Pervert gets life

ONE of California’s most notorious child molesters has been jailed for trying to buy a boy for $500.

Kenneth Parnell, 72, was sentenced to life yesterday for trying to persuade a woman to purchase a four-year-old boy for him.

Parnell was arrested in January 2003. There was no actual child involved the woman went to police after Parnell handed over $100 in exchange for a fictitious boy's birth certificate.

Prosecutors described him as a life-long predator. He had already spent five years in prison for abducting two boys decades ago.

Parnell was convicted in 1982 of abducting Steven Stayner in 1972 and keeping him for seven years.

Stayner escaped in 1980, after Parnell abducted Timmy White. Stayner, then 14, said he was regularly abused and did not want Timmy to suffer the same ordeal.