Stayner mystery: Was he alone?
Kevin Burnett
Stayner mystery: Was he alone?
By MICHAEL G. MOONEY
BEE STAFF WRITER
(Published: Wednesday, May 17, 2000)
It's been nearly 10 months since Cary Anthony Stayner confessed to FBI agents
that he -- and he alone -- was responsible for the slayings of four women in
and around Yosemite National Park.
But many people, including some investigators, remain skeptical of the ex-
motel handyman's claim that he acted alone.
They can understand how Stayner alone could have overpowered Yosemite
naturalist Joie Armstrong. Stayner has pleaded innocent to the July 1999
beheading of Armstrong, an athletic but diminutive 26-year-old rock climber.
Those same people find it much more difficult to believe Stayner could
surprise three people at once, as he claims to have done with the Yosemite
sightseers: Carole Sund, 42, of Eureka, her daughter Julie, 15, and family
friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, of Cordoba, Argentina.
"A lot of people have a hard time believing he (Stayner) could have
controlled three people in the fashion he said he did," said Lt. Brian Muller
of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Department.
Still, Muller said law officers have not turned up any solid evidence to link
anyone but Stayner to the brutal February 1999 murders. Muller is the
spokesman for the scaled-back task force that continues to investigate the
sightseer slayings.
Rhonda Dunn, a Chicago respiratory therapist who believes Stayner stalked her
in July 1998, said investigators should look for a man she saw with Stayner
during her eerie encounter with the accused serial killer.
Dunn described the man as 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-7. She said he had long, wavy,
blond hair and an elaborate tattoo on his right arm, red with a devil
incorporated into it. She said the man had a funny walk, almost bow-legged.
"He reminded me of Cornelius," she said, "one of the characters in the movie,
'Planet of the Apes.' "
Dunn said she saw the man in and around Cedar Lodge while she and her mother
were staying there. She also is convinced he was the same man who played
"bumper tag" with her car after she and her mother left the motel.
The man was driving a dark blue pickup truck, she said, an older model Ford
F-150. Dunn said the man followed her for a time and then passed her. Once in
front of Dunn's car, the Chicagoan said, he kept speeding up and slowing down
before she eventually passed the pickup and got away.
Dunn said she noticed Stayner and the man in a parking lot at a trailhead
after she and her mother had returned from a walk in the woods. Neither
Stayner nor the man was in the parking area when she and her mother first
pulled into the lot, Dunn said.
Lisa Noe, a Peoria, Ill., woman who has corresponded with Stayner since
September, said Stayner sometimes used plural nouns and pronouns -- such as
"they" and "killers" in some of the letters he sent her that dealt with the
Sund-Pelosso killings.
Noe recently had taken a forensic psychology class at Western Illinois
University in Macomb and became fascinated with the murders and Stayner's
involvement.
She planned to visit him last month, but when she told Stayner she planned to
stay at the Cedar Lodge, she said he became agitated and asked her if she had
been given a room.
When she told him what room she had been assigned, she said Stayner told her
to request a different room.
"He said the room was too isolated," Noe said, "and I wouldn't be safe
there."
Noe said she wondered why she wouldn't be safe since Stayner was behind bars.
She said Stayner never answered.
Stories fuel speculation
While Noe and Dunn tell compelling stories, Muller said they are difficult to
prove or disprove -- and fuel speculation.
Earlier this year, authorities questioned whether the death of a 32-year-old
Modesto man somehow was tied to the sightseers slayings. Hikers found the
remains of Joseph Lilo "Joey" Paxia on Jan. 18, lying in a ravine near
Coulterville.
When his body was found, rumors surfaced that Paxia had either helped Stayner
or had information about the Yosemite murders.
"We now believe we know why he (Paxia) was killed," Muller said Tuesday, "and
it has nothing to do with Sund-Pelosso."
That probably will do little, however, to quell speculation that someone
helped Stayner kill or conceal the crimes. For months before Stayner emerged
as the prime suspect, the FBI and other law enforcement sources insisted the
principal players in the slayings were a group of Modesto-area ex-convicts.
The half-dozen or so men under suspicion had been arrested on charges
unrelated to the Sund-Pelosso killings. They were in jail when Armstrong was
killed. Then came Stayner's stunning confession, and the focus of the
investigation suddenly was turned upside down.
A source close to the investigation, however, recently told The Bee that none
of the original suspects has been ruled out. At the same time, that source
said there is no definitive evidence tying them to Stayner or the murders.
Family suspects others
Francis and Carole Carrington, the parents of Carole Sund and grandparents of
Julie, are among those who remain convinced someone else played a role.
"We definitely believe Stayner had a part in it, but we also believe he had
help," Francis Carrington said.
Carole Carrington added, "There's just so much that doesn't add up, that
doesn't click right."
