Stayners speak
Deadsis969
Sun-Star Photo By Marci Stenberg
Kay and Delbert Stayner read a letter of support as they sit on their front
porch in Winton.
EDITOR'S NOTE: At their Winton home last week, Delbert and Kay Stayner spoke
candidly with a Sun-Star reporter about their family — especially their sons,
Steven and Cary — and how tragedy has not shaken their belief that
"everything happens for a purpose."
By Cynthia Neff
"Did you hear the news?"
These were the first words out of Delbert Stayner's mouth as he relaxed into a
leather chair in the living room of his north Winton home.
Mike Echols, who wrote the novel-turned-blockbuster "I Know My First Name is
Steven: The True Story of the Steven Stayner Abduction Case," died Jan. 10 in
Monterey County Jail, where he was incarcerated for trespassing and related
charges.
"That man was here as soon as Steven turned 18," said Delbert, 69.
Echols persuaded Steven to talk about his experiences, which soon became a book
and later a made-for-TV movie in 1989, for which Echols made millions, while
Steven only received about $2,000.
For Delbert Stayner and his wife Kay, 61, Echols' death is just part of the
saga that has spanned four decades, that began, for them, a few weeks before
Christmas in 1972.
By their own admission, the high-profile life the Stayners never sought has
been mixed with anxiety and tragedy, balanced against a belief that everything
happened for a definitive purpose and would ultimately work out in the end.
The following paragraphs chronicle the Stayners' story, as told to the Sun-Star
during an exclusive interview.
Picture perfect
Delbert and Kay Stayner first met and married 42 years ago in Hyampon, a small
town west of Redding. Delbert worked in the sawmills until a back injury
brought him and his new bride to Merced on Nov. 11, 1961. Their first child,
Cary, was born on Aug. 13, 1961. Delbert began to work as a maintenance
mechanic for a local cannery, a job he had until his retirement in 1995.
Cary, his brother Steven and three girls were born over a seven-year period,
and the family lived a normal life in Snelling and Merced. There was always
some sibling rivalry, Kay said, but overall, the Stayner household was outgoing
and happy.
The Stayners took their children on many trips: To New Mexico — Delbert's
home state — in the wintertime, and on camping trips during the summer. The
children were raised in the Mormon church. They didn't drink soda, and the
girls weren't allowed to date until they turned 16. All in all, the children's
early life was nothing out of the ordinary, Kay said.
Cary, Kay said, was as quiet and easygoing a child as he is today. He enjoyed
television and artwork, and though he didn't need people around to entertain
him, he had many friends. He was also an excellent student. While Kay
remembered her other children often struggling with their schoolwork, Cary
would finish his assignments without her help.
Steven, an exact opposite of Cary, had "oodles of friends," said Kay.
"He probably had never met a stranger before," she said. "Maybe that's how (the
kidnapping) happened."
Loss of innocence
When Steven Stayner was abducted while walking home from Charles Wright
Elementary School in Merced by Kenneth Parnell in 1972, it turned the stable,
solid family inside out. Cary and his three sisters refused to talk about their
missing brother. The family's equilibrium had been thrown off; they lived with
a knot in their stomachs and a gap in their lives.
Delbert and Kay spent the first two years of Steven's disappearance following
tips, looking at pictures of dead children to identify if one was Steven's
body, even listening to leads from psychics who claimed to know their son's
whereabouts.
But nothing panned out, and "life went on," Kay said. "We still had four other
children to take care of."
Steven turned himself in to the Ukiah Police Department on March 1, 1980,
having escaped after Parnell had abducted 5-year-old Timmy White of Ukiah.
Steven took Timmy with him when he escaped from Parnell.
The Stayners don't talk to the Whites, because the family doesn't want to be
reminded of what happened, Kay said.
"When Steve came back, all hell broke loose," said Kay. "You would think
everything would be hunky-dory, we got our son back. But we lost a 7-year-old,
and got back a 15-year-old."
Problems began to break out in the Stayner household. Parnell had introduced
Steven to drugs and alcohol, and Steven drank and smoked marijuana on a regular
basis. He also coerced two of his sisters to smoke cigarettes with him. He
rarely talked about the seven years he spent as "Dennis" Parnell.
"A lot of time when he did talk about it, he'd talk about his friends," Delbert
said.
Steven was once hospitalized for his drinking near Thanksgiving, a few years
after he'd returned home — understandable, after what he'd been through,
Delbert said — but then turned his life around. He met his wife, Jody, and
married in 1985, but was killed in a motorcycle accident on Santa Fe Drive,
just past the Merced city limits, four years later.
"Del dealt with Steven's death better than I did," Kay said. "But it was
because he knew exactly where Steven was."
Steven was buried at Merced District Cemetery, near Delbert's mother and
father.
Delbert visits his son's grave often, but Kay only accompanies him about once a
year.
The ripple effect of tragedy
Steven's disappearance may have touched off a string of events for the Stayner
family. Delbert and Kay routinely played the "what-if" game after they learned
what fate had befallen their son.
"Steven was the third child that Parnell tried to pick up," Delbert said. "It
could have easily been one of those other kids."
