The California Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty conviction of the so-called Yosemite killer, Cary Stayner, for the murder of three women in Mariposa County 27 years ago.
Stayner kidnapped and murdered Carole Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Juli and their 16-year-old family friend Silvina Pelosso.
The 283-page decision handed down April 30 is a lengthy one for the state’s highest court and belies what might otherwise seem like a legal formality.
Appeals of death penalty cases are automatic in California, even though Gov. Gavin Newsom put a moratorium on state killings in 2019.
The California Supreme Court’s decision served as a kind of postscript to a dark chapter in local history.
Christine Johnson was the Mariposa County District Attorney at the time.
“We were a small rural county District Attorney’s Office with limited resources back then,” she told the Mariposa Gazette in a statement.
“Stayner was a complex case from the beginning with three jurisdictions being involved, all with their own views of prosecution,” Johnson remembered.
In a spare reportorial style, the California Supreme Court decision methodically recalls every step of the case from Feb. 14, 1999, when Stayner, who worked as a janitor at Cedar Lodge, kidnapped the three women after he entered their room on a ruse that he needed to fix the plumbing.
Stayner was also convicted of killing Joie Ruth Armstrong five months later. Armstrong was a 26-year-old park ranger working for the Yosemite Institute.
Stayner pleaded guilty to a separate federal murder charge to avoid the federal death penalty.
Stayner’s younger brother, Steven, was kidnapped in 1972 by child molester Kenneth Parnell, who held the boy for a time in Catheys Valley.
His brother’s kidnapping, his father’s sadistic pedophilia and his mother’s mental illness were all factors while Stayner was growing up in Merced, and became issues in the death penalty phase.
A key issue in the state appeal was whether Stayner had invoked his Miranda rights before an FBI detective drove him to Sacramento where he gave his confession. There were also a number of trial court issues involving witnesses and testimony.
The majority of justices found there were some trial errors but they did not alter the outcome or the verdict.
There was a concurring but dissenting opinion from Justice Kelli M. Evans in which she affirmed the guilty conviction and Stayner’s mental sanity at the time of the crimes, but recognized errors in the death penalty portion of the case.
Stayner was moved to Santa Clara County for his jury trial, but the Mariposa County DA’s office remained involved with the case.
“The drawn-out judicial review and delays culminating in the California Supreme Court upholding our Mariposa County convictions and death sentence of Stayner represents to me a successful yet emotionally draining and challenging prosecution that sought justice for the victims’ families and for the people of Mariposa County,” said Johnson, the former DA.
Stayner is currently 64-years-old and is held at Pelican Bay State Prison.
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