The Steven Stayner Story:
Biography, and Kidnapping.
Steven Gregory Stayner (April 18, 1965 – September 16, 1989) was an American child who became famous after he was kidnapped as a seven-year-old and held captive by his abductor, to be reunited with his family seven years later. Steven was born the third of five children of Delbert and Kay Stayner in Merced, California. Steven had three sisters; and one older brother. Steven was kidnapped December 4th, 1972 by Kenneth Parnell in Merced on his way home from school @ Charles H. Wright Elementary.
The Escape.
As Steven entered puberty, Parnell began to look for a younger child to kidnap. On February 14, 1980, Parnell and one of Steven's high school buddies kidnapped five-year-old Timmy White in Ukiah, California. Motivated in part by the young boy's distress, Steven decided to escape with him, intending to return the boy to his parents and then escape himself (Steven believed that Parnell had legal custody of him). On March 1, 1980, while Parnell was away at his night security job, Steven left with Timmy and hitchhiked into Ukiah. Unable to locate Timmy's home address he decided to have Timmy walk into the police department to ask for help, before escaping himself. Before he could successfully escape, the police spotted the two boys and took them into custody. Steven immediately identified Timmy White and then revealed his own true identity and story. By daybreak on March 2 1980 Parnell had been arrested on suspicion of abducting both boys. After the police checked into Parnell's background they found a previous sodomy conviction from 1951. Both children were reunited with their families that day. In 1981 Parnell was tried and convicted of kidnapping Timmy and Steven in two separate trials. Parnell was not charged with the numerous sexual assaults on Steven Stayner and other boys as most occurred outside the jurisdiction of the Merced county prosecutor, or were by then outside the statute of limitations. The Mendocino County prosecutors, acting almost entirely alone, decided not to prosecute the sexual assaults that occurred in their jurisdiction. Murphy and the teenage boy who had helped abduct Timmy White were convicted of lesser charges. Both claimed they knew nothing of the sexual assaults on Steven. Barbara was never arrested. Steven remembered the kindness "Uncle" Murphy had shown him in his first week of captivity while they were both under the influence of Parnell's manipulation, and believed Murphy to be as much Parnell's victim as Steven and Timmy were. Kenneth Parnell's prison sentence for the abduction of Steven and Timmy was considerably less than the seven years he had kept Steven prisoner. Steven's kidnapping and its aftermath prompted California lawmakers to change state laws "to allow consecutive prison terms in similar abduction cases.
Life Afterward.
Steven married Jody Edmondton on June 13, 1985, and they went on to have two children, a son and daughter. On September 16, 1989, just before 5:00pm PDT while riding home to Atwater after his shift as a manager trainee at Merced Pizza Hut, his motorcycle was involved in a collision with a car that pulled out into traffic. Steven received head injuries that were to prove fatal; he died at the Merced Community Medical Center at 5:35pm. Over 500 people attended his funeral, including then-14-year-old Timmy White, who helped carry Steven's coffin into the church. Steven had converted to Mormonism just prior to his death.
Media.
In early 1989 a television miniseries based on his experience, I Know My First Name is Steven (also known as The Missing Years), was produced. Steven, taking a leave of absence from his job, acted as an advisor for the production company (Lorimar-Telepictures) and had a non-speaking part, playing one of the two policemen who escort 14-year-old Steven (played by Corky Nemec) through the crowds to his waiting family, on his return to his Merced home. Although pleased with the dramatization Steven did complain that it depicted him as a somewhat "obnoxious, rude" person, especially toward his parents, something he refuted while publicizing the miniseries in the Spring of 1989. The two-part miniseries was first broadcast in the USA by NBC May 21-22 1989. Screening rights were sold to a number of international television companies including the BBC, who screened the miniseries in mid-July of the following year; later still, it was released as a feature length movie. The production was based on a manuscript by Mike Echols, who had researched the story and interviewed Stayner and Parnell, among others. After the premiere of I Know My First Name is Steven, which won four Emmy Award nominations, including one for Corky Nemec, Mike Echols published his book I Know My First Name is Steven in 1991. In the epilogue to his book, Echols describes how he infiltrated NAMBLA. In 1999, much to the disgust of the Stayner family, Mike Echols wrote an additional chapter, about Cary Stayner, at the request of his publisher who then re-published the book. The title for the film and book are taken from the first paragraph of Steven's written Police statement, given during the early hours of 2 March 1980 in Ukiah. It reads (note the incorrect spelling of his family name) "I know my first name is Steven, I'm pretty sure my last is Stainer"
