Cary Stayner: The Yosemite Killer

Imagine this, you take a trip to California for a cheerleading competition. The next day, you, your mother, and a friend book a room in a hotel near the entrance to a national park. That night, someone comes knocking on your door, and the unimaginable happens. Cary Stayner is there with his toolbox, and inside is a rope that he will use to strangle your mother before killing your friend and kidnapping you.

Cary Stayner was born on August 3, 1961 in Merced, California. He was the oldest boy, in a family with five children. His father, Delbert, was extremely strict, while his mother, Kay, was very religious and had suffered physical and emotional abuse as a child.

When he was just three, Cary began to suffer from trichotillomania, a mental disorder where the person cannot control their impulse to pull out their hair – one by one. As difficult as this was, it would not be the worst thing he, or his family would suffer.

On December, 4, 1972, Cary’s 7-year-old younger brother, Steven, was kidnapped. The family was devastated, and his parents focused all their efforts and attention on finding him. This meant the other four children were neglected.

After a time, the neighbors reported that the family was able to move on, and return to a relatively normal life. Delbert even purchased a trailer and took the family to the Grand Canyon.

Cary took up drawing. He focused his attention on drawing naked women, and was really good at it. Drawing women was about as far as he was able to go with them, being extremely shy he found it difficult to approach or even interact with them.

When he was 16, one of his sister’s had a friend sleep over. The girl was 14, and Cary hid under the bed, naked, with the intent to fondle her breasts during the night. When he was discovered, the girl asked him to leave, threatening to scream if he approached her.

Then, on March 1, 1980, the family had their lives turned upside down yet again. Steven, now 14, had been found. He had escaped his captor, Kenneth Parnell, and even rescued a 5-year-old boy who had recently been kidnapped.

Steven recognized his parents, but not his siblings. The media coverage was immense, with him being declared a national hero. He even made an appearance on “Good Morning America.” Gifts came for him in the mail, including clothes and toys. 

The immense attention Steven was receiving was met with jealousy from Cary. Cary and his siblings had endured neglect in his absence, and in his return, all the focus was back on him. Steven moved into Cary’s room, and the two boys, who had become accustomed to having their own spaces, did not like to share. 

In an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1983, Steven recalled, “The first year was kinda hectic. For seven years I have been supposedly an only child. Now I had to compete with a brother and three sisters.”

Over the years, Cary developed an addiction to marijuana. He claimed that with his doctor-diagnosed mental illness, his family turned a blind eye. There was never any attempt to help him, either with medication, therapy, etc… This led him to marijuana, which he smoked regularly as a means of coping.

He had anger issues. One day at work, he got so angry that he punched a table. The punch was so hard, his hand started to bleed. Cary later admitted that during that time he was suffering from a nervous breakdown, and at that moment he felt he would have been able to kill his boss with his bare hands before burning down the company building. He quit that job.

Around the same time as the incident at work, Cary was living with his uncle, Jerry Stayner. In 1990, Jerry was found dead with a shotgun blast to the chest. Cary had a strong alibi, and unfortunately the murder remains unsolved.

In 1991, Cary attempted suicide but was unsuccessful. In 1997, he was arrested for drug possession, but the charges were dropped. 

Later that same year, he took a job at Cedar Lodge, in El Portal, just outside of Yosemite National Park. Working at the Lodge would change his life forever.

Carole Sund, Julie Sund, and Silvina Pelosso

On Valentine’s Day weekend, 1999, three women checked into Cedar Lodge. It was the slow season, and few, if any guests. For Carole Sund, her daughter Julie Sund (15), and her friend Silvina Pelosso, it was a beautiful place to stay while they did some sightseeing in the park. They took their key and went to the far end of the building. Room 509 was on the corner.

They had driven 3 hours from the University where Julie had competed in a cheerleading competition the previous day. Too tired from their drive, they decided to stay in, watch some videos, and take it easy. 

Cary saw the women enter the room and proceeded to watch them from the outside. The girls were watching TV, while Carole was reading in the living room. All of the neighboring rooms were empty, and this gave him the perfect opportunity.

The next morning, Carole, Julie, and Silvina got into their red rental car and went into the park. They had an amazing day seeing the snow capped mountains, huge sequoia trees, and beautiful meadows. Toward the end of the day Julie and Silvina went ice skating on a frozen pond.

When the sun began to set, they got back into their car and drove back to the Lodge. There, in the Lodge’s 1950’s style diner, they had dinner. At the front desk, they rented some movies and went back to their room.

