[gun cocking]
Welcome to Very Scary People. I'm Donnie Wahlberg.
For nature lovers,
the hiking trails of Northern California
are nothing short of paradise.
Stunning scenery, breathtaking views,
and the chance to escape from the pressures of daily life.
But beginning in 1979,
a chilling mystery was unfolding on those trails.
A man known as The Trailside Killer was targeting women,
raping, torturing, and murdering them
in a place where they had always felt safe.
Investigators had few clues to the killer's identity,
but the last five murders were all committed with the same weapon,
and the attacks happened on weekends and holidays.
Could this pattern bring detectives closer to catching this monster?
Here's part two of The Trailside Killer.
Police are still trying to find the person, or persons,
responsible for seven grisly murders in Marin County, California.
It was the dominating news of the time.
The Trailside Killer was huge.
[Wood] It was random, random victims,
and those are the most terrorizing of killers
because you don't know who's next.
You don't know if you're next.
[man] I got close enough and I saw two people,
and...
It looked like they were executed.
[Graysmith] This is beyond belief.
That's four bodies on the same trail.
This was so deliberate. Just...
[sighs]
[Det. Sgt. Brook] They found 38 bullets
in all of them.
That really made it a serial murder case.
Who is this person that's doing this?
[reporter] As this pattern of killings emerged,
fear changed the way
practically every Bay Area hiker
enjoyed the outdoors.
There is a lot of ugliness in those mountains.
We had an awareness because it was in the media all the time,
but the next leap is did I know the person who was doing these things?
Never entered my mind.
[Ludlow] David Carpenter had actually been in the juvenile justice system.
At the age of 14, he was committed to the Napa State Hospital
for sexual offences.
[Keraghosian] He was too ordinary [chuckling] to notice,
but he certainly didn't have the record of an ordinary person.
July 12, 1960, he was charged with assault and kidnapping.
[Ludlow] Lois noticed as soon as he started the attack on her
he didn't stutter at all,
like it calmed him.
David was raping, and burglarizing homes,
-and kidnapping people, and stealing cars. -[engine starts]
[Graysmith] Later, the doctor said
this man had an overwhelming desire,
but it couldn't stay bottled up, it had to come out.
[Det. Henard] What did he learn
the first two times he went to prison?
Kill your victim. Chances of you getting caught are a lot less.
[gunshot]
Ellen Hansen and Steven Haertle
were college students from Davis
who had come down here for the weekend
to enjoy the park.
[Ludlow] Ellen was familiar with camping,
but it would be Steven's first camping trip,
and she really wanted him to experience
this beautiful area.
Ellen and Steve were hiking toward an observation deck.
[Ludlow] Steven and Ellen had passed this man on the trail,
and he seemed to have this stern look on his face
like he was really in a hurry to get somewhere.
Later that day, they saw him again,
and this time he was coming towards them,
and he said something to the effect of,
"Oh, so, we meet again."
And Steven was about to make a joke or say something in response,
and the man pulled out a gun.
Steven starts to tell the man, "You can have my wallet, you can take our cash."
And the man tells him, "I'm not here to rob you.
I'm gonna rape your girlfriend."
Well, Steve is trying to talk him out it.
"You don't want to do this."
[Ludlow] The man is pointing his weapon at them,
trying to take them off the trail.
Ellen tells Steven, "Don't do it,
don't listen to him, he's gonna shoot us anyway."
At the same time, Steven starts to stumble.
It was almost like an automatic response
where she put up her hand as if to ward off the gun.
-The man shoots the weapon... -[gunshot]
...and hits both Ellen and Steven.
Steve goes down to the side, and he gets shot in the neck.
-She got shot twice in the torso... -[gunshots]
...and then he did an execution shot to her head.
[gunshot]
In 1981, I was 18 years old.
My dad and I went for a trip together,
and we had hiked to this observation deck.
It was a little bit before sunset.
There was actually a man on the observation deck.
He was looking through binoculars,
he was wearing blue jeans, a golden color windbreaker, and a cap,
and he had a backpack.