Later the same day that Steven disappeared, Delbert drove to Catheys Valley,
where Kay's father lived in a trailer park, to see if the child was there.
Steven wasn't there — ironically, unbeknownst to Delbert, he was just 200
feet away, where Parnell was holding him in another trailer.
About six weeks later, Parnell took Steven to Santa Rosa, and later to
Comptche, near Ukiah.
"It was meant to be, then," said Delbert. "Or it never would have happened.
Everything happens for a reason."
It was this faith that brought the Stayners through Steven's disappearance,
reappearance and death; it is the same belief they've clung to during their
other son Cary Stayner's confession, trial and sentencing for the murders of
Carole and Juli Sund, Silvina Pelosso and Joie Ruth Armstrong.
Cary was diagnosed at 3 years of age with trichotillomania, an impulse-control
disorder that causes a person to pull out his hair, eyelashes or eyebrows.
A doctor put the toddler on medication that turned him into a different child,
Kay said. So she and Delbert took Cary off the medication and let him pull his
hair, not realizing that the disorder was an indication of a larger problem.
Later, Cary would wear hats to conceal the bald spots he created as a result of
the disorder, and today he has his head shaved. Cary has been incarcerated at
San Quentin since his Dec. 12, 2002, sentencing in the murders of the Sunds and
Pelosso, and so Kay is not sure if he still takes medication.
"There had to be something terribly wrong with him to commit those crimes,"
Delbert said. "He was a nice, caring person. But he knew there was something
wrong — he was hearing voices."
Cary visited a a clinic operated by the Merced County Department of Mental
Health about two years before the four women were murdered. The clinic would
only offer him group therapy, Kay said, but he wanted one-on-one treatment with
a professional. He didn't go back to the clinic.
"Everything that happened stems from his disorder," said Kay.
At 11 years old, Cary was molested by a distant relative — an uncle, but not
"Uncle Jerry," said Delbert, as some newspapers reported.
Jerry Stayner, Delbert's brother, was gunned down in his home by an intruder in
1990, sheriff's deputies believe. Though Cary was living with his uncle at the
time, he is not considered a suspect in the murder, which remains unsolved, Kay
said.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
After high school, which Cary didn't finish because he refused to take an
economics test, he had a few odd jobs, like installing windows and moving
furniture. Kay said he finally went to work at hotels near Yosemite National
Park because there he was surrounded by what he liked: the outdoors.
When Cary confessed to the murders of four women in the Yosemite area, Kay said
her initial reaction was to escape.
But she and Delbert stayed in Merced County because, during their travels in a
motorhome across the United States, they didn't find anywhere better than
California.
Their three daughters also live in the state.
The last time the Stayners saw Cary was a week before the Dec. 12 sentencing,
where he received the death penalty.
"He's still the same person," said Kay. "But there's a caged look in his eyes
now that's not the same."
Cary had spent three years in four county jails before being transferred to San
Quentin, and it could be another 12 years or more before he will receive death
by lethal injection.
Cary and his parents do not discuss the case on the recommendation of Cary's
attorney.
But even now, a few months after the trials are over, Delbert and Kay question
whether their son is guilty of murder. Delbert seems to believe Cary couldn't
have been in his right mind when he did it; Kay hasn't been convinced he
committed the ghastly crimes at all.
"Here's a man who wouldn't even step on a spider on the floor, who wouldn't
kill a bird. He never cursed," said Delbert. "You know he had to be insane to
do this."
For Kay, the prosecutors in Cary's case did not produce enough evidence to
prove to her that her son committed the murders.
"Without Cary's confession, they didn't have a case. I have a hard time
believing that he did it," she said. "Someday I might ask him why he admitted
to a crime he didn't commit."
Sympathetic strangers
The Stayners have received support over the years from both their community and
sympathetic strangers nationwide.
An excerpt from the most recent letter they received read,
"...Hopefully (Parnell) will never harm anyone else again. I can only imagine
what you've experienced. God bless you and your family."
The letter was postmarked Atlanta, Ga.
"We have boxes of letters that we received about Steven," Kay said. "They are
sorted into three different sections: When Steven disappeared, when he came
back, and after he died."
Part of what has helped the Stayners over the years has been the constant
support.
"People in Merced and Mariposa counties have been very supportive of the trials
and tribulations of the Stayner family," Kay said. "How can you thank people
for standing by you?"
The Stayners don't feel any closure from Parnell's Jan. 3 arrest.
"Nothing has really changed," Kay said. "Hopefully, he'll be in jail for the
rest of his life."
Added Delbert, "The only good thing that came out of (Steven's abduction) is
that future criminals would get more time than Parnell served."
The couple also thinks that the criminal justice system has improved since
Parnell's early 1980s trial.
"Sexual predators have gotten much more severe sentences," Kay said. "People
are beginning to understand that just because the child lived, he shouldn't be
let off. No kid should lose his or her innocence at the age of 7."
Through all of the tragedies that have befallen them, the Stayners revert back
to their inherent belief that, "everything happens for a purpose, even with
Cary," Delbert said. "Even if we don't know why yet."
"And that God will get us through this," Kay added.
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