Criminology - Cary Stayner

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

In last week's episode we discussed the abduction and return of Steven Stayner. This week, we discuss Steven's brother Cary and the path he went down that led to multiple murders. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Cary Stayner. While Steven Stayner went on to become a hero after being abducted as a child and later escaping and saving another boy in the process, Steven's older brother Cary went on to achieve just the opposite; he became infamous for the callous and cold blooded crimes that he committed, and by the end of this episode, most listeners will probably be asking, how can two brothers turn out so very different? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production  

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 348 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you, buddy? A little bit busy this week. I'm launching a new podcast called Killer Communications that comes out this Saturday,

the same day as our episode. So hopefully listeners will come over and check it out. All right. Well, give us a little preview. What are we talking about here? Well, it's all about cases where somebody sends a letter or a phone call or an email, text. Even some of the older cases might even be something like a telegram. So it's pretty interesting and it goes on a lot more than you would think. So I'm pretty excited about it. All right. Sounds good. You've got me hooked.

I like cases where the killer communicates. So I will definitely check it out. Yeah, I'd love it. we had one new Patreon member this week and that was Reed so appreciate the support. Yeah, thank you, Reed. You rock and everyone else that helps support the show. It means a lot to us. For anyone else that would like to,

you can head over to patreon.com so as criminology to get started. All right. Let's jump right in. And if you listen to last week's episode about Steven Steiner, then you got a bit of a heads up that we're going to cover his brother this week, Carrie Stainer, while Stephen Stainer went on to become a hero after being abducted as a child and later escaping and saving another boy in the process, Stephen's older brother, Kerry, went on to achieve just the opposite. He became infamous for the callous and cold-blooded crimes that he committed.

And by the end of this episode, most listeners will probably be asking, how can two brothers turn out so very differently? Carrie Stainer was born on August 13, 1961. He was the oldest to five children born to Delbert and Kay Stainer. His only brother, Stephen, was born four months before he turned four. There was one girl born in between them and another two girls after Stephen. The Stainer family lived in Merced in California's San Joaquin Valley. For many years, their life there was pretty normal. Kay worked at a daycare, and Delbert worked at a cannery,

which during harvest time meant 18-hour days, six days a week. As we talked about in the last episode, Stephen would be abducted and held captive for years before escaping, and his abduction certainly didn't help Carrie's makeup. But the truth is, he was likely already on his way to becoming that person even before Stephen was abducted. Carrie showed signs of what seemed like anxiety pretty early in his life. He was diagnosed with trichotillomania, a disorder that involves compulsively pulling out your own hair when he he was just three years old. This is really early for any kind of mental health diagnosis, but the bald patches all over his head made it clear that something wasn't right. He was prescribed

medication for the condition, but he would continue to struggle. With this disorder as he grew up, this would prove to be just one of many struggles for Kerry when he was a young boy when he was around seven years old. About three years after being diagnosed with trichotillomania, he began to have thoughts about kidnapping and killing women. Just a few years after he began to have these fantasies, a kidnapping hit close to home. On December 4th, 1972, Carrie's seven-year-old brother Stephen Steiner was abducted by Kenneth Parnell on his walk home from the school. This day changed everything for the entire Stainer family, including Carrie, who was 11 at the time. His parents were broken, just devastated. They tried their best to keep their family together as normal as possible,

but they weren't the same people anymore. Stephen's abduction had changed them. When Kenneth Parnell kidnapped Stephen, he stole the innocence of all five of the Stainer children at the same time, and perhaps Delbert and Kay Stainer focused a lot of their attention on their missing son, and not as much on the kids that were there with them. That's not to blame Delbert and Kay for what happened, and it seems likely that a lot of parents of abducted children might focus extra attention

on the void that was created. It was this same year. that Stephen first went missing, that Carrie would later say he was molested by his uncle. After this, his fantasies about women began to get increasingly violent, sadistic, and sexual. Carrie always felt overshadowed by Stephen. Even while he wasn't there in the Stainer home, everything was about him. Holidays became about Stephen and were no longer joyous. After Stephen was abducted, the Stainer family held out hope.

that he was a lot. Every year, his siblings and his parents still bought him Christmas gifts and wrapped them. They waited under the tree on the chance that he would make it home in time to open them on Christmas. I would think it would be very normal in a situation like this where one of your children is abducted. That, yes, the focus does become about that. Like, that's the biggest thing in your world at that point. Now, in the case of the Stainer family, they had four other children. And I think it's an interesting exercise to, you know, kind of think about or try to figure out, what did it do to these four other children? And I think in Carrie's case, maybe, you know, there was a little bit of jealousy there, anger, around the fact that,

so much attention was being paid to Stephen, maybe not as much to him. Yeah, and I think that anger, that resentment probably wasn't a good mix with those things he was secretly already feeling about hurting women and these fantasies he was having probably wasn't a good mix. But, you know, I think that's part and parcel of a lot of situations that we talk about. Other people have gone through this same thing. having a sibling abducted. Now, maybe not exactly as it occurred with Stephen,

but they didn't go on to then commit sexual assaults and kill. I think there are people who deal with a lot of different things. But with some of them, there's something already inside them or something that is kind of maybe laying dormant under the surface. And whatever happens, whatever they're dealing with, kind of causes it to erupt. And maybe that's what we'll see with Carrie. Despite being the brother of a missing person,

Carrie didn't get any sympathy from other kids in school. He still had to deal with classmates who would bully him for the bald spots on his head, even well into high school. And he would usually try to wear a baseball cap whenever he could to cover his hair. Some people would even tease Carrie, insinuating he had his brother, Stephen abducted. According to a former classmate of Cary's, Jack Bungart, Stephen's abduction made it hard to be anything other than the kid who had his brother kidnapped. Bungard also said prior to the abduction that Cary loved Stephen and always spent time with him playing with him.

