is just so sad. The fact that Steven died a decade after escaping and saving Timmy. I have no words. I mean, this is such a weird, weird situation. There is no proof that the parents, the stain or parents had any wrongdoing. There's no proof that there was any abuse in the household, right? And if that is the true case, I feel so bad for them, you know?

Because I can only imagine they're sitting there like, what did we do wrong? Let me know, what are you guys' thoughts? And I hope you guys enjoyed this week's super long podcast. And I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye! podcast and I'll see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye!