Captive Audience: A Real American Horror Story

And in Northern California this morning...

It may be one of the most unusual kidnap cases ever.

A 14-year-old boy who had been missing for seven years...

Began telling authorities an incredible story.

An unusual story.

Fourteen-year-old Steven Stayner had been missing since 1972.

The suspect drove up in a car, offering to give the boy a ride home.

This is how Steven Stayner looked when he disappeared at age seven,

seven years ago. This is Steven today.

Steve's mother was quoted as saying, "I told everybody from the beginning..."

"That he would come back to us."

Just about everyone's calling it a miracle.

This was a story that just had to be told.

B camera mark!

Now the bizarre story of Steven Stayner is the subject of an upcoming miniseries.

Okay. Is that really Stevie?

Yeah, it's him.

It's Steven.

It's called I Know My First Name Is Steven,

and it is a thought-provoking miniseries about a California kidnap victim.

If someone had written the script with all of the elements of your story,

it probably would be rejected because it's... it's so incredible.

I know my first name is Steven.

This is a storybook ending. I think we can all agree with that.

A bizarre story with a happy ending.

Well, everybody wants a happy ending.

And not very many true stories are a happy ending.

You would definitely think something like this is made up.

It's unreal to find out that somebody that is your blood

could do something like that.

How much more could happen in one lifetime,

in one family?

You can't make a movie about something like this happening.

Doesn't...

Stevie!

Stevie?

What you are watching really happened.

It's important to talk to the family.

So I'm going to go on this research trip,

and learn an awful lot about these people.

We have two boxes filled with my dad's stuff.

I never really wanted to look through them.

Oh, clippings.

Steven Stayner.

Look at his pictures.

I'm scared there's a lot of personal things in there.

I feel like I have to be in the right state of mind in order to do it.

And I just haven't really been in that state of mind.

This is scene Ashley, take one, marker.

Um, my name is Ashley Louella Stayner, and I'm the daughter of Steven Stayner.

The original. Ash.

Oh, wow.

That's the one they used.

That is the one they used, yep.

I didn't grow up around people that talked about my dad to me...

stories, things like that. So, my dad was just kinda...

my dad that died.

I don't remember my father much. Actually, I don't remember him at all.

No.

"North Star Trailer Park, Santa Rosa Avenue."

Ew! Look at that creepy house.

I have recordings, and I have pictures

and newspaper articles.

If it wasn't for those things...

I probably wouldn't have much of him, you know?

But I know there's a lot more out there that I don't know about.

And... I want to know about it.

I think...

that a lot of people have their thoughts about my family,

and who we are as people.

Um, and I think they have it wrong.

Everybody knows him as the boy who was taken and returned.

That story has been told many, many, many times.

But it always feels like there's something missing, because

the family was never really involved.

And, so, I wanted to make something

that wasn't just, like, third parties

saying what they thought.

We have our own stories.

Are you okay?

Yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay. It's...

I got myself psyched up for this.

We've told the story so many times I keep saying,

"Why don't you all know this already?" You know? It's...

I know it because I've lived it.

And relived it, and relived it.

And I feel like everybody should know it.

They don't need it told again.

But a lot of people haven't, I guess.

You gotta get the whole story.

Del and I, we always planned on having a... a family.

We had Jody, and Cary, Cindy,

and Cory's the baby, and, of course, Steve.

It was, you know, five was perfect.

That was enough.

They were all different.

Some were little helpers,

and some were little guys that got into trouble.

We lived on a street that happened to have tons of kids, all the same age.

And they just played basketball, baseball, rode their bikes

and their Big Wheels up and down the street. Yeah.

It was a... it was a great, little street to grow up on.

At the time, Steve was second grade, seven.

He was a helpful little guy. You know, he always wanted

to... to help people.

And, um...

he trusted people.

Uh, and we always told him, you know, be respectful

of your elders, blah, blah, blah.

And that basically got him into trouble.

I was supposed to pick him up from school,

but I had been kinda delayed because it was...

Here you go, Ace. You're all set.

What was it?

I was picking something up for Del at the parts store,

then I got to the school, and Steve was already gone.

I got home, and he wasn't there.

It probably took a couple hours

before we really, really panicked, and then called the police.

And we searched. And the police, they did a canvass all up and down.

He had to cross Yosemite Park Way,

which was the access to Yosemite National Park.

Eighty miles away, but still it was

the way everybody got into that... Yosemite.

Hey, where're you going?

I was stopped by a man along the street just a few blocks from my house.

And he asked me if my mother wanted to donate something to a church.

It's all about Jesus and stuff.

I had told him that my mother would probably want to.

And, so, he offered me a... ride home.

This is Reverend Parnell.

Hop in, son.

He's a preacher here. He'll drive you home.

They passed the road that I was... that I lived on, and they said that,

"We'll just call your parents and see if you can stay the night."

The second night, they said that they had called them again

and said they... that I can stay another night.

Then one of them went to... went out and came back,

and said that he went to court, and he'd gotten possession of me.

And said that I was his.

We started sending out flyers to the schools,

sending out flyers to television stations, radio stations,

asking for help,

and asking if they would,

you know, be on the lookout for him.

Young Stevie always walked home from school

through this service station.

One afternoon, he disappeared without a trace.

Stevie's mother says the only thing that makes him different

from other little boys in this part of the world

is that he just plain didn't like to fight.

Did... You called him... I'm... I've been told that you called him "Dad."

How long before you started calling him "Dad"?

Do you have any idea when that started?

Um, that started about a week after my abduction.

I also got your name changed.

Your new name is Dennis.

Dennis Gregory Parnell.

Parnell was working in Yosemite National Park,

I think, as a bookkeeper or something to that effect.

He wanted a little boy.

They finally took Steve and, uh...

they...

proceed... you know, they did what they did.

That is such a traumatic event, that he is automatically fearful.

The question is how you do it.

To make the story work, I've got to find little ways

of showing Steven's legitimate fear.

Leave me alone.

I wanna... I wanna go home.

The next day he's got to be just demolished,

confused and disoriented.

He doesn't know exactly what's happened.

But he knows that it's terrible. I think that's true.

Were you afraid?

Uh, not that much. I was...

a little bit.

When Steve disappeared and we were trying to get

all this information out there

with television stations and newspapers,

they said they would help. We tried to keep it in the news,

but then it was like, "Yeah, old news."

I think Steve...

I... I can't remember.

It seems to me, he saw something about him being missing.

But, uh...

and he tried to get away from Parnell.

I mean, he did.

He left the apartment. Wherever he was, he left it.

And he was leaving.

And he got out on the street,

and he got scared.

'Cause he didn't know where he was.

He had no way of finding anything, so he went back.

Hey, get it!

Yeah.

Would you prefer that I refer to him as Dennis or Steven?

I think Dennis because...