That February, they moved into a run-down trailer. Parnell allowed Dennis the run of the trailer park. He could take Queenie for walks, climb trees, and play with other kids. But he suffered nightly sexual assaults.
He eventually settled well at school, but teachers were concerned about the erratic behavior of Parnell. They never knew whether he was coming to pick the boy up, or whether the boy should be sent to a babysitter or travel home on the school bus.
Back in Merced, a pair of cowboy boots like those Steven had been wearing when he disappeared had washed up on the banks of Bear Creek to the north of the city. There was a tense time in the Stayner household until they discovered that they were not Steven’s. Meanwhile they continued sending fliers to radio and TV stations across the nation. But by then, Steven’s disappearance was old news.
Later Del found a sack in an irrigation ditch. He knew that there was something dead inside it. He cut it open to find a dead calf. Even so, he had to sit on the edge of the ditch for a quarter of an hour to compose himself. Then two Chinese brothers who ran a local supermarket accused each other of killing Steven, cutting up the body, and flushing it down the drain. The police had to dig up the sewer just in case they were telling the truth.
The longer Steven was gone, the harder it was for the Stayners to bear. They kept all his clothes, and sometimes Del would go and sniff them, just to remember what his son smelled like.
Steven’s ordeal continued. One night after a particularly horrendous night of anal sex, he snuck out of the trailer while Parnell was asleep. He intended, somehow, to find his way home. But the eight-year-old had not gotten very far, when he became disorientated and started to cry. Somehow he found his way back to the trailer before Parnell awoke. Soon after, he began to play with matches and was frequently beaten for it.
By summer, Steven had saved enough out of his allowance to buy the GI Joe set he had wanted for Christmas. Despite Parnell’s constant abuse of the child, he sometimes tried to give him some fun and would let Steven sit on his lap and steer the car while he operated the pedals when they were out driving.
After summer vacation, Dennis Parnell started third grade at Kawana Elementary, where he met Kenny Matthias. They soon became good friends and Dennis would head to the Matthias house after school. Parnell then formalized the relationship, asking Barbara Matthias to look after Dennis and give him his dinner each night after school so he could work late. Parnell also seized the opportunity to start an affair with Mrs. Matthias.
That fall, Dennis fell ill. Ken took him to the doctor and stayed with him during the examination, answering questions that were directed at the boy.
With the overtime he was getting at the Holiday Inn, Parnell had enough money to rent a large wood-framed house in central Santa Rosa. For Dennis, it meant another change of school. But he did not lose touch with his friend Kenny, whom Parnell invited to stay overnight.
Parnell and Kenny’s father, Bob Matthias, joined forces for a number of doomed business ventures. The two of them went around drinking and losing money, while Barbara looked after Dennis along with her four other children. She had another two, but they were both in jail.
A lifetime smoker, Parnell lost his job at the Holiday Inn when they introduced a no-smoking policy at the front desk. He then got a job delivering the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat newspaper. For a while, he took Dennis with him on the delivery route, but soon started letting the small boy stay at home by himself.
Without Parnell’s overtime from the Holiday Inn, he could not longer afford the house and moved back into a motel, where the two of them had to share a double bed. But the move meant that Dennis could return to Kawana Elementary. He could also spend more time at the Matthiases’ house, where one of Kenny’s sister’s twelve-year-old friends offered to have sex with him. Dennis turned her down, and Kenny teased him when he found out about it.
When Bob Matthias got drunk, he would beat up his wife. Barbara fled to the Pelissier Motel where Parnell was staying with Dennis. She then moved into their room and the three of them shared a bed. One night Parnell and Barbara Matthias came home a little drunk. Dennis was still up watching TV. They took no notice of him, took their clothes off, and began having sex. Then Parnell called Dennis over. He got him to undress, then he played with his penis until it was hard, and got him to have sex with Barbara. Like so many things in his life, Dennis knew this was not right.
