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MARIPOSA — Prosecutors said Monday they will seek the death penalty against a man if he is convicted of killing three Yosemite National Park tourists. 

Cary Stayner, already serving a life sentence for killing a park naturalist, pleaded innocent Monday in Mariposa Superior Court to three counts of murder and several additional charges. 

At that arraignment, prosecutor George Williamson said he will seek the death penalty for Stayner, who allegedly killed Carole Sund, her daughter Juli, and family friend Silvina Pelosso of Argentina in February 1999. Carole Sund’s father said the death penalty would be appropriate because Stayner’s alleged crimes were so heinous. Stayner admitted he tried to rape Pelosso and repeatedly raped Juli Sund before killing her. 

“The death penalty, which I understand is administered with muscle relaxants and things that show no pain, probably is a just thing to go after,” said Francis Carrington, Carole Sund’s father. “I would have prayed and hoped our children could have gone as easy, that he could have showed some compassion himself.” 

Stayner, 39, was sentenced to life in prison last year after confessing to murdering Joie Armstrong, 26, a woman who led children on nature tours in the park. Federal prosecutors dropped their bid for execution as part of a plea bargain. 

The death penalty announcement in the tourists’ slaying was anticipated after Mariposa District Attorney Christine Johnson brought in Williamson, a Solano County prosecutor who specializes in capital punishment cases. 

Stayner admitted the killings in a six-hour taped interview with FBI agents in July 1999, shortly after Armstrong’s headless body was found in a creek near her cabin in the park.  

An excerpt of the tape was played at a preliminary hearing last month in which Stayner described how he preyed on the tourists and methodically killed them one by one. 

He said he had fantasized of killing for months, and said he turned the dream to reality when he saw “easy prey” through a window at the Cedar Lodge, where he worked as a handyman just outside the park. 

Trial was set for Feb. 25, 2002.