In school, Cary was known as mostly quiet, though there was a dark side to him. When he was 16, one of his younger sisters had a sleepover. One of the girls was 14. the night she stayed over at the stay in her house, she recalls Carrie, creeping into the dark room while she was sleeping and reaching up from underneath her cot to touch her chest. She woke up and told him to leave, but he was only gone for a moment before lingering in the doorway naked. Again, she told him to get out. Finally, he did, but the girl didn't tell Carrie's parents. Despite the dark side Carrie had in his reserve nature, he's.

he seemed to be generally well-liked. Classmates noted how smart he was, and they enjoyed cartoons. He made for the school's newspaper. He was voted most creative during his senior year at Merced High. Almost a year after Carrie's graduation, Stephen escaped his captor and came home. It had been seven years since his abduction. We talked in the last episode about how difficult it was for Stephen to adjust to being back home. but it was difficult for Carrie, too. While Stephen was suddenly the middle child again, Carrie found himself having to share his room with his little brother that he really didn't even know anymore.

According to a Time magazine article, author J.P. Miller, who went on to write I know my first name is Stephen, interviewed Carrie after Stephen came home. Carrie told the author, I was the oldest in all that. Then all of a sudden, it's gone. I got put on the back burner, you might say. Now with Stephen being back home,

Instead of just being the kid with the missing sibling, Carrie was that hero kid's brother. After that, Carrie was just never Carrie. He was and always would be Stephen Steiner's brother. And I do believe more that a lot of people struggle living in the shadow of someone else. You know, whether you have a famous parent or a famous sibling,

that can be difficult for many people. And you can kind of see here in some of the things that Kerry said. He used the words back burner. It was almost like, hey, once Stephen got home, I didn't matter anymore. I wasn't Carrie. I was hero Stevens brother. And you think about your identity, your self-worth. Okay, what does that do to someone?

Who already may have some. that they're dealing with. Yeah, it seems like it's just a recipe for things to boil over and, you know, maybe bring some things to the surface. We talked about how the stainers may have been consumed with their grief about Stephen being missing that maybe they didn't perhaps focus enough attention on their other kids. Now was Stephen back. They focused their attention on Stephen even more.

Kerry Stainer told People magazine, There's a lot of things I wish we'd done differently. One of Kerry and Stephen's sister's court told People Magazine, a lot of attention went to Stephen. We all got a little jealous. While Stephen was hailed as a hero by the community, Kerry seemed to downplay his brother's bravery, knocking it down to common decency.

According to People Magazine, he once said, the way I see it, just about anyone, would have done the same thing in his shoes. As an adult, Carrie lived with his uncle Jerry and worked a series of odd jobs. That never lasted very long. He worked for an aluminum company for a while, did some pest control work, and spent time hauling furniture. He bounced around at different glass companies. It's not clear how close he got with his brother, Stephen, but in 1989, Stephen was riding his motorcycle home from work when a car turned in front of him.

his motorcycle impacted with the car and he died from his injuries. The driver was later charged with fleeing the scene of an accident. Some reports say that Carrie Stainer took his brother's death hard, while others claim that it didn't seem to affect him much at all. The day after Christmas in 1990, tragedy hit the Stainer family yet again. Carrie's uncle, 42-year-old Jerry Stainer, clocked out of work on December 26th, not knowing it would be the last time.

He worked as a dispatcher. of its trucking incorporated, this was supposed to be a quick break. Jerry was just heading home for lunch, fully intending to return to work when he was done. No one knows exactly what happened, but he never made it back out of his house. A friend living in the neighborhood was passing the house that afternoon and noticed that the door was open, which was up. They stopped to check on Jerry and found him dead. He had been shot with his own shotgun in what looked like a burglary gone wrong. Carrie was not home at the time and no suspect has ever been identified in Jerry's murder. Eventually, Carrie ended up working for the Merced Glass and Mirror Company doing glass repair

and shower stall installations. His childhood friend, Mark Markeese, recalled that he once found Carrie behind the glass company's building, punching pieces of plywood. Carrie told Mark that he felt he was having a mental breakdown and he shared a violent fantasy with him. Mark told ABC, he knew, he stated that he felt like jumping in a truck, driving it through the shop and killing the boss and killing everybody in the office, and then torching in a place. Mark was disturbed by what Carrie had told him, and he tried to convince Carrie to get professional help before warning Carrie's boss at the glass company. When the boss found out what Carrie had said, he drove Carrie personally to a mental health clinic, where he received counseling. The next time Carrie went to

work. He picked up his paycheck and left, never returned. All right. I got to be honest with you. That would be a little tough for me to continue to work with that individual who had just told me they felt like killing everyone in the shop. Okay, well, that includes me if I'm that person hearing the story. Now, some people might not take it seriously. They might say, oh, this person's just venting, but I don't know. Nowadays, I think you got to take all that stuff very seriously. And it sounds like they did back then, too. Well, to this person's credit, they did the right thing. They warned the glass factory boss. And even the glass factory boss, you know, he could have shunned him. He could have said, you're fired. We don't want you here. He tried to get carry help and

personally drove him to a mental health facility. So it wasn't like they didn't try and help him. to get some kind of assistance. Yeah, it's a good point because in a lot of episodes, we talked about people hearing, you know, something similar, something along these lines that someone is having issues, they're thinking about doing something, and they do kind of blow it off. And they never tell anybody.