Parnell was rehired by the Holiday Inn on the proviso that he did not smoke while he was on duty. He then bought a sixteen-foot travel trailer and the three of them—Parnell, Dennis, and Barbara—moved into it. Again, there was only one double bed, and the three of them slept together. Steven/Dennis was now nine. Although he did not like Barbara, the new arrangement had its upside. Barbara took care of most of Parnell’s sexual needs so, while she was around, Parnell left his “son” alone. However, Parnell continued to molest Dennis when they were alone and he indulged his appetite for voyeurism by encouraging Barbara to have sex with Dennis while he watched.
The police were called to this happy household when Bob turned up drunk one night and tried to pick a fight with Barbara. But no one scratched beneath the surface and asked what a child was doing in the midst of the mayhem.
Parnell wanted to take a trip out to Reno to gamble. Dennis was confined to a hotel room with a babysitter from a local service, while Parnell lost all his money at blackjack and craps. Back in Santa Rosa, Barbara got Parnell to install a makeshift single bed in the trailer for Dennis to sleep on. Then Parnell lost his job at the Holiday Inn again—he had continued smoking at work. He opened a stall in a flea market, which provided Dennis with clothes at least, though most of them weren’t very suitable. Within two months, that had failed and he took a job as a cook in a diner. But Dennis was happy enough; he was now in the fourth grade with his best friend Kenny. However, the school was increasingly worried about Dennis’s after-school arrangements. Parnell was warned that he needed to be careful, as “Dennis might be picked up by some weirdo on the street.”
That Christmas, Parnell and Barbara turned up to see the school’s Christmas play as man and wife. But something was simmering under the surface. During the vacation, the trio went to a shopping mall where Parnell looked for young boys. When he saw one who he thought was alone, he would send Dennis to approach the child and ask him to come with him. But as Parnell was too far away to hear what he was saying, Dennis would always ask some other question, one that would elicit the answer, “No.” Then he would go back to Parnell and say the boy did not want to come. Parnell did not get angry. He just sent Dennis to approach another boy.
Barbara was used in a similar role. When Dennis joined the Santa Rosa Boys’ Club, Parnell asked her to lure one of the other boys into the car. When the boy grew suspicious, Parnell shouted to Barbara. She scuttled back to the car and they took off.
A few days later after the Boys’ Club incident, Parnell, Dennis, and Barbara towed their trailer eighty miles north to the town of Willits in Mendocino County. Dennis was registered at Brookside Elementary. The Stayners had sent fliers to the Willits Unified School District, but again they were not distributed to the schools.
Dennis began to get some sex education in school and learned, for sure, that what he was being subjected to was wrong. But he knew it made no difference. If he confronted Parnell with his knowledge, it would cause trouble—and that was the last thing he needed.
With money from his mother, Parnell bought a new Chevrolet Impala—he frequently changed cars—and opened a Bible store in nearby Fort Bragg. Parnell claimed to be a licensed minister. He said that he held a doctorate in Bible studies and knew the Bible by heart, though he never went to church.
Dennis changed schools again. On his enrollment form to Dana Grey Elementary, his mother was listed as Barbara Parnell. He was still playing with matches, and being beaten for it. Then he was caught shoplifting. The police were called, but Dennis did not seize the opportunity to tell them about the ki
dnapping. He was too afraid of Parnell. Once again, they did no background checks.
The Bible store failed. Around the same time, Barbara got her divorce from Bob and won custody of her kids. Parnell now had a family of seven to support.
He swapped his trailer for a converted school bus. This was not allowed on the trailer park in town. Instead, it had to be towed out to a site for similar wrecks down near the shoreline. One day, Dennis and Kenny went out fishing on a raft. When they did not return by nightfall, Barbara called the sheriff. However, the two boys turned up before the sheriff’s office asked any awkward questions.
Now that they were living together, Parnell tried to sexually assault Kenny. Kenny told Dennis that his father had grabbed his balls and tried to fellate him. There were allegations that Parnell went even further. Dennis ignored what his friend had told him and nothing more was said.
