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MARIPOSA — In the shadow of the mountains where he lived, worked and killed, motel handyman Cary Stayner pleaded innocent Wednesday to slaying three Yosemite National Park tourists. 

The brief appearance in Mariposa Superior Court is the closest Stayner has been to the crime scenes since he led investigators to evidence following his arrest for beheading a Yosemite naturalist – a crime for which he is serving life in prison. 

The arraignment was also the first time the husband and father of two victims set eyes on the accused killer. 

“I was repulsed. I know what he did,” a weary looking Jens Sund said outside the historic courthouse in the tiny Sierra foothills town. 

Returning to the area from his home in Eureka reopened wounds that had begun to heal since the bodies of his wife, Carole Sund, daughter, Juli, and their friend, Silvina Pelosso of Argentina, were found in March 1999, a month after they disappeared. 

“This reminds me of everything,” Sund said, standing beneath towering evergreens outside the white clapboard Greek revival building that looks more like New England church than a courthouse. 

Sund and Stayner, though merely yards apart, never made eye contact as the manacled defendant shuffled into court soon after the bell in the courthouse clock tower tolled 9 a.m. 

Stayner grinned at his father and took a seat in front of the potbelly wood stove that is the centerpiece in the 146-year-old courtroom. 

As Judge Thomas C. Hastings read the charges – three counts of murder and five special circumstances that could bring the death penalty – Stayner nodded and shook his head and then declared his innocence. 

As he left the courtroom, Stayner glanced in the direction of the Sund family sitting beneath a painting of Half Dome, one of Yosemite’s famous granite features. Of the bandits, cattle rustlers and killers who have paraded through the courthouse since it was built in pioneer days, Stayner may be the most notorious. His story has been told around the world because the killings shattered the calm in one of America’s most dramatic landscapes. 

A manhunt ensued in the rugged Sierra Nevada and rolling foothills after the three women disappeared during a trip to Yosemite. Stayner, 39, an avid outdoorsman, allegedly confessed to the February 1999 slayings while the FBI was questioning him in the July 1999 beheading of park naturalist Joie Armstrong. 

The three women were staying at the Cedar Lodge, a rustic motel just outside the park’s western gate where Stayner worked. 

Law enforcement sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Stayner told investigators he entered their motel room, saying he had to fix a leak in the bathroom. Once inside, he said he pulled a pistol and told the women to lie face down on their beds, then bound their hands with duct tape and gagged them. 

He said he strangled Carole Sund, 42, and Pelosso, 16, in the motel room, and also sexually assaulted the girls. He then drove Juli, 15, and the two bodies to a remote reservoir, where he slashed Juli’s throat, he said. 

More than a month later, the remains of Carole Sund and Pelosso were found in their burned-out rental car, abandoned along a logging road. Juli Sund’s body was found a week later near the reservoir with the help of a map Stayner admitted sending anonymously to the FBI. 

Armstrong, a 26-year-old nature guide, was found beheaded near her cabin in the park. Stayner was caught three days later and allegedly admitted killing all four women. 

During his sentencing in federal court last Thursday for killing Armstrong, Stayner sobbed and said he couldn’t explain his actions. 

“I gave in to the terrible dark dreams that I tried to subdue,” he said. “The craziness that lurked in my mind for as long as I can remember became a reality in this terrible crime.” 

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On the Net: 

Mariposa County sheriff Web site: http://www.sierratel.com/sheriff/