But that didn't happen in this case. Carrie's mental health continued to deteriorate at some point in 1991. When he was 30 years old, Kerry tried to take his own lives using carbon monoxide. This attempt was not successful, but it doesn't appear that he received any treatment. Until four years later, when he went to the Merced County Department of Mental Health

and told them he was having a breakdown, he was briefly admitted for treatment before being released. In March of 1997, Kerry was arrested during a raid of his friend's home. He was taken into custody, for possession of methamphetamines and marijuana, but the charges were dropped shortly after. According to SFGate.com, investigators said that Kerry was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. A few months later, Carrie was hired at the Cedar Lodge and motel to El Portal, California,

just seven miles from the entrance of Yosemite Park. It had been eight years since Stephen's death. The motel was right outside of Yosemite National Park, which Carrie had loved the visit since he was a teen. He had been there many times before being hired at the Cedar Lodge. He would spend time in the park alone, naked, smoking marijuana in nature. It was the place he truly found peace. Working just miles from the park was a dream for him. He managed to stay out of trouble, and he was a reliable worker for two years. He was even dating one of the waitresses at the Cedar Lodge restaurant, and her two young daughters loved to spend time with him. More if you ever get naked

and smoke marijuana out in nature? I can't say I have. How about you? No, I do not remember ever doing that at all. I mean, it sounds like a peaceful thing. He's not bothering anybody if nobody's, if nobody's around, it's not really indecent, but just never partook in that. I guess it's the naked part that gets me.

I'm not sure why you need to be naked. Maybe that makes you closer to nature. I don't know. In February of 1999, Carol's son took her 15-year-old daughter, Juliana, and Juliana's close friend, 16-year-old Sylvina Pelosi, on a sightseeing road trip. Around the same time, Carrie decided it was time to act on his urges. And unfortunately for the three women, they would cross-pass with Carrie Stainer. On February 15th, Carol, Juliana, and Sylvina, hiked in Yosemite National Park.

seeing the redwoods and taking it all in, Sylvina was visiting from Argentina. So it was fun for the girls to spend time together, no matter what they were doing. But this was a special trip. They were trying to pack in as much fun and sightseeing for Sylvina as possible. They had been to San Francisco. They'd gone to Disneyland.

And they were finishing up with seeing the giant ancient redwood forests. That same day, Carrie went to the house of his girlfriend, where she lived with her two young daughters. His plan was to play out his sick fantasies of control before killing his girlfriend and her daughters. Due to the slow winter season, Carrie had been temporarily laid off from the Cedar Lodge, giving him all the time in the world to plot and cover his tracks. According to ABC News, Carrie Stainer would later admit to investigators. The girl I was seeing and her daughters were my original intended targets.

But once he arrived at their house, there was someone near the home. He wasn't expecting this and it spooked him. So he drove off. His girlfriend and her daughters had no idea how lucky they were. There's a couple of things that, you know, go through my mind regarding this. And we've seen it before. First of all, it's going to come out at some point that you were dating this horrible monster. And you let this monster in your home around your, your daughters.

That has to be extremely frightening when the person finds out. But then to find out that you came very, very close to losing your life and your daughters losing their lives. I don't know how you deal with that. And for his part, it doesn't seem like Carrie was thinking things through. Maybe he's just working on impulse. But, you know, it's only logical that had he killed his girlfriend and her daughters as someone that was dating her, he would certainly get the top of the suspect list. So I don't know

what his plan was if he had gone through with it. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

After a day in Yosemite National Park, Carol, Juliana, and Sylvina went back to the motel and started to settle in. First, they ate dinner at the restaurant there. They also rented a few movies from the front desk before heading to their room for the night. As Carrie came back to the Cedar Lodge, feeling unfulfilled and disappointed. that he couldn't kill his girlfriend and her daughters, he saw the trio. Carol, Juliana, and Sylvina were in their motel room with the curtains open.

Carrie spied into the room. And he decided it wasn't too late to carry out a version of his plan. Only this plan was with three different victims than he had intended. A knock on the door surprised the three inside. And they opened it. Stainer, now getting an even better look inside the room, identified himself as the maintenance worker for the lodge. He claimed that the room above them had a leak and that he needed access to their room to check on it.

At first, they turned him away. It's not clear if they had a bad feeling about him or just felt inconvenience. But Kerry put on an act to put them at ease and said there was no problem he would get the manager in return once they felt better about it. At this point, they told Stannner he could come in. It was the decision that would cost them their lives. As soon as the room's door closed behind him, Kerry pulled out his 22-caliber revolver. Immediately, all three of them, Carol, Juliana, and Sylvina were compliant.

