Original subtitles

♪♪

Rowlands: In one of the most beautiful, safest places on Earth,

there was a sense that something was amiss.

She was supposed to meet her friends.

She was reported missing.

Investigators went to check on Joie at her home,

and they could see that something had happened,

and, immediately, a search was on.

It was just one of those stories where you think,

"God, life is, on some level, so beautiful and,

on another, just so horrible."

♪♪

♪♪

Hello, and welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

Yosemite National Park is a national treasure

of stunning peaks and picture-perfect valleys.

Each year, though, rangers and medical personnel

jump to a variety of expected 911 calls.

But the winter of 1999 brought something frightening

and shockingly out of the ordinary.

Three vibrant women tourists and their car

had suddenly disappeared without a trace.

A massive search effort combed the countryside,

an FBI task force scrambled into action,

and the world anxiously watched for a miraculous rescue.

This is part 1 of "The Yosemite Murders,"

and this is how it really happened.

♪♪

Rowlands: Carole Sund and her daughter, Juli,

and Silvina Pelosso were going to have this trip.

Hammer: They were on a winter lark.

It was a winter holiday.

Hanley: In this absolutely gorgeous landscape

of Yosemite National Park.

Carole Sund grew up in Eureka in this sort of affluent home,

and she met Jens when she was in high school.

They were high-school sweethearts.

Juli was Carole and Jens' first child.

Juli was a very smart girl.

She loved sports, and she was busy all the time.

Hammer: And Juli's 16-year-old friend, Silvina Pelosso,

a visitor from Argentina.

Silvina was the daughter of an Argentine couple

sending their child to California

to stay with their close friends

in the Sund family.

Hanley: Carole wanted to take Silvina

to one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Jordan: This trio of tourists had spent the entire day

going through Yosemite and looking at El Capitan

and Half Dome, all of these granite monoliths

that Yosemite is really known for.

They had gone ice-skating around Curry Village.

They took snapshots everywhere they went.

At the end of the day, they went back

to where they were staying, at the Cedar Lodge.

Rinek: There's a wonderful picture of Silvina

sitting on a barstool in the restaurant,

smiling for the camera.

♪♪

From there, they simply disappeared,

along with their red Pontiac rental car.

These women seem to have completely vanished

from the face of the Earth.

Gagliano: When Carole, Juli, and Silvina failed to show up

for the next leg of their sightseeing trip,

Carole's husband, Jens,

grew concerned and called his in-laws.

We got a call from Jens.

And he said, "Have you heard from Carole?

I can't find her."

That's when we all began to worry.

King: In Modesto, FBI Special Agent James Maddock.

James, they just what?

Disappeared?

Maddock: The last confirmed sighting we have

is on Monday evening,

February 15th, about 7:35 p.m.

♪♪

The missing women touched off one of the biggest searches

in history of the Sierra Nevada.

They combed all of Yosemite's backcountry with dogs,

with helicopters.

They were actually flying a Navy P-3 aircraft over the park,

looking for, you know, metal that could have been the car.

And found nothing.

I packed a four-wheel-drive vehicle,

and I went down there looking for them.

Carole's a very competent person.

She wouldn't take any chances.

This just came out of the blue.

It's devastating.

Rinek: Francis Carrington is a very wealthy, influential,

powerful businessman from Eureka, California.

They hold a news conference offering $250,000

for the safe return of all three girls.

Jens: Please come forward.

We just want them back.

Rowlands: And they also offer a $50,000 reward

for anybody who has information about this missing car,

the red Pontiac,

which also seems to have completely vanished.

We kept the press interested.

We kept the police interested.

And the public.

TV crews, reporters from all over the country

descended on the Yosemite area.

This extraordinary missing-persons case

has captured the attention not only of the United States,

but spread around the world.

Jordan: It was a media circus.

Hanley: Silvina was from Argentina,

so there was a big international interest, too, in the case.

I really feel, you know, devastated.

I can't find an answer.

We still have great hopes that they're alive.

Hanley: The first theory was that they crashed their rental car

somewhere along a winding mountain road.

Rinek: God forbid they've gone off a cliff.

I mean, the thing that was eating me up

was the thought of them being in need of help

and being alive somewhere, and we don't know it.