He just looked like the average Joe, basically.
We actually did talk to the man a little bit.
This is a wonderful location to see the scenery,
and he agreed but he said that
he wished the sun wasn't so bright.
A few minutes after this man departed the observation deck,
we heard this popping sound.
Pop, pop, pop.
[gunshots]
[Fritz] We didn't really know exactly what that popping sound was.
My dad and I, we decided to proceed on,
and off in the distance we saw a man approaching us, yelling for help.
He was holding his neck and said, "I've been shot.
My girlfriend is shot. I believe she's dead."
And then he described the man who did the shootings.
The description fit exactly the man that my dad and I spoke with.
We had to come up with a plan.
My dad would stay with the man.
I was to run as fast as I could to get help.
I got to where the trail head is,
and people that happened to be camping
gave me a ride to the ranger's station.
My dad, with the man who was shot,
somehow they were able to make it to the park ranger's station,
and while we were standing there,
we saw a car leave, and that's him.
He was leaving in a red economy-type car.
This crazy person is out loose now. Now what?
[Det. Henard] There was a shooting at Henry Cowell Park.
A female was shot and died at the scene,
and her male companion, he was shot,
and he had been transported
to Dominican Hospital for treatment.
I started bringing in guys, getting everybody organized
who had a ride to work right then that day.
We started getting the people that were the witnesses.
I remember the father, Leland Fritz,
watched him drive away
and was able to give us a pretty good description of the red car.
[Fritz] My dad was obviously very observant.
He saw the bent exhaust pipe.
That information went out in a bulletin
to all the police departments.
[Det. Henard] The individual was seen
by a number of witnesses that were also in the park.
The description was that he was an older man in his '50s,
he had a hat, baseball hat, clean shaven,
5'10", 5'11", over 185lbs,
and he had a distinctive jacket on.
This was a golden color windbreaker that, on the back,
it described something about a beer drinking contest in Montana.
It was really a unique jacket.
[beeping]
[Det. Henard] I didn't see Steven.
I was just told
that he was in distress
at Dominican Hospital.
[Det. Sgt. Brook] Steve can't talk
because he's got this bullet wound
in his throat,
and it damaged his vocal chords.
So, we had a very accomplished artist,
and he starts with the composite,
but he makes it more realistic so it's almost more like a portrait.
And we're showing it to Steve, who's in the bed, and he goes...
Starts slapping with the back of his hand,
and he goes, "That's it, that's it."
He's saying this is the guy,
and that's the one that we put out.
[Fritz] It's a day of tragedy.
It's still difficult, and just really hard to understand why.
I was aware that they thought that they had a serial killer in the parks
in Marin County.
[Det. Sgt. Brook] But the description that was put out by Marin
did not match the one of the guy that we were getting,
so we didn't know if we had two people doing these same cases
or was the same guy and a bad description.
Marin's or theirs, we had no idea at that point.
And so, it was not until we compared the ballistics
for the bullets removed from Ellen and Steven,
that we were able to match those up
with the ballistics from the bullets
recovered from the shootings in Marin.
[Lt. Besse] Suddenly, we knew we had a serial murder case
that was going over two counties.
[reporter] All the crimes are thought to be the work of a psychotic killer
whose composite sketch was widely publicized.
That's when we knew we were looking for the same person.
[Wood] I didn't learn about David Carpenter's sex drive until he told me about it
when he met his girlfriend, Candy.
And, you know, I mean,
this is not something
you typically talk about with people.
He had met Candy, and I remember him coming into my office,
and just busting out about how he had met this woman,
and he was madly in love, and that her sex drive was as strong as his.
He had never met anybody like her.
[Det. Sgt. Brook] He met her after going to his parole officer's office.
Candy was sitting on the curb by her car.
The car had stopped running, and she didn't have any money or anything.
So, he saw her and started chatting with her.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] They tow her car,
and he takes her for a ride to the parking lot
at Mount Tamalpais.
Oh, lady, you don't have a clue.
