FRESNO — A motel handyman was sentenced to life without parole Thursday for beheading a Yosemite National Park naturalist, clearing the way for his trial in the grisly slayings of three tourists. Under a plea bargain that spared him the possibility of a death sentence, Cary Stayner, 39, admitted he killed 26-year-old Joie Armstrong last year after kidnapping and trying to sexually assault her.
"I gave in to the terrible dark dreams that I tried to subdue," a sobbing Stayner, shackled and wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit, said in federal court. "The craziness that lurked in my mind for as long as I can remember became a reality in this terrible crime, and I am sorry and ashamed."
Stayner is also accused of killing Yosemite tourists Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juli, 15, and their Argentine friend Silvina Pelosso, 16. Prosecutors have not said whether they will seek the death penalty.
The three were last seen alive in February 1999 at a motel outside the park where Stayner lived and worked. More than a month later, a burned rental car was found abandoned along logging road. In the trunk were the bodies of Mrs. Sund and Pelosso. Juli Sund's body was found later in a thicket.
Armstrong's headless body was found in the woods near where she lived in the park. Stayner was arrested three days later, after a sweeping investigation and manhunt that began five months earlier when the three tourists disappeared.
In court, Armstrong's mother, Lesli, wept as he addressed her.
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"I wish I could take it back, but I can't," Stayner told her. "I wish I could tell you why I did such a thing, but I don't even know myself."
Lesli Armstrong said she can foresee forgiving her daughter's killer someday.
"I ached for him, I ached for me, I ached for everything," she said. "I will not live my life festering with anger, hatred and vengeance. I won't do that."
Stayner is a brother of Steven Stayner, who in 1972 was snatched off a Merced street at age 7. He was missing for seven years, until he finally went to police with the story of his abduction. His story was portrayed in a TV miniseries. He died in 1989 in a car accident at 24.
Stayner is barred from speaking publicly about the Armstrong case, but some details of the killing are expected to be revealed if excerpts of his confession are unsealed.
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