I don't think I slept those nights,

worrying about your loved ones

being in the icy water or something.

Gagliano: As hopes for finding the women alive began to fade,

the accident theory gave way to the likelihood of foul play,

and an FBI task force was created

to look into the disappearances.

The FBI assigned James Maddock as the Special Agent in charge

to oversee the entire investigation.

So he was the point.

He was making the decision,

he was holding the press conference,

and he was really leading this investigation,

from the FBI standpoint.

Rinek: Since I was the case agent,

the way I always approached these cases is,

you start where your victims are last seen.

Man: The Cedar Lodge in El Portal

is the center of a renewed intensive search.

It's this rambling complex of little cedar and pine bungalows.

Jackson: During the warm-weather months,

Cedar Lodge is a popular and thriving tourist destination.

But in the off-season, Cedar Lodge is a frigid,

solitary, and, in many ways, a scary place.

Very cold, very misty.

It's almost a ghost town.

There was kind of a vibe, evil vibe,

up at the Cedar Lodge.

Gagliano: The FBI began their criminal investigation

focusing on one suspicious male employee of the Cedar Lodge.

He had an arrest record.

He had keys to all the guest rooms.

And his name was Billy Joe Strange.

Billy Joe is really the number-one person

that the FBI is looking at.

And he failed his polygraph.

What's going on in this national park?

♪♪

♪♪

Gagliano: As the mysterious disappearance of the three women sightseers

captured the attention of the nation

and, actually, of the world,

the FBI investigation began to ramp up

and target possible suspects.

We now have an indication

that there might have been foul play involved.

Gagliano: You want to try to interview anybody

that's going to have been in contact with the victims

the last time that they were actually seen.

The FBI began the investigation there

with the employees at the Cedar Lodge,

and one of the first that came under their radar

was Billy Joe Strange.

The handyman for the Cedar Lodge.

He had a criminal record, and he was out on parole.

He had a key to every room,

access to the entire Cedar Lodge.

Billy Joe Strange was polygraphed,

and he failed his polygraph.

And at the moment of being told that he failed his polygraph,

he had a violent reaction,

and there was fear that he would attack the polygraph examiner.

This behavior was construed to be behavior of a guilty person.

Then they took Billy Joe Strange into custody

on a parole violation.

Then you add to this equation Darrell Stephens,

who is also a roommate to Billy Joe Strange,

and he is a sex offender.

Darrell Stephens was arrested

because he was in violation of California penal code

for sex registration.

Hanley: Early on, it seemed like investigators

were arresting a lot of people.

They'd find a parole violation

or something to get them off the streets.

Gagliano: That's what we do.

We figure out some reason that we can lawfully detain you.

But Billy Joe Strange and Darrell Stephens

were both eventually eliminated as suspects.

Suddenly, Yosemite National Park,

once known as a place of peace and serenity,

all of a sudden became more of an infamous hideaway

for drifters and outlaws looking for shelter from the law.

Hanley: A lot of people I interacted with

were actually registered sex offenders

and other ex-cons who were looking for a place

to go where nobody knew who they were.

Some of the guys on the task force would just kind of joke

that you couldn't throw a rock

without hitting a registered sex offender.

Every time I left, I would check the back of my S.U.V.

to make sure there was nobody inside it.

Gagliano: FBI agents then became interested

in talking to a second handyman

who had access to all the rooms at the Cedar Lodge.

Jordan: Cary Stayner.

Cary's job was just doing all of the maintenance

and caretaking, odd jobs around the lodge.

Hammer: He got along well with everybody,

was considered ordinary and a likable guy.

Williams: Cary was very tan, and he was good-looking,

very athletic, outdoorsy-looking.

Hammer: And the police had, of course,

interviewed Stayner on repeated occasions.

Rowlands: But no red flags.

They always found him completely normal, unflappable,

ruled him out very quickly as a suspect,

because he just seemed like a harmless, normal guy.

Jackson: Mary Ellen Geist, a KGO Radio reporter

covering the Sund-Pelosso case,

met Cary Stayner at the Cedar Lodge hot tub.

It was the kind of chance meeting

that can happen between a hotel guest

and a resident worker

who had permission to use the facilities.

