The Trial of Stephen Parnell

In california at the time, the statute of limitations for sexual abuse was three years giv and stephen had been abused over a period of seven years. This meant that parnell could only be charged with the most recent assaults that occurred between 19 77 and 19 80. While the pair were living in mendosino county, stephen documented a total of 87 sexual assaults that occurred within this time frame. These were presented to district attorney richard finn along with reports taken from several children who claimed to be sexually assaulted by parnell in his trailer at compche. The new district attorney joe allen decided not to prosecute parnell for any of the sexual offences