Wearing their pajamas, they watched the movies, before turning off the lights and heading to bed. That was Cary’s signal.

Toolbox in hand, he knocked on the door and identified himself as an employee. He informed Carole that there was a water leak in the bathroom in the room just above theirs. He needed to check their bathroom to make sure the leak wasn’t entering theirs. Against her better judgment, she let him in. 

In the bathroom, he pretended to check for any leaks. Then, he reached down into his toolbox and pulled out his gun. 

He told Carole to be quiet and do what she was told. The first request was for her to wake up the girls and when all three were together, he tied them up. He put Julie and Silvina in the bathroom and shut the door. 

Cary forced Carole into the bedroom and onto the bed where he assaulted her before strangling her to death. He picked up her lifeless body and placed it in the trunk of the red rental car.

Next, he went to the bathroom and took Silvina, leaving Julie behind. In the bedroom, as he had done with Carole, he assaulted the teenage girl before strangling her to death. He picked up her lifeless body and placed it in the trunk of the car, along with Carole’s.

Back inside the room, he took Julie and forced her into the bedroom where he assaulted her. This time, however, he did not strangle her; he was not yet satisfied. 

Cary led Julie back into the bathroom, locking her in. He moved around the room, cleaning, and packing their luggage. With the room clean, he loaded their things into the car then went back in to clean the bathroom. 

Julie was told to stand just outside the bathroom while he cleaned, and intentionally left a couple of wet towels on the floor, so the cleaning personnel would know that they had showered and left. 

Wearing nothing more than a blanket, Julie was sat in the front seat of the car. Cary drove west into Yosemite National Park for about two hours. Finally he turned off the highway and drove down the switchbacks until he pulled into the parking lot at Don Pedro lake.

Over the course of their drive, Cary tried to assure Julie that she was going to be fine, that both her mom and her friend were fine. She didn’t believe him. So when he told her to get out of the car, she refused, too scared to move. He had no choice but to scoop her up and carry her like a baby.

Cary carried her all the way up a trail until they reached an overlook, out of sight from the parking lot. There, he stood her up, took her blanket away and laid it on the ground, and proceeded to assault her again.

Looking up, he could see the sun starting to rise over the horizon. He had to end it, and cover his tracks. 

Cary got to his feet and pulled Julie up. He stood her, facing him, back toward the overlook and the lake. “I love you,” he told her, before pulling out a knife and hacking at her throat. He pushed her down the hillside where she tumbled until she came to an abrupt stop underneath some bushes.

Cleaning up, he grabbed the blanket and made his way back to the car. The lot was empty so he climbed back into the car and drove for about another hour north until he pulled down a logging road where he ditched the car. 

Cary hiked back to the highway where he caught a cab back to Cedar Lodge.

Two days later, he returned to the red rental car. He took Carole’s wallet out before setting the car, with her and Silvina still in it, on fire. He drove about another hour to Modesto, California where he dropped Carole’s wallet.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Carole’s husband, Jens, was waiting for them at the airport. They were supposed to meet up there after the girls’ trip to Yosemite National Park, to take a flight to Arizona, where they would see the Grand Canyon. When they didn’t show up, he got on the plane, thinking they had gone ahead of him, or that he had misunderstood the plan.

In Arizona, however, he did not find them waiting for him at the airport. He rushed to the hotel where they would be staying, and the hotel hadn’t seen, or heard from them either. 

Jens spent the day calling friends, family, anyone who may have any idea where they were, but no one had heard from them. Though not completely confident, he convinces himself that they’re fine. Carole was a strong, competent woman and he would hear from her tomorrow. 

But when tomorrow came, he called the police. 

The police called Cedar Lodge, where they discovered that the clerks had not seen or heard from the girls. The clerk informed police that Carole had arranged to checkout in advance, so they hadn’t expected to see her.

On the 16th, when the girls were set to checkout, the cleaning staff entered the room and found nothing amiss. The keys were left where they were supposed to. No belongings remained in the room. All they found was the wet towels on the bathroom floor – which was completely normal. 

The police called the car rental company where they learned that Carole had not yet returned her rental car. This left them with the assumption that they had left the Lodge and something happened to them.

A search was launched around Cedar Lodge and western entrance to Yosemite National Park. The staff at the Lodge were interviewed, but no one had seen or heard anything. Even Cary, when interviewed, remained calm and collected.

