Teen tells of Stayner meeting: 16-year-old later learned she, family were targeted

SAN JOSE -- A 16-year-old Watsonville girl testified Tuesday she remembers

sitting with her friends in a hot tub at the Cedar Lodge and giggling about

the older man's hairy chest.

It wasn't until later that she learned the man was confessed killer Cary

Stayner and that she and her family narrowly missed becoming his victims.

Aerin Murphy's statements highlighted the first day of testimony in the

triple-murder trial of the former Cedar Lodge handyman, who lived in an

apartment in the lodge.

''I had no concerns,'' she said, recalling the night of February 14, 1999,

one day before the murders of Carole Sund, her daughter Juli and their friend

Silvina Pelosso began in room 509 of the Cedar Lodge.

She testified she remembers Juli Sund and Pelosso in the motel restaurant,

posing for photos at the bar and jukebox.

''They looked like they were having a really great time,'' she said.

It was the last night they were seen alive.

Jens Sund, Carole's husband and Juli's father, testified of his increasing

concern when he couldn't reach them after several phone calls.

Sund calmly answered questions for about 20 minutes, detailing his family's

separate vacation plans that holiday weekend and their planned rendezvous at

San Francisco International Airport before heading to Arizona together.

When the Sunds and Pelosso failed to meet Jens Sund and the couple's other

three children at the airport on Feb. 16, the foursome continued on to

Phoenix, thinking there had been a simple mix-up. Through the next day, Jens

Sund still hadn't touched base with his wife.

By Feb. 17, though, Jens Sund became worried and filed missing persons and

stolen car reports.

Weeks later, the bodies of the Sunds and Pelosso were found.

The case stunned the North Coast, where the Sund family has ties from Santa

Rosa to Eureka. Carole Carrington Sund met Jens Sund while they were students

at Santa Rosa's Montgomery High School. Her parents were real estate

developers in Sonoma County before they moved to Eureka, where the family has

e real estate interests.

On Tuesday, Murphy was among 11 witnesses called by the prosecution to

establish where the Sunds and Pelosso were and where they might have crossed

paths with Stayner during their visit to Yosemite.

Murphy, who was 12 at the time she ran into Stayner at the lodge, said he

did nothing to frighten her, her older sister or their two friends, who were

hopping between the indoor swimming pool and the spa at the Mariposa County

motel.

The following night, according to his confession to the FBI, Stayner conned

his way into the room Carole Sund had rented, sexually assaulted the girls,

killed Carole Sund, 42, and Pelosso, 16, and kidnapped 15-year-old Juli Sund,

killing her later at a remote hillside in Tuolumne County.

The women's bodies were found weeks later. Stayner was arrested in July

1999 in connection with the Yosemite park decapitation murder of Joie

Armstrong, 26, and confessed to all four killings.

Despite his confession, Stayner, 40, has pleaded innocent and innocent by

reason of insanity in an effort to avoid the death penalty if convicted. He

received a life without parole sentence by agreeing to plead guilty to the

Armstrong murder.

Stayner attorney Marcia Morrissey conceded her client killed the women but

said he did it after he lost touch with reality and couldn't control the

''demons'' in his mind any longer.

In Stayner's statements to the FBI, he said he had originally targeted the

Murphy sisters and their friends but changed plans when he saw they were

traveling with a man.

Francis Carrington, Carole Sund's father and Juli's grandfather, said his

heart goes out to the Murphys. ''I'm so impressed with that beautiful young

girl,'' he said of Aerin. ''She came so very close to being murdered. She's

grown up. She's very articulate. She came within a hair's breadth. It's really

frightening.''

This article contains material from the Associated Press. You can reach

Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 521-5205 or lcarter@pressdemocrat.com.