To support the children, Barbara took a job washing dishes in a restaurant and promptly fell in love with another man there. Barbara and her brood moved out, leaving Parnell with his “son” Dennis. Parnell and Dennis took another trip to Reno. When they came back, the sexual abuse started again and Parnell had no one to inflict his libido on but the now eleven-year-old. Dennis/Steven had to submit daily to oral and anal sex. He had long accepted that he had to do this if he was going to survive.
Steven’s parents had not given up on him, though, and the police were still pursuing every lead. When a mentally deficient young man said that he had murdered Steven out near Cathy’s Valley, they dug up the spot where he said he had buried his body. Nothing was found.
Parnell got a new job in Comptche, thirty miles from Fort Bragg. They moved into a spacious trailer there. For once, Dennis had a room of his own. They stayed there for three years. Dennis went to school, played on the football team, and climbed trees. They kept their own pigs, chickens, and rabbits, and Dennis, for once, was relatively happy. His newfound freedom meant that he could avoid Parnell most of the time. He made some good friends there and took his first girlfriend, Lori Macdonald, out on a date. They went to the movies, though her parents came along as chaperones. The neighborhood boys were fond of swimming naked in a nearby water hole, but Dennis would not go skinny-dipping with Lori, even though she asked.
In Comptche, Parnell was thought to be a little standoffish. The only people whom he invited to the trailer were young male friends of Dennis. At Parnell’s behest, Dennis invited Kenny to come and stay for a weekend. Parnell then arranged for Dennis to stay elsewhere and Kenny had to stay alone with Parnell overnight. Parnell grabbed the boy when he came out of the shower. Kenny said he fought Parnell off and, in the morning, persuaded him to take him home.
When Dennis found a new friend at school named Damon, Parnell invited him to stay too. Damon reported later that nothing happened, but Dennis never left him for a moment. Damon’s mother was suspicious. She recalled that Dennis had told her that his mother lived with his brother and sisters in Merced, but she did not put two and two together. After all, years had passed since Steven Stayner had gone missing.
When Parnell was giving a ride to another friend of Dennis named Jeff, he asked the boy: “Can I put my dick in your hole?”
Confused, Jeff replied that he did not have a hole. Parnell gave the boy some money, perhaps to shut him up. Later, when Jeff came by, Parnell took photographs of the two boys in the shower, then got them to pose nude on the coffee table, but Steven said no sex took place.
When a boy named George came home with Dennis, Parnell gave them beers and got them to strip. Parnell took his clothes off, too, this time. He was aroused and took George in the bedroom. George later insisted that nothing happened, but his mother reported the matter to the police, saying that Parnell sodomized her son. Dennis admitted that he had sat in the other room, naked, reading a book while this went on. He was sanguine about Parnell’s interest in other boys.
“I figured if he was fucking them he wouldn’t be fucking me,” he said.
No one followed up on the complaint.
At the age of thirteen, like much of his generation, Dennis began smoking marijuana. One night in the spring of 1978, he was drinking and smoking at a party when he started talking about his true past. He said, “I want to go home” and started crying. But no one understood what he was saying. Parnell had convinced everyone that he and Dennis were the perfect father and son.
As Dennis grew older, Parnell’s sexual interest in him waned. With Dennis’s help, he sought out younger boys. He got Dennis to call a boy named Ricky who lived in Fort Bragg and invite him over. Parnell then offered the child $5 for a sexual favor. The boy refused.
In 1979, they moved to Arkansas. Once there, Parnell insisted on having both oral and anal sex with Dennis again, though the frequency soon tapered off. Then when the bodies of a boy and girl were found in a nearby forest, Parnell moved on again and Dennis found himself in a squalid cabin fifty miles from Comptche. He had to change schools again, while Parnell got a night job in the Palace Hotel in Ukiah.
Parnell struck up a friendship with another of Dennis’s friends, a boy named Sean Poorman. First Parnell asked Poorman to sell some marijuana for him. Then Parnell offered him $50 to get him a five- or six-year-old child. He gave Poorman a bottle of sleeping pills to drug the kid. Later, Parnell offered him another $20 if he brought the child within a couple of days.