Within days, Carole’s wallet turned up. A couple of teenagers in Modesto found it and turned it into the police. This raised a red flag, and immediately the working hypothesis went from the girls getting lost, to foul play.

Over the next several weeks, all of the roads and trails near the western entrance to Yosemite National Park, and the area around Modesto were searched. Unfortunately, they found nothing. Nothing until a month later, on March 18.

A hiker in the middle of the forest found the skeleton of a car and called the police. The car was immediately identified as the red rental car that had belonged to Carole.

Inside the car, very little remained. There were remnants of the suitcases, as well as clothing. Opening the trunk revealed the badly burned bodies of Carole and Silvina. They were in such a poor state, that they could only be identified through dental records.

Finding the girls, but not Julie, gave investigators some glimmer of hope. They searched the surrounding area, hoping to find her, but after 2 days, their hopes were dashed.

Searched the surrounding area with home of finding julie

Then, an anonymous, handwritten letter was received by the FBI. On this letter was a hand-drawn map, indicating the location of where they would find the body of the third victim. At the top of the map was written, “We had fun with this one.”

Police quickly made their way to the location on the map. There, they discovered the badly decomposing remains of Julie Sund.

Police had identified several suspects by this time, and had their eyes set on two, Michael “Mick” Larwick, 42, and Eugene “Rufus” Dykes, 32. Mick and Rufus were half brothers, who were recently arrested. While in custody, Eugene made several self-incriminating remarks, leading police to believe they had their men.

Then, there was another murder.

Joie Armstrong

With two suspects in custody, Cary thought for sure he had gotten away with murder. On July 21, driving around Yosemite National Park, he spotted a woman in the distance walking in and out of an isolated cabin. Curious, he continued driving until he reached a meadow and could see better.

Noting that the woman was alone, he decided to drive across the meadow and introduce himself. Caught off guard, the woman tells him her name is Joie Armstrong. He continued to make small talk, about random things, including bigfoot. Just when she was starting to feel comfortable, he pulled out his gun and told her to go into the cabin.

In the cabin, Cary bound her wrists and taped her mouth shut. He ordered her into his SUV, then drove off, back across the meadow, toward the road he had driven in on. 

Bumping along in the meadow, Joie took a leap of faith, head first, out the window of the SUV. She got to her feet and took off running, back to the cabin. Cary slammed on the brakes, and took off after her. She had quite the lead, but then he caught up to her. 

He tackled her to the ground, and she fought back, trying to escape. Cary pulled his knife and began slashing at her. Joie was smart though, and she tucked her chin, so no matter how hard he tried, he could not get to her throat.

Finally, Cary grabbed her by the hair and hauled her into the forest behind the cabin. He dragged her into a ditch where he put his foot on top of her head and forced it back, exposing her throat. He proceeded to slice at her neck, until he had removed her head.

Cary Stayner considered keeping Joie Armstrong’s head, but then decided to hide it in the bushes. He tried to cover up the blood with branches and leaves before climbing back into his SUV and heading back to Cedar Lodge.

Joie Ruth Armstrong had been working for the Yosemite Institute for the past year and had worked on education programs through a partnership with the National Park Service. That day she had been seen at the Institute offices, and was planning a trip to Sausalito, California to visit a friend. She never made it.

On July 22, Dr. Desmond Kidd, the Medical Director for Yosemite National Park had just finished a 24 hour shift when his pager went off. He called the number and reached Park Dispatch. There, he was asked if he could help with the search for a missing person.

Desmond agreed, and was then told that there were “Law enforcement implications with this one.”

A convoy of searchers rolled up in front of his cabin, and he jumped in. Immediately he asked what was going on, and what were the law enforcement implications.

The driver asked if he remembered the three tourists that had been murdered about four months ago. He did, and the driver continued to explain that while police said they had their suspects in custody, they had yet to charge anyone with the crime. They were concerned that the police didn’t have the actual killer.

He was told that their missing person disappeared under very mysterious circumstances. Their missing person was Joie Armstrong.

Desmond knew Joie and immediately knew something was wrong. Joie was a naturalist, and knew everything about the park. She was an expert tour guide.

The convoy of searchers drove until they reached the meadow where they saw Joie’s cabin. There, they saw park rangers walking the perimeter, marking it off with police tape. They saw her truck, packed with lots of luggage, some spilled out on the ground. The doors were still open.

The searchers met up with the Park Rangers where they learned that Joie was meant to meet up with some friends in San Francisco. When she didn’t arrive, and they couldn’t get in touch with her, they called it in.

