Steven Stayner: Lost, Found, Freed

Today, the idea of a 7-year old walking home from school alone is almost unheard of. The world is a crazy place, full of unknown dangers. Parents today are very protective of their children, and for good reason. When 800,000 children disappear every year worldwide – 460,000 of these from the United States alone, you tend to keep your children close. But, in 1974, things were much different as the family of Steven Stayner would discover.

Steven Stayner was a typical 7-year old boy. Third of five children, he had an older brother and three sisters. He was described as a quiet kid, he enjoyed hanging out with his friends, going to the park, riding his skateboard, or even his bike. On December 4, 1972, he was walking home from school when he was spotted by Kenneth Parnell and his friend Ervin Murphy. They stopped the car and Murphy got out. He told Steven he was a minister, and asked if his mother would like to make a donation to the church. Steven told him she would probably want to, and the men offered him a ride home. Despite his refusals, since he was just a few blocks from home, Steven finally gave in and accepted the ride. 

Parnell approached with the car, and they left. They passed the street Steven’s house was on, and when he told them, the men just said that they’d call his parents, see if he could stay the night. 

When he didn’t return home from school that day his parents went to the police. Investigator Pat Lunney said, “Merced was the lead police department, and so they really mounted a large effort to search. And they searched. And there was just nothing there.” Little did they know, Steven was being held at a cabin in nearby Catheys Valley. A cabin that sat several hundred feet away from his grandfather’s house.

That first night, Parnell molested young Steven.

The next night, Parnell told Steven he had called his parents again, and just as the previous night, they said he could stay over. The next day, Steven was told that his parents had given him up, that they couldn’t afford so many children (Steven was one of five children), and they didn’t want him anymore. He now belonged to Parnell.

Within a week, Steven was calling him dad. Thirteen days in, Steven was being raped.

Claiming full legal custody of Steven, Parnell changed his name, calling him Dennis Gregory Parnell, allowing him to keep his real middle name. Over the next several years, he was enrolled in various schools around California. A woman named Barbara Mathias moved in and lived with them for eighteen months. By the time Steven was nine, Mathias and Parnell had raped him on at least nine separate occasions. 

Steven was beaten and allowed to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana. When Parnell’s mother gifted him a dog, he gifted it to Steven. He named the dog, a Manchester Terrier, Queenie. 

Parnell bounced from one job to another, some requiring him to travel and leave Steven home alone. He was allowed to come and go virtually as he pleased, he could have fled, gotten help, but he didn’t know how. 

In 1975, Parnell felt he needed another boy. He convinced Mathias to lure another young boy into his car. The boy, who was in the Santa Rosa Boys’ Club with Steven, wouldn’t be so easy. The attempt was a failure. Parnell used Steven in his next attempts to take a boy, but none were successful. Steven later admitted to sabotaging the efforts.

By 1980, when Steven was fourteen, and now a high school student, Parnell’s “need” for another boy became more prevalent. Knowing Steven wouldn’t get him someone, Parnell bribed one of Steven’s teenage friends, Randall Sean Poorman, to help with the promise of drugs and cash. On February 14, 1980, in Ukiah, California, they were successful when Poorman found 5-year old Timothy White walking home from school.

Steven, hoping to spare another child his fate, had sabotaged so many kidnappings. Despite his efforts, Parnell had another young boy. For two weeks Steven watched Timothy suffer. “He literally said, ‘I was not going to let that child go through what I had already been through. And if I didn’t take care of it now, it would just get worse,’” said Lori Duke, Steven’s girlfriend, who only knew him as Dennis.

On March 1, 1980, after two weeks, Steven had had enough. He waited until Parnell went to work, then took Timothy’s hand and ran. They hitchhiked to Ukiah. It’s late and dark when they arrive, and Timothy can’t remember where he lives, so they went to the police. Steven was able to explain what had happened to him and to Timothy. “I know my first name is Steven,” he said, ditching the name Parnell had given him. That statement later became the title of a book and movie. 

