Serial killer Cary Stayner had almost committed the perfect crime.

Four women had been butchered in Yosemite Park and despite their best efforts both the FBI and the police kept hitting brick walls when it came to catching the murderer.

But then a chance car journey with FBI agent Jeffrey Rinek finally cracked the case and the killer confessed.

Cary was convicted of the murders of Carole Sund, her teenage daughter, Juli, her teenage friend, Silvina Pelosso and Joie Ruth Armstrong.

Now 57, Stayner was sentenced to death in 2002 and has remained on death row in California ever since.

Jeffrey said: "It's not every day that a serial killer gives you credit for solving their case."

The retired FBI agent has now written a book about his 30 years with the agency – and it's clear his role in solving Stayner's case has stayed with him for the last 20 years.

Stayner was no stranger to law enforcement agencies.

When his brother was just seven he was abducted by paedophile Kenneth Parnell.

Parnell kept Steven as a sex slave for the seven years, changing his name, enrolling him in schools and even pretending to be his father.

The youngster was more than 200 miles away from home and unable to escape.

In a bid to keep him docile, Parnell allowed Steven to drink from a young age and even allowed one of his female partners to rape him when he was just nine.

The terrible abuse continued until Steven was 14, when Parnell started to look for younger victims to kidnap and sexually assault.

When the twisted paedophile returned home with a five-year-old boy, Steven knew he had to act and he fled the home where he was prisoner with the youngster.

The pair were spotted by police, and their real identities were quickly discovered.

Parnell was arrested early the next day and both boys were reunited with their families – and young Steven hailed a hero.

Tragically he was killed in a motorbike crash when he was just 24.

His younger brother's disappearance had deeply affected Stayner – and he emotionally told Jeffrey Rinek about how it had left him devastated.

Jeff explains: "I asked him about his brother because I worked abducted children I wanted to know what we in law enforcement could do to be better for the families.

"He became very emotional when he was talking about the idea of closure when something like the loss of a brother happens."

Stayner himself also told Jeff he had been the victim of child abuse when he was young, something the ex-FBI agent believes could have lead to his murderous rampage.

The killer was working as a handyman at at a motel just outside Yosemite National Park in California when Carole, her daughter Juli, and their teenage travelling campanion came to stay.

When the trio were reported missing on Valentine's Day in 1999 and police were called in, officers were faced with three possible reasons for them vanishing.

Jeff said: "We had  the concern that they might have had a car accident somewhere in the park and hadn't been found.

"There was the possibility they had taken off on their own and continued touring and something had happened to them.

"Then there was was possibility that a crime had taken place."

At first it seemed as if nothing untoward had happened but then Carole's burnt out car was discovered on March 19 in a town 80 miles away from where the three women had been staying.

And when police opened the boot, they made a sinister discovery – two severely burned bodies had been locked in the trunk.

The fire damage was so bad the women, Carole and Silvina, had to be identified using dental records.

Officers were then sent a note containing a map which claimed to show the location of Juli's body.

A search was launched and the third body was recovered.

Jeff said: "When all three bodies were recovered we knew we were definitely dealing with a crime and the question becomes what was the motivation as everyone has a reason for doing what they do."

But two months after the probe into the three women's disappearance was started, no new leads had been discovered and Jeff was removed from the case by his boss.

Then, in July 1999, the decapitated body of Joie Ruth Armstrong was found close to Yosemite.

Several eyewitnesses had reported a blue car parked outside the cabin where the Yosemite Institute naturalist had been staying and Styner became the prime suspect.

But police still had no hard evidence to tie him to the murders – they needed Jeff back on the case.

He said: "On July 24 I was with my wife, Lori, when I got a call to go and pick up Cary Stayner.

"I wasnt provided with any further information or what we were doing other than to go to a nudist colony in Laguna Del Sol and pick him up.

"The only thing I knew about him was that in 1973 his brother, Steven, had been abducted and held for seven tears by sex offenders. 

"The world heard about this because he had saved the new boy's life and it was a happy ever after story.

"At the time I had a two-door Thunderbird, which had a fast engine. I had to pick Carey up and take him back to the office.

"Our drive should have been 45 minutes but it turned out to be 90 minutes because there was construction work and during that time Cary and I got to know each other as friends."

The two men talked about Stayner's brother's abduction and his love of Yosemite, which was shared by Jeff's wife, Lori, who wored as a fish and wildlife biologist.

Jeff said: "She loves the woods and the forest and says that all I ever want to do is watch TV and sit in the air conditioning.

"We joked about him and my wife and why that wasn't my thing."

The pair had clearly built up a raport and Jeff had no idea why Stayner was being brought into speak to law enforcement officers.

He said: "The special agent in charge was there and he told us that Cary was a witness and that he was scared.

"I later found out at the trial that he knew Cary was a killer. We didn't know what to interview him about so called for a polygraph.

"I'd taken takeaway orders to be delivered to the office while we waited for the polygraph to turn up.

"Both the pizza and the polygraph turned up at the same time and one of my colleagues told me Cary wanted to skip the polygraph and wanted to speak to me first.

"We didn't know there was a confession for him to give us.

"We went back in to see what he wanted and he was very emotional and told me that there were days when he had wonderful thoughts and days where he felt he could kill the whole world.

"He said he had been abused as a child and wasn't able to have normal relationships with a girl.

"He told me he could give me closure on what we were there about. I thought he meant he knew something more about the death of Joie.

"We moved him to a room where we could video him and take audio and then interviewed him for six hours.

"During that time he told me that he had killed the first three women and then Joie.

"When we were transcribing the interview we realised that he had said I was the reason he was confessing."

After getting Stayner to confess using his special technique, Jeff had made a solumn promise to the serial killer.

He said: "One of the things I promised Cary was the I would try to prepare his family for what was coming.

"I drove up through the night to see them and I spent several hours with them and tried to prepare them for the reality that they would be losing their second son.

"Cary had agreed to take us to Yosemite and on July 25 we uncovered evidence of the murders.

"He pleaded guilty and was given the death penalty.

"People think there are monsters – yes, there are dangerous people but they are the way they are because something has happened to them."

Stayner had spent months preparing for his crimes and believed he had carried out the perfect murders.

He had watched hours and hours of true crime television and learned about forensic techniques and how not to be caught.

Jeff said: "It was very emotional when he talked about what he had done.

"It's my opinion he is a person seeking intimacy with another person. He had issues in his childhood that caused problems with him and turned him into something in this life that lead him to kill.

"Most serial killers are sexually orientated. They will have a sexual fantasy and they know it's criminal.

"Most control themselves and don't go over the line. 

"It has been said that he'd prepared for everything except for me."

Now retired, the father-of-two and grandfather-of-one, has revealed the interview technique he used to ensure he had a cast-iron confession.

Jeff said: "When I interview someone I go through it from several different angles.

"I asked him to describe what he did in his own terms based on his own memories, then when he had finished we go through it again but this time frm the point of view of the victim.

"What were her experiences and what did she observe.

"Then I asked him to go through it again and tell me what he would have observed if he had been standing there as a witness.

"Finally, I asked him to write me a letter of apology to the victim. In 30 years in the FBI there is always something that I've missed in the interview."

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