[Det. Henard] This guy had a heck of an appetite for sex,
and it just so happened that Candy gave in to him.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] Next thing, they're having sex in the backseat in the car.
[Det. Henard] I firmly believe sex is what saved Candy.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] Few hours later,
he's inviting her to come live with him.
[chuckling] I guess he fell in love with her
because he ends up taking her home.
And she found a job bartending.
Before you know it,
she's his fiancee.
Whoa, that was fast.
Very strange relationship.
David would offer to help people even if they didn't want help.
He wanted them to owe him.
[Keraghosian] He knew exactly what to say.
He knew exactly how to get people
in the positions that he wanted
in order to kill them.
[Graysmith] Carpenter had switched jobs,
and he's going to Econo Quick Print...
Where he is excelling.
[Wood] I remember writing them a letter
in which, basically, was a warning
that this guy should not be around women
because of his assaultive behavior in the past.
It was certainly something that I was concerned about.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] Heather Scaggs was a young lady
who was living in San Jose.
[Det. Robinson] She was very interested in graphic design,
and she hooked up with a print school,
and next door to the school was a quick print operation,
and so, as she was attending school,
she would work at the quick print shop.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] She commuted up to the trade school.
She had a little Volkswagen, and at some point it quit working,
and so she wanted to get another one.
And this male co-worker that she had,
he had a contact in Santa Cruz County that had a used Volkswagen,
much newer than the one she had,
and she could buy that Volkswagen.
And then he sweetened the pot a little bit
with, "If you don't have all the money,
I'll loan you the rest of the money,
and you can pay me back monthly."
[Det. Robinson] She was pretty desperate to get transportation
to make her life a little easier.
Said she was working and going to school at the same time.
The co-worker did not want Heather to tell anybody
what they were doing and where they were going.
Apparently, Heather had said to her boyfriend,
"I'm kind of apprehensive, but I'm gonna be okay.
I'm gonna take a steak knife and I'm gonna keep it in my purse."
And she also said that the co-worker wanted them to stop in the Redwoods
and find a fern for a gift for this individual,
kind of soften him up to see what kind of good deal she could get from him.
So, she said, "If you don't hear from me by 7 o'clock,
call the police."
Out of abundance of caution and concern,
she left that name, and address, and phone number with her boyfriend.
The co-worker was a gentleman by the name of David Carpenter.
She had told her boyfriend that the co-worker was gonna pick her up,
at 7 o'clock in the morning,
a block away from her apartment at the convenience store.
And, as far as we know, the clerk was the last person to have saw her that day.
She had reservations about going
because of the way this guy acted.
I don't know why she went.
When Heather didn't come back, the bells started going off.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] Her boyfriend, Dan, and his next door neighbor
called the phone number that Heather had provided,
and they ended up talking to David's mother.
[Det. Robinson] David wasn't home. He was at the ballet.
As far as his being with Heather that day,
the mother had no information about that.
She said, however, that David did leave the house
between 5AM and 5:30 that morning to go to work.
Dan and his next door neighbor ended up driving to San Francisco.
[Det. Robinson] They waited until David did finally arrive at home,
and they challenged him.
"Hey, where is Heather? What happened to her?"
Of course, David's response was,
"Nah, I didn't wake in time and I wasn't feeling well,
so I haven't seen Heather since yesterday."
[Det. Robinson] David told the boys that he didn't even leave his house
until approximately 11:00 that morning,
and that it was to go to work and fix his car.
Carpenter didn't know that they'd talked to mom.
Of course, then they came home and called the police.
We went to the workplace, and we talked to the two owners,
and we learned as much as we could about Heather
and who she got to associate with there.
And when we get to David it's like,
"Hmm, this is interesting. Really?"
[Det. Robinson] He was a unique character, a very affable person.
He got along well with everybody, pretty much,
and he had a stutter.
He seemed to be overly attentive to Heather.
According to some co-workers, Carpenter tried to become a father figure to her,
and we were later to find out that Carpenter was a parolee.
Now we are a little more concerned.
