Scenic Yosemite National Park in California was the unlikely scene of four hideous murders in 1999. The crimes gained national atention for their viciousness and audacity. It seemed that nowhere, even the beautiful wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas, was safe from the dangers presented by a twisted sociopath.

The murders began on February 15, 1999, when vacationers Carole Sund, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and 16-year-old Silvina Pelosso, disappeared from the Cedar Lodge Hotel in El Portal, California, a town located within Yosemite. No foul play was immediately evident and their rental car was missing, leading investigators to initially fear that the three women may have been victims of some sort of accident. But when Carole's wallet turned up on a Modesto sidewalk, it became increasingly obvious that the women were in fact victims of foul play.

Searchers scoured the wilderness of the national park and a $300,000 dollar award was offered for any information. After a month, however, hopes for some sort of happy ending were slipping quickly away. Then on March 18 the Sund and Pelosso family's worst nightmare was realized when a hiker stumbled across Carole Sund's rental car, burnt and hidden off a road in Tuolomne County. FBI agents soon afterwards discovered the burned bodies of Carole and Silvina in the truck of the vehicle. Juli Sund was found a week later near Lake Pedro after an anonymous tip led authorities to her body. Her throat had been slashed.

The triple slaying was still unsolved when Yosemite naturalist Joie Armstrong, 26, was found dead by park rangers near her cabin on July 22. Armstrong had been decapitated but this time it wasn't long before investigators had a suspect, a handyman from the Cedar Lodge in El Portal.

Cary Stayner, 37, had been questioned routinely by authorities after the killings of the Sund's and Pelosso but never considered a suspect. He was more seriously interrogated regarding the Armstrong case but was still released under orders to stay in El Portal. He didn't and was soon tracked down at a nudist colony in Wilton, Califronia. In custody he quickly confessed to the four murders, though he attempted to obtain child pornography from the police in return for telling all. The request was obviously denied but Stayner talked anyway, detailing his terrible crimes.

Stayner had gained entrance to hotel room occupied by Carole Sund, Juli and Silvina Pelosso by using his position as hotel handyman to convince the women he had to fix something in the room. Once inside he pulled a gun, strangled Carole, attempted to force the girls to have sex together (evidence showed he himself sexually assaulted the girls), then strangled Silvina. After dumping the two murdered victims with their car he drove Juli to the remote area near Lake Pedro and killed her. He also revealed that he had dumped Carole's wallet in Modesto to confuse the police and had made the anonymous tip that led them to Juli's corpse. Stayner also admitted to Armstrong's murder though he again claimed he did not sexually attack her. Gaining entrance to Armstrong's cabin, Stayner tied her up and then (evidence again shows) raped her before cutting off the young woman's head and leaving her on the ground nearby.

Though some who knew Stayner expressed complete shock that he would be capable of such heinous crimes, the killer admitted that he had been fantasizing about killing women since he was around seven years old. He once left a previous job because he admitted to a co-worker that he wanted to drive his truck through the business' office and kill everybody there before setting the place on fire. He was a loner who occasionally flew into frightening rages and very seldom dated in spite of the fact that he was a very good-looking and outwardly friendly man.

Tragically, the Stayner family had prevously been part of another high-profile crime. In 1972 a man named Ken Parnell abducted Cary's seven-year-old brother Steven. Cary was eleven at the time. Parnell somehow managed to keep Steven as a mental captive for over seven years, often molesting and abusing him, while under the public guise that Steven was his son. Steven finally broke Parnell's strange hold over him when his kidnapper abducted another boy, five-year-old Tim White. Steven escaped with White and was soon back home with the Stayner family but then tragically died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24. Cary seemed to resent the massive media attention that Steven received after his escape and felt ignored by the rest of the family. What effect the ordeal had on Cary's future crimes cannot truly be know.

Stayner was eventually sentenced to life in prison for the slaying of Joie Armstrong and received the death sentence in the triple-killing of Carole Sund, Juli Sund, and Silvina Pelosso.