Kidnapper “Just Wanted To Be Loved”
In a jailhouse interview last night in Dublin, the elderly man accused of trying to buy a child in Berkeley tells The Chronicle he wanted to “raise him just like any child.”
Kenneth Parnell tells The Chronicle he knows it was wrong, but he just wanted to be loved. Parnell is the same man who served five years in prison for the 1972 kidnapping of seven-year-old Steven Stayner – the brother of Cary Stayner who was sentenced to death after being convicted of killing four women in Yosemite National Park.
Parnell says he wanted to raise a family by buying a young boy and possibly a young girl that he could take to school and parks.
The 71-year-old man denies he intended to abuse the boy, the paper reports. Parnell has been charged with solicitation to commit a felony, trying to buy a human being and attempted child stealing.
