I Know My First Name Is Steven by Mike Echols Read Free Book Online Page B

them as much or more than I did."
    Since the room didn't have a private bathroom, Parnell required Steven to relieve himself in a bucket in his closet, but Murph never took such precautions, and when he watched Steven he would just send the boy by himself to use the communal toilet down the hall.
    Early the next Sunday, December 10, just as soon ashe got off work, Parnell hustled Murph and Steven into his car and drove to the cabin at Cathy's Valley. Parnell had seen and heard a few newspaper and broadcast reports of Steven's disappearance, yet he was smugly satisfied that his villainy was going unnoticed in Yosemite National Park and Cathy's Valley. So confident was Parnell that he felt he could casually plan his future with his new young son.
    During the first week after Steven disappeared, volunteers and peace officers searched Merced County north to south and east to west but turned up no leads. Some minimal searching was done in neighboring Mariposa County, including a search of the home of a known homosexual pedophile and child pornographer just outside the county seat, but the man's treasure trove of nude photographs of young boys held no clues to Steven's disappearance.
    Much of the search of Merced County was conducted by the male members of the local Mormon Stake, who carefully covered specific areas on detailed county maps in four-wheel-drive vehicles and on horseback while their wives brought a steady supply of fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, jello and fruit salads, and pies to the unofficial search headquarters at the Stayners' house. Years later Cary tearfully recounted this episode: "I don't like to be around a lot of people, so I stayed outside as much as I could. And I remember going out one night after Steve disappeared and wishing on a star that my brother would come back home. And I did that almost every clear night from then until Steve finally came back home.I never did tell anybody about it, but I remember wishing on a star that my little brother would come back home." He finished his tale with tears in his eyes.
    Sharon Carr, whose birthday party Steven had attended the day before he disappeared, was very much affected. Steven had given her a stuffed koala bear, and after his disappearance she became very protective of it. Referring to Sharon, Kay said, "If you even mentioned Steve five or six years after he had disappeared, this little gal would break into tears. We had to do a lot of whispering when she was around. I could talk about Steve when he was gone without really being upset, but Sharon just came unglued if you even mentioned Steve."
    Del was by far the most upset by Stevie's disappearance. The morning after Stevie vanished, Del asked his Mormon bishop, Ben Walton, to call Stevie's name in to the prayer roll in Salt Lake City so that "if Stevie was still alive by the time his name got on the prayer roll, nothing bad would happen to him. It bothered me that Stevie had disappeared and he hadn't been baptized. He would have been baptized when he was eight years old, but he disappeared before that. And that always bothered me." Then, in awe, Del added, "And every person in this valley prayed for my Stevie . . . I just couldn't believe that."
    Chief Kulbeth recalled that by the third day psychics were volunteering information. "We never did go to them. It's something that I certainly did not have any confidence in, yet at the same time, when you have a serious case like this, you're not going to ignore anything."
    One of the psychics whose information Kulbethchecked asked to be driven east on Highway 140, and as Merced Police drove her past a trio of little red cabins at Judy's Trailer Park in Cathy's Valley, she "lost the trail." The police retraced the route with her several times, but each time the trail ended for her just past the cabins, Kulbeth said. Almost unbelievably, during the seven years that Steven was missing, the cabins were never checked out.
    By the end of that first week,