Sund details frantic hunt for wife, daughter: Father-husband testifies during Stayner’s preliminary hearing into slayings of 3 Yosemite visitors

MARIPOSA -- At the first day of Cary Stayner's preliminary hearing on three

counts of murder, an outwardly composed Jens Sund on Monday recounted details

of his increasingly frantic search to find his missing wife and teen-age

daughter.

Although he appeared calm and in control while testifying in Mariposa

County Superior Court, Sund did not return to the courtroom after leaving the

witness stand. Family members said he was too distraught to listen to more

details of the killings of his wife, Carole, 42; daughter Juli, 15; and their

Argentine friend, Silvina Pelosso, 16.

The trio disappeared in February 1999 from Cedar Lodge, just outside

Yosemite National Park. They were found dead weeks later -- Carole Sund and

Pelosso in their burned rental car in the Stanislaus National Forest and Juli

Sund with her throat slashed at a scenic overlook in Tuolumne County.

Stayner, 39, is already serving a federal life sentence after pleading

guilty to murdering Joie Armstrong, 26, a nature teacher in Yosemite, five

months after the Sund-Pelosso slayings. In state court, he faces three murder

charges and five special circumstances that could trigger the death sentence

if convicted. He has confessed to the killings.

Prosecutors have said they will announce whether they will seek the death

penalty after the preliminary hearing ends, possibly by the end of this week.

Stayner has pleaded innocent.

In Monday's first day of testimony, Sund took the stand first, striding

past Stayner, who was wearing bright orange jail clothes and shackles around

his ankles.

After Carole and Juli failed to rendezvous with Sund and the family's other

three children in San Francisco after the trip to Yosemite, Sund began trying

to find them. Worried phone calls to the airport, motel, neighbors and their

housekeeper yielded no clues.

Finally, he called authorities.

''At that time, I really wasn't worried'' about foul play, he said. ''But

there was an increasing degree of worry and concern.''

His worst fears were realized when the bodies of the three were found

nearly a month later.

Sund avoided looking at the man accused of sexually assaulting and killing

his family members and friend until he stepped from the wooden witness chair

and down one stair toward Stayner, 10 feet away.

''It was just too difficult for him,'' said Carole's father, Francis

Carrington of Eureka. ''He won't be back.''

Sund was among 10 witnesses Monday as prosecutors began their case against

Stayner. The preliminary hearing is intended to let a judge determine if there

is enough evidence for a trial.

For Jose and Raquel Pelosso and their daughter, Paula, Monday was their

first look at Stayner. The family flew in from Argentina for the hearing.

Jose Pelosso, a large but soft-spoken man, broke down during a break in

morning testimony. His lawyer, Horacio Baca, later said Pelosso believes he

must stay strong for his remaining family.

''His daughter was killed in cold blood by this assassin,'' Baca said.

''Facing him for the first time in American court has got to be hard.''

The Pelossos are pursuing a lawsuit against the Cedar Lodge for employing

Stayner.

In other testimony Monday, prosecutors called several witnesses to try to

establish where the women were at different times and whether they could have

crossed paths with Stayner. Stayner was a maintenance man at the Cedar Lodge

and lived in an apartment above lodge offices.

Defense attorney Marcia Morrissey, who incorrectly pronounced the Sund name

throughout the day as ''Soond,'' tried to bring out inconsistencies in witness

testimony from statements given to the FBI or sheriff's detectives over the

past 2 1/2 years.

One woman testified she saw Stayner, wearing a hooded sweat shirt, pacing

and talking to himself near a pay phone as she went to make a call Feb. 14,

1999, the day before the Sunds and Pelosso were last seen.

Cedar Lodge guest Elizabeth Carlson said she felt so uncomfortable she

walked away without using the phone.

Testimony from two other witnesses scared even the Carringtons, who thought

they'd steeled themselves for the horrific details.

Tracy Murphy and her daughter Erin, 15, told the court about a night

encounter between Stayner and four teen-age girls in the Cedar Lodge hot tub.

Erin Murphy, 13 at the time, said she, her sister, Andrea, then 15, and two

friends frolicked in the pool and hot tub and giggled over a man with a hairy

chest in the spa.

After news reports surfaced naming Stayner as the potential killer, Murphy

remembered the evening.

''I put it together as the man in the hot tub,'' she testified. ''I

remember him because he was the only other person in the pool area.''

Francis Carrington said the testimony was frightening.

''That poor family,'' he said. ''They were so close to being killed. It

brought tears to my eyes to hear them talk about that night.''

While about a dozen members of the Sund, Pelosso and Carrington families

attended the hearing, Stayner's parents, Delbert and Kay of Merced, did not.

Outside of court, Carole Carrington, the mother of Carole Sund, said she is

leaning in support of the death penalty in Stayner's case, comparing the

killing to the carnage wrought by Timothy McVeigh at the Oklahoma City federal

building.

''This was face to face,'' she said.Carole and Jens Sund graduated from

Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa. The Carringtons were property developers

in Sonoma County for years before moving to the Eureka area. Carole and Jens

Sund settled in Eureka.

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 521-5205 or e-mail at

lcarter@pressdemocrat.com