MovieChat Forums > Noirdame79
Noirdame79 (107)
Posts
Replies
Yes, indeed
By the way, Steven initially denied that Parnell abused him, however, he must have told the police some things, and then there was Mike Echols, who served as a scriptwriter on the miniseries I Know My First Name Is Steven (1989) and later wrote a book under the same title. He befriended the parents and once Steven became a legal adult, he interviewed him extensively. After Steven died, Delbert and Kay had a falling out with Echols and accused him of taking advantage of them and Steven. The book is very graphic, and Echols later died in prison while awaiting trial for exposing himself to the police (many believe he was a secret pedo himself while pretending to take other ones down). That's a whole other rabbit hole.
I don't have much sympathy for Kay but I wish the rest of the family well and I hope the truth comes out as to what happened with Cary's wrongful conviction while he's alive.
She and her late husband did an interview with a local newspaper not long after Cary's conviction - and right after Kenneth Parnell was arrested again, this time trying to purchase a 5-year-old boy. They were once again in denial, playing the victim, etc. Delbert even claimed that it wasn't his brother who molested Cary and said it was another uncle. Uh-huh. They admitted also that after Cary was diagnosed with Trichotillomania, they took him off of the medication he had been prescribed for it, claiming that it made him a "different child" (they didn't elaborate) and allowed him to continue to pull out his hair; they said it didn't dawn on them until all those years later that they made a mistake. Kay even said that she didn't believe that Cary committed those murders, but expressed very little outrage. She said, "Maybe someday I'll ask him why he confessed to murders that he didn't commit." That speaks volumes about what kind of person she is - and how little she cares for Cary. So weird. They were only willing to reveal the family secrets in an attempt to save him from death row, but never fought for his innocence. No wonder Cary has never fought for himself.
As for the docuseries, it was obviously made on the family's terms (interesting that the two oldest daughters did not participate), and I think the director knew she would have to tread carefully because the docuseries wouldn't happen without the family's cooperation. The family members, especially Kay and the daughter Cory, come across as detached, and distant, and at times it seemed like they didn't even want to be there. Even those interviews that Steven and his parents did after he came home, reeked of emotional detachment (his father was creepy too, IMO).
I think the man you're referring to is Ervin Murphy, and as far as I know, he was only with Parnell and Steven for the first few days. He was mentally slow, and Steven always defended him and said that he was just as much a victim of Parnell. However, there was a woman named Barbara Mathis (I'm not sure on the spelling) who dated Parnell for a time while he had Steven and sexually abused him as well (Parnell also abused her two children) but she was never charged with anything. She thought Steven (known as Dennis Parnell at the time) was Parnell's biological child. It's horrible either way, and she should have been charged. Disgusting.
It was brought out at Cary's trial. His father was ordered into state-mandated therapy in 1986 for molesting the daughters (I wouldn't be surprised if he victimized his sons as well) - this was revealed via court records. I have found articles that state that when he testified in the penalty phase of Cary's trial, Delbert admitted to molesting his daughters. Kay admitted to letting her father live with the family, even though he had molested her as a child, but tried to convey the idea that she was able to keep an eye on him 24/7. She also admitted to not protecting her children from abuse. Cary told the FBI that his uncle molested him and showed him CP. The uncle in question, Jesse Jerrold "Jerry" Stayner, was murdered in 1990, the case is unsolved. All of the other adults knew this uncle was a predator (he was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor at some point), and yet Delbert and Kay frequently sent Cary to stay with this uncle, which means that they were complicit in his sexual abuse. Domestic violence was common as well and both parents stated that they raised their children not to show emotion or affection. The fact that Cary was diagnosed with Trichotillomania at age 3 is a huge red flag that something was wrong in that household. Not only was he not shown affection, even as a baby, but when he cried his father would, by his own admission, scream at the baby to "shut up". (After the trial, Delbert and Kay snapped back into their denial mode). Cary's brain was damaged in the womb, but his parents were not about to get their kids therapy, because they couldn't take the risk of the family secrets being exposed. Nothing was done for Cary, other than the basic necessities, and there were times when his parents seemed to forget that he existed. His father also blamed him for Steven's abduction. Just horrible. The director of the docuseries stated in an interview that she made a point of not addressing the family history and not asking the family members who were interviewed about it.
There's something else that should be mentioned - Cary isn't a serial killer. The only murder that he's guilty of is of the fourth victim, Joie Armstrong, and his mental illness likely came into play on that one. He did not kill Carole Sund, Juli Sund, and Silvina Pelosso - and law enforcement knows it. There is no physical evidence connecting him to those murders at all - no DNA, nothing. The only "evidence" against him was his confession, which was full of holes and discrepancies. The men who were initially arrested were the actual killers - Cary was a low-level member of their group (they used him primarily because he had access to all the rooms at the Cedar Lodge) and that was how he knew certain details. The FBI bungled the case and doesn't want to admit it; the Mariposa County Sheriff's Office is corrupt and had ties to those creeps via the local drug trade, among other things, and those men were protected. Cary took the fall, he was railroaded, and that trial was a complete farce and should never have happened. Even the victims' family members had doubts about the extent of his involvement and people who knew Cary said that he was not mentally capable of overpowering three people at once, much less killing them and not leaving any traces behind. Whenever his defense attorneys tried to introduce reasonable doubt into the trial (including the videotaped confession of one of the real killers) the judge denied all of their motions. The jurors had made up their minds from the start and it was decided ahead of time that there was only going to be one trial, and only one person was going to pay for this crime, regardless if they were guilty or not - and Cary Stayner was that person. He was an easy scapegoat and he never had a chance, and that seems to be the pattern of his life. The private investigator who was interviewed for the third part of the docuseries also knows that Cary is not responsible for the murders - and he's done interviews about it. Cary was so accustomed to the role of the scapegoat that he set himself up to be that later in life. All of the psychiatrists who examined him concluded that he is not a psychopath. The way he has been portrayed in the media is inaccurate.
