Editing Cary Stayner (section)

==Murders==
Stayner was hired as a handyman at the Cedar Lodge motel in El Portal, just outside the Highway 140 Arch Rock entrance to Yosemite National Park in 1997. In 1999, between February and July, he murdered two women and two teenage girls: Carole Sund; her daughter, 15-year-old Juli Sund; their travel companion, 16-year-old Argentine exchange student Silvina Pelosso; and Yosemite Institute employee Joie Ruth Armstrong, 26, a naturalist. The first two victims, Carole Sund and Silvina Pelosso, were found in the trunk of the burnt remains of Carole's Pontiac rental car. The bodies were burned beyond recognition and were identified using dental licenses. A note was found and sent to the police with a hand-drawn map indicating the location of the third victim, Juli Sund. The top of the note read, '''''“We had fun with this one.”''''' Investigators went to the location depicted on the map and found the remains of Juli, whose throat had been cut.

Detectives began interviewing employees of the Cedar Lodge motel where the first three victims had been staying just before their deaths. One of those employees was Cary Stayner, but he was not considered a suspect at that point because he had no criminal history and remained calm during the police interview. Upon meeting Stayner, FBI Agent, Jeff Rinek asked if Stayner had ever seen the movie ''Billy Jack'', noting Stayner's resemblance to the film's hero. Initially, Stayner denied seeing the movie. However, 90 minutes later, after building rapport during the drive to the FBI headquarters in Sacramento from the nudist resort where he was picked up, Stayner surprised Rinek by reciting several of Billy Jack's lines from the film.

When the decapitated body of the fourth victim Joie Ruth Armstrong was found, eyewitnesses said they saw a blue 1979 International Scout parked outside the cabin where Armstrong was staying. Detectives traced this vehicle to Stayner. This caused Stayner to become the prime suspect in the case. FBI agents John Boles and Jeff Rinek found Stayner staying at Laguna del Sol nudist resort in Wilton, where he was captured and arrested. His vehicle yielded evidence linking him to Joie Armstrong. During his interrogation, Stayner confessed to the four murders as well as to sending the map for finding Juli Sund's body.

Stayner claimed after his arrest that he had fantasized about murdering women since he was seven years old, long before the abduction of his brother.