This remote single-room cabin west of Manchester, California marks the location of where kidnapping victim Steven Stayner was held hostage by Kenneth Parnell from 1972-1980.  More info below:

On December 4, 1972, Steven, age 7, was walking alone to his family’s home in Merced, California, when he was coaxed into the car of convicted child rapist Kenneth Parnell, who was posing as a minister.  Parnell drove Steven to a cabin near Catheys Valley and eventually told his young victim the court had granted him legal custody of him. The man then changed Steven’s name to Dennis Gregory Parnell and began publicly raising him as his son while sexually abusing him behind closed doors.

Through the years, the two lived in multiple locations in California and Steven attended school — but the kidnapped boy never said a word to anyone about the assaults he was suffering.  That changed soon after Steven reached puberty and Parnell began looking for a new victim. Steven later told authorities that Parnell tried to enlist his help in the scheme to lure another young boy, but the teenager always managed to secretly sabotage his plans.

Despite 14-year-old Steven’s cunning, Parnell succeeded in abducting Timothy White, 5, on February 14, 1980. He brought him to live at his home and presented the child to Steven as his new brother.  Steven, however, was determined not to let Parnell hurt Timothy, and on the evening of March 1, 1980, he escaped with him while their captor was away at work.  “It was my do-or-die chance — and I also would be coming home for doing something positive,” Steven told Newsweek in a 1984 interview.

Together the two boys hitchhiked around 40 miles to Ukiah, where Timothy lived with his parents, and they went to a police department. In a statement at the station, the teenager wrote: “I know my first name is Steven.”

Parnell was arrested, and he was found guilty in two separate trials of kidnapping the children. He received a total sentence of seven years — the maximum allowed under California law at the time — and was released after serving five.  Parnell died of natural causes at a state prison hospital in Vacaville on January 21, 2008. At the time, he was serving 25 years to life after he was convicted in 2004 of attempting to buy a 4-year-old boy, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

On September 16, 1989, Steven, then 24, was killed in a hit & run motorcycle accident while on his way home from work.  Timothy White would later become a deputy for the Los Angeles County sheriff's department though he died on April 1, 2010 from pulmonary embolism at age 35.

A few memorials have been erected to the two boys, one in Merced & another in Ukiah where Timothy was from.  Steven's older brother, Cary Stayner, is a convicted serial killer who murdered four women in Yosemite National Park b/w February-July 1999.  He remains at San Quentin State Prison after receiving a death sentence in 2002.

From: 

https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/serial-killer/heroism-and-horror-one-brother-was-kidnapped-the-other-became-a-serial-killer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Stayner