I mean, this is not your average co-worker.
[Det. Robinson] Before we left the trade school,
we went out to the parking lot.
Off in the corner, behind some other cars, was this dusty red Fiat.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] I walk by that car and go, "Whose car is that?"
"Oh, that's David's car."
[Det. Robinson] We asked the employers,
and they said, "Well, he's got two cars.
He's got a green Chevy '69 Nomad,
and he has a little red Fiat."
Hmm, this is curious,
because it matched the description
that was put out on the law enforcement information bulletin
of a dirty red compact car that has a square, rectangular back end
and a bent down tailpipe on the right side.
So, I photographed it.
[Det. Robinson] Heather's mother, Mary, mentioned Heather had a habit
of carrying lots of green tissue, Kleenex, with her all the time,
which was interesting in that on the seat was some green tissues,
and then more green tissues on the floor.
We felt we needed now to talk to David
and find out what he could tell us.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] I contacted David's parole officer
and said, "We'd like to do this interview."
And he said, "Oh, David would prefer to meet in my office,
and he's more than willing to help you
in any way he can."
[Wood] He wasn't this milk toast kind of guy that I saw all the time.
He was, I thought, in his element.
He was enjoying this.
Welcome back to Very Scary People.
20-year-old Heather Scaggs went missing on May 2nd, 1981.
She was supposed to meet a co-worker
named David Carpenter that day,
and drive to Santa Cruz to buy a used car from his friend.
Heather was apprehensive about the trip,
but she decided to go anyway.
Investigators decided to meet with Carpenter to question him about Heather.
Turned out to be a meeting no one would forget.
[reporter] At a stop-and-shop market in San Jose,
the place at which Heather Scaggs last was seen alive,
her picture this afternoon was posted on the window.
[Wood] David walked in my office,
and he's grown a beard, and he wasn't wearing glasses,
So he was altering his appearance.
The bells and whistles were going off at that point.
My first impression was that he was very pleasant,
eager to be there for us.
Kind of a out-of-shape, middle aged, balding,
well-dressed, well-groomed person.
But I hadn't heard him speak at that point.
My partner asked him the first question,
and I couldn't believe what happened.
He started to contort his body,
he twisted his neck, and was looking upward,
and he was struggling to speak.
And I thought, "My gosh, this guy is having a seizure."
It was a lot more than just a mild stutter.
A lot of noises before he could get a word out,
and clearly, the situation was distressing to him.
[Det. Robinson] We continued on,
and I was kind of getting skeptical
that this man could be a harmful individual
because of the way he was struggling and behaving.
Kind of a meek, mild, harmless guy.
How would he be able to give commands
if he was facing Ellen and Steven Haertle?
Steven, an excellent witness,
said this man had no speech impediments, no lisps.
[Wood] I don't believe they ever talked about
the murders in Santa Cruz County or Marin County.
This was solely focused on Heather Scaggs.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] He admitted that he had made arrangements to pick her up
and take her to Santa Cruz to see about buying a car.
And then he said he just didn't make it.
The arrangement he had made with Heather was to pick her up at 7:00,
and if he wasn't there by 8:00 it was off
and they'd do it another time.
[Det. Robinson] He said, "My car broke down."
Then, he pulled out a receipt for an auto repair
for his 1969 Chevy station wagon.
I said, "Do you have access to any other vehicles?"
And he said, "No, no, that's my only car. I don't have any other car."
And I didn't challenge him on it,
but it was very significant that he didn't want me to know about the red Fiat.
[Wood] He was a driving a car that nobody knew about.
I don't know about it.
[Det. Robinson] But this interview went for
probably an hour-and-a-half,
and during that time these flags kept flying.
He was, I thought, in his element.
He was enjoying the verbal fencing.
I saw a really assertive, almost powerful guy
that I've never seen before.
[Det. Robinson] And one of the significant things
was he says, "I'm a parolee.
I should be your number one suspect.
The reason I'm a parolee is because of my mother.
