Shortcut: The Yosemite Serial Killer (With a Twist) - ATC International

December 10, 2025·16 min·1 clip

A hand-drawn map arrives at the FBI with the message 'We had fun with this one' after two bodies are found.

In early 1999, Yosemite National Park became the site of four murders that shocked the United States. The first victims were Carol Sund, 42, her daughter Julie, 15, and Silvina Pelosi, 16, an Argentine exchange student, who checked into Cedar Lodge on Valentine's Day for a brief stay. Cary Stayner, the lodge's handyman, knocked on their door claiming to be checking a maintenance issue, gained entry, and killed all three. He sent a handwritten map to the FBI's Modesto office leading them to Julie's remains, with the message "we had fun with this one." FBI investigators originally focused on four other suspects, all held but not charged. In July 1999, at the height of tourist season, Yosemite Institute employee Joie Armstrong was found decapitated near her green cabin. A witness had noted the unusual car outside: a pale blue International Scout SUV. Police tracked it to Stayner and found him at the Laguna del Sol nudist colony — having fled there after officers stopped and questioned him near a river while he was sunbathing naked. He had returned to Cedar Lodge, packed a bag, and driven north. When FBI agents arrested him, he confessed almost immediately, describing in detail how he had planned to rape and murder Armstrong, how she escaped from his moving truck and fought him, and how he ultimately killed her. He then confessed to the three Cedar Lodge murders. The twist mentioned in the episode title involves local reporter Ted Rollins, who went to the jail before Stayner had a lawyer, secured a face-to-face interview, and reportedly discovered a significant detail about the case that had been missed in the frenzy over the murders' gruesome nature.

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