I Know My First Name Is Steven

I am the mother of several sons and I first became aware of the story of the kidnapping of Steven Stayner when I saw the premiere of the NBC Television miniseries "I Know My First Name Is Steven" in May of 1989. The miniseries was not only well written (author Mike Echols is credited with writing the story for the script) but received rave reviews by television critics at the time it was televised.Then two years later the book of the same title by Mike Echols on which the miniseries was based was published and I bought and read it. It has tremendously more background information about Steven Stayner's kidnapping and his kidnapper, Ken Parnell's, psychological background including quotes and information from this evil man's extensive psychiatric medical records. And striking to me was hearing in his own words Steven Stayner's descriptions of his sexual assaults by Parnell: This was the first time that I had ever read something like this and I found it both necessarily informative and disturbing in that I finally realized the great harm that is visited on child rape victims.Truly, along with Ernie Allen, the head of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, I would rate this book as being brilliantly written and a necessary book for parents to read to learn how to protect their children...Now Mike Echols has written and had published a new edition of "I Know My First Name Is Steven" with a new chapter about Steven's older brother, Cary Stayner, who has been arrested and has confessed to being the Yosemite serial killer of two teen girls, the mother of one of the girls, and a nature teacher. Of course, Steven is in no way responsible for his older brother's crimes, but the story makes for an interesting comparison of these two brothers' lives.This book is truly a must read both as a true crime book as well as a valuable book to help parents to protect their sons!

I can feel the sense of lost and love that Steven Stayner felt cause I too was molested at the age of 5 to 15 by my stepfather and he took away that childhood innocence that i had and i will never trust no one else. It was harder for steven cause he was taken away from his family and his father couldnt deal with the fact that this man got off after taking seven years of his sons life i really feel sorry for his family and kids and him especially for not knowing the love of his parents and his brother and sister god bless all of them this book and movie was excellent on informing parents that they should watch their children closer as stangers dont care who they take

I recently started reading the book "I Know My First Name Is Steven" and I found it to be very interesting. I also saw the movie by the same title and thought that was good too. After reading the book that John Walsh wrote about his son's kidnapping and murder, I realized that I wanted to know more about Steven Stayner who was kidnapped and raped for seven long years by Ken Parnell. Steven risked his own life to escape his captor and save not only his life but the life of young Timmy White who was also kidnapped by Ken Parnell. It's a shame that Steven's life ended so tragically because he did a lot of good by telling others about what he went through after he was kidnapped. Steven helped a lot of people with his story and his legacy and memory will live on forever.