True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases (True Crime Anthology)
Page 40
“I could do justice on my own. I know I could do it,” he said outside the courthouse after a particularly grueling day of testimony. “Throughout the trial, I think I've had more than 10 opportunities to kill him.”
He would do it, he said, if not for his surviving daughter, Paula, who was 24 at the time of the trial.
“My other daughter,” he said. “That’s the only thing that keeps me from it. I would have killed him. That's the only thing. I would just tear him up.”
Considering a fair sentence
On Aug. 26, 2002, Cary Stayner was convicted of first degree murder.
Even childhood friends called for his death.
“He should get fried,” said his longtime friend, Matt Cone. “If he committed the murders, you know, execute him, because he’s obviously a monster.”
A few weeks later, on Sept. 17, the same jury spent less than four hours deliberating before deciding that Stayner was sane at the time of the killings. The jury’s next move would be to determine whether he would be sentenced to death for the Sund-Pelosso murders, or if they were satisfied with the life sentence he was already serving for the murder of Joie Armstrong.
His parents asked the jury to take into consideration Stayner’s childhood and spare his life.
“If his dying would bring these people back that he killed, I’d say do it,” said his mother, Kay. “But executing Cary is not going to bring them back. He’s not the monster that people said he is.”
As for his father, his focus on Steven’s abduction – which Kay Stayner’s own father had said was probably fortuitous, since she now would only have four children to feed and clothe – led him to neglect Cary completely.
“When he really needed his papa, I was too concerned about Stevie. I hardly ever talked to him,” Delbert Stayner said, his voice cracking, his face worn and tired looking. “I was especially hard on Cary.”
He appealed to the jury’s sense of compassion, and nearly begged, then, reminding them that he had already lost one son, Steven, who had been killed in the motorcycle crash, and did not want to lose another.
Their words fell on a jury that was still stunned by the details of Stayner’s murderous rampage that left three innocent women dead, and on Oct. 10, they made their decision. Stayner would die for the killing of Carole and Juli Sund and Silvina Pelosso.
“He tortured my daughter,” said Jens Sund as part of the sentencing hearing. “I know he has no trouble killing little girls in the middle of the night. I just wish he would step up and take his punishment now.”
So emotionally charged was the hearing, before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Thomas C. Hastings handed down the sentence, he had to leave the courtroom to compose himself as the room revisited what he called “horrendous and devastating” details of what had become known as the Yosemite murders.
“Condemning Cary Stayner to death is not happy for anybody,” said Carole Carrington, who later planted flowers in pastel shades of pink, yellow and white at the site where Juli Sund’s body was discovered. “But it’s justice.”
Afterwards, outside the courtroom, Stayner’s parents expressed sorrow at the outcome of the hearing.
“I stand by my son,” said Delbert, forced again into an unhappy spotlight. “If he'd gotten help, there would be four people alive today.”
Carole Sund’s father, Francis Carrington, also spoke after the hearing.
“I feel very sorry for Stayner's mother and father,” he said. “They've had a tough time of it. I wish them the best. But I've never seen anything so close to black and white and evil and good as Cary Stayner and our children.”
Later, he said, “We tried to turn the page and say that’s it, the book is over with, but I’d say it took six or seven years for me to recover from this.”
Instead, they focus on their remaining children and grandchildren, and do their best to make sure that the murders don’t consume them or destroy their lives.
Chapter 10: The aftermath
As of 2015, Cary Stayner is still sitting on death row, more than a decade after his sentencing.
He blames the obsessive-compulsive disorder – his inability to control his compulsions even to murder, and said as much during a TV interview with “20/20.”
“Probably all this happened,” he told the news magazine, “because I suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder.”
His family and friends, however, were left with the guilt of not having done anything – his sisters when they suspected their brother was guilty of the Sund-Pelosso murders, which might have spared the life of Armstrong – and others who knew him when he was young, and realized that there was something about him that was a little bit off all along.
“I honestly don’t know what it was, I wish I did,” said his friend, Matt Cone. “A lot of us in the town wish that we did, because maybe those four people would still be alive. Maybe we could have gotten him the help that he needed. Maybe we could have stopped him.”
In a letter to the Fresno Bee that he sent from his jail cell in mid-August, Stayner said he was “truly very sorry” for the pain he had caused and said that he hoped to sell the rights to his story to Hollywood to compensate the victims’ families. “I realize that the money would be little consolation for the loss of their loved ones, but until the jury, judge and executioner fulfill their role in this matter, it's all I have to offer,” he wrote.
