TWENTY-FOUR

By the middle of June, 1999, the FBI’s Maddock and Rossi had finally quit talking, reasoning that the more they said, the more the media demanded.

“It was a strange relationship,” one of the FBI men recalled afterward. In the beginning, the Bureau wanted the help of the public in looking for the missing tourists and their car, and for that help, it was decided to give the news media as much cooperation as possible.

And, in the beginning, at least, it worked. “The publicity helped that car to be discovered,” one agent said. If it hadn’t been for the constant news reports—buttressed as they were by the Sund-Carrington reward offers—it was quite likely that the burned-out vehicle would have been overlooked by the average passerby. The fire had so completely consumed the car that it appeared to have been there a very long time, the FBI was to say later. It was only the publicity about the missing car that gave its discoverer the incentive for a closer look.

But in making themselves so available to the news media, the FBI had created an insatiable monster: once on the story, the news outlets pressed for more, more, and still more. Once the Bureau and the local authorities began to look at possible perpetrators, the media wanted the details on that, as well.

“From very early in the case,” one agent recalled, “the press was eager to report on suspects.” And while Maddock, Rossi, and others held steadfastly to their commitment not to discuss individual suspects, their actions could not be kept secret—not when friends and relatives of those questioned readily admitted that the FBI had been paying visits, tearing up carpet swatches, and generally poking through the “rogues’” backgrounds.

It began with Billy Joe Strange, and soon escalated to Larwick and Dykes. With the latter two, the media at least had something solid to chew on—Larwick’s long criminal history practically assured him the spotlight; and after the “just wondering” column by Diane Nelson in the Modesto Bee, hardly a day went by when the FBI wasn’t peppered with questions as to when it was going to charge Larwick with the murders and get it over with. And once it was widely reported that Dykes had confessed to the crimes, and Maddock had told the Sacramento Bee’s Cynthia Hubert that the TOURNAP task force believed it had all the players behind bars, the FBI realized that it was time to clam up, really and truly.

Thus, more than a month passed in the FBI’s newly vowed silence, and the news reports about the Yosemite murders dwindled away; based on the reports of early June, many assumed that all the bad guys were locked up, and it would only be a matter of time before charges were brought.

*   *   *

It was Wednesday, July 21, 1999, in the late afternoon when 26-year-old Joie Ruth Armstrong, a petite strawberry-blond naturalist who worked for a nonprofit educational foundation at Yosemite National Park, began packing for a weekend trip to visit a friend north of San Francisco. The car was just about ready, and she’d just answered a call from a nearby neighbor, a coworker at the Yosemite Institute. The coworker wanted some paperwork, and Joie said she’d bring it right over before leaving on her trip.

But the killer had other ideas. He’d been watching Joie for some time as she’d loaded the car. Now he drove his truck down the dirt track toward the house Joie shared with two others, stopped, and got out to talk. The front door to Joie’s house stood open, and from inside the killer could hear music from a stereo.

The next sequence of events was confusing. It seems that the killer tried to strike up a conversation with Joie, but wasn’t successful. Joie was busy, getting ready to leave, and besides, she had to drop off the paperwork for her coworker, who lived about a five-minute walk away. It was about that time that the killer realized that Joie was alone.

It appears that the killer either followed Joie into the small house or chased her there. The killer tried to get Joie to cooperate, but that wasn’t going to happen. He wanted to tie her up with duct tape, but Joie wasn’t going to go for that. A fight ensued, the slightly built, 120-pound Joie giving the towering, 200-pound killer some very stiff resistance. The killer produced a large knife, and in the fight Joie sustained some cuts on her arms, which would later clearly be seen as defensive wounds. What happened next would only be learned later by the FBI, and they wouldn’t be talking.

*   *   *

All through the night of June 21, Joie’s friend in Marin County waited for her to arrive, but she didn’t show up. About 3:00 A.M., the friend became worried enough to call the California Highway Patrol, fearing that Joie had become involved in an accident during her drive north. The CHP had no record of any accident involving Joie, but after learning that Joie lived in Yosemite Park, decided to call the park’s rangers to let them know about the situation.

Shortly after daybreak on Thursday, July 22, a team of rangers went to Joie’s cabin in the Foresta section of the park; to get there, the rangers had to drive up Highway 120 to a turnoff a few miles before Crane Flat, and then descend into the Big Meadow area by way of a long, winding, single-lane asphalt road.

The Foresta area was one of the few residential areas in the park, with clusters of private and publicly owned houses here and there; the house shared by Joie was one of those closest to Big Meadow, and in fact could be seen from the rim of the valley high above, if one were looking for it.

Part of the area had been burned over in an earlier forest fire. Crane Flat Creek, which began at the rim of the valley so high above, wandered through the Big Meadow and skirted a bank of low hills to the west before entering a tiny rock-strewn canyon that eventually spilled into the Merced River near the El Portal Post Office. A dirt road linked El Portal to Foresta but was closed off by a chain. Thus, the only way into Foresta required a visitor to take Highway 120 to the turnoff just before Crane Flat; and because much of the area was sparsely wooded from the old forest fire, just about any vehicle entering the area was visible for miles as it made its way down the single-lane road.

Just after 7:30 A.M., the park rangers arrived at Joie’s cabin. It was apparent that some sort of struggle had taken place inside; the rangers found a pair of broken sunglasses that had been bent and crushed on the living room floor. One of Joie’s roommates later said he’d never seen the sunglasses before. It therefore appeared that an intruder had come into the house and that a violent struggle had ensued. A search for Joie and any additional evidence was begun.

Other rangers searched the nearby homes, and at one house, learned that Joie had promised by telephone to bring the paperwork over to the neighbor within a few minutes. That call had happened at about 6:30 P.M.; at 7:30, the neighbor, concerned about Joie’s failure to arrive, had walked over to Joie’s cabin and had found her car packed, the front door open, and the stereo playing. But there was no sign of Joie.