She was very domineering with me,
and my mom made me take ballet lessons,
and I didn't want to take ballet lessons."
So I said, "Well, David, you know,
when I was nine-years-old my mom did the same thing to me.
I had to take ballet lessons, and you know what, I resented it too."
[chuckling] And he looked at me
and he said, "Let me show you."
And he got up, and he started demonstrating, doing plies and pirouettes.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] I'm sitting there, watching this happen,
and going, "I don't believe it."
[Det. Robinson] And the whole time that he was doing this,
we ceded control of that interview to him.
He never stuttered one time.
Is this the same guy that an hour-and-a-half ago could hardly get a word out?
The transformation was amazing.
[Det. Robinson] He carried this on for several minutes.
While he is expressing these angers and frustrations,
it's occurring to me that this man has a grudge against his mom,
and it probably explains the hostility that,
if he was a sexual predator, he hates women.
And when he sat down he started stuttering again.
It was dramatic.
[Det. Sgt. Womack] We were shutting down the interview,
we were getting ready to leave,
and he looked at me directly and said,
"I pray to God no one finds her body
and finds that she's been raped."
And we had never discussed a homicide,
we had never discussed a rape,
we had never even discussed a crime.
That was speaking volumes to us.
[Det. Womack] At that point, I know.
I can't prove it yet but I know.
[Det. Robinson] When we finished that interview,
I really believed Heather was dead.
The next thing that went off in my mind was,
"We just let a killer walk out of this office,
and it's the weekend."
That's when The Trailside Killer
-usually killed his victims. -[gunshot]
It was a big enough concern,
that we contacted both Santa Cruz County and Marin County
that very evening and said,
"We have information on the suspect that you need to know,
because," we said, "he's quite possibly The Trailside killer."
When San Jose
had that missing persons report,
those two officers went and saw the car in the parking lot,
and put those together, took the pictures, that was it.
We knew that we had the guy,
but we knew we need more evidence.
We started the surveillance on Saturday, May 9th.
The FBI had an airplane over the sky every daylight hour.
They had vans following him.
I got reports daily, sometimes more than once a day
of what he was doing, where he was.
It was getting toward the weekend,
and they were concerned that he could kill somebody else.
And so that's how that whole week got started.
It came together in warp speed.
I've never seen anything quite like that.
We went out and interviewed David's parents,
and that interview confirmed
he was, uh, living with a woman
by the name of Candy.
She was a part-time bartender in the San Francisco area.
She'd already moved out,
she left in April of that year.
[Kenn Womack] I get a hold of Stoney, we sit down with Candy,
and was that an interview.
Wow.
[Stoney Brook] Candy was, uh,
a free spirit, I think I'll use that term.
[Womack] We talked to her about her relationship with David,
and, um, was he ever aggressive or violent,
and she only had one occasion where he got a little bit aggressive,
and she got in his face right away,
and he backed right off.
I said to her, "Did you ever give him a present?"
And she was, "No, I never gave him a present,"
but she says, "He took something of mine.
It was this yellow jacket that said
'Olympic beer drinking team', uh, 'Billings, Montana'.
It was a little large for me, so he just took it.
My boss who owned the bar, he ordered 12 of 'em."
And then I said, "Whatever happened to that jacket?"
And she said, "Oh, David told me it was stolen out of his car,"
and Stoney and I are smiling at each other, going,
"Got it!
Got it!"
[Brook] That was the connector to put him at the crime scene
wearing something unique that was golden,
no pun intended.
Now we have our case.
Authorities in Northern California
have arrested a suspect in the so called
"Trailside murder cases".
David J. Carpenter has been charged with one murder,
and he may soon be charged with more.
There was no resistance.
It was almost like he expected, sooner or later,
they were gonna be knocking on his door.
[reporter] The arrest warrant charges Carpenter
with the March 29th shooting murder
of 20-year-old Ellen Hansen,
and the attempted murder of her companion,
Steven Haertle.
[Walt Robinson] When we had arrested David,
a line-up was done.
Steven keyed in on him right away.
"That's the man right there. That's the guy."