As he gagged each of them and bound their hands with duct tape, Carrie claimed he was there to rob them and that he would leave when he was done. He pushed Juliana and Sylvina into the bathroom and turned his attention to Carol, who was faced down on one of the beds. He got on top of her and strangled her using a small length of rope he brought with him. After he was sure she was dead, he took her body out to the parking lot and placed her into the trunk of her own rental car. Back inside the motel room, he took each girl out of the bathroom and put them on one of the beds. He sexually assaulted both of them for some time before getting angry that they wouldn't cooperate with him.

He would also later confess that he had been unable to maintain an erection, which also began to irritate him. He took Sylvina into the bathroom and strangled her. Just like Carol, he put her in the trunk of the rental car. Stainer put Juliana, the last one alive in the car and drove off. Over an hour later, he pulled over to a spot overlooking the Don Pedro Reservoir near Moxham Point. He pulled Juliana out of the car and carried her to some bushes where he planned to sexually assault her again before killing her. According to the New York Daily News, Carrie likened the way he carried her to a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. After he raped Juliana, he slid her throat so deeply.

She was nearly decapitated and left her there. He drove Carol's sons rented Pontiac, about 30 miles to a forest, and to Wallumne County. He pulled off onto a logging road and ended up getting to, the car stuck. So he just left it and walked about two miles to a highway market in Sonor. So no doubt, that's a lot to take in. I mean, this was a very brutal act, three brutal murders. And I thought that Kerry's quote to the New York Daily News was sickening. and he said he carried her like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold well that's a very joyous occasion you've just gotten married you're in love everyone can picture that in a happy

way how is he equating that to what he's doing to this young girl it's just it's sick and it's also pretty interesting that the first time he should Rage and Axe on his fantasies, he manages to do all this with three victims, which seems pretty difficult for one person to abduct and murder three different women. Yet that was his first violent offense that we know of. He didn't work up to it and get better at it. He just right from the get-go decided he was going to abduct and kill three women. Well, you said that we know of.

And I think that's an important point. We don't know what he might have done before this. Maybe nothing. Maybe you're right. This was his first murders. But the other thing that I can't help but think about is the fear that, you know, the three of them must have been going through. Yeah, it had to be extremely frightening, especially since they,

They had to know there was no way he was going to let them go once all this started because they knew he worked there and it would be easy to identify him. So it was probably going through their minds that he's not going to let them go. Well, and especially for the two younger girls. You know, once he killed Carol and they would have known that and then obviously Sylvina is killed, I mean, Juliana, I can't even imagine what was going through her mind. But she had to have been thinking that she was going to be killed as well, and sadly she was. Once at the highway market in Sonora after getting the car stuck at around 10 a.m., Carrie Stainer called for a cab to Yosemite Lodge. The nearly two-hour drive cost Kerry $125.

Along the way, he spoke to the driver, Jenny Horvath, about many things, including his encounters with Bigfoot. He also took a short nap while they drove. When they got to the gates of Yosemite, Carrie bickered with a park employee, refusing to pay the $35 vehicle entrance fee. This behavior, coupled with the odd talk of Bigfoot, cemented Carrie in Jenny's memory. He wasn't just a fair anymore. He was the kind of customer she called her husband about because it felt so weird. She told recordnet.com. I just thought that it was strange because he seemed like a normal guy.

And later she talked to sfgate.com saying, he wanted to show me where he saw a bigfoot. Well, first of all, a $125 cab ride back then. That's a boatload of money. But it's a two hour drive. I don't know what that would cost today because I swear morph to take a cab from any airport to a hotel five minutes away.

Cost an arm and a leg. Yeah, that sounds like a steep price. But then you have, you know, this talk about. bigfoot. And I'm sure cab drivers hear all kinds of strange things. It's probably one of the interesting things about being a cab driver. But you know, you have this guy talking about

big foot, that he has seen Bigfoot and even wanting to show her exactly where he saw her. Yeah, that's going to stick in your mind, I think, for a while. And for the Bigfoot believers, that is Bigfoot country where they were at, a lot of sightings out there. So, If he was going to see Bigfoot, it was probably in that area that he would claim to have seen him. That evening, Jen's son waited for his wife, Carol, daughter Juliana, and her friend, Sylvina, at the airport in San Francisco where they were all supposed to meet up. They were going to fly to Arizona. The ladies would see the Grand Canyon while he went on some business meetings. Thinking they flew without him, he continued on the trip.

The next day when they still weren't in Arizona. He called the police. Two days after Stainer killed Carol, he went back to her abandoned rental car to retrieve her wallet and cover up evidence by lighting the car on fire. He then drove to Modesto and dumped Carol's wallet. That same day, a search was launched

for the three missing tourists. Investigators combed through their motel room but found no sign of a struggle. Along with other lodge employees, they questioned Carrie Stanner briefly, but found him to be unsuspecting. and helpful. He let them into various rooms to search and answered all of their questions. There were other employees at the lodge with relevant criminal histories that caught the eye of

investigators over Kerry Stainer. When no bodies and no answer to what actually happened, investigators were unable to make enough of a case to arrest anyone for any crimes related to the three missing women. On March 18, 1999, Jim Powers discovered an abandoned car as he was heading into the forest to do some target shooting. It had been burned, but he still recognized it from the news coverage. It was the formerly read Pontiac Grand Prix that Carol's son rented and never returned. Now it was about 100 yards off Highway 108, abandoned and completely destroyed. He left and summoned police to the scene. The next day, investigators searching the car found two bodies in the trunk. They had been badly burned by the fire and had to be identified using dental records.

