Convicted Kenneth Eugene Parnell known for kidnapping Steven Stayner in 1973 and for being the North Coast’s most famous criminals, has died of natural causes while serving a life sentence.

Parnell, 76, died Monday at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, corrections officials said Tuesday quoted by local media sources.

Parnell kidnapped 7-year-old Steven Stayner in Merved on December 4, 1972 and kept him for almost 7 years pretending he was his father and telling him that his parents could no longer afford him.

On February 14, 1980, Parnell abducted 5-year-old Timothy White of Ukiah in 1980. He was arrested after the two boys hitchhiked to Ukiah and went to a police station. Parnell was caught and convicted to seven years in prison and was paroled to Berkeley in 1985 after serving five years.

Stayner was the younger brother of Cary Stayner, the motel repairperson who was sentenced to death for killing three tourists and a Yosemite park naturalist in 1999. Steven Stayner died in a motorcycle accident in 1985.

In 2004, Parnell was sentenced to 25 years to life after he tried to abduct another child. According to prosecutors, he asked the sister of his former caretaker to deliver a 4-year-old boy to his Berkeley apartment in exchange for $500, but the woman went to police instead.

Parnell’s criminal history began at age 19 when he reportedly abducted and sodomized a 9-year-old Bakerfield boy in 1951. He also was convicted of robbery and grand larceny for using a gun to rob a service station owner of $150 in Salt Lake City in 1960.

“Kenneth Parnell’s death brings to a close his long criminal history of violating young children,” Tim Wellman, the Alameda County deputy district attorney who prosecuted him in the 2004 case told the San Francisco Chronicle.

In an interview with The Chronicle in 2003, Parnell said he had no intention of harming the boy and that his only desire regarding the boy was to experience the “love and respect” that a son has for a father. He added that he wanted to buy a boy and a girl and raise them like a family, as he had had no luck with women.