[reporter] Sheriff Howenstein describes the mood of the department
as one of elation,
and now there is hope that the mystery behind this string of murders
that has terrified and shocked the community
has finally been solved.
We were on the search warrant team...
...that went to Carpenter's house.
There was tons of maps.
Marin, Tamalpais, Santa Cruz.
Well, we didn't find the things we were looking for,
the jacket and the firearms.
I think that when he figured the noose was getting tighter,
he started getting rid of the stuff.
Where was this .38?
Will we ever see that gun now?
Where is it?
[Womack] It wasn't an impossible hurdle,
but it certainly was a handicap.
[reporter] Fifty-one-year-old David Joseph Carpenter
was arraigned in Santa Cruz, California.
The printer, who has a long criminal-record,
suffers from a crippling stutter, which was painfully apparent.
[judge] David Joseph Carpenter is your true name?
[David Carpenter stuttering]
...correct.
Nine days after David Carpenter was arrested,
Heather Scaggs' body was finally found.
[Robinson] Heather was found by two hikers
in the Big Basin State Park.
[Esther Ludlow] Her body was badly decomposed.
She had been shot with a .38-caliber weapon.
She was found raped and with a gunshot to her face.
[Robinson] Carpenter got her to do what he wanted.
Heather didn't want to go to the mountains to get a fern,
she just wanted to go to Santa Cruz, get a car, and come home.
I wish there was a way to see
what was going through Heather's mind
when she got out of the car to look for the fern.
Is she noticing that there are no ferns anywhere in that area?
Was she thinking, "Uh-oh, this is not going the way I thought it would?"
[gunshot]
[Brook] To this day, I hike extensively in these mountains.
I cannot see a fern without thinking of that young woman.
[Donald Besse] Shane Williams robs a bank,
and gets caught.
So, now that, uh, he's in federal custody,
and he wants to see if he can get his break.
[Womack] He says, "Tell you what, guys,
let's play, and let's make a deal."
So, he tells them that he knows where the gun is
that the Trailside Killer used.
[Besse] Shane said that Carpenter volunteered
to loan him a gun for a bank robbery.
so, Shane took him up on it.
[Robert Graysmith] David Carpenter's plan is,
"Go rob a bank,
you'll be shot and killed or you'll be arrested,
and there's the murder weapon,
and you're the Trailside Killer."
He's not a dumb person.
Pretty wily.
[Womack] And then he realizes he's been set up.
And he takes that gun, and he goes and hides it.
[Besse] So, Shane tells me where the gun is,
exactly where it is.
It was at a lot where a gas station was being torn down,
and he didn't know the address,
but he describes it perfectly,
so, I hustle right over to that area.
I start picking up asphalt,
and there's newspaper in a bundle,
and there's the gun in the newspaper.
[Brook] They sent it over to the lab,
and did the ballistics and they matched.
[Elaine Kendall] It really wasn't the matter of so much of what he said,
but how he said it.
It just made me shudder.
[reporter] In May of '81,
David Joseph Carpenter was arrested and charged
with the murder of two women in Santa Cruz.
Marin County then charged him
with the murder of five more victims.
By the time that case went to trial,
it was, it was pretty much a slam dunk.
[Ludlow] There was two separate trials in two separate venues.
The trials were moved out of the Bay area
because of media publicity.
Ended up costing the tax payer between $3 million and $5 million.
And this was a death-penalty case.
They wanted to be sure they were going to get this man.
[Ludlow] In the first trial, his attorney admitted
that Carpenter was guilty.
He knew that there was just too much evidence.
His strategy was just to save him from the death penalty.
[reporter] Haertle calmly described the sequence of events
that preceded the attack.
[Ludlow] Steven Haertle was the prosecution's star witness.
[Steven Haertle] I heard two shots...
...and didn't feel anything.
And then I felt like somebody hit my neck with a sledgehammer.
[Ludlow] Not only was he one of the only living witnesses
who had been up close to the killer,
he was able to give
very disturbing details.
