In July 1999 an FBI agent named Jeff Rinek sat in a room at the bureau's Sacramento office with Cary Stayner, a 37-year-old motel handyman who had been brought in about a different killing, and listened as Stayner described how he had murdered four women. Three were Carole Sund, 42, of Eureka, her 15-year-old daughter Juli, and Silvina Pelosso, 16, a family friend from Argentina who was living with the Sunds. They were staying at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal, just outside Yosemite, when he talked his way into their room on the night of February 15. The fourth was Joie Armstrong, 26, a naturalist at the Yosemite Institute, whom he had beheaded near her cabin days before he was questioned.
The recording was played to the jury at his state trial in Santa Clara County in 2002, where he was convicted of the three murders, found sane, and sentenced to death. He had already pleaded guilty in federal court to Joie Armstrong's murder and been sentenced to life. His defense rested partly on the kidnapping of his younger brother Steven, who was taken in 1972 at the age of seven and held for seven years. On April 30, 2026, the Supreme Court of California affirmed the judgment in an opinion of more than 200 pages by Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero, with one justice dissenting as to the death sentence.
The court did not reproduce the confession. It described it, in its own words, and quoted Stayner directly only in short phrases. Those phrases are collected below, each with the sentence of the opinion that introduces it, which is all that survives in public of what he told Rinek that night.
This is every word of Stayner's that the opinion puts inside quotation marks: twelve fragments, about 115 words, in the order the court prints them. Most come from the FBI confession; two, the words about a voice telling him to do the job and his remark about strangling someone nonchalantly, come from other evidence the court discussed. "I prefer not to talk now" appears twice because it was the phrase his lawyers argued was a refusal to be questioned, and the court held it was not. The sentences marked "The court:" are the court's own lead-ins, cut to the words just before each quotation.
What he says in these fragments was tested at a trial, a sanity phase and an automatic appeal, and the court found the confession voluntary and properly admitted. The fragments are the words the court needed for its legal rulings, not a sample of the confession, and they carry the court's framing.
Opinions of the Supreme Court of California carry no copyright, and the text follows the published opinion in People v. Stayner, No. S112146. The recording and its transcript are exhibits in the trial record in the Santa Clara County Superior Court, where the case was moved from Mariposa County, and the federal plea colloquy for the Armstrong murder is in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California.
The opinion's own text layer was used, so nothing was scanned or retyped. The bracketed capitals, such as [O]kay and [t]ryin', are the court's alterations, and [¶] . . . [¶] is the court's mark for a gap within a quotation. Nothing has been changed.
Fragment 1
The court: ...corded and relevant portions were played for the jury. Defendant said he had always had obsessive-compulsive sexual feelings but that in late 1998, it
Stayner: “just got to the point”
Fragment 2
The court: ...to Cedar Lodge and peered into a room next to where a red Pontiac Grand Prix was parked. He saw a woman (Carole) and two girls (Juli and Silvina). He
Stayner: “didn’t see a man in the room, so they were vulnerable. Easy prey.”
Fragment 3
The court: ...oor, Carole looked out the window. Defendant told her he needed to check inside for a possible water leak. Carole did not want to let him in. He said,
Stayner: “[O]kay, no problem ma’am I’ll just . . . go get the manager,”
Fragment 4
The court: ...e keys to the car. Then he bound everyone, covered their mouths with duct tape, and led Juli and Silvina into the bathroom. Defendant wet some towels,
Stayner: “[t]ryin’ to make it look like they had been there all night [¶] . . . [¶] [a]nd into the morning.”
Fragment 5
The court: ...another ploy to throw you guys off,” because he wanted Juli’s body to be found. Defendant said he was ready to speak to the FBI agents because it was
Stayner: “time for the killing to stop.”
Fragment 6
The court: ...ck to decapitate her and hide her body under some dry reeds. He considered keeping the head as a trophy but, instead, placed it in the creek. He said:
Stayner: “I don’t black out and do things, you know. [¶] . . . [¶] I know what’s wrong, what’s right.”
Fragment 7
The court: ...ut, instead, placed it in the creek. He said: “I don’t black out and do things, you know. [¶] . . . [¶] I know what’s wrong, what’s right.” He said he
Stayner: “[m]ost definitely”
Fragment 8
The court: ...’t black out and do things, you know. [¶] . . . [¶] I know what’s wrong, what’s right.” He said he “[m]ost definitely” knew what he did was wrong, but
Stayner: “it’s kinda like just a job, it’s something you have to do.”
Fragment 9
The court: ...iranda rights. The court noted that Rinek gave a Miranda advisement in the car and that defendant did not invoke his Miranda rights when he responded,
Stayner: “I prefer not to talk now.”
Fragment 10
The court: ...ights must be unambiguous. (See Berghuis v. Thompkins (2010) 560 U.S. 370, 382.) Here, after first being read his Miranda rights, defendant responded,
Stayner: “I prefer not to talk now”
Fragment 11
The court: ...ond, the fact that both he and defendant used the word “nonchalantly” — Eugene D. said he “nonchalantly cut the victim’s throat” and defendant said he
Stayner: “nonchalantly strangled the victim”
Fragment 12
The court: ...hat defendant told her he had dreams involving a man whose face he could not see. Once, when defendant told Amber B. that a voice in his head told him
Stayner: “to do that job now, right now,”