Geist: He sat on the edge of the hot tub,

and he said right away, "Hi.

My name is Cary Stayner."

The name Stayner suddenly jogged her memory

of a separate criminal tragedy in his family's past.

And I just said,

"Are you related in any way to Steven Stayner?"

And he said "Yes, he was my brother."

Gagliano: The infamous Steven Stayner kidnapping, child-abuse,

and rescue story had consumed the entire nation,

beginning back in 1972.

Rowlands: Steven was abducted by a man named Kenneth Parnell.

Jackson: Parnell sexually abused Steven.

Rowlands: Steven Stayner was held captive for seven years.

And fast-forward -- Steven is in high school.

Hanley: Then Parnell wanted another young boy

and managed to kidnap a little kid named Timothy White.

Steven didn't want Timmy to go through the same thing

that he had gone through and decided he was gonna escape.

So one night when Parnell was at work, he took off with Timmy.

Gagliano: The two boys then stumbled into a police station,

where the 14-year-old Stayner famously said,

"I know my first name is Steven."

That began the unfolding of an incredible story.

Woman: This was the scene in 1980.

Seven years after Steven Stayner was kidnapped

off a Merced street,

he was returned home to his family.

When Steven came home, no one could believe it.

I mean, it just seemed too impossible to be true.

I got in front of a television, and I watched it happening.

There were newspaper and magazine articles.

Books written about it.

Man: The NBC miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven"

told the story of Stayner's adjustment to normal life.

I know my first name is Steven.

I think my last name is Stayner.

Bungart: It was a huge story in Merced,

and they had live TV cameras.

I'll never forget seeing Cary standing in the back

with a blank look on his face,

and it was really strange and really kind of gripping.

Jackson: And now, 20 years later, in 1999,

Cary Stayner is at the Cedar Lodge hot tub

talking to a reporter, in measured terms,

about the impact of his brother's ordeal.

Geist: And he even talked a little bit

about what it had done to the family dynamics.

And he seemed so evolved.

It's as if he spoke in a way like someone

who's had a lot of therapy.

And he said, "It messed up our whole family.

It messed up all of us."

And he seemed quite nice.

Jackson: But when Mary Ellen changed the subject of their friendly

talk to the ongoing Sund-Pelosso case,

Cary Stayner's demeanor suddenly turned dark and dangerous,

to the point that it made her hair stand on end.

It was a physical change in his face.

He turned to me like this,

and his eyes just went black and flat.

That was like an animal was gonna attack.

And I just said to Cary, "I got to go."

And I just ran, and I ran up to my room, and I closed the door,

and I just piled all this furniture in front of the door.

I just felt like I saw a moment of evil.

Gagliano: Mary Ellen's reaction to the frightening encounter

with Stayner was so visceral, so palpable,

and real, she called the police and alerted the FBI

just to be certain that Cary had been thoroughly checked out

as a suspect in the Sund-Pelosso investigation.

Geist: Everybody assured me that he'd been vetted,

he was a good guy.

He's actually helping with the investigation.

Rowlands: He's the one that actually shows

the FBI the different rooms in the hotel.

He shows them the room where the girls were staying, in room 509.

He just came across as calm, collected,

and having nothing to do with the disappearance

of Carole Sund and Juli and Silvina.

Gagliano: And then, in a stunning new development,

the FBI got the big break

that moved the investigation miles away

from Yosemite and onto a new set of suspects.

They were meth users.

Both of them were ex-cons.

Rinek: They are great suspects.

♪♪

Gagliano: FBI agents working the 1999 mysterious missing-persons case

of Carole Sund, Juli Sund,

and Silvina Pelosso were following new evidence now,

which pointed to a gang of career criminals

from Modesto, California.

Soon after the FBI began their probe,

investigators got the first break in the case.

On February 19th, Carole's wallet insert

that contained her identifying information

was located at a busy intersection.

70-so miles away in Modesto.

Hudson: We know that they didn't make it to the Modesto Airport,

they didn't turn in their rental car,

and they didn't board the flight.

We've put a dozen detectives out in the neighborhood

surrounding the area where the wallet was found,

going door-to-door.

Gagliano: The new theory was that Carole and the kids

had departed Yosemite and driven straight through to Modesto.

