Jody Stayner said she became involved after a television show offered to pay her for an interview following Cary Stayner's arrest. Steven Stayner was kidnapped from a Merced street as a child in 1972 and escaped from his captor seven years later. He died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. I have two children with the same last name, and I want to show the world that there are good people out there. Stayner said she had heard of the Smith family because her home in Ballico is not far from Winton, where the Smiths live.
Investigators continue to work on the case, but little progress has been made.
Stayner said working with the Sund-Carrington fund is a way to honor her husband's memory and to set an example for her children.