Aug. 21, 2003 - The family of two Yosemite sightseers murdered by Cary Stayner will receive $1 million in a settlement reached this week with the motel that employed the killer.

Jens Sund will use the money to care for his three teenage children and pay for their college educations, said Donald Fischbach, his lawyer.

The settlement in Sund's wrongful-death lawsuits against Cedar Lodge was reached Monday. Fischbach said Sund accepted the $1 million offer from the Mariposa County motel because "Mr. Sund and his family wanted to put this tragic chapter of their lives behind them."

"This whole episode has been a nightmare," Fischbach said.

Sund's wife, Carole, 42; their daughter Juli, 15; and an Argentine friend Silvina Pelosso, 16, were killed by Stayner in February 1999. Stayner was sentenced to death late last year for their murders.

In the Sund case, wrongful-death claims were filed for Carole and Juli Sund.

Jens Sund claimed $1.4 million in losses resulting from Carole Sund's death, said Michael Woods, Cedar Lodge's lawyer. If the motel was found just 1 percent responsible, it could have been forced to pay the entire amount.

Woods said the $1 million settlement represented "a fraction of potential damages."

He called the Sunds a "wonderful family" and Carole Sund a "wonderful mother."

Carole Sund and Silvina were killed inside a Cedar Lodge room.

Legal hearings are scheduled to continue next month in another lawsuit against Cedar Lodge filed on behalf of Jose and Raquel Pelosso, Silvina's parents.

The Pelosso family has rejected a settlement offer from Cedar Lodge.

Their lawyer, Steven Fabbro, would not reveal the amount of the offer Wednesday but said it was "substantially less" than the Sunds' $1 million settlement.

"We thought there was more value to a young life with a great future," Fabbro said. "By employing Mr. Stayner, [Cedar Lodge] led to the loss of that life."

In their lawsuits, filed in 1999, the Sund and Pelosso families stated that Cedar Lodge was negligent in protecting the women as guests.

Motel operators "knew or should have known that defendant, Cary Stayner, had acted in an unusual, bizarre or violent manner on prior occasions."

The Pelossos' lawsuit also accuses the motel operators of allowing Stayner to gain access to Silvina's room, where he carried out "brutally attacking, sexually tormenting, robbing and violently murdering" her.

Before Stayner was convicted for the sightseers' murders, he pleaded guilty to the July 1999 murder and decapitation of Yosemite park naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong.

Stayner was sentenced to life in a federal prison in the Armstrong case.

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(c) 2003, The Fresno Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.