Episode 663: David Carpenter: The Trailside Killer (Part 1)

1h 2m

Throughout the 1960s and 70s, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, Californians were terrorized by multiple killers including notorious serial killers like the Zodiac Killer, the Hillside Stranglers, Herbert Mullin, and Ed Kemper. While the decade may have ended with these killers disappearing or apprehended, the threat of violence and murder simply moved north.

Though less known than his contemporaries, David Carpenter was no less prolific and frightening a killer than those men mentioned above. Nicknamed β€œThe Trailside Killer” by the press, Carpenter terrorized Point Reyes and Santa Cruz County for a decade, assaulting, kidnapping, and killing at least eight people, but he was suspected of more. Like those other killers, Carpenter had a long history of violent and antisocial behavior going back to his childhood, including multiple arrests and incarcerations. How was it that a man with such an alarming history of violence could go uncaught for a decade?

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References

Associated Press. 1980. "Trail Killer will strike again." Santa Cruz Sentinel, December 1: 1.

Burkhardt, Bill. 1979. "Woman found murdered on Mt. Tam." San Francisco Examiner, August 21: 1.

Graysmith, Robert. 1990. The Sleeping Lady: The Trailside Murders Above the Golden Gate. New York, NY: Onyx.

Keraghosian, Greg. 2020. "'Do not hike alone': For 21 months, the Trailside Killer terrorized Bay Area's outdoors." San Francisco Chronicle, October 25.

Leader, Lewis. 1980. "Identification ends dad's long quest." San Francisco Examiner, December 2: 2.

San Francisco Examiner. 1960. "MP's shots foil attack on woman." San Francisco Examiner, July 13: 1.

β€”. 1961. "Presidio attacker gets 14 yrs." San Francisco Examiner, March 10: 11.

β€”. 1960. "Sex case insanity plea." San Francisco Examiner, October 8: 5.

Santa Cruz Sentinel. 1970. "Boulder Creek girl attacked." Santa Cruz Sentinel, January 29: 22.

β€”. 1970. "Grand jury indicts con." Santa Cruz Sentinel, July 17: 7.

β€”. 1970. "SLV kidnap suspect flees Calaveras jail." Santa Cruz Sentinel, April 27: 1.

The People v. Carpenter. 1997. S004654 (Superior Court of Los Angeles County, April 28).

The People vs. David Carpenter. 1999. S006547 (Superior Court of San Diego County, November 29).

Todd, John. 1980. "Tam closed in hunt for clues." San Francisco Examiner, October 16: 1.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Transcript

Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.

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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.

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Hey, weirdos.

I'm Elena.

I'm Ash.

And this is Morbid.

Hi.

We were just talking about Dorinda Medley from

New York Housewives.

Always in Forever.

Because I'm watching the old episodes again.

They're so fun.

They're constant constant in my house.

If we don't know what to watch, we just put that on and disassemble.

Old New York housewives.

Jules Forever.

Jules should have gotten.

Jules Forever.

Jules should have gotten

Wenny more.

I was going to say way more.

And then I said many.

So when he more seasons.

She should have.

I loved her.

I liked her personality.

She was great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Carol.

I didn't like her husband, but I liked her.

No, and that's why she should have stayed on because they ended up divorcing.

And I'm pretty sure she might have.

He got his.

Yeah.

Which, like, nobody should, nobody should hit anyone.

No.

It's probably not.

No, don't hit people.

Yeah, don't do that.

And did she hit him?

I think there was some allegations.

I would say.

I'm not saying that I know what happened, but it was a little bit of allegations.

So

that's baby hands to yourself.

But anyway.

She was a turn.

Yeah.

How do you sugo away from that?

How do you get out of that?

Where do we go from here?

Anywhere.

Maybe I've had like not enough and too much coffee all at the same time today.

I haven't had enough because for some reason last night I couldn't fall asleep, which I, I rarely have trouble falling asleep.

I'm usually a hit the pillow kind of gal.

I know.

It just, I don't know.

There's nothing really going on that's like keeping me up at night, you know, like maybe it's because like we got some sickies in my house and I think I'm just

on high alert.

Oh my God, your kids are sick again.

Oh my God.

They're actually on the mend, everybody.

So John's on the mend

in your pipe and smoke it.

Isn't that such a fun thing to say?

It is.

I like that.

