FBI to look into accused Yosemite killer's past

The Associated Press

MODESTO, Calif. -- The FBI has assembled a team of investigators to find out whether a hotel handyman who confessed to killing a Yosemite National Park naturalist and three sightseers can be tied to other unsolved crimes.

Cary Stayner, 37, is charged with beheading Joie Ruth Armstrong on July 21 and is a suspect in the February killings of Carole Sund, her daughter Juli, and family friend Silvina Pelosso.

Stayner confessed to all four slayings during interviews by the FBI, law enforcement sources have told the Associated Press. He also described the crimes in a jailhouse interview with a television reporter.

"We're going to follow up on all logical investigative leads, which includes developing information about his history," FBI agent Nick Rossi said Wednesday.

Unsolved crimes in the area include the beheading of a prostitute and the stabbing death of a woman whose body was burned afterward. The bodies of Carole Sund and Pelosso also were burned; they had been strangled.

And investigators in Merced County are re-examining the 1990 death of Stayner's uncle Jesse, who was shot with his own shotgun in the farm town of Atwater. Cary Stayner was living with his uncle at the time. No suspect was found.

"At the time, there was no reason to suspect Cary and no indication he was a violent person," Sheriff Henry Strength said. "Now we're taking another look."

Stayner was being held in Sacramento pending transfer to Fresno, where federal prosecutors will handle the Armstrong case because they have jurisdiction over Yosemite. He is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 6.

The FBI team examining whether Stayner can be linked to other crimes includes local investigators and agents who have worked on the case since the sightseers disappeared Feb. 15.

Clinton Van Zandt, a former FBI behavioralist and serial killer expert, said the team may have a difficult task ahead.

"It's not normal to wake up at age 37 and decide to kill three women," Van Zandt said. "That's relatively old for a serial killer. What has this guy been doing for the last 10 or 15 years?"

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