Once there, the women were carjacked on the street,

abducted, and taken by force.

Hanley: That's when the focus shifted to a group of

methamphetamine-using ex-cons.

The FBI closed in on the likely kidnappers.

Hammer: Michael Larwick and his half brother, Rufus Dykes.

Rinek: They are great suspects.

We're not drawing any conclusions

about how many people may have been involved.

We have been operating under the assumption

that this was a very difficult crime

for one person to accomplish.

Jackson: Rufus Dykes was a career criminal who had been in

and out of the California prison system

since he was a teenager.

Larwick had been arrested for shooting a police officer.

Rinek: They have histories of false imprisonment,

of rape, suspected murder.

Hanley: It just seemed like that was in their wheelhouse --

stealing a car and using credit cards to get money for meth.

And that's not all.

Their recent movements were tracked and determined

to be in close proximity

to where Carole's credit card had been found.

Hanley: The working theory seemed to be

that Rufus Dykes was the mastermind.

His half brother, Mick Larwick, was in on it.

Gagliano: The FBI had Larwick and Dykes in custody on unrelated charges

in order to interview them about the three missing sightseers.

Eugene "Rufus" Dykes is interviewed by an FBI agent.

He admitted involvement in the missing

three women from Yosemite.

He had signed a confession.

But Dykes' confession story had major holes throughout it.

His answers are not consistent.

Hanley: He would say something that happened,

and the FBI would be like, "Nope.

That's not the truth."

And he would change it until it kind of fit

the evidence that they had.

He just went through all this bullshit.

That bullshit he went through was received as a confession.

You're always concerned about going down a rabbit hole

or following a bad lead, and it happens.

Dykes is either directly involved in this case,

or he's stringing investigators along

with a false confession for inexplicable reasons.

Hanley: Why Jim Maddock was so convinced it was Dykes?

♪♪

For the real answer, you'd have to ask him.

♪♪

Jackson: In direct opposition to his FBI boss,

Agent Jeff Rinek

firmly believed that Dykes made a false confession,

and the two G-men clashed.

Personalities in law enforcement get in the way of work,

just like they do anywhere else.

Rossi: We're bracing for a potentially lengthy investigation,

but we are making progress,

and we're confident about where we're going.

Gagliano: You've got strong personalities,

and in high-stress investigations,

they become combative.

I had been sent home because they didn't want me there.

Gagliano: After the internal conflict ended, months passed,

winter was turning to spring,

and the internal FBI conflict was set aside the instant

another important tip came into headquarters.

On March 19th, the call comes in that the car's been located.

Carole: We were in at a meeting with the head of the Sacramento FBI,

and this guy who had answered the phone came in and said,

"I think you should take this call."

And that was when we found out that they had found the car.

Van Susteren: The search for a missing woman, her daughter,

and a visiting exchange student who were sightseeing

in Yosemite National Park has gone on for over a month.

Now their rented red 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix

has been found burned and hidden in deep woods.

A tip yesterday led a highway patrolman

to their rented car miles from the motel

where they were staying.

Rowlands: A guy by the name of Jim Powers is out hunting

or shooting his gun,

and he sees the burned-out red Pontiac.

Powers: I got out and took a look at it,

and the butterflies hit.

And I called CHP, and they said, "Yeah, it's definitely the car."

Rowlands: That was the rental car that Carole Sund rented

from the San Francisco Airport.

Finding the car was the biggest break in the case.

The car itself was completely destroyed by fire.

Everything on that car melted.

The fire was believed to have reached a temperature

of 2,000 degrees.

It was devastating.

But maybe you're gonna find out something.

Francis: The first question Carole asked was,

"Did they look in the trunk?"

Carole: All of a sudden, everything turned upside down.

When police arrived at the scene and opened the trunk...

Rinek: It wasn't, at first, obvious,

but when they looked closer,

you could see where there were the remnants of two skeletons.

And then Maddock gets up and announces...

We have recovered two bodies from the trunk of the vehicle.

No identification has been made.

It took a few days to figure out

that it was Carole and Silvina in the trunk.

♪♪

Francis: Of course...

...as a father,

I feel terrible.

I'm supposed to die...

