Child molester gets life under 'three strikes' law

One of California’s most notorious child molesters was today ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison for trying to buy a young boy for $500.

Handcuffed to his wheelchair in an Oakland court, 72-year-old Kenneth Parnell was sentenced to 25 years to life 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.

“He has been a danger to children his entire life,” prosecutor Tim Wellman said.

But Parnell’s lawyer, Deborah Levy, said he simply wanted to raise an abandoned boy and “he did not at all harm or attempt to harm anyone in this community.”

Prosecutors described Parnell as a lifelong predator. He had already spent five years in prison for abducting two boys decades ago.

Parnell was convicted in 1982 of abducting seven-year-old Steven Stayner in 1972, changing the boy’s name and keeping him for seven years.

Stayner escaped in early 1980, after Parnell abducted five-year-old Timmy White. Taking the boy with him, Stayner, then 14, told authorities he was regularly sexually abused and didn’t want Timmy to go through the same ordeal.

He also said Parnell led him to believe a court had awarded him custody because Stayner’s family could no longer afford him.

Stayner’s story was told in a book and TV movie “I Know My First Name is Steven.” He died in a motorcycle accident in 1989 at the age of 24.

Wellman said that Stayner’s mother and White pressed him to push for the maximum punishment for Parnell.

Wellman argued that the felony conviction made Parnell eligible for life imprisonment under California’s “three strikes” law. The 1994 law is the toughest in the United States for repeat criminals, allowing for life sentences for anyone convicted of three crimes, regardless of their severity.

At trial, Wellman said Parnell wanted one “last hurrah” when he sought to buy the child.

In sentencing Parnell, Superior Court Judge Julie Conger called him “a poster child for the three strikes law.”