Stayner told Geist that he was a maintenance worker at the motel, and that he lived in a small apartment there even during the off season, when he was usually laid off.
Geist recognized the name, and said as much. Stayner then began sharing the story of his brother Steven, from his seven years in captivity to his escape, marriage and motorcycle accident death.
Geist, however, was more interested in the Sund-Pelosso case, and took advantage of her time alone in the hot tub with the handyman to try to get some exclusive tidbit for her newscast, and asked him if he knew anything.
“At that time, he wouldn't look me in the eye, but he said, ‘Nope, just rumors, what you guys have reported,’” Geist said, adding that he was more interested in learning what she herself knew.
She started to feel uncomfortable about the way Stayner was looking at her, and she took the opportunity to flee the hot tub and go back to her room.
“The hair on my neck stood up, and it wasn't just hindsight, either,” she said. “I ran to my room, dead-bolted the door and put furniture up against the door.”
Everyone at the hotel say Stayner was “the nicest guy,” Geist said, so she forgot about the creepy encounter, until Stayner confessed to all four murders.
“That creeps me out the most,” Geist said. “So I’m this idiot reporter who got in a hot tub alone with a mass murderer.”
Chapter 9: Stayner – and his victims – have their day in court
In February of 2000, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno approved the decision to put Cary Stayner on death row if he was convicted in the murder of Joie Armstrong.
Sometime that same year, Stayner began communicating with a pen pal, Lisa Noe, who said that she didn’t intend to establish a romantic relationship with the four-time killer, but sent him a glamour shot of herself while he was awaiting trial.
That initial correspondence led to more than 1,000 pages of letters and drawings that were later confiscated by the FBI in hopes of establishing more evidence against him.
“They said they had a reason to believe that I was a key person to Cary, that he had opened up to me," said Noe, a married mom of two who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident. “Cary is in love with me. I'll say that. I didn’t ask for that, and I didn’t do anything to provoke him.”
(Some might question the intelligence of sending a glamour shot to a serial killer, which could be seen as enticement, but perhaps the handicapped housewife was bored and looking for a little bit of excitement beyond her home and her wheelchair.)
“I couldn't understand how somebody like him could stand accused of the things he’s accused of, so I decided to write him a letter,” Noe said. “Basically, I wanted to know if he was capable of what he stood accused of. A lot of things said he was violent and aggressive and dark and sick. He’s the opposite of that. He shared a lot of things with me that I wish I didn’t know, especially when the FBI came to my door. Let me just say he’s guilty of not being able to control his sickness.”
In his first letter, Stayner was apparently smitten by the Illinois-born mom of two, and after taking to her, he was in even deeper.
“You have a very angelic voice yourself and your photo goes on to verify that you are truly an angel,” Stayner wrote. “Your husband is a very lucky man to have such a wife. I only wish that I had found someone with such qualities as you possess. If I had, I’m sure I wouldn’t be where I am now. Please write me as often as you'd like.”
After Noe’s husband was arrested for attacking her, Noe visited Yosemite, visited Stayner in prison and went on talk shows to talk about him and the past that led him to take innocent lives.
Her relationship with Stayner, however, came to an end when he wrote a last letter saying his attorney was concerned about Noe’s intentions, and had advised that he end their correspondence.
“I don’t think that will last very long,” Noe said. “This is not a sick fascination. I'm not a prison groupie. I started this whole thing out to find answers.”
A plea deal spares Stayner the death penalty
The trial of the federal government against Cary Stayner in the murder of Joie Ruth Armstrong was set for October, but in September, Cary accepted a plea bargain that would spare his life, as long as he admitted he had killed the pretty park naturalist and vowed to never speak publicly about her murder.
It was Armstrong’s mother, Julie, who encouraged the plea deal that would spare him both a death sentence and a lengthy trial, in part to prevent them all from the horror that a long, grueling trial would bring.
So it was on Dec. 13, 2000, Cary Stayner pleaded guilty to the murder of Joie Armstrong, and apologized not only to her weeping mother, but also to her other family, friends and her fiancé.
“I wish I could take it back, but I can’t. I wish I could tell you why I did such a thing, but I don't even know myself,” Stayner said. “I’m so sorry, I wish there was a reason. But there isn’t. It’s senseless. I wish Joie was here, but she’s not. I wish I wasn’t here, but I am.”
He did not ask for forgiveness from Mrs. Armstrong as she watched him speak, her eyes on his even through her tears.
“If there is a God in heaven, I pray for his forgiveness. I cannot expect any forgiveness from Mrs. Armstrong or her family for taking Joie from them,” he added. “I cannot even ask forgiveness from my own family who I have hurt so deeply and who have already suffered so much. I have to live with the terrible reality of what I have done. I am very sorry that everyone else must live with it too.”
Wearing her daughter’s rings on her fingers to keep her close, Leslie Armstrong said she and her family turned down an opportunity to address Stayner in court because they “didn’t have anything else to say that I hadn't already said,” but said she accepts Stayner’s apology.