The rangers began a traditional search pattern, working outward from the cabin. About 1:30 that afternoon, the body of Joie Armstrong was found floating in Crane Creek less than 100 yards from the cabin. The head was missing, apparently severed from the body by a large, heavy knife.

Within a matter of hours, Mariposa County Sheriff’s deputies and representatives of the FBI were on the scene. Because the murder of Joie Armstrong had taken place on U.S. Government property, this time the jurisdiction clearly belonged to the Bureau. Special efforts were taken to preserve the crime scene, and Joie’s body was left where it was found in the water for the time being. A cursory search for the head was undertaken, but it couldn’t be located.

A new search of the area now began. This time an employee of the park’s fire department recalled seeing an older model white-on-blue International Scout four-wheel-drive vehicle the previous night in the area of Joie’s cabin at about 7:30 P.M.—almost the same time that the neighbor was on her way over to check on Joie.

Another park employee recalled picking up a man in the park between 10:00 and 10:30 P.M. the night before, on July 21. The man had been standing off to the side of Highway 140, next to a white-on-blue International Scout truck, which he claimed had broken down. The man explained to the park employee that he’d been inside the park to get some “decent food.” The employee gave the man a ride to Cedar Lodge, where he said he lived.

Based on the two accounts, an alert was broadcast to rangers and other law enforcement officers to be on the lookout for a white-on-blue International Scout truck. At about 4:30 P.M. on July 22, even as rangers, deputy sheriffs, and FBI agents were still processing the crime scene at Foresta, two park rangers, Bonnie Schwartz and Ruth Middlecamp, were sent to investigate a report of a white-on-blue Scout just outside of the park. Contact was made with the Mariposa Sheriff’s Department, which would have jurisdiction outside the park boundaries.

Schwartz was soon joined by Mariposa County detective Cathi Sarno. The pair located the truck, determined that it was registered to Cary Anthony Stayner, and soon encountered Cary sitting nude on a small beach off the Merced River not far from Cedar Lodge. A quick search by the ranger and detective showed that Cary had marijuana in his possession. He also had a dark green backpack.

By this point on the afternoon of July 22, Joie Armstrong’s head had still not been found. Schwartz and Sarno eyed Cary’s backpack and wondered: if they looked inside, would they see something they would never forget? They asked Cary for permission to look inside the backpack, but Cary refused.

The officers escorted Cary back to his truck, and Cary gave permission for the truck to be searched. He still refused to let the officers look inside the backpack, even when they told him that if they found more drugs they would only seize them, not charge him with any drug violations.

Cary still refused to let them look inside the backpack; at that point, the officers told Cary that the backpack would be seized whether Cary liked it or not, and that a warrant would be obtained to make a legal search of its contents. By this point the officers had begun to wonder what Cary was so anxious to hide. Was it, they wondered, the severed head of Joie Armstrong?

But once Cary learned that the officers intended to take possession of the backpack, he relented: Go ahead and search it, he said. But the officers now declined Cary’s offer, having become concerned that if the head were found inside, a later legal issue might arise as to the voluntariness of Stayner’s consent to search.

Instead, Stayner and the backpack were taken to the rangers’ nearby headquarters in El Portal for further questioning, while an additional examination of the Scout was conducted.

In an interview begun about 9:00 P.M. on July 22 by Rangers Schwartz, Jeff Sullivan, and FBI Agent Jeff Kearl, Cary denied being in the Foresta area at any time on the previous day. He’d been in Yosemite Valley all day, he said, and hadn’t gone up Highway 120.

What had he been up to while in the valley? Cary was asked. He’d been swimming, Cary told Schwartz. Afterward, he’d gone back to El Portal to change his clothes. Following this, he’d driven back into the park for dinner.

This seemed weird to Schwartz, because the drive into and out of the park on Highway 140 was so difficult and time-consuming, what with road construction work still underway. Why would someone make four trips up and down Highway 140 on such a terrible road, which ran for more than seven miles from El Portal to the end of the construction zone—in all, 28 miles of arduous driving? And hadn’t Stayner told the park employee the night before that his truck had broken down? If it was in such bad mechanical shape, why drive the bad road four times in one day?

While Stayner was being interviewed, another ranger and a professional tracker, Mark Fincher, was comparing photographs he had taken of tire tracks found near Joie’s cabin—and near the place in the creek where her body was found—with similar photographs taken by Sullivan and Kearl of the tires on Cary’s truck.

In Fincher’s opinion, the tracks found at the cabin were similar to those of the Scout’s tires.

Despite the fireman’s account, and Fincher’s belief that the tires on Cary’s truck were similar to those found at Joie’s cabin, it was clear that authorities didn’t have enough information to arrest Cary. Late on the night of July 22, Cary was released, along with his Scout. The backpack, still unopened, was kept, however.

Cary’s movements over the next 24 hours were not immediately clear. It appeared that Stayner drove to Cedar Lodge, where he still had his room over the restaurant. It appeared that he sold his television set and VCR to a coworker for $150 in cash and a promise to pay $125 later. Afterward, Cary went into the lounge, where he encountered a friend, and complained that the rangers had searched his truck and seized his backpack. He seemed angry, the friend recalled later.

Agents later learned that around 1:00 A.M. on July 23, three hours after the end of his interrogation at the ranger station, and after selling his television set and VCR, Cary had gone to visit a woman friend in El Portal. Usually, Cary rarely came calling so late and unnounced. Cary stayed about five minutes, and complained that there was something wrong with the Scout, and that he might need a tow truck. After about five minutes, Cary left. The Scout seemed to start right up, the woman friend noticed.

And with that, Cary disappeared into the night.