Escaping "Dad"

Bizarre kidnaping

In darkness and rain, the strapping teenager and the five-year-old boy hitchhiked the 40 miles from Manchester, near the California coast, to Ukiah, a mist-shrouded market town 120 miles north of San Francisco. Arriving at about midnight, Steven Stayner, 14, hesitantly told police the reason for their trip. "I didn't want Timmy to go through what I went through."

So ended one of the most bizarre kidnaping cases in California history. Timothy White, the five-year-old, had been abducted in Ukiah on Valentine's Day, while on his way home from kindergarten. Police charged that he was taken by a drifter named Kenneth Parnell, 48, who cropped the boy's blond hair and dyed it a darker color, then brought him home to his one-room cabin near Manchester. The boy's parents never received a ransom note. Parnell did not want money: he allegedly had stolen Timmy to provide a "brother" for Steve Stayner, whom authorities claim he had kidnaped seven years earlier as the boy walked home from school in Merced, in central California.

Police say that Parnell convinced the young Stayner that he had been put under his custody by a court order. The boy tried to run away once, but got lost and returned. Stayner became known as Dennis Parnell and even began calling his kidnaper "Dad." They ended up in the cabin without water or electricity on an isolated ranch near Manchester. Stayner attended local schools sporadically but led a solitary life. He later told the police: "It was boring." Parnell worked as a night clerk at the Palace Hotel in Ukiah. "He was a quiet man who seemed a little lonely," says Carol Lee, a coworker. "Kids--that's what we talked about."

Why did Parnell kidnap the boy? Digging into his record, police found an unsavory history. At 19, after a trial in which a court-appointed psychiatrist called him a "sexual psychopath," Parnell was convicted of sexually abusing an eight-year-old boy and sentenced to three years in San Quentin. Only four days before the trial, Parnell's wife--who later left him--had given birth to a girl. A court order prohibited Parnell from ever having any contact with her, a fact that Mendocino County District Attorney Joseph Allen speculates might have induced him to kidnap children as surrogates for his daughter. Parnell also served six years in Utah State Prison for armed robbery and grand larceny and twice escaped from mental institutions.

Despite Parnell's past, police feel that he did not sexually molest Timmy White; they are unlikely to prosecute Parnell for any sexual crimes involving Stayner, who insists that he was not mistreated. The boy clearly has conflicting thoughts about his captor. Police say that Stayner seemed fond of Parnell, who he said "spoiled" him. When Stayner finally left, he took along a dog named Queenie, a present from Parnell. Stayner was defensive about Parnell in his talks with police and reluctant at first to reveal his name. Yet Stayner also said that he had no desire to see him again.

Both boys were healthy and fit when they were reunited with their families, although at first Timmy White's mother did not recognize him because of his dyed hair. Stayner's parents had never moved from their home in Merced during the years of his captivity, hoping that their son would some day find his way back. Last week, home at last and trying to rebuild his life, the boy who had been away for seven years opened Christmas presents that his family had carefully saved in anticipation of his return.

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