“He sounded sincere,” she said. “He’s devastated. I’m devastated. We’re all devastated. I ached for him. I ached for me. I ached for everything. I wish we could take it all back and make it all different.”
She continued from her spot outside the courtroom.
“I wish he really knew how wonderful Joie was,” she said. “This is an end of a chapter. But closure kind of implies it’s all over and you can forget about it and go on. And that will never happen.”
(Joie’s fiancé, Michael Raffaeli, now lives in Alaska, where he is the treasurer of the Denali Citizens Council and continues to educate young people to become stewards of the land.)
Stayner’s family finally shows emotion
For Cary Stayner’s family, the trial of their oldest son, once shunted away while they mourned the loss of youngest son Steven, then celebrated his return, was yet another in a series of tragedies that crushed their spirits and diminished their lives.
“I bawled for three days straight,” said his father, Delbert. “The only way I'm holding up is I'm still on medication.”
As before, just as when Steven disappeared and then returned after having been raped at least 3,000 times, according to his captor, they didn’t talk much about the arrest or Cary’s subsequent confession.
“It's killing them,” added Anna Jones, Delbert’s sister. “We’ve always been a real close family. Most of Cary's friends are his relatives. There was nothing out of the ordinary that would make us imagine, ever, that he could be responsible for such a thing.”
(According to his cousin, Kathy Amey, his sisters “had actually discussed whether or not he had something to do with it” after they heard about the triple homicide at Cedar Lodge where he worked. “I was absolutely devastated, because this was the monster I was praying that they would catch, and it was him.”)
“This has been such a sad deal from the beginning,” Delbert added. “I don't know if he didn't do it or did do it, but if he did do it, he did it because something just snapped. Cary was a good kid, one who kept to himself, got good grades, and had friends. Cary had a lot of love from his father, his mother, his sisters, his cousins. Everybody that knows Cary has a
lot of love for him.”
The family skipped rigorous attention to the news, much like they did back when Steven was abducted, when they avoided the 10 o’clock news so they wouldn’t see his case rehashed again and again.
“Cary gets The Fresno Bee every day and he seems to know more about it than we do,” Delbert said.
He finally learned that his son had seen a psychiatrist after nearly breaking down at the glass shop where he had once worked, but skipped his next session because he felt too self-conscious for group therapy.
“Cary is so shy, he didn't want to talk about his problems in front of a group of strangers,” Delbert said, adding that during a jail visit, he told Cary “'I wish you had gone back,” to which his son responded, “I wish I had, too, Poppa.”
Delbert and Kay visit Cary once a week, although they don’t discuss the case or Cary’s crimes.
“It’s getting a little easier to see him,” Delbert said. “We still cry, but you only have so many tears. I wish someday somebody would pinch me and this would all be over.
“I love my son,” he added. “He’s just not the villain like people have wrote him up to be. If Cary did do it, he wasn’t in his right mind. Who could be?”
Stayner’s indictment leads to volatile courtroom
When Stayner was indicted on state charges in the murders of Carole Sund, Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso, the courtroom was hushed.
His confession was replayed, causing Silvina Pelosso’s father to scream at Stayner, yelling “Son of a bitch” and leaping from his seat, before he was escorted from the proceedings.
Delbert and Kay Stayner cried as they listened to their son, whom they visit once a week at the Fresno County jail.
As for Stayner, he plugged his ears to block out the sounds of his words, according to the Los Angeles Times, while family members of the victims stoically listened.
He pleaded not guilty.
A second trial, a second chance at death
The state trial against Cary Stayner in the Sund-Pelosso murders was held in San Jose, 200 miles from Yosemite where the crimes occurred.
In opening arguments of the state trial in San Jose, Stayner’s attorneys, led by Santa Monica-based attorney Marsha Morrissey, changed his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, sparked in part by Stayner’s difficult past and his early bouts with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
For Francis Carrington, the strategy felt like a slap in the face given not only what Stayner did, but also the methodical way in which he hid his crime.
"The horrible part for us," said Francis Carrington, “is to sit through weeks and weeks and weeks of psychiatric testimony that doesn't get to the nugget -- this man killed four women brutally and with a level of careful planning that makes him seem all too sane. What Carole and I wanted was for our children to grow up, live out their lives.”
“I don't think any punishment would be too severe for Cary Stayner,” added Jens Sund, who is raising three children without Carole, who had been his wife and partner for 21 years.
Considering mental illness
According to the first witness called by the defense at his trial, Cary Stayner had more than 20 signs of mental illness, which began manifesting themselves when he was about three years old, about the time he began obsessively pulling his hair out.
Others include his fantasies of watching neighborhood girls being raped – incidents that in his mind he sometimes participated in, other times coming to the rescue.
“Those are fantasies because he is enjoying himself,” said Dr. Jose Arturo Silva, who spent 21 hours interviewing Stayner at the jail where he was being held. “These things have been going on since he was very young. They have been there ever since.”
