As if living with that sick *beep* Parnell wasn't enough..

There's a thread here regarding Steven's homecoming: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097553/board/nest/164277696

And another poster posted several quotations from Steven, from an interview with him here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097553/board/reply/69408358

Nevertheless..

When Steven returned home after having being missing for seven years in 1980, his biological family practically alienated him. Cary Stayner, his older brother (who turned out to be a serial killer), even went out of his way to complain about having to share a bedroom with Steven.

Steven was so unused to a sensible "right and wrong" ideology that he rebelled against his parents' disciplinary measures and clearly would never be the same delicate kid that they knew before.

Stayner testified that Parnell sexually abused him "about once every two weeks" throughout his captivity. Before he and Timmy White could escape, Parnell tried (unsuccessfully) to get Stayner to join him in kidnapping other children.

Parnell held Steven captive for seven years, but served only five years for the crime (1981-85), AND wasn't even charged with the numerous sexual assaults on Steven and other boys, as most occurred outside the jurisdiction of the Merced county prosecutor or were by then outside the statute of limitations.

Parnell didn't even hesitate to molest Steven during the first night of Stayner's disappearance.

Though I don't think he deserves any respect at all, at least Parnell was human enough to "cry for the first time since he was nine" when he learned of Stayner's death from a motorcycle accident in 1989..

"Don't believe everything you hear on the radio." - Charles Foster Kane