It was odd, but not a surprise to those who remembered the ghost boy Cary was during the years when Steven held center stage in the Stayner home.
“It crossed my mind that maybe this was Cary’s way of competing with his brother’s notoriety,” said Tony Dossetti, Merced's chief of police, who in 1980 was the cop who told the Stayners their son Steven had been found.
Since then, there have been several documentaries about the case, but no “movie of the week” for Stayner, who remains on death row in San Quentin.
A month after he was sentenced to death, however, Kenneth Parnell, the man who kidnapped brother Steven, was arrested in Berkeley after he attempted to purchase a young boy.
A few months later, in August, the Sund family accepted a $1 million wrongful death settlement from Cedar Lodge.
They continue to operate the Carole Sund-Carrington Foundation to help locate missing people as well as offer rewards for information for families without the means to do so themselves. “This is one of our first steps in fighting back for ourselves and then fighting back … for the people who this reward fund is destined to help,” said Carole Sund’s brother-in-law, Ken Sund.
Delbert Stayner died on April 9, 2013, at his home in Winton, California. He was 79 years old.
And Cary Stayner?
A drawing he did is available for auction at truecrimeauction.com, and he still wears a small smirk in his mug shots, now taken from San Quentin’s death row.
Serial Killers:
The Colombian Monsters
by Jack Rosewood
Serial Killers of The World
Volume 1
Copyright © 2016 by Wiq Media
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
DISCLAIMER:
The following true accounts of South American serial killers Pedro Lopez, Luis Garavito and Daniel Camargo – the three most prolific serial killers in the world - includes quotes from those closely involved in the cases as well as quotes from the killers themselves. It is not the author’s intention to defame or intentionally hurt anyone involved. The interpretation of the events surrounding these cases – including the mandatory sentencing laws in Colombia and neighboring nations - are the author’s as a result of researching the true crime stories. Any comments made about the sex criminals and their sadistic murder sprees are the sole opinion and responsibility of the
person or persons quoted.
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Table of Contents
Serial Killers: The Colombian Monsters
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Introduction
Luis Garavito
Introduction
Chapter 1: A childhood of betrayal
Brutality beyond belief
Without education, his future was grim
Suicide attempt leads to help
Chapter 2: Sexual sadist on the loose
Garavito was a savage beast
Enticing his victims
Chapter 3: The first kill
Garavito on the move
Escalating madness
Chapter 4: The first crime scene
A close call, then a grisly find
A few small clues
Discovery of a serial killer's spree
A big mistake
Chapter 5: Clues tell a big story
Tracking a madman
Chapter 6: Investigators – and a victim – get lucky
A lucky break
Escape proves infinitely lucky
Evidence doesn’t lie
Why did Garavito kill?
Victims’ families desperate for revenge
Is rehabilitation likely?
Chapter 7: Families look back in sorrow
One mother remembers
Grandmother’s memories haunt
A loss leads to further tragedy
Chapter 8: Garavito behind bars
Interview calls attention to case
Mental illness evident in later interviews
A nation in fear
The aftermath
Daniel Camargo Barbosa
Chapter 1 – A relationship made in hell
An agreement straight from hell
Chapter 2: A new modus operandi
Camargo freedom was short-lived
Escape artist
Chapter 3: Four years of terror
Tricks of a deadly trade
Another lesson in never taking candy from strangers
Chapter 4: Camargo’s final arrest
Camargo confesses
Chapter 5: A madman on trial
A victim remembers
Another narrowly escapes death
Another victim was not so lucky
Camargo behind bars
In the end, revenge
Pedro López
Introduction
Chapter 1: A childhood of tragedy
A son sent away … or not
Another hope dashed
Chapter 2: His first stint in prison
Prison violence was Lopez’s last straw
Revenge would be brutal
Chapter 3: Murder in Peru
A bad day for Pedro Lopez
Killing is power
Chapter 4: Lopez hosted post-mortem parties
Kidnapping draws attention
Chapter 5: A mistake leads to an arrest
With confession comes horror
Victims never cried for help
Playing the blame game
Chapter 6: Laws leave families enraged
A quick return to confinement
Mom gets a surprise visit
Nations’ residents in terror
Conclusion
The making of a serial killer
It leaves us always asking why
Organized killers
Disorganized killers
Serial killers think they’re unique – but they’re not
Nature vs. nurture?
