2002-12-16 18:56:29+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
I haven't had a chance to read it all the way through, but I find this Chronicle article about FBI agent Jeff Rinek's experience of murderer Cary Stayner fascinating.
Warning: it starts out as a look at Rinek's career, but gets pretty graphic.
[ related topics: Law Enforcement ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2002-12-16 22:32:18+00 by: Diane Reese
Fascinating, and very disturbing. On a side note, acquaintances of ours were at Laguna del Sol the day Stayner was apprehended. Stayner had been sitting with them at the pool; our friends' 13-year-old daughter was asleep on the pool chair next to him, and the dad thought he might just run up to the trailer to get something, but then decided against it. He, too, commented on how intelligent and 'together' Stayner seemed that afternoon as they made smalltalk. He is haunted by those memories.
#Comment made: 2002-12-18 00:42:15+00 by: Dan Lyke
I wish they'd focused a little more on Rinek. I understand why he'd be unwilling to be too forthcoming given that he stayed with the Bureau, but I'd love to see a little bit more about the mechanisms of the investigation, the politics that lead to Rossi replacing Rinek, and the particulars of how Rinek thinks that affected the case.
And yeah, the apparent lucidity of Stayner is disturbing in that Hannibal Lecter sort of way. Not that I'm for a moment suggesting that Stayner could be reformed, but I wonder if in my lifetime we'll make any real progress in understanding how a mind becomes broken in that way?
#Comment made: 2003-01-07 18:17:20+00 by: Dan Lyke
Just to follow up on the story a bit: Kenneth Parnell is back in jail. Parnell was the one who abducted and molested Stayner's brother, and who got 5 years for the act including those 7 years he held the boy in captivity, and the second abduction which lead to his arrest.