Features

SAN JOSE — A psychologist who administered an inkblot test to accused Yosemite killer Cary Stayner testified Monday the former park handyman often lives in a fantasy world and gave psychotic responses to the test. 

Defense witness Myla Young testified in Santa Clara County Superior Court that the results of Stayner’s Rorschach test reveal he spends more time than average people indulging a fantasy world and he would not be able to distinguish fantasy from reality at times. 

Stayner also dwells on minute details rather than looking at a picture or situation overall, Young testified. 

“He can’t see that there’s a forest out there,” she said. “All he can see is that there are individual trees.” 

Stayner’s lawyers are trying to convince a jury he was insane when he killed Carol Sund, 42, her daughter Juli, 15, and Argentinean teenage family friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, in 1999. 

Stayner has already pleaded guilty to beheading Yosemite guide Joie Armstrong and is serving a life sentence in federal prison. He could get the death penalty if convicted on the state murder charges in this case, which was moved to San Jose because of extensive publicity in California’s Central Valley. 

In one inkblot, Stayner saw a demon and cowboys. Young said neither answer was a psychotic response, but the demon was not a “popular” response given by most respondents.