Going inside the mind: Psychopathy and other mental illnesses
‘I felt like it’
A new take on psychopathy
Schizophrenia
Borderline personality disorder
Top signs of a serial killer
Trademarks of a serial killer
The signature
The cooling off period
Hunting in pairs
Other red flags
Brain damage? Maybe
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A Note From The Author
Introduction
Considering that one of the most diabolical of all executioner calling cards is the Colombian necktie – a post-mortem mutilation in which the victim’s throat is sliced open so his or her tongue can be pulled through as if it were a tie – it should come as no surprise that the world’s top three most prolific serial killers come from the nation best known for this demented mutilation.
The three men who have set records for their kills each targeted children, using various tricks to lure them away from safety, including candy, money, and various disguises.
And while it is unfathomable that together these three men are believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than 500 children, what is even more impossible to believe is that the punishments in no way fit their crimes.
None received life sentences – in Colombia, prison terms at the time were limited to 40 years - and together, the meager punishments doled out to them equaled less than 100 years.
Each took advantage of the region’s poverty and political unrest to prey upon the most vulnerable members of the South American population, collecting children like some people collect Star Wars memorabilia.
“Colombia is a country with a long history of violence,” said Marc Chernick, a professor of Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.
It’s also a country that boasts the dubious honor of being the home of three of the world’s most notorious serial killers – Luis Garavito, Daniel Camargo Barbosa and Pedro Lopez.
Each is the stuff of nightmares, and while Garavito is still behind bars and Barbosa is dead at the hands of a fellow prisoner, Lopez is free, his whereabouts unknown, making him a likely subject of many a horror story told ‘round a campfire.
The girls of Colombia and its neighboring nations Ecuador and Peru should be terrified.
Luis Garavito
Introduction
In the 1990s, some of the poorest boys living in the streets of Colombia went missing, but like the countless prostitutes and runaways who disappear in the United States every year, many of their disappearances went unnoticed for quite some time.
Because of political upheaval, military action that caused displacement from their homes and widespread poverty, Colombia has a large population of homeless children, who survive on the streets mostly by begging and stealing.
These children are easy targets for predators, and because many of them are rarely in contact with their families, when boys disappear it usually takes some time for loved ones to realize that their children have gone missing. For some, they are never missed because they are virtually alone in the world.
“Kids disappear all the time in Colombia, especially those from the poorer strata,” said Timothy W. Ross a journalist-turned-social worker, in a story that appeared in the New York Times. “They tend to come from unstable homes anyway, but the deep social instability produced by military, political and economic displacement has fragmented families even further.”
Of the 41 million Colombians, about 1.5 million, many of them children, were displaced by political strife, and children selling small items, begging or shining shoes are common throughout the nation’s larger cities and towns.
More than a quarter of the country’s population lives below the poverty line, and families are split because parents are unable to care for their children.
This disenfranchisement among families left so many boys on their own that the city streets were as easy to hunt as a game preserve for serial killer Luis Garavito.
Garavito suffered from a serious form of overkill, as his victim list is believed to have topped 300, in part because his targets of choice
were not only prolific, but also easy prey. His tricks of the trade, which included posing as a priest to create a sense of trust between himself and his victims, allowed him to blend into the dust and the trash and the suffering, so he was able to get away with an unimaginable number of murders.
Other disguises, including entering schools on the pretext of serving as a guest speaker, also allowed him easier access to young boys.
Garavito was able to go unnoticed because he switched up his look, donning various disguises that were vastly different, save for his red plastic glasses, which were always part of his look.
He chose victims between the ages of 6 and 16, and at first offered them small gifts or money, which suggests that the poorest of children in Colombia are not told the dangers of accepting gifts from strangers.
He would then take them for a walk, leading them to places where the foliage was so thick that it not only muffled noises as he raped and killed his victims, usually by cutting their throats, but also prevented the smell of decay from wafting too far, even though throngs of people living their lives, often including regularly patrolling police, were usually not too far from the crime scenes.
Diabolical to the core, Garavito has a classic back story, one that he shares with many serial killers who choose young boys as their victims.
Chapter 1: A childhood of betrayal
The oldest of seven kids, Luis Garavito was born on January 25, 1957, in Genova, Colombia, the country’s coffee-growing region.
“Birth order does affect us,” according to Dr. Nicola Davies in an interview with Pick Me Up! Magazine. “Being the oldest child within a large family is not easy. Garavito would have been, according to psychologists, ‘dethroned’ each time a younger sibling arrived. This can lead to jealousy, anger, and a huge amount of pressure to regain parent’s attention. Being the eldest within the family brings responsibility and parents will often look to the eldest child for support with looking after the younger children. Being the eldest in such a large family is particularly stressful and can lead to a child having to take on adult responsibilities, losing out on their childhood.”