Steven Stayner had quite the tumultuous life that could and has filled movies and television shows.
Stayner was the third of five children. He was born to parents Delbert and Kay Stayner, and he had three sisters and an older brother, Cary, a serial killer.
On December 4, 1972, seven-year-old Stayner was kidnapped by Kenneth Parnell, a pedophile and child molester in Merced, California. Parnell held Stayner 38 miles away in Mariposa County, California, and later moved to Mendocino County, California, until he turned 14. When he turned 14, Stayner escaped Parnell with another one of his victims, then 5-year-old Timothy White.
Unfortunately, Stayner could never fully adjust to everyday life and spent much of the rest of his adolescent life at odds with his family as he felt they could never understand him. Things eventually improved for Stayner, and he found some joy in helping other children like him.
Sadly, Stayner died in 1989 in a hit-and-run accident.
What Happened To Steven Stayner -Was He Kidnapped?
Steven Stayner was kidnapped and molested by Kenneth Parnell for seven years.
One quiet afternoon on December 4, 1972, young Stayner was approached by a man named Ervin Edward Murphy, an acquaintance of Parnell, who worked at a resort in Yosemite National Park with the child rapist. Murphy was known as a trusting and simple-minded man who Parnell had enlisted under the pretenses that he was an aspiring minister who wanted to raise young Stayner in a religious ideal.
Parnell instructed Murphy to pass out gospel tracts to young boys walking home, and once he spotted Stayner, he claimed to be a church representative seeking donations. Using this as an excuse, Murphy found out where the young boy lived and asked him if they could talk to his mother.
Stayner agreed, and Parnell pulled up in a white Buick, where Stayner willingly climbed in. Unfortunately, the Buick took them to Parnells’s cabin nearby Cathey’s Valley. Parnell’s abuse of Stayner would begin that night and only worsen as the days passed.
Parnell told Stayner that he had become the boy’s legal guardian as his parents could not afford many children and didn’t want him. He then began calling the boy Dennis Gregory Parnell.
Passing himself off as the boy’s father, Parnell enrolled the boy in different schools and let him smoke, drink and come and go as he pleased from a young age. For a brief period of eighteen months, a woman named Barbara Mathias lived with Stayner and Parnell and also partook in Stayner’s abuse. Mathias tried to lure another boy on Parnell’s instruction but failed.
How Did Steven Stayner Escape?
Steven Stayner managed to escape at 14, along with five-year-old Timmy White.
As Stayner entered puberty, Parnell began to lose interest in him and started looking for a younger child to kidnap. He began using Stayner to attempt to kidnap children but failed, believing Stayner to lack the means to be an accomplice.
However, Stayner was purposefully sabotaging these kidnappings. However, on February 14, 1980, Parnell and one of Stayner’s friends, Randall Sean Poorman, kidnapped five-year-old Timmy White in Ukiah. This kidnapping finally convinced Stayner to escape and return the boy to his family.
On March 1, 1980, when Parnell was off at his night security job, Stayner left with White and walked to Ukiah. Since he couldn’t locate White’s family, the two boys went to a police station.
The following day, Parnell was arrested on suspicion of abducting the two boys, and when the police checked his background, he found that he had had a sodomy conviction in 1951. In 1981, Parnell was tried and convicted separately of kidnapping White and Stayner and sentenced to seven years.
Who Killed Steven Stayner: Death At 24 Linked Motorcycle Accident
Steven Stayner’s motorcycle collided with a car while returning home from work on September 16, 1989.
The assailant, known simply as Loera, ran off, but thankfully witnesses identified her. This was a sad ending to Stayner’s life.
His life after his escape had been rough. He could never fit in with his family, and his relationship with his parents, especially his father, was cold. His father also never let him go to therapy, claiming he didn’t need it.
His parents eventually kicked him out when he couldn’t stop drinking. However, Stayner got married in 1985 to Jody Edmondson and had two children, a daughter named Ashley and a son named Steven Jr.
He worked with children abduction groups and had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just before his death. Things were finally going right for Steven. And then he died.