There's also a possibility that there was more to Steven's abduction. The first place Kenneth Parnell took him to was a cabin in Cathy's Valley, and Steven's predator maternal grandfather was 200 feet away in a trailer park. That's too much of a coincidence if you ask me. (Kay stated during her testimony at Cary's trial that her father told her she should be glad Steven was gone because now they "only had four children to clothe"). Sorry to make this post so long, but there is so much about this case that is downplayed, completely omitted, or deliberately concealed. Those rural California counties are . . . . strange.
Yes, Cathy died I think around 2020 or 2021. I think it may have been a suicide.
I've always believed Christina too. It's beyond bizarre how many people are obsessed with discrediting her, especially now since she's the only one of Joan's children who is still living. Joan's grandson, who was five when she died, simply cannot give much insight into someone he barely knew. It's strange that people will take his remembrances of her more seriously.
Bob Thomas also wrote about Joan's abuse of Christina and Christopher in his biography of her. He was a fan of Joan and admired her in many ways, but didn't mince words when it came to her faults, as well as her vindictive and jealous behavior at times. She was known for holding grudges and never forgetting the smallest slight. There's also no doubt that she was abused herself, and this was a pattern that repeated (strangely, many of her obsessive fans deny this). Many people recognized the behavior of their abusive parents in Christina's book when writing about her mother's abuse. Some of the letters she wrote to Christina were emotionally abusive, and gaslighting and showed just how toxic she was. The fact that she got those children illegally (the twins from the notorious Georgia Tann) is more evidence of the lengths she was willing to go to get what she wanted. As Christina put it, she "bought" children. There's also no doubt that she used those kids for publicity purposes in order to convince her fans what a "wonderful" parent she was. Those kids were treated like animals at the zoo and paraded in front of cameras for their mother's image - again, classic abuser tactic.
She knows that if she talks about Cary, she will have to take accountability for her role in that mess - and the mess that she and her husband made of their family. The defense mitigation expert uncovered, as he put it, a history of abuse, mental illness, and alcoholism in the family. The father was a predator, as was the paternal uncle (who abused Cary) and the maternal grandfather, who lived with the family prior to Steven being kidnapped. Sexual abuse was an open secret and normalized in the Stayner family. Cary was neglected from day one, and he was mentally ill from childhood but nothing was done because his parents were against therapy for their kids (I wonder why).
Kay Stayner painted her kids' childhood as idyllic and lied by omission. She's still protecting her predator husband, even in death. All of her kids were sexually abused, and there's no way she didn't know it was happening. She's just as guilty as her husband. They failed their children in more ways than one.
Here's the board for it:
https://moviechat.org/tt3074694/Flowers-in-the-Attic
For future reference, in the search box, type The Dollanganger Saga, and then the title of the film whose board you want to access.
The ending that is in the finished film is not the original ending and was hastily written by someone who had never read the novel and had no involvement in the film's original production, so I doubt he even stopped to think about that. Corrine didn't die until the third book in the series, and that's why the original screenwriter and director, Jeffrey Bloom, refused to make an ending where Corrine would die, he knew it would upset fans of the novel, which is one of the reasons he walked off the film and had no part of the final edit. The original cut didn't test well, and the test audience disliked the original ending (which did involve the kids exposing her mother at the wedding, but Corrine did live in Bloom's original ending), so the studio decided that the audience would want Corrine to die. While you can argue that Corrine deserved that ending, there are problems with it and rightly, angered a lot of fans.
Greystone Mansion was used for the theatrical ending, specifically the wedding scene where the kids confront Corrine, she and Cathy get into a fight and Corrine falls off the trellis. The reason why Greystone was used is that it was decided to change the film's original ending because it didn't test well, but by the time they had a new ending written, they couldn't afford to go back to the Crane estate in Massachusetts, which had served as the exterior of Foxworth Hall in the movie (some of the interiors were used as well). In fact, several different locations were used for the mansion's interiors; the Pasadena Historical Society aka the Fenyes Mansion in Pasadena (which had dark red paneling) was used for the grandfather's bedroom, the dining room, Corrine's bedroom, and a few of the corridors. The ballroom scene was filmed at the Doheny Mansion at Mout St. Mary's College in Los Angeles, while the attic, bathroom, and bedroom where the kids were imprisoned were on a Hollywood soundstage.
This video shows the parts of Greystone that were used in the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsP_CP_RxGY
View all replies >