David Carpenter

David Joseph Carpenter (born May 6, 1930), also known as The Trailside Killer, is an American serial killer and serial rapist known for stalking and murdering a variety of individuals on hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco, California. He attacked at least ten individuals and was convicted in seven murders and was confirmed to be the killer in an eighth murder; Carpenter is also suspected in two additional killings. Two victims, Steven Haertle and Lois Rinna, mother of television personality Lisa Rinna, survived. Carpenter used a .38 caliber handgun in all but one of the killings. A .44 caliber handgun was used in the killing of Edda Kane on Mount Tamalpais.

Early life
David Carpenter, a native of San Francisco, was physically abused as a child by his alcoholic father and domineering mother. As a boy he had a severe stutter, a persistent bed-wetting problem and exhibited cruelty to animals. At age 13, Carpenter was incarcerated for molesting two of his cousins.

Homicides
Carpenter's first attempted murder occurred in 1960, for which he spent seven years in prison. This was committed against Lois Rinna, the mother of future television personality Lisa Rinna. He was arrested for kidnapping in 1970 and spent another seven years behind bars. After his release, Carpenter became a suspect in the Zodiac murders, although he was eventually cleared.

From 1979 to 1981, Carpenter raped and killed five women in Santa Cruz County and Marin County. On May 10, 1988, a San Diego jury convicted him on five counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Richard Stowers, Cynthia Moreland, Shauna May, Diane O'Connell and Anne Alderson. He was found guilty of raping two of the women and attempting to rape a third. Carpenter was sentenced to die in the gas chamber and remains on death row in San Quentin State Prison.

Following his conviction for the Marin County murders, Carpenter was tried and convicted by a Santa Cruz jury for the murder and attempted rape of Ellen Hansen, the rape and murder of Heather Scaggs, and the attempted murder of Hansen's hiking companion, Steven Haertle. Hansen, who was a University of California-Davis student, has a memorial scholarship dedicated to her in honor of her courage during the attack, which allowed Haertle to escape alive. In 1995, the Santa Cruz convictions were overturned due to juror misconduct. The California Supreme Court later reinstated the Santa Cruz convictions.

In December 2009, the San Francisco Police Department reexamined evidence from the October 21, 1979 murder of Mary Frances Bennett, who was jogging at Lands End when she was attacked and stabbed to death. A DNA sample obtained from the evidence was matched to Carpenter through state Department of Justice files. In February 2010, police confirmed the match with a recently obtained sample from Carpenter. Carpenter is still a suspect in the murders of Edda Kane and Barbara Schwartz.

In popular culture
The Trailside killings provide the context for Joyce Maynard's 2013 novel After Her. On television, both The New Detectives and Born to Kill? made an episode about the case. In 2023, he was featured on a two-part episode of “Very Scary People”.