Dennis was also coerced into the plot to abduct another child, but Poorman complained he was no help at all. So Parnell and Poorman left him behind when they took off to Ukiah where Parnell had his eye on a five-year-old named Timmy White. They waited outside Yokayo Elementary School until they saw Timmy. Poorman was supposed to pretend that there was something wrong with the rear tire, solicit Timmy’s help to hold the valve, then scoop him up and throw him on the backseat. But when Poorman asked for Timmy’s assistance, the child said no.
Poorman went to get back into the car, but Parnell yelled at him: “Get the kid.”
Timmy ran, but Poorman soon caught up with him. The child grabbed hold of a chain-link fence. Poorman pried his fingers free, threw the screaming boy in the back of the car, and covered him with a blanket. Then Parnell put his foot down and they made their escape.
Back at the cabin, Parnell paid Poorman off. Then he took off Timmy’s clothes and dressed him in others he had bought. Later he dyed his hair to complete the disguise. Now he had two “sons.”
In Ukiah, Timmy’s parents were frantic. The police were on the case but, shockingly, given the drama of the abduction, no one had seen a thing. Dogs and helicopters were brought in. Appeals were broadcast; fliers were sent out.
Parnell slept with Timmy, but did not appear to molest him. He could not get a babysitter to come out to the remote cabin so when he went to work, Dennis had to look after Timmy. When Dennis had to go to school, he was supposed to give Timmy a sleeping pill. They seem to have had little effect and the child sat up most of the day, wondering how to get away, or playing with the toys that Parnell bought him. Meanwhile, Parnell hung out drinking beer with his friends, joining in the general speculation about what had happened to Timmy White. Several people noted the similarity been the picture of Timmy in the paper and the new boy Parnell sometimes had with him. But no one said anything.
Having Timmy around reminded Dennis painfully of his own kidnapping. As he got to know and like the boy, he began cutting school in the hopes that he could prevent Parnell from molesting him. He even started carrying a knife, but doubted that he had the courage to use it.
Timmy began to see Dennis as his big brother and asked him to take him home. Dennis became convinced that it was what he must do. But he could not get any help from his friends, as they were too afraid of Parnell. Meanwhile, Parnell had plans of his own. Dennis was now too old to fulfill his pedophile tastes. He was no good to him anymore, so he intended to kill Dennis and move to Arkansas with Timmy. But both Parnell’s and Dennis’s plans were thwarted by heavy seasonal rain.
On th
e night of March 1, 1980, Parnell went to work as usual. Dennis gave Timmy something to eat. Then he dressed him in warm clothes and they left the cabin. His one thought was to return Timmy to his family. After that, he did not know what he was going to do.
Around a quarter of a mile from the cabin, Dennis stuck out his thumb. They got a ride from a Mexican who did not speak much English. He took them to Ukiah and dropped them near where Timmy said his babysitter lived. There was no one home. Dennis was then depending on Timmy to find his way home. But it was dark and they got lost.
They stopped in a phone booth and Dennis looked up the address of the police station. The route there would take them past the Palace Hotel where Parnell worked. They risked it and passed by without being seen.
At the parking lot by the police station, Dennis squatted down and told Timmy to walk up to the front door of the precinct and give his name to the first officer he met. The officer would then make sure he got home safely.
As Timmy approached the station, an officer was coming out. Timmy was startled and ran back toward Dennis. The officer realized that something was up and quickly called up another unit to cut off the children’s retreat. A patrol car skidded to a halt. The driver got out and grabbed Timmy. He recognized him immediately. Then he began talking to the other boy who said he was Steven Stayner who had been kidnapped from Merced seven years earlier. They went into the police station where Steven was locked in an interview room.
Timmy’s parents were called and Steven was questioned. He gave the police a detailed description of Parnell and they went to the Palace Hotel to arrest him. Steven then had to identify him in person.
The Merced police were called and they sent two officers to collect Steven. Other officers were dispatched to tell Del and Kay Stayner that Steven was alive and well. They could hardly believe their ears.
Against Their Will Page 20