Grisly details of bodies at center of Stayner trial: Most Sund, Pelosso relatives stay in courtroom as lawyers show gruesome pictures of victims

SAN JOSE -- As testimony continued Wednesday in the triple-murder trial of

Cary Stayner, Sund and Pelosso family members steeled themselves to be

assaulted once more with the nightmarish details of their loved ones'

slayings.

Carole and Francis Carrington, Carole Sund's parents and 15-year-old Juli's

grandparents, spoke quietly with family friends at the end of a long, windowed

courthouse hallway.

Jens Sund, Carole's husband and Juli's father, lost himself in a glossy

magazine.

Jose and Raquel Pelosso stepped outside for a smoke and a ray of sunshine

as they thought of their 16-year-old daughter, Silvina.

But back in courtroom 30 in the Santa Clara Hall of Justice, gruesome

details of the women's deaths in February 1999 were being displayed.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Juli Sund gestured with a

finger across her throat to illustrate the teen's fatal injury.

As Dr. Sally Aiken began describing her initial examination of Juli's

decomposed remains, a red-eyed Jens Sund could not bear to hear and left the

packed courtroom.

Despite Stayner's confession to the FBI and his attorney's admissions that

he killed the women, the prosecution is meticulously presenting each bit of

evidence -- however gruesome -- to prove its case to the nine-man, three-woman

jury.

Stayner, 40, has pleaded innocent and innocent by reason of insanity.

Stayner's lawyer said his mind is ''broken'' and he suffers from a variety of

mental problems that overpowered his ability to reason.

If the jury finds Stayner guilty, the trial moves on to the sanity phase.

He could be sentenced to death or to a mental institution.

Stayner is already serving a federal life-without-parole sentence for the

murder of Yosemite nature guide Joie Armstrong, 26, five months after the

Sund-Pelosso slayings.

Wednesday, the third day of trial, began with a desk clerk who saw Stayner

at the Cedar Lodge in El Portal outside Yosemite on Feb. 17, and a housekeeper

who saw the Sund-Pelosso room the morning after the trio disappeared but did

not disturb it.

Photos of the room taken by detectives later showed the room in a different

state of cleanliness, which the prosecution is expected to explain later with

Stayner's confession.

Stayner, who lived at the lodge and sometimes worked as a handyman there,

told FBI agents that after he killed the women he returned to the room to

destroy any evidence he may have left behind -- a trick he said he learned

from watching the Discovery Channel.

Long Barn resident James Powers told the jury about the day he was out

target shooting and found the car Carole Sund had rented.

Stayner has said he had Sund and Pelosso's bodies in the trunk of the car

when he drove to the hilltop where he killed Juli. After leaving Juli's naked,

bloody body splayed on the ground with little more than brush covering her, he

said he drove the car to another remote location and torched it with the other

women's bodies in it.

Powers found the car on March 18, 1999. Juli's body was found only after

Stayner sent an anonymous letter to the FBI with directions of where to find

it.

The case had a powerful impact on the North Coast, where the Sund and

Carrington families have ties from Santa Rosa to Eureka. Carole Carrington

Sund met her future husband while they were students at Montgomery High

School. The Carringtons were successful developers in Sonoma County before

they moved to Eureka, where the Carrington Co. now operates.

As testimony about the discovery of the bodies began Wednesday, Dr. O.C.

Smith of the University of Tennessee regional forensics center recounted in

graphic detail the body parts recovered from the trunk of the burned-out

rental car.

Stayner averted his eyes during the description, leaning on his elbows with

his face in his hands.

Sund and Pelosso family members struggled through Aiken's explanations

about what happened to Juli's remains as decomposition progressed, and they

weathered the overhead projector display showing a photo of her body as it was

discovered.

Carole Carrington said they try to detach themselves as much as possible

from the gruesome details.

''I want to make sure the jury sees it. I can take it,'' she said.

Autopsies of Carole Sund and Pelosso could not establish a cause of death.

However Stayner has said he strangled them in the hotel room.

Throughout the court hearings, Francis Carrington has tried not to look at

Stayner.

''But I did today,'' he said. ''And I thought, 'How can he live with

himself?' You can't imagine how one person can do so much harm to another.''

Asked about Stayner's apparent emotional response to the evidence,

Carrington said: ''He can do anything he wants, but he can't bring back Carole

and Juli and Silvina. He can't bring back those beautiful people.''

You can reach Staff Writer Lori Carter at 521-5205 or

lcarter@pressdemocrat.com.