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For years after learning that Dennis was really Steven, I tried occasionally to find out what had happened to Ken Parnell. When the Internet came into being, I started doing searches on his name. I knew that he'd been released after serving only seven years, and I was afraid that he was living up in some other remote country area under an assumed name, abusing children again.

One of my searches led to the Web site of Mike Echols, who wrote a "true crime" style book on Steven's case, "I Know My First Name Is Steven." There I found Parnell's address. I was shocked to find out that Parnell lives in Berkeley, the same town as I. But I was even more chilled to read Parnell's words about his life with Steven. After he was released from prison, Parnell told Echols that the only thing he regretted about sexually assaulting Steven was that when he "had anal sex with [Steven] he would bleed and it got all messy and stuff and I didn't like that."

Ken Parnell lives about 10 blocks from my home. After work one day, I went looking for his house. I don't know what I wanted. Throwing rocks at his window or yelling obscenities seemed like ridiculous understatements, and I'm not a violent person.

But then I saw him sitting out on his stoop, enjoying the warm summer evening. He looked older, with white thinning hair, and his roundish face and weak chin were covered up now with a graying beard. But I recognized him right away. He turned to look at me and our eyes locked. My head was crowded with thoughts, some of them bizarre in retrospect. I thought of my mom telling me that all she remembered about Ken Parnell was that he had the worst breath she'd ever smelled. I thought of my friend Steven going through his days like a regular kid and going home in the darkening evenings to that rancid breath on his neck and to brutal, humiliating pain. I stopped my car and we stared at each other, and then suddenly in my mind he was pinned onto his porch with a huge red tack. There you are, I thought. I see you.

I was shaken and angry but strangely relieved. At least he wasn't up in the woods somewhere. It was better to know where he was. I drove to the end of his street and turned toward home. Two blocks from Ken's house, I passed a park where children were playing in the fading light. The relief went away.

By the age of 14, Steven was getting too old to be sexually attractive to Parnell. He planned to kill Steven and he wanted a young replacement. One night in 1980, Parnell brought home a frightened little boy whom he had abducted from a street in Ukiah, about 50 miles from Comptche. As Parnell dyed the boy's blond hair dark brown, Steven began to think and remember. He realized that this is what had happened to him. Parnell was not his legal guardian, and it was likely that his real parents weren't dead, either. He knew what Parnell would do to the boy.

Parnell went out for a while and told Steven to watch the kid. Steven waited until he was sure Parnell was gone, then took the boy and began the long walk toward Ukiah. When he saw headlights, he jumped off the road, in case it was Parnell looking for them. He turned himself in at the Ukiah police station and told the police that he thought his first name was Steven.

The little boy was reunited with his family, and Steven returned to the Stayners. He was never really able to escape from the demons that his years with Parnell had left him with, but eventually he settled down, got married and had kids. He died at age 24, nine years after he had reappeared, in a motorcycle accident.

Steven was both a victim and a hero. His brother is neither. Lumping them together is unfair to Steven's memory. Even worse, it gives Ken Parnell something to chuckle about on his porch as he watches the sunset and listens to the distant sound of children playing.
salon.com | July 30, 1999

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