I Know My First Name Is Steven: The Abduction of Steven Stayner

In classic literature—and in soap operas, too—there are a lot of
families who become lightning rods for misfortune. Sometimes it
really strains your suspension of disbelief—like, come on, one
family could never go through this much tragedy. But every now and
then, a family just seems to be haunted by something sinister. From
February through July of 1999, the bodies of four women turned up
around Yosemite National Park in California—all brutally murdered
and mutilated. The killer was a handsome, likable guy named Cary
Stayner, who confessed to the four murders once they had him in
custody, and is suspected of quite a few more. And during his
confession, the investigators realized why his name had seemed
familiar to them. Cary was the brother of Steven Stayner, kidnapped
by a pedophile in 1972, forced to change his name to Dennis and
held captive for years, until one night in 1980 when he walked into
a police station and said, “I know my first name is Steven.” That
case captured the world, with books and documentaries covering
Steven’s years-long ordeal and the courage of his escape. Now,
nearly 20 years later, the Stayner family was once again in the
throes of a nightmare. Would Cary have become a serial killer if
his brother had never been kidnapped, or was that evil always
lurking inside him? It’s a Shakespearean tragedy of a story, and
we’ll be telling it in two parts. This is part one--the abduction
of Steven Stayner.

Big thanks to Mike Moran of the Confessional Podcast for doing much
of the work/research on this one! 

Sources:
All That's Interesting:
https://allthatsinteresting.com/steven-stayner
Wikipedia: Kenneth Parnell
The Crime Reel: Part 1 of 2: Steven Stayner. The Troubled Lives of
the Stayner Brothers
Casefile (podcast): Ep. 154, Steven Stayner
This Is Monsters (podcast): The Story of Kenneth Parnell, the
Kidnapping of Steven Stayner

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