It's good.

Cause it's just, it's very aggressive.

It's so aggressive.

Yeah.

I like that.

I like being aggressive sometimes.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

But yeah, everything's, you know, things are.

Things are here, you know?

Spring is springing in New England.

It is.

I'm about to plant a little bit.

I actually, I'm, you know, my witchy class, we planted,

we got to pick what flower we wanted to do and we did like a little Ostara celebration.

How cute.

And I planted a little moonflower, and it's starting to bloom.

Yeah.

I love that.

So, what we did was we got like a little pot and we painted it.

And then you put a little affirmation or like wish in the jar in the pot, and you put the soil over it, and then you planted it.

So, like,

it's like as the flower grows, like your wish is growing.

Oh, I really dig that.

Yeah, my wish is growing.

I dig that a lot.

Do you know what flower Sabrina picked?

I don't.

I

she might have picked picked a moonflower.

I feel like she would have.

I feel like that's very true.

Yeah, me and my girly Sabrina from Two Girls, One Ghost are taking the class together.

Go listen to Two Girls, One Ghost, too.

They're awesomely.

They're really great.

What are you doing if you're not listening to Two Girls One?

You got to go listen to them.

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They're a great podcast and great ladies.

Put Two Girls, One Ghost in your pipe and smoke it.

There you go.

I like that.

Aggressively supporting our friends.

Aggressively.

Oh, you know?

I think I'm tired.

You're like, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I don't know.

Did I say that already?

No, you just said you didn't have enough caffeine, but too much all at once.

That's what I said.

So that was different.

Yeah.

We,

yeah, I don't think we have a whole lot more business to attend to.

I can't really think of anything.

And I'm trying to think of any fun life updates that some people will like to hear, but what's going on?

I know there's some people that are like, just get to the fucking gates.

Yeah, I don't really have.

I get it.

I don't really have much life going on right now.

It's It's really only if I have exciting things, I like to say it.

It's like we said spring was coming, but it's also sort of that weird transitional transitional period.

Yeah.

So it's like spring is coming, but also it's fucking cold, so you can't do much yet.

Yeah, but it's not super cold.

It's like that we're getting into that place where we're in the 50s now, which is New England summer.

And that feels like everybody's wearing shorts and t-shirts.

Not me.

That's everyone for me.

You go outside and it's shorts and t-shirts.

Oh, Drew is fully in his shorts mode.

Which is fun.

So we're almost there.

Yeah.

We are going to cover, this is going to be a two-parter because it's a little intense and

there's a lot.

This is somebody who kind of got like swept under

the wave of serial killers that were in the Los Angeles, you know,

that area of San Francisco, that kind of area in California in the 60s and 70s.

Kind of like what you were saying when you, when we talked about Herbert Mullen.

Exactly.

I'm kind of hitting that wave of these killers and a lot of them got swept under each other because there were other bigger ones, I guess, like bigger, you know, victim counts or like more for some reason, some got more like coverage than others, which is a little wild to me because they're all equally gnarly.

It's just what the media wants to do.

It's very strange, like you just don't know what people latch onto in the media.

But

we are going to cover David Carpenter, the trailside killer.

Oh, we have covered other quote-unquote trailside killers.

This is not the same.

So don't worry.

But even I looked at it and I was like, we've covered somebody who would like do this on like trails.

I think we briefly talked about

him on crime countdown.

Exactly, which sometimes throws me off.

Yeah.

But David Carpenter is really rough.

Trigger warning.

He is like a sexual sadist.

He sucks.

He sucks a lot.

And we're going to be talking about like some rough stuff.

So just so you know.

But again, we're going to break it into two parts a little more palatable, yeah, so you can kind of just like you know, absorb all the information in small doses.

Um, so again, we're talking about the 60s and 70s, you know, from Los Angeles to San Francisco, at this point, Californians were literally terrorized, like I was saying, by multiple killers.

You know, we're talking about the Zodiac killer, the Hillside Stranglers, Herbert Mullen, Ed Kemper.

All of them were in different parts, but like near each other around the same time.

And the decade between the 60s and 70s definitely ended with a lot of these killers either just disappearing, Zodiac,

or being apprehended.

But the terror and the near constant threat of violence and murder was kind of just simply moving north at this point.

So.