I remember waking up lying on the ground.
[lawyer] What did you see?
[Haertle] Ellen was lying on the ground,
and her head was in a pool of blood.
Steven Haertle who, to this day,
has been living with that horror that he had to experience.
[lawyer] Is the man who you saw here in this courtroom?
Yes, he is.
[lawyer] Would you point him out towards all of us.
It's that gentleman sitting right there.
-[lawyer] Are you point-- -[Haertle] In the, in the brown sweater.
In the glasses.
The real nail in the coffin was Steve being able to say,
"He's the one who shot me and shot Ellen."
That's the man. No doubt, no hesitation.
[juror] The sixth day of July
in the above entitled action, find the defendant,
David Joseph Carpenter, guilty of the crime of murder.
I must conclude with...
[indistinct]
[reporter] Mothers of the two Santa Cruz County victims
were happy with the verdict.
I think this is a very fair panel,
I think they've really been serious about it.
I think it was a very good jury.
[reporter] Marin County now are preparing a new trial
for five murders.
[Kendall] After his first trial, when he got to death row,
I picked up the phone and I just called San Quentin.
Elaine Corral snagged the carpenter interview.
[Kendall] He started talking about how he was not given a fair trial,
that he was not the Trailside Killer.
But it was when we got to the words "Killer",
he stuttered with such a pronounced emphasis
that it just made me shudder.
To think what on Earth would these victims have,
have thought, when I'm sitting at table,
um, length away from him, and I felt it.
[Kendall] "I'm not a k-k-k-k-killer."
It really wasn't the matter of so much of what he said,
but how he said it.
And then they had trial number two.
[Ludlow] Carpenter got on the stand in his own defense.
[Graysmith] He was looking for sympathy.
"Poor me, poor beat up little child."
There was nothing else going for him.
After I got my... [stutters] ...Chevy station wagon,
I began taking my father... [stutters] ...shopping.
[Ludlow] He brought in calendars and detailed receipts
trying to say that he could not have been in these places at this time.
But his only witnesses that could corroborate these things
was his father who had since died,
his mother who was suffering with Alzheimer's disease,
and these characters that he said he had been in prison with
that he only knew by their nicknames.
[Womack] David always thinks he smart enough
that he can do whatever he wants to and get away with it.
[juror] We, the jury, in the above-entitled cause,
determine that the penalty shall be death.
I felt very good about the outcomes.
[Womack] Well, it's rewarding to know
that we were able to successfully complete the circle,
and put him away.
[Ludlow] David Carpenter was convicted of seven murders,
and we know that there are others that they couldn't try him for.
[Besse] We were positive he killed Schwarz and Kane,
but because they're different ammos,
he was only tried for those seven murders
'cause the gun tied them all together.
[Ludlow] Edda Kane was killed with a .44-caliber weapon,
and Barbera Schwartz who had been stabbed to death
could not be linked to the .38 caliber,
so, they couldn't positively link him
to the evidence they had.
David Carpenter still professes his innocence to this day.
[Robinson] I don't think he wants to allow himself to admit
that he is the ugly, disgusting,
vile human being that he is.
[reporter] The hikers are back in numbers,
but for some who remember,
hiking will never be the same again.
[lady] I've started to hike again.
-[reporter] By yourself ever? -No.
No, not anymore.
[Ludlow] David Carpenter decided to use
the beauty of this area as a hunting ground
that changed how people thought about that area
for a long, long time afterwards.
It was hard to just be in nature,
and be at peace with it
without thinking about David Carpenter.
This guy was a predator,
and he hid it beautifully.
[David Carpenter]
In 2010, cold-case investigators
use advanced DNA technology
tying David Carpenter to yet another victim,
a 23-year-old woman named Mary Frances Bennett.
She was found stabbed to death in San Francisco in 1979.
Carpenter, now in his 90s,
is the oldest inmate still on California's death row.
California currently has a moratorium on the death penalty,
so, it is unlikely he will ever be put to death.
I'm Donnie Wahlberg, thanks for watching,