He was also a narcissist, caring little for the needs of others, which might have been reflected in the jealousy he felt over the attention paid to his brother, Steven, who was hailed as a national hero after rescuing 5-year-old Timmy White from the clutches of a sexual predator.
His family history of mental illness and depression – “a rather impressive history of psychiatric illnesses that goes back two generations,” Silva said - also played a part.
“It’s impressive and sad to see that,” the psychiatrist added. “He lives in a quasi-magical reality, which involves Bigfoot and premonitions about the end of the world.”
For Stayner, his inability to control his impulses began with his trichotillomania, a condition that left him with so many bald patches on his head that as a teen, he was often seen wearing a baseball cap to hide them.
“In the long run, in the natural history of the illness you are not going to be able to stop yourself from doing this,” Silva said.
Russ Vorpegel, one of the nation’s top profilers who spent time as a police officer before working at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Va., agreed that serial killers are often struggling with mental illness and
“It all boils to the top,” said Vorpegel, who is now a private instigator. “The pressure gets so great you have to act on your thoughts.”
According to the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit, a serial killer is defined as:
A person who kills three or more victims.
Someone who kills over a period of time, be it days, weeks, months or years.
A killer who allows a cooling-off period between crimes.
The cooling off period, which often grows shorter as killers become more comfortable in their role, is what distinguishes a serial killer from a mass killer (killings occur during a single event) or a spree killer (marked by a series of murders in different locations over a short period of time, with no cooling off period.)
Fate – and a father – kept girl from becoming a victim
While Cary Stayner had amassed his murder kit in order to kill his girlfriend and her two daughters, they were not the only ones to catch Stayner’s eye.
The night before he saw Carole Sund, her daughter, Juli and Silvina Pelosso in their motel room, he had been in the hot tub with some other guests at Cedar Lodge.
Aerin Murphy, who was at the time 12, was staying at Cedar Lodge with her sister, her father, two friends and another man, and testified that she was in the hot tub with Stayner the night before the Sund-Pelosso murders.
They were not afraid of the man, she said in court during the first day of testimony.
“He had a hairy chest, so my friend, my sister and her friend joked about it a little bit when we got back to the hotel room,” she said.
Murphy, however, had no idea how close to death she and her sister and their two friends were.
Stayner later said that he had planned to kill them, until he realized that Murphy’s father was there.
“It’s definitely freakish,'' Aerin told the San Jose Mercury News outside the courtroom about her brush with a killer. “But knowing he’s behind bars is keeping me comforted.”
The next night, while Stayner was taking the lives of the three women in room 509, Bill Murphy and another man left the lodge to return to Watsonville for work, but Stayner never knew his original intended victims were now alone and vulnerable.
That knowledge sent shivers up and down Bill Murphy, however.
“It’s like a car going across the center lane and taking out the car next to you,” Bill Murphy said after his daughter took the stand.
Expressing his sorrow
Like many other serial killers whose crimes are triggered by mental illness or childhood trauma, Stayner afterwards expressed remorse for his crimes, which for him were no more controllable than the childhood pulling of his hair.
And when an FBI agent asked him to write a letter to the families of his victims, he instead wrote a letter to his third victim, Juli Sund.
In it, he told her how sorrowful he was that she would miss so many life experiences, than added that while she was in a good place, he would end up going someplace far worse due to his brutal crimes.
“I know right from wrong, and I don’t think
that I am insane,” he wrote in the letter read to the jury, which would likely seriously dampen his insanity plea, “but there is a craziness that lurks in my head, thoughts I have tried to subdue as long as I can remember. I’m just sorry that you were there when the years of fantasizing my darkest dreams became a reality in the flesh.”
In court, jurors were shown a photo of Juli, her decomposing body slightly covered with leaves, a six-inch wound gaping from her neck.
When the photo was shown, Stayner covered his eyes with both hands to block out the image.
For Juli Sund’s family, however, it was an image as much seared in their memory as her 15 years of life.
“He can do whatever he wants in court,” said Francis Carrington outside the courtroom. “But he can't bring back Juli, Carole or Silvina. He can't bring back those beautiful people.”
Family braces itself for grisly details
In court, the loved ones of Carole Sund, Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso had to prepare themselves to hear the details of their families’ murders, this time in horribly vivid detail.
“I know all the details, because I’ve been briefed by the FBI. It’s terrible, but I’m prepared,” said Jens Sund.
For Jose Pelosso, listening to the details of his daughter’s murder was especially painful, because he and his wife, Raquel, not only suffered the loss of their daughter, but also their family business, and were only able to come from Cordoba, Argentina, to the United States to the trial due to donations.
During the trial, he harbored visions of his own retaliation against the man who took his daughter’s life during her year-long student exchange in the United States that were so strong that at times they almost overcame him, he told the Los Angeles Times.
True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases (True Crime Anthology) Page 39