I Know My First Name Is Steven (7 page)

After several months in Juvenile Hall, Kenneth was released in the early summer of 1945. But that fall, shortly after his fourteenth birthday—and still chafing under his mother's strict rules—Kenneth stole an automobile, was arrested, and, after a court hearing, was sent to the California Youth Authority's Fred Nelles School in Whittier, a residential facility for juvenile male offenders. Parnell remained there from October 1945 to February 1947, during which time,
he later reported, he engaged in homosexual behavior both passively and actively.
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Upon his release from Whittier in 1947 Kenneth returned to live with his mother in Bakersfield. He entered the ninth grade but was already so far behind in his studies that his promotion to the tenth grade the following September was really a disservice to him. In December 1947, sixteen-year-old Kenneth was "arrested as a homosexual"—as the legal record of the time so quaintly put it—for public sex acts. Released to his mother's custody, just two months later Parnell stole another car and landed in the California Youth Authority's Lancaster facility.

Parnell, virtually out of control by this time, escaped from Lancaster within weeks and returned to Bakersfield, where he became sexually attracted to a young boy, his freely stated reason for returning. Parnell was at liberty only a few days before he was again arrested and placed in the Kern County Jail in Bakersfield, where he attempted suicide by drinking disinfectant. After emergency treatment at Kern General Hospital, Parnell was sent to the state mental hospital at Napa, northeast of San Francisco, for ninety days. But before the ninety days were up Parnell escaped again, went to San Francisco, where he stole another car, returned
to Bakersfield to see the young boy with whom he was so infatuated, and was re-arrested and returned to the Lancaster facility, where he remained until his release as a seventeen-year-old in May 1949.

Ken returned to Bakersfield and moved back in with his mother, and a few months later he began a series of short-term jobs, first as a kitchen worker at Kern General Hospital, then as a stock boy for Smith's Market, and later as a stock boy for the local Sears, Roebuck store. During this time he married Patsy Jo Dorton and she, too, moved in with Ken's mother.

But Parnell's sexual attraction to young boys caught up with him on March 20, 1951. Driving Mary's prewar black Chevrolet coupe, Parnell approached three young grade-school boys playing near Kern General Hospital. Flashing a fake deputy sheriff's badge he had bought at a Bakersfield Army-Navy surplus store that morning, he talked one of the trio—nine-year-old Bobby Green—into accompanying him.

He drove the frightened youngster east out of Bakersfield and into a remote area in the Kern River Canyon where he sexually assaulted him. For an instant he thought about killing the child to prevent him from telling what had happened, but nineteen-year-old Parnell decided against it and instead casually drove the terrified lad back to the hospital and let him out. Immediately young Bobby ran home and tearfully told his parents what had happened.

On the morning of March 26, 1951, Bobby Green's father signed a complaint against Kenneth Eugene Parnell before Justice of the Peace Stewart Magee alleging that Parnell had committed three felonies on
his son: "First count, child stealing; second count, the infamous crime against nature;"—Parnell had anally sodomized the boy—"third count, the act of copulating the sexual organ, to wit: the penis of him, the said Kenneth Eugene Parnell, with the mouth of Bobby Green." The Kern County sheriff's office wasted no time in arresting Parnell at the Sears, Roebuck store late that morning, and neither did Justice Magee: he held Parnell's preliminary hearing at two o'clock the same afternoon.

Justice of the Peace Magee offered Parnell the opportunity to retain an attorney, but Parnell declined the offer. Magee then began the preliminary hearing questioning him. For what was quite possibly the first and last time in his life Parnell answered each question honestly and straightforwardly.

Deputy D.A. Clayton Cochran began his cross-examination of Parnell by establishing that Parnell drove to an area near Kern General Hospital, flashed the fake badge at the three young boys, and coerced one of them to get into the car with him. Next he led Parnell through the drive out of Bakersfield into the rugged Kern River Canyon, up a remote road, and to the point where he had stopped the car. Then Parnell matter-of-factly told about his sexual assault on scared nine-year-old Bobby Green.

Next, Parnell told how he walked Bobby back to Mary's black Chevrolet, got in, and drove the trembling boy back to Bakersfield in a manner so casual that he stopped along the way for a drink of water before dropping off the terrified boy at the hospital.

Then Mr. Cochran asked a few final questions.

Through his questioning of Parnell, Justice Magee then confirmed that Parnell did indeed know that Bobby Green was only nine years old and thus under the legal age for consensual sex in California. Bobby's mother then took the stand and confirmed that Bobby was her son and only nine years old. Parnell was then given a chance to question her, but he declined. Justice Magee then closed with his announcement that probable cause had been shown that Parnell was guilty of all three counts, and that he therefore ordered Parnell delivered to the Kern County Jail and held in lieu of $5,000 bail.