It was a slow process, but the bodies were positively identified as Sylvina Pelosi and Carol Sund. Juliana was still missing. Investigators had hope that she was still alive and being held somewhere. After a week with no sign of Juliana Sund, Sund, the FBI office received an anonymous letter and map leading right to her. Someone had drawn a map of Highway 120 and Don Pedro Reservoir. A trail started the highway and ended at an X on the edge of the reservoir, labeled Vista Point.

According to CBS News, the note included with the map read, We had fun with this one. On March 25th, investigators following the trail discovered Juliana's body with the help of a cadaver dog. Her body was wrapped in a pink blanket from the Cedar Lodge. Well, it kind of goes back to this new podcast you start. more of this killer communications. You know, anytime you have somebody, a killer or something like that who is reaching out with some type of communication, you know, it's fascinating to me why they feel the need to do that.

But I would think it would be impossible for law enforcement not to believe that whoever sent the letter and drew the map was the killer. I mean, just the note, we had fun with this one. As sadistic as it is, it kind of points to who else being able to do this but the killer. And being that the map led directly to her body, somebody that wasn't the killer wouldn't know exactly where her remains would be found. So it had to be clear to investigators that whoever sent that map had to have knowledge of where her body would be found. It's very possible that if Kerry hadn't gone on to kill again, that he would never have been suspected in the murders of the three tourists.

He might have gotten away with it all. Investigators weren't treating the murders as a cold case. They had suspects they thought were good for this crime. Suspects who had actually confessed. Authorities initially looked into four men from the Modesto area. First, Carol's wallet had been found in Modesto. though. So suspects from that area seemed obvious. Additionally, the crime seemed too complicated for one person to have been responsible, especially with three victims. Multiple suspects would have been able to

easily overpower the three victims and do it quickly, explaining why no one saw anything suspicious. The map did say we as well. So police were locked in on finding a group of men that had committed this terrible triple murder. The four men police suspected were already in jail on unrelated charges and had extensive criminal histories. Investigators even believe that fiber evidence from the crime scene linked these men to the murders. They were so sure that the FBI announced they had their suspects and that the public was safe. Their main suspect, Eugene Dykes, who went by Rufus, had been released from prison on parole just one month before the murders, and he was arrested on a parole violation before their bodies were found.

His half-brother, Michael Larwick, to police, this overreaction might have been the result if he thought he was being pulled over and arrested for a triple murder. One of the versions of the story Rufus told investigators involved him killing Carol Sund and his half-brother Michael killing Juliana and Sylvina. But his half-brother adamantly deny any involvement and even volunteer. to give a DNA sample so that he could be rolled out. According to the LA Times, while there were many inconsistencies in his story,

including entirely different versions of what happened, investigators believed he was trying to confuse people, trying to save himself from retribution in prison, and also trying to get the blame off him and onto his brother. Rufus later recanted his confession. And I can understand why police would kind of zero in on these individuals, and they obviously were not good guys. You had one person just being, you know, released from prison.

You've got his half brother shooting a police officer during a traffic stop. And in the thinking there being, why would he be so fearful of being captured? Well, maybe it's because he was involved in this triple murder. But as is always the. case where people to confess the things they haven't done. You know, you have to ask some questions. The first one being, why would someone do that? And we don't know exactly why. We don't know how much pressure was being applied by police. We don't know what their interrogation tactics were. Were they solid? Were they over the line? Have no idea. But this is kind of interesting to me,

because you have one person implicating themselves and their half-brother, but the half-brother vehemently denying any type of involved. Yeah, I think when he started saying, hey, I'll give my DNA to prove I didn't do this. I imagine the investigators probably had to pump the brakes at that point and say, wait a minute, if this guy is willing to give us DNA, maybe he isn't involved. As investigators tried to get the truth from the wrong suspects,

Carrie Stainer was free to kill again. On July 21, 1999, he went to Yosemite National Park. He drove down Ferrester Road, looking for an area where he believed he had once encountered Bigfoot. This time, he saw 26-year-old Joey Armstrong, a naturalist who taught children's classes at the park. According to the article, The Case of a Lifetime by Stacey Fins, when Carrie eventually confessed to Joey's murder. He said, I can't tell you why this happened. One minute I'm thinking great thoughts and world peace.

And the next minute, it looks like I could kill every person on the face of the earth. According to him, the victims were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Joey Armstrong was living her dream. She loved nature and was able to live in a national park. According to LA Times, days before she was killed, she emailed a friend about how much she loved where she was. was living, saying, I love the big meadow with all its daisies and incredible history, also love my garden and living in Yosemite, one of the most beautiful places in the whole wide world. Being in

Yosemite is probably very far from what Joey would have described as the wrong place. To her, she was in the right place. When Stainer saw her, she was walking back and forth from her cabin as she packed up her car for a trip. No one was helping her and she didn't seem to be talking to anyone. Carrie could tell that she was alone. He struck up a conversation with her before pulling out his gun and telling her he was just going to rob her. He forced her into the cabin where after struggling with Joey, he used duct tape to cover

her mouth and bind her arms. While trying to subdue Joey, Carrie left his fingerprints in her cabin. Carrie pulled Joey into his truck, leaving his footprints near her cabin. He intended to take her far away to sexually assault her, but despite being bound and gagged, she climbed through the open window and jumped as he was driving. After following from Carrie's moving truck, Joey tried to run, but he was easily able to catch up to her. Instead of trying to get her back into the truck, Carrie decided to kill her on the spot. He pulled out a knife and held it to her neck.