In March, at the first anniversary of the "Vigil of Hope" march and rally in
Modesto, Carole Carrington said she was approached by a person who gave her a
soiled cloth-covered book similar to a diary. She said the book was muddy and
smelled of cigarette smoke. Nothing was written inside.
The person told Carrington it had belonged to Julie.
"It looked like something (Julie) might have picked up on the trip,"
Carrington said. "This is the type of thing that makes you wonder if someone
else (who played a role in the murders) is still out there."
Trail of murder
Investigators also continue to search for possible links between Stayner and
other disappearances and unsolved murders, not only in the Northern San
Joaquin Valley and Sierra foothills, but throughout California.
In recent weeks, task force investigators spent some time in Merced County.
Muller said they were taking another look at Stayner as a possible suspect in
the May 1997 disappearance of Vanessa Dawn Smith, a 13-year-old Winton girl,
and the murder of Stayner's uncle, Jesse Stayner.
Smith, who bears a resemblance to Rhonda Dunn and Joie Armstrong, disappeared
from her Winton home May 31, 1997. At the time, Stayner lived in the
vicinity.
Jesse Stayner was shot and killed in 1990. Investigators theorized that he
was shot when he surprised a burglar at his home. Cary Stayner, who was
living with his uncle at the time, reportedly was not at home when his uncle
was shot.
So far, Muller said, investigators have turned up nothing to tie Stayner to
either crime.
One source familiar with Stayner's letters to Noe has told The Bee that
Stayner mentioned Smith in one of them, but claimed he did not kill her.
Instead, the source said, Stayner blamed someone else and reportedly named
that person in the letter. Muller said he's not aware of such a letter.
Killers known for lying
If Stayner did blame someone else, investigators should be suspicious, said
Russ Vorpegel, an expert on serial killers and a pioneer in psychological
profiling.
Vorpegel, now a private investigator near Sacramento, has spent nearly 50
years in law enforcement. He's been a police officer in Milwaukee and a
special agent with the FBI. He holds degrees in psychology and economics,
as well as a law degree.
During his time with the FBI, Vorpegel taught classes in psychological
profiling and death investigation at the bureau's headquarters in Quantico,
Va.
Vorpegel said Kenneth Bianchi, convicted of murdering seven women in the late
1970s Hillside Strangler killings in Los Angeles, at one point blamed some of
the slayings on other people, including someone named "Steve."
The mysterious Steve, Vorpegel said, turned out to be another Bianchi
personality -- at least that's what Bianchi claimed at the time.
Vorpegel said the Hillside Strangler case also is significant for another
reason: Bianchi did not act alone. His step-cousin, Angelo Buono, also
participated in the killings.
Bianchi ended up testifying against Buono in return for prosecutors not
seeking the death penalty against him. Buono eventually was sentenced to life
in prison. Bianchi will be eligible for parole in 2005.
What does all that have to do with the Stayner case? Maybe nothing. The
point, Vorpegel said, is that investigators can't always trust what a serial
killer tells them. Lying and manipulation, he said, are classic
characteristics.
"These people would rather lie than tell the truth," he said. "And they don't
like themselves very much. They try to aggrandize themselves in the eyes of
others."
Just how truthful Stayner has been is anyone's guess. Right now, the
Carringtons, not to mention investigators, believe he may have much more
to tell.
--
k...@catnip.org http://www.catnip.org/
"DOS is Disk Operating System. It's needed by the disk, not by your operating
system." -- Richard the Stupid, demonstrating his amazing knowledge of
computers.
Maggie
>It's been nearly 10 months since Cary Anthony Stayner confessed to FBI agents
>
>that he -- and he alone -- was responsible for the slayings of four women
>in
>and around Yosemite National Park.
>
>But many people, including some investigators, remain skeptical of the ex-
>motel handyman's claim that he acted alone.
>
>They can understand how Stayner alone could have overpowered Yosemite
>naturalist Joie Armstrong. Stayner has pleaded innocent to the July 1999
>
>beheading of Armstrong, an athletic but diminutive 26-year-old rock climber.
>
>
>Those same people find it much more difficult to believe Stayner could
>surprise three people at once, as he claims to have done with the Yosemite
>
>sightseers: Carole Sund, 42, of Eureka, her daughter Julie, 15, and family
>
>friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, of Cordoba, Argentina.
>
>"A lot of people have a hard time believing he (Stayner) could have
>controlled three people in the fashion he said he did," said Lt. Brian Muller
>of the Mariposa County Sheriff's Department.
***I wonder what these same people think about Richard Speck.
Maggie
"Ah yes. Republicans. Those fine folks who were incensed that Murphy Brown's
kid didn't have a father and are now equally incensed that a real child does
have one." WestLulu (stolen from Baran)