Bodies found in Yosemite serial killer case
On this day in 1999 law enforcement officials discover the charred bodies of forty-two-year-old Carol Sund and sixteen-year-old Silvina Pelosso in the trunk of their burned-out rental car a day after the vehicle was located in a remote area several hours from Yosemite National Park.Cary Stayner a handyman at the lodge where the women were last seen a month before later confessed to their murders as well as those of two other women.On the evening of February 15 1999 Carol Sund of Eureka California along with her fifteen-year-old daughter Juli and their family friend Silvina Pelosso from Argentina were staying at the Cedar Lodge in the town of El Portal California near Yosemite.Cary Stayner later confessed to investigators that he entered the womens room on the premise that he needed to fix a water leak and then strangled Carol Sund and sexually assaulted the two teens.
He later killed Silvina Pelosso and put her body along with Carol Sunds in their rented Pontiac Gran Prix.Stayner then drove Juli Sund to Lake Don Pedro near Mocassin California where he slashed her neck.After the women were reported missing police questioned Stayner but didnt believe the clean-cut handyman who had no history of violence was involved.Instead the investigation focused on other employees at the Cedar Lodge as well as suspicious persons in the town of Modesto where Carol Sunds wallet was found in the street several days after her disappearance.
(Stayner would later confess to dropping the wallet there to mislead police.) On March 18 1999 a man found Carol Sunds rental car in a secluded area 100 yards north of Highway 108 near Long Barn California.The following day March 19 investigators arrived to open the car trunk where they discovered the badly burned bodies of Sund and Pelosso.On March 25 after receiving an anonymous tip (which Stayner later confessed to sending) police located Juli Sunds decomposed body in an isolated location less than an hour away from the rental car.
At that time Stayner was not a suspect in the case.Then on July 22 1999 the decapitated body of Joie Armstrong a twenty-six-year-old Yosemite naturalist was found near her cabin in Yosemites Foresta region.Investigators who believed she had been murdered the previous day questioned Stayner and searched his truck but let him go.Deciding they wanted to speak with him further authorities tracked down Stayner on July 24 at the Laguna Del Sol nudist camp in Wilton California.
Later that day in a surprising confession to FBI agent Jeff Rinek Stayner admitted to killing the Sunds Pelosso and Armstrong.During his trial Stayners lawyers argued he suffered from mental illness childhood sexual abuse and the trauma of his brothers kidnapping.In 1972 Stayners seven-year-old brother Steven was kidnapped by a child molestor and held captive for more than seven years before he managed to escape.
Steven later died in a 1989 motorcycle accident.Cary Stayner was convicted in all four murders and sentenced to death.