Steven was declared a national hero, and within days made an appearance on “Good Morning America.” There, he told the host, David Hartman, that it felt “great” to be home, that his parents “didn’t change that much,” and regarding his brother and sisters, “they changed a lot. I never recognized either one of them.

The morning of March 2, 1980 Parnell was arrested. After performing a background check, they discovered this wasn’t his first offense – he had been convicted in 1951 for sodomy. 

In 1981, Parnell was tried in two separate trials, one for each boy. Unfortunately, he was never charged with the sexual assaults on Steven, or any other boys, as they had occurred outside the jurisdiction of the Merced County prosecutor, some even outside the statute of limitations. For the sexual assaults carried out in Mendocino County, prosecutors chose not to prosecute.

Altogether, Parnell was sentenced to seven years and was paroled after serving five. His accomplices, Ervin Murphy, and Ronald Sean Poorman were also convicted, though on lesser charges, claiming they knew nothing of the sexual assaults. Barbara Mathias was never arrested. 

Steven Stayner’s kidnapping prompted California lawmakers to change the state laws, allowing “consecutive prison terms in similar abduction cases.”

But the story doesn’t end there. Timothy, back home with his family, adjusted well, and things returned to normal. For Steven though, the adjustment was a little more difficult. He went back to sharing a room with his older brother Cary, and the two didn’t get along. 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.”

Steven had to learn the rules, he was used to coming and going as he pleased, drinking and smoking, and suddenly that wasn’t allowed. In an interview with Newsweek, Steven said, “I returned almost a grown man and yet my parents saw me at first as their 7-year old. After they stopped trying to teach me the fundamentals all over again, it got better. But why doesn’t my dad hug me anymore?” He went on to add, “Sometimes I blame myself. I don’t know sometimes if I should have come back home. Would I have been better off if I didn’t?”

Steven underwent counseling, albeit brief. In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his sister, Cory, said “He got on with his life. But he was pretty messed up and never got any counseling. My dad said he didn’t need any.”

Although he never disclosed the details of his sexual abuse, kids at school were heartless. He was bullied, teased, and his sexuality was always called into question. He turned to alcohol to suppress his feelings, and eventually dropped out of school. At odds with his father, Steven was eventually kicked out of the house.

Things were pretty rough for a while, bouncing from one job to another, some would say “wandering aimlessly.” Then he met Jody Edmondson, and in 1985, when he was 20 and she 17, they married. Together they had two children, and he moved to work with child abduction groups, making appearances for various groups who search for missing children. He gave lectures at local schools, and even testified before the Ways and Means Committee of the State Assembly on one bill that would increase penalties for kidnapping children, and another that would require parents to have their children fingerprinted.

He took a job at a local Pizza Hut, and on Saturday, September 16, 1989 a heavy rain fell. He rode a motorcycle to work, but his manager suggested he take the franchise’s pickup truck home so he could stay dry. Steven’s drivers license had been suspended, and didn’t want to risk an accident in the company truck, so he declined the offer.

Luck was not on his side, however, and at 4:55pm, three miles away and driving under the speed limit, he rammed a car that had pulled into the street just ahead of him. Steven was transported to Merced Community Medical Center, and at 5:35pm, was declared dead. He had sustained a fracture at the back of his skull.

The driver of the car fled the scene (and later surrendered himself in Tijuana, and was returned to California to be arraigned on felony hit-and-run manslaughter charges).

Five hundred people attended his funeral, one being Timothy White who, at the age of 14, served as a pallbearer. On his casket, there was an inscription, “Going Home.” When asked about it, his wife said “…he’s not hurting anymore. Nobody can hurt him now. He’s free.”

As for Kenneth Parnell, five years in prison wasn’t enough to reform him. In 2004, at the age of 72, he tried to bribe a nurse with $500 to get him a young boy. The nurse reported him to the local police and he was once again convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He died four years later, on January 21, 2008.

If you enjoyed this story, read about another kidnap victim who returned home safely – Jayme Closs.