When he slid her throat, she was helplessly bound with Doug. duct tape, unable to move her arms, but she still tried to fight. She put her chin to her chest in an attempt to block her neck. Carrie had to cut her throat multiple times to kill her, dragging her further into the forest as he struggled. And I'm struck morphed by just, you know, how vicious of an attack this one was as well. But also by the way that Joey put up a fight. she really tried hard to defend herself and save her life. Yeah, I don't think there's any question of that. She probably knew that this wasn't going to end well.

She had nothing to lose by trying to fight back and she did everything she could, but unfortunately it wasn't enough. Joey put up such a fight against Kerry that even he was worried that he had made a mistake and he was right to be worried because he had. He realized that attacking her was a mistake. According to Newsweek, Stainer would later tell FBI agents, as soon as I killed her, I knew I was going to get caught. He dragged Joey's body to the edge of a creek and tried to hide the large trail of blood with pine needles, but quickly gave up and decided to decapitate her. He thought about keeping her head as some kind of trophy, but instead decided to place it in a nearby stream.

When Joey didn't meet up with her friends out of town and her roommates discovered that she never even left, a search began. Her body was found about a mile and a half, away from her cabin, headless. A U.S. Park Service firefighter told investigators about a truck that had been parked near Joey's cabin during the suspected time of her murder. It was a very unique blue and white 1979 international scout. Carrie Stainer was known to drive this exact vehicle. The day after Joey's murder, investigators found Stainer sitting near the Merced River, smoking a joint. They began to question him about Joey's murder, and Stainer denied being anywhere near the area of her cabin the day before. He allowed investigators to search his truck, but not his backpack, which worried them since Joey's head was still missing at the time.

The sheriff's deputy did issue a citation for the weed and seized his backpack, but left without taking carry into custody. The next day, Carrie Stainer didn't show up to work, which was suspicious for him, but especially odd, in the middle of this investigation. They managed to track him down at the Laguna del Sol nudist resort, about two hours north of Yosemite after a guest called police. Because they recognized his name from a news report, Carrie was easy to find at the nudist resort, since he was the only person still closed. his truck wasn't just unique because it was uncommon. He also had different brands of tires on it, making the tracks left outside of Joey Armstrong's cabin incredibly damning when they were a match to his vehicle.

He was taken into custody for questioning. You know, we talked about him smoking weed in the forest nude. Earlier, I just thought it was so odd that he makes the decision to go to this nudist resort. I mean, I don't know if this guy had a thing with nudity, but obviously he wasn't nude on this day because people said he stood out. He was the only one wearing clothes. Maybe he went there with the intention of trying to blend in and hide, but if anything,

he probably drew attention to himself for not being a nudist. Yeah, normally you would think someone being nude would be the person who stands out. but if you're at a nudist resort, the person with their clothes still long is going to be the one that stands out. Carrie Stainer made a few requests before he agreed to speak to investigators. The police stomachs turned and they became angry as Stainer made his demands known. According to A&E TV, Stanner requested to have what he called pictures of little girls and what one FBI agent would call child pornography. He also wanted to be in federal custody, not state custody, in the facility nearest to Merced where his family was.

Finally, he wanted the reward put up by Carlson's parents to go to his family. He also wanted a movie made about his life like his brother Stephen got. It was no surprise that the investigators told him to go pound sand over these demands. Despite not having his demands met, Stannor began to open up about his crimes, there's no way to know how long Giuliana would have remained. missing if Stainer hadn't given them a map that led to her body in a CBS news interview, according to former FBI special agent Jeffrey Rinnick, who eventually got Kerry Stainer to confess. He said, it was bothering him that Julie's body was laying out there in the elements and not being found.

And he wanted her to be found. However, John Boyles, another FBI agent on the case in an ABC news interview, remember that when Kerry Stainer confessed, there didn't seem to be any real emotion there. According to Boyle's, Stainer rattled off the details of the murderers as if he was reading a soup label. And that doesn't surprise me at all. More if, you know, when you talk about some of these types of killers, one of the commonalities that a lot of them have is the lack of emotion. Yeah, it's hard to get in the minds of some of these people that do these things. On one hand, he's emotionless, but on the other hand, it seemed as if he was worried that this girl's body had been laying out there not being found and it bothered him.

So kind of strange to have them on one hand be upset about something like that. On the other hand, not be worried about it at all and not show any emotion over it. Yeah, it's a strange dichotomy for sure. Carrie Staner was charged with the abductions and murders of all four women. Carol and Juliana's son, Sylvina Pelosi, and Joey Armstrong. He initially claimed that he only killed his victims and said that there had been no sexual assault.

He tried to paint the murders as fast, painless, and almost merciful. Eventually, he came clean and admitted to sexually assaulting Giuliana and Sylvina. This was no false confession. A fingerprint on the stamp used to send the anonymous map and letter showing where Giuliana was located, Match Carrie Stainer's print. because Joey Armstrong was killed in a national park,

Carrie Stainer was first going to be tried in federal court and would be eligible for the death penalty. He decided to plead guilty to receive life in prison instead in Joey's murder, but for whatever reason, he decided to plead not guilty by reason of insanity for the other three murders. This meant that he wasn't claiming that someone else killed the three, he just said he shouldn't be sent to prison for it because he wasn't in his right mind.