♪♪

[ Sobs ]

[ Crying ] Excuse me.

When Francis Carrington found out that Carole was dead,

I'll never forget it, how he broke down on-camera.

You could really feel the pain

that this man was now going through.

♪♪

Carole and Silvina were identified

through dental records.

Their bodies were burned beyond recognition.

It was very clear that it was a murder.

It just was such a shame to lose two people like this.

Jackson: But if only two bodies had been recovered,

belonging to Carole and Silvina,

then 15-year-old Juli Sund was still missing.

The search is on for Juli.

We worked on the basis that she was still alive.

Where was Juli?

♪♪

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

With the gruesome discovery of two bodies,

the FBI investigation of the three missing Yosemite tourists

was now officially a homicide case.

Some of the agents working the investigation

were certain they had the men responsible

for the murders locked away behind bars.

But had investigators really cracked the case?

Could the FBI be on the wrong track altogether?

But, first, there was a more urgent question to answer --

Since agents had only recovered the bodies of Carole Sund

and Silvina Pelosso,

then where in the world was 15-year-old Juli Sund?

Williams: There was some hope that Juli was alive.

Hanley: And being held against her will somewhere.

Rinek: It was up to us to locate her.

Today's search was very extensive.

It covered approximately a mile radius from the car.

A very exhaustive search.

However, no third victim has, in fact, been found.

And then the letter arrives.

A letter is received at the resident agency of the FBI

in the DoubleTree Hotel in Modesto.

And it's basically a map.

With an arrow pointing to a spot on the map.

Gagliano: The letter was clearly from someone

with firsthand knowledge of the case,

taunting investigators saying, "We had fun with this one."

Criminals -- They believe

that they can pull off the perfect crime.

They like the cat-and-mouse game.

Immediately, investigators go to this area.

They have cadaver dogs with them.

And once there, the worst outcome came true.

They did find her body where the map said it would be.

Rogers: The homicide victim that was found in the Don Pedro area,

around Moccasin, at Vista Point, has been positively identified

by dental records as Juliana Sund.

You have a 15-year-old girl laying on this hillside

with her throat slit from one side to the other.

Maddock: What this means is that we will bring all available resources

to bear in order to solve this horrible crime.

She was nearly decapitated.

I'm gonna miss her so much.

It was devastating.

But I can't imagine just going on forever

not knowing what happened.

Jordan: Crimes such as this really represent

everyone's worst wilderness nightmare,

where some dark,

unknown predator comes out of nature, strikes,

and then kind of disappears back into the shadows.

Who did this? A just pure evil person.

Hanley: This kind of mystery just kind of struck

a chord of fear through everyone.

That something like this could be happening in an area

where I lived and and where my children were --

That's pretty scary.

Everyone is now looking over their shoulder.

There was just a great sense of panic inside Yosemite.

I have a 15-year-old daughter, too.

It could be me.

It was scary.

But the FBI assured the public it had nothing to fear.

Why?

Because the agents said they already had

the men responsible in custody.

Hanley: The FBI kept going back, repeatedly, to interview Dykes,

convinced he did it or he knew who did do it.

Rowlands: From the FBI's standpoint, they have solved it.

It gave a real sense of relief to this area

that had been petrified since February.

Williams: There was a level of relief as a community member.

There was a level of skepticism as a journalist.

And the doubt was well-placed.

♪♪

Leslie: She was my love child.

I really loved everything about her.

She was a dancer in high school --

tap, jazz, and ballet.

And then she was a mountain climber.

Strong as an ox.

She was just the coolest kid ever.

Rowlands: 26-year-old Joie Armstrong was a naturalist.

Her job was to teach young people

the beauties of Yosemite.

Leslie: She was touching kids every year,

and they just thought she was over-the-top wonderful.

She was doing what she loved,

and it just made her high.

A leaf was a living thing, the flower, the animals, the trees.

I went down to visit her there,

and we're up on these granite rocks overlooking the place.

We walked behind the Yosemite Falls.

It was just awe-inspiring.

Dr. Kidd: I met Joie Armstrong

through her work at the Yosemite Institute.

Joie Armstrong was unique

in that she just carried a little more sunshine

than the average person.

Jordan: Armstrong had a boyfriend,

and they lived together in this little green cabin.