They broke into 5 groups and began their search. Desmond’s group started behind the cabin. They walked toward the treeline, and came upon the creek. Walking alongside the creek they noticed a bunch of trampled ferns and saplings. This was a clear indication to them that someone had run through there.

They followed the tracks along the creek, until, just before a ditch, one of the searchers spotted a set of car keys hanging on a little tree, glinting in the sunlight.

Looking down into the ditch, Desmond immediately began to gag and had to walk away. The group returned to the park rangers and informed them that they had found Joie.

The rangers contacted the police, and the police sent an officer to Joie’s mothers home. There, the officer told her mother that they had just gotten a call from Yosemite National Park, and they needed her to call them. Though she tried to get more information from them, all she got was a piece of paper with a phone number on it.

When she called, she was asked if she was aware that her daughter was missing. She was not. So then they told her that they believed they had found her body near her cabin.

Frantically, her mother asked, “Did you check her hair? She has red hair. Can you confirm it’s really her because she’s got bright red hair, can you make sure it’s really her?”

The person on the other end of the line told her that they were not sure if she had red hair or not, and that they would get back to her.

Distraught, her mother could not understand how they could not know what color her hair was. Unfortunately, she didn’t know they hadn’t found Joie’s head.

She made arrangements to get to Yosemite, to find out what was going on. The soonest she could get there would be the next day. 

At the airport, waiting to board the plane, she picked up a newspaper. The headline read, “Yosemite Naturalist Beheaded.” Now she knew why they could not say whether the body they found had red hair. Her head was later discovered in a stream – a stream she and her friends used to drink water from.

Immediately, the public began to question whether this murder was related to the previous murders of Carole Sund, Julie Sund, and Silvina Pelosso. 

Then police got a break in the case. The day before Joie’s body was discovered, another staff member of Yosemite National Park happened to drive past her cabin. They noticed, and didn’t recognize, the blue SUV outside of her cabin as belonging to anyone they knew. Police were notified that they should be on the lookout for a blue, 1979 International Scout.

Performing a records search for that vehicle turned up only two registered SUV’s in the Yosemite valley. Within 24 hours, they had contacted one of the vehicles, pulled off the side of the highway. Approaching the vehicle, they found no one inside it. 

Looking down the embankment beside the vehicle, they saw it led down into the forest where there was a river, hidden out of sight, where people liked to swim and fish. They decided to head down, hoping to find the driver of the SUV. 

There, on a rock, they found a man. He was laying out, completely nude, smoking marijuana. Police approached him and announced themselves. The man stood up, covered himself and politely asked what he could do for them.

The man was Cary Stayner.

When police learned that he was the handyman at Cedar Lodge, they had to ask if he had been anywhere near Joie Armstrong’s cabin on the night she disappeared. Cary denied ever being there, and for some reason, the police believed him.

They conviscated his marijuana, and took pictures of his car and tires before leaving.

Apprehension

A couple of days later, FBI investigators arrived to help with the case. They looked over the evidence, and the photos the police had taken of Cary’s tires. Comparing those photos to the photos taken of the tire tracks at Joie’s cabin, they were sure they had a match. 

Saturday, July 24, the FBI tracked Cary down to the Laguna Del Sol resort, a nudist resort approximately 3 hours from the Cedar Lodge. They arrested him on the spot and took him in for questioning. 

At the station, Cary confessed. He confessed to the murder of Joie Armstrong, Carole Sund, Julie Sund, and Silvina Pelosso. The details we have about the murders were obtained via his confession. He also admitted that he had dreamed of murdering women since he was 7 years old, before the kidnapping of his brother.

His father, Delbert, admitted that he had taken Cary to a psychiatrist as a child, but no treatment was administered, becuase he didn’t want to go to group therapy.

On September 14, 2000, Cary Stayner pleaded guilty to the murders of Joie, Carole, Julie, and Silvina. For Joie he was sentenced to life in prison. For the other three, he was given the death penalty. He remains at San Quentin State Prison to this day.

San Quentin, known for being a difficult place to live, was recently fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for its poor health standards during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time more than 2,200 of the prison’s 3,300 inmates tested positive for the virus. As of February 2021, more than 28 inmates had died. 

Cary Stayner lives in isolation. His cell is approximately 48 square feet, which is only slightly bingger than a king-sized bed. He is allowed 10 hours of exercise in the prison courtyard.

If you want to know more about Cary’s brother, Steven, you can check it out here: Steven Stayner: Lost, Found, Freed.