He was also eligible for the death penalty at his trial. but risked it anyway. Prosecutors made it clear that Kerry Stainer was cold, cunning, and calculated, but they didn't have a slam dunk case against him. Investigators weren't even sure where his first three victims had been abducted from, and they had no idea that two of them had been killed in the motel room, despite that room having been searched. All signs pointed to the women leaving the motel

and meeting their unfortunate fate sometime after this. Carrie had deliberately left wet towels in the room to make it look like the three had gotten ready for their next day before heading out. To confuse investigators, making it even harder to figure out where they were actually abducted from, Kerry made sure to cross county lines before dropping Carol's wallet and Modesto 80 miles away from the Cedar Lodge.

And when he sent that map leading investment, investigators to Julianna's body. He paid a child $5 to lick the stamp an envelope for him so that if he did get questioned, his DNA wouldn't match. But Stainer made the mistake of leaving his own fingerprint on that stamp. So even though his DNA wasn't on it, his print was. The prosecution argued that since Kerry Stainer took steps to avoid detection and purposefully tried to throw off investigators, that none of that is the work of

someone out of touch with reality. He very clearly knew what he was doing was wrong and tried very hard to get away with it, and he wasn't insane. After a three-month trial, the jury decided that they did not believe any excuse of mental illness or insanity. Carrie Stainer was not only convicted by the jury, but they recommended that he be sentenced to death. The judge granted the jury's wish and sentenced Carrie Steyner to death and the other three murders. Family members of his victims also didn't believe that mental illness had anything to do with the murders. Jen's son, Juliana's father said in court at sentencing, I know he has no trouble killing little girls in the middle of the night.

I just wish he could step up and take his punishment now. And I bet you if Jen's was being, you know, brutally honest, he would say, not only do I wish, you know, Kerry would be put to death right now, but I'd like to be the one to do it. I think a lot of fathers in that situation would have that thought. I think that's a pretty common feeling for those kinds of dads in that situation. He was saying all this to the judge,

just feet away from Carrie Steyer. And I'm sure he had, as some people do, the thought or the idea of if I could just get to this guy, if I could jump over the railing and get to this guy. and some people have actually done it and had to have been separated. For their part, the Stainer family did not think that Carrie deserved a death sentence. His father, Delbert, said in court, if he'd gotten help, there would be four people alive today.

Carrie Stainer would tell KBWB TV, I'm sorry their loved ones were where they were, when they were. I wish I could have controlled myself and not done what I did. While he was awaiting trial, Carrie had written a letter to one of his victims, Juliana's son, trying to show remorse. According to the LA Times, the letter read in part, I'm just sorry that you were there when the years of fantasizing my darkest dreams became a reality in the flesh. Of the apologetic letter, Juliana's grandmother, Carol Carrington, said,

it was a non-apology apology. like it was their fault. I think it was the poorest example of an apology I've ever heard. In the end, most people thought that Kerry Stainer's apologies was just a case of crocodile tears. And I think I would feel the exact same way. I'm just sorry that these three individuals were where they were. You know, it's like that is such a strange apology. If that's what you're trying to do, I get it.

You're saying they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they were, but you're in some ways kind of putting it on them. It's their fault they were there. I just happened to come along. Yeah, not accepting any responsibility or having any genuine remorse, you know, not saying, I've thought about this and I know I was wrong. I should have never done this. I'm so sorry to the families.

he's just nonchalantly saying, well, they weren't there. It wouldn't have happened. News of the conviction of Carrie Stainer for these horrible crimes once again brought his brother Stephen's name into the spotlight. People couldn't believe that one could be a hero and one a cold-blooded killer. Sadly, to this day, when many people hear the last name Stainer, they think of the murderers Carrie Stainer and not the heroic Stephen. One took four lives and the other bravely saved his own and that of another young boy. as a result of the conviction and the realization that Carrie Stainer was a cold-blooded killer, both investigators and family were looking back on his uncle Jerry Stainer's murder in a new life.

While they had never thought he could have been involved in killing his uncle, now they weren't so sure. Carrie's cousin Ronnie Jones told Time magazine, the only reason I could figure him doing it is if our uncle knew something about him. Going on to explain the only reason that would make sense is that he had maybe killed someone else. And there are people that do believe that Carrie Stainer could have killed other people. Some of the cases people have tried to connect him to are as follows. 28-year-old Patricia Dahlstrom.

She moved to Merced from Washington. In September 1982, she vanished soon after. According to her roommate, Patricia was headed to Yosemite Park. In 1983, a human arm and hand were found in the park. Five years later, in 1988, a skull was found close to the other parts. Years later, genealogy would prove that all of these body parts belong to Patricia. What connected Patricia possibly to Carrie Stainer was she had been a member of what has been described as a cult-like church. And the cult's leader, Donald Gibson, was friends with Carrie Stainer.

