California’s highest court on May 1 denied Cary Stayner’s death penalty appeal in the notorious serial murder case that made national headlines.

Stayner, a Merced native, was convicted for murdering three people in Yosemite in 1999. In his death penalty appeal, he argued that his confession to authorities was coerced and judicial bias violated his rights during the trial process.

Justices from the Supreme Court of California denied his appeal unanimously. Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero wrote the 283-page opinion. Justice Kelli Evans wrote a dissent and concurring argument. She maintains the death sentence resulted from an unfair trial.

Stayner is one of the most notorious serial killers from the Golden State and the Valley.

It was February 1999 when Carole Sund planned to visit Yosemite with her 15-year-old daughter, Juli, and 16-year-old family friend from Argentina, Silvina Pelosso. Sund’s husband filed a missing person report after the trio never arrived in San Francisco as they planned.

In the following weeks, FBI agents located their belongings and bodies. Stayner later confessed to sexually assaulting the two teens and killing all three of the women.

Five months later, he kidnapped Joie Armstrong, a 26-year-old instructor at the Yosemite Institute, and beheaded her. A jury convicted Stayner for that murder in a separate trial.

The abduction of Stayner’s brother, Steven, posed mental difficulties for Stayner growing up. For seven years, Steven faced abuse from his captor, Kenneth Parnell, before he fled. Years later, he died in a motorcycle crash.

Stayner Argues His Interview Was Coerced

Cary Stayner confessed to FBI authorities after killing the fourth victim in July 1999.

Authorities interviewed Stayner at the FBI office in Sacramento, after locating him at a resort in Wilton, outside of Sacramento. His obsessive-compulsive sexual feelings, Stayner told authorities, “just got to the point” for him to act on them.

But this interview process was a point of appeal for Stayner. He argued that the trial court should not have used his statements to the FBI.

But, the trial court disagreed.

“The facts tend to show that [defendant] fully cooperated with the FBI agents from the outset and expressed his willingness to speak to them,” the Supreme Court found.

Furthermore, the court found the conversation in the car ride to the Sacramento office was not meant to wear down Stayner emotionally.

A separate sanity phase trial found Stayner to be sane at the time of the murders. He was sentenced to death during a penalty trial in 2022 and given a prison term of 45 years.

Twelve jurors at the Santa Clara Superior Court determined his fate. Stayner filed a motion for a new trial just a month later — which was denied.

The state Supreme Court justices did identify potential errors during the trial, but Justice Guerrero wrote in closing that none of the errors required reversal of the court’s ruling.

Newsom Ordered Halt to Death Penalty

On March 13, 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order placing a moratorium on California’s death penalty. The executive order also called for withdrawing California’s lethal injection protocols and immediately closing the execution chamber at San Quentin State Prison.

At the time of Newsom’s order, California had 737 inmates on death row.

Convicted murderer Clarence Ray Allen of Fresno became the last person executed in California in 2006. At 76 years old, was the second-oldest person ever executed in the United States.

(GV Wire contributed to this story.)

About the Reporter

Elizabeth Wilson is the public safety reporter for The Merced FOCUS.