Law: For Sale: Gripping Life Stories

An attorney helps docudrama subjects make TV deals

Seven years after he vanished while walking home from school in Merced, Calif., Steven Stayner, 14, suddenly reappeared. He told police that he had been held in a remote cabin by Kenneth Parnell for what amounted to half his lifetime.* The youngster was joyously reunited with his family, but as soon as his return was reported, a second trauma began. Within days, more than two dozen people called or turned up at the Stayner home, checks in hand, to buy rights to his unique story. Bewildered,...

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