In October, a set of human hands was found near the New Malone's reservoir. Two months later, a headless and handless torso was found off Camp Nine Road near Valacito. In December 1995, those body parts were identified as being those of 24-year-old Sherilyn Malone Murphy. She had vanished from Sacramento in September 1994 after going to a doctor's appointment. Stainer was suspected in her case because the dismembering is very similar to the dismembering of his victim, Joey Armstrong. Police have also considered the possibility that Carrie Stainer may be connected to the case of 34-year-old Denise Smith. Her body was found in an old burn barrel near Don Pedro

Reservoir in December 1994. It's not clear exactly what. why police thought that Kerry may have been responsible for Denise's death other than the proximity and time frame. Finally, 20-year-old Michael Larry Madden was thought to be a possible victim of Stainers. He vanished in August 1996 after failing to meet up with some friends to do some fishing and camping. He was supposed to meet his friends at the Sandbar Flat campground in the Stannis lost National Forest near Sonora, but he never showed. He's been missing to this day. And again, it's not clear why police think Michael Madden could be one of Stainer's victims other than proximity to his hunting grounds.

But one thing's for sure that Michael Madden and a man was not the typical victim Kerry Stainer searched for. But it never surprises me more. When you talk about a guy like Kerry Stainer, knowing what he did do, it's pretty easy to think that he was capable of other murders. he was probably responsible for other murders. And you know, you start to look at cases that happened around the areas where he was known to have been in the time that he was known to have been there. And you have to wonder, you know, was he responsible for some of these?

And the answer is likely, yes. Now, maybe not these exact ones, but if not these, others that. people haven't connected. It's just hard for me to believe that a guy like Kerry Stainer with the fantasies he had probably didn't act on them sooner. Let's not forget he was 30 years old. You know, a lot of killers don't wait until they're 30 years old to start. But it's also not like most killers offer up all of their details, right?

if police don't ask them about them, if they're not on police radar, you know, why would someone just say, oh, yeah, well, let me tell you about all these other ones as well. And I think it's safe to say, right? Carrie Stainer could be connected to any or all of these cases or maybe to none of them. But you can't blame the authorities for considering him in these cases because, like I said, he's proven to be a deadly killer. So any victims that turned up in the area, he operated in and around. during that time he was active could possibly be one of his victims.

To date, there just isn't any evidence that connects Kerry Stainer to any murders other than the four he's been found guilty of. Carrie Stainer, now 63 years old, is currently housed at Pelican Bay State Prison in Santa Clara County, California. His record still states he has condemned the death, but there's been a moratorium on executions in the state of California since 2006. It's unlikely that he will be executed any time soon, if at all. To this day, the stator name continues to elicit strong memories and emotions from those

familiar with the two brothers, Stephen for his bravery and heroic actions, and carry for his terrible and horrible deeds. And as we wrap up this case, Morph, I think what you just said is what makes this case so fascinating to many. Obviously, as we detailed out, Carrie Stainer committed some horrible murders. And on his own, he would be an infamous killer. But he's made more infamous by the fact that, you know, his brother, Stephen, was abducted and then reunited with the family after he saved another young boy. He became a little bit of a little bit. He became. this hero. They made the movie about him. So you have that contrast of the two brothers,

one heroic and one murderous. And I think for me, one of the big questions in this case is what role did Stephen's abduction play in the formation of Carrie's murderous thoughts? Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt that it played some role. It didn't help for sure. But according to him, he was having those fantasies even before Stephen was abducted. So, you know, even if Stephen had never been abducted, it seems like Kerry could have gone on to do crimes like this. Yeah, it's very likely that he would have been a murderer either way. But like you said, it couldn't have helped because, you know, we talked about,

the feelings he had that kind of emanated from his brother's abduction. His parents focusing a lot of their attention on Stephen, which how could they not? They have a missing child. But the other thing I think you have to look at is he had other siblings who went through the same thing. They didn't turn out to be murderers. And so, you know, it just, it's a fascinating case to me. when you look at it from all those different angles.

There had to be something in carry. Yeah, and it's, it's frightening to think of how many victims he might have had, had he not slipped up and made the mistakes he did. He seems like somebody that probably would have just gotten better at what he was doing and thought of more ways to commit those killings and get away with him and might have had a much higher victim count. And as we mentioned,

he may still have more victims that just haven't been connected to him because of a lack of physical evidence. Yeah, and the one thing that we haven't talked about is if you look at pictures of Kerry Stainer from back during that time, he was a pretty good looking guy. A lot of people have pointed that out. So we're not talking about a scary kind of boogeyman type figure here. This is not to Henry Lee Lucas. This is not the oddest tool.

The person who would scare you as soon as you see them. This is a guy who a lot of women were attracted to. So then you're in the area of more of a Ted Bundy where it would have been easier for a guy like Keri Stainer maybe to get closer to his victims, to get them to let their guard down. because he was a pretty good looking guy. And not just that, but he also had credentials being, you know, the motel staff worker. He had legitimate reasons for being in locations where he was. And, you know, if he showed his ID to someone, they, you know, probably would let their guard down the way that, you know, his first three victims did by letting him, him come into their hotel room.

Well, the one thing I know for sure is that he was, uh, he was a bad guy. he was a horrible horrible killer no doubt about it but that's it for our episode on kerry steyner and really it was kind of a two-parter first part on stephen and then the second part on carry but if you love the show and you haven't done so yet go out give us a rating leave a review also keep telling your friends word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out if you want to find us on social media. We're on X with the handle our criminology pod. We're also on Facebook at facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion in fans. So that's it for another episode

of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.