Dr. Kidd: In the middle of this giant meadow.

It's perfection.

Jordan: They had to chop wood to make their own fires

and even haul their water up from Crane Creek.

He loved her to pieces. She was crazy about him.

He was gonna propose to her.

♪♪

But at sunset on July 21, 1999, Joie Armstrong was alone.

Jackson: Joie was supposed to be away visiting friends,

but when she never showed up, the friends called 911.

Uniformed officers rushed to her cabin

and determined that they had a crime scene on their hands.

Rangers had already cordoned off the area

around Joie's little cabin in the woods.

And when they went inside, they realized...

Schwartz: That something bad had happened.

There were signs of a struggle.

Rowlands: They find that the cabin door is wide open.

Hanley: Her truck was still parked outside.

There was some music on in the house.

Jackson: And they couldn't find Joie anywhere.

♪♪

[ Pager beeping ]

Hammer: Dr. Desmond Kidd,

the medical director at Yosemite National Park,

received a page.

An old-fashioned page, on a pager.

He just said, "This is a search

with law-enforcement implications."

Jackson: Dr. Kidd arrived at the cabin,

and suddenly realized he had hung out

with the people who lived there.

I've been to that house before.

I quickly had to go to game-face mode,

because I'm searching for someone that I know,

and, you know, I've been to that house before.

Jordan: Dr. Kidd and four other members

of the search party start walking through the woods

along Crane Creek.

We were looking for evidence of anything.

They come to a scene of broken saplings

and footprints in the grass,

torn-up grass, torn-up branches,

what looks like an escape through the woods.

Perhaps even a chase.

Maddock: Crime-scene searches are now under way

and will continue for most or all of the day.

Leslie: I can remember crying.

I was a basket case.

It was rage and sorrow and the unfairness of it all.

♪♪

Jackson: 26-year-old Yosemite Park instructor

Joie Armstrong is missing.

Search-and-rescue teams are out looking for her

when a volunteer searcher yells out to the others.

"Hey, here's some car keys."

Just beyond the key ring...

I saw a body bobbing up and down in the creek.

Rowlands: She has duct tape on some of her body,

and there are obvious signs of wounds.

Dr. Kidd: We're no longer in a search.

Now we're on a crime scene.

I just remember looking down and confirming

that what I was seeing was real and that this wasn't something

I had created in my mind.

They found her body, but her head was missing.

And it was Joie.

Maddock: The Park Service did discover the body

at approximately 1:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon.

Leslie: I can remember crying.

I was a basket case.

It was rage and sorrow and the unfairness of it all.

The FBI, with the assistance

of the National Park Service and local authorities,

is investigating the apparent murder

of a female employee of the Yosemite Institute.

Crime-scene searches are now under way

and will continue for most or all of the day.

The victim was last seen on Wednesday, July 21st,

and last spoken to on the early evening of Wednesday, July 21st.

Jackson: First, the Sund/Pelosso case,

and now Joie Armstrong.

Suddenly, the FBI had two murder mysteries to solve.

And now Yosemite residents wanted to know,

"How could the FBI possibly have the right suspects behind bars

if the killer has struck again?"

Rowlands: July 22, 1999.

The body of Joie Armstrong

is found in the Yosemite National Park,

and that changes everything all over again.

Jordan: Armstrong's beheading spread fear

throughout the entire Yosemite community

that all four of these crimes were connected.

But the FBI was adamant that it was not related.

The question has been, "Is there any relation between this crime

and the tragic homicides

which occurred involving the sightseers earlier this year?"

And I can tell you, at this time,

we have absolutely no reason to believe,

no indication that there is any linkage at all.

Jackson: But the way the two women were killed

was eerily similar --

decapitation or near decapitation.

And that's not all.

The two primary crime scenes --

the Cedar Lodge and Joie's cabin --

were within walking distance from each other.

If you look at a map, you can hike down

to where that enclave is from the Cedar Lodge.

Dr. Kidd: We had our own law-enforcement force

in the park and its national park rangers,

and they quickly put together 2 and 2 and thought,

"Oh, this is not just some isolated event."

How could they not be connected?

Jackson: If the FBI theory was wrong

and now there was a lone killer for all four murders,

this was now a serial-killer case.

