Ep 216 : The Tragic Story of Steven Stayner
Update: 2025-10-08
Description
In this episode, we dive into one of California’s most haunting family stories — the Stayners of Merced. In 1972, seven-year-old Steven Stayner was kidnapped and held captive for seven years before bravely escaping and rescuing another child. Two decades later, his older brother Cary Stayner shocked the same community when he confessed to murdering four women near Yosemite National Park.
This episode unpacks both halves of this tragic story — Steven’s abduction and survival, the years of trauma that followed, and the unraveling of Cary’s quiet life that led to the 1999 Yosemite murders. It’s a story about family, grief, and the thin line between victim and villain — a real-life Cain and Abel story written across generations.
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