And he's still on the loose.

There was just evidence everywhere.

The killer left a lot of traces behind.

♪♪

♪♪

Investigators in the Yosemite murder case

were finally starting to connect the dots.

Key evidence left behind at the crime scene of Joie's murder

led to an all-out manhunt for the culprit.

Maddock: The FBI have completed a number of searches

of the crime-scene area,

and we've recovered substantial evidence.

The killer left a lot of traces behind.

There's a pair of broken sunglasses on the ground.

Gagliano: Investigators didn't know who the sunglasses belonged to,

so the assumption they went in with was,

they were left behind by whoever committed the murder.

They find hair and fibers.

After a few minutes, they come to footprints.

They also find what would be a crucial piece of evidence --

tire tracks outside of Joie's home.

Jordan: The murder of Joie Armstrong was sloppy, at best.

There was just evidence everywhere.

Officers were hot on the trail of the Yosemite killer.

Hammer: Within a few hours of the discovery of Armstrong's body,

the police received a tip.

One of the park employees remembered that there was

a blue-and-white 1979 International Scout

parked very close to Joie's little green house

on the night that she disappeared.

The International Scout is a unique vehicle,

to say the least.

Gagliano: Investigators desperately wanted to find out

who the owner of that sports-utility vehicle was.

Not because they think he's a suspect,

but because they think that,

"Oh, maybe he has seen something."

Does he know anything?

Hanley: Then they ran a check of all International Scouts

in a three-county area

The FBI puts out what's called a BOLO, be on the lookout.

We found the vehicle down by Cedar Lodge.

Hammer: A park ranger and a Mariposa County detective

stepped out of their vehicle and spotted a man by the river.

Schwartz: He was very casual, very relaxed, very confident,

and we needed to just, you know, talk to him.

The man calmly identified himself as Cary Stayner.

Gagliano: Stayner's the same handyman from the Cedar Lodge

who'd been interviewed multiple times by officers

early on during the investigation.

Schwartz: We're like, "Okay, so, we're not --

We just need to, you know, ask a few questions.

You know, we're investigating an incident

that happened up in Foresta.

Have you been up there in the past couple days?"

"No, no, no." He denied ever being up there.

He said he knew nothing.

The officers did not have enough on Stayner to make an arrest.

But the uniformed officers were suspicious enough

to take photographs of all four tires on Stayner's vehicle,

and before they left, they also asked Stayner

for his consent to check his knapsack.

Schwartz: We wanted to search his backpack

to see what was in the backpack,

and he wouldn't let us search the backpack.

Rowlands: And at this point,

Joie Armstrong's head has not been found,

and a real fear for these rangers is...

There could be a head in that backpack.

With no consent from Stayner, the knapsack could not be

legally opened without a warrant,

but the officer was authorized to confiscate the pack.

I told him that I was gonna take the backpack.

Jackson: Proper policy called for the FBI to get a signed warrant

from a judge before investigators could open

and learn the contents of Stayner's knapsack.

Schwartz: We weren't gonna lose the case

by doing something wrong, law-enforcement-wise.

Hammer: FBI agents compared the tire tracks

left outside Armstrong's cabin on the night of her murder.

To photographs of the tire tread on Cary Stayner's Scout.

Gagliano: Now the FBI urgently wanted to bring him back in

for additional questioning,

but Stayner was nowhere to be found.

That night, he went back to the Cedar Lodge,

and he sold all his belongings.

And he didn't show up for work the next day.

Rinek: He's unaccounted for.

An APB is out.

Cary Stayner is the subject of a manhunt.

Hammer: The disappearance of Cary Stayner touched off

one of the most extensive manhunts in the history

of Yosemite National Park and,

in fact, the whole National Park System.

Destination?

♪♪

Would investigators finally track Cary Stayner down?

Did he have innocent reasons

for driving his truck near a crime scene,

or was he the Yosemite serial killer?

The FBI wasn't sure.

What was certain --

Four unsuspecting women had been attacked and viciously murdered,

and the families of the victims, the nation,

and the world cried out for justice.

The hunt for the killer continues in part 2 of

"The Yosemite Murders."

Thanks for watching.

Good night.