David Carpenter terrorized Point Reyes in Santa Cruz County for a decade, which is where Santa Cruz is where Herbert Mullen was also hanging out a lot.

Right.

He assaulted, he kidnapped, and he killed at least eight people, and he was suspected of more.

Wow.

Yeah.

Now, who is David Carpenter?

Tell me.

Because unfortunately, we got to know who this dumb fuck is.

So David Joseph Carpenter was born May 6th, 1930 in San Francisco.

He was born to Elwood and Francis Carpenter.

Elwood?

Elwood.

Yeah.

Close.

Neither, both of them suck.

So I'm just going to say that right up front.

Don't get attached to either of them.

I won't.

They were a postal worker and a homemaker.

By his own accounts, his early life was quote-unquote hellish,

due in large part, according to him, by what he described as his mother's, quote, unloving, inflexible, and exceedingly domineering stance.

Damn.

According to Carpenter himself, his unhappy home life and constant fighting between his parents led his father to move out for a year while David was 14 years old, leaving David and his sister Anne alone with his mother.

That's a rough time for your dad to move out.

I mean, it's always a pretty rough time for your dad to move out.

I feel that.

But like,

I feel like that would be rough no matter what.

So the biggest issue that was affecting his relationship with his parents was, and this is sad.

Again, feel bad for the child.

It was his pronounced stutter.

that he had,

which he developed at a very early age.

One probation officer later wrote, quote, his parents and siblings were not fond of of him at all, being somewhat ashamed of his speech impediment.

What the fuck?

Yeah, they're just pieces of shame.

Yeah, don't help him with it at all or anything.

On top of this, David also had really bad eyesight and was left-handed.

Both of these things were viewed by his mother as being failings.

The work of the devil.

Yeah, just complete failings.

I love that being left-handed is a fail.

Yeah, that's like, what?

Wow, that's like kind of cool.

Yeah.

That's different, man.

Yeah.

But even seeing what she deemed to be big issues and failings, Frances refused to seek treatment for her son's developmental problems, choosing instead to address the problem in the home with very aggressive discipline.

Because that always works.

No, it doesn't.

That doesn't turn people into angry adults.

That's totally fine.

When those attempts strangely failed, Frances made a series of appointments finally at the University of California Medical Center, which when I first read this, I said, okay.

But then the day of the appointments would arrive and she would drive to the hospital, sometimes get as far as the door, and then just turn around and go home.

That's a waste of time.

And whenever she was asked about the missed appointment, she would just blame him.

Oh, okay.

But she was just like blaming the child and didn't want to do it.

Yeah.

Neglectful.

Yeah.

So while Frances was all, you know, she was verbally abusive, she was emotionally abusive towards David, she was also known to be very physically abusive.

She was very physically abusive.

According to Yvonne Carey, who grew up a few houses down from the Carpenters, she said it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that Frances Carpenter was abusing her children.

At times, it would be so bad that they would have to be kept out of school for a day or two.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

She later recalled then when he would come back, meaning David, he would be covered with bruises from head to toe.

He wore short pants, so you could see the black and blue marks on his legs, as well as painful welts on his arms and face.

It's crazy that back then, like that didn't cause anybody to like, was CPS even a thing back then?

I don't think it, I think it was literally like, I mean, this is the 50s.

so i think it's fine to beat the out of your kids it's just expected like keep them in line oh my god which is a point where they have to beat your kids ever and then to the point where they have welts and bruises like oh my god also

again

you have to be a literal sociopathic monster

to harm a child like that you simply do and i will take no arguments to the like i just no i mean i will never understand that kind of behavior with a child i will never understand it nope i just won't and especially like in the 50s, it's like, oh, yeah, that was just like the thing.

Okay, cool.

That was the thing.

You still have to be a fucking monster to be able to do that to a child.

Well, and it's like, I think people get confused because it's like in the 50s, like spankings were normal.

Yeah.

Hitting your, you know, like using a belt, even that is fucking awful.

But this is like beating and

literally like punching a child in the face.

It's like what is wrong.

That shouldn't have been normal for the 50s.

It definitely shouldn't have been, but I don't think it was.

I think it was one of those things.

People just looked the other way.

Yeah.

And it was, so it wasn't just his mother.

Carpenter said that Elwood was equally distant and abusive when it came to David, but his abuse was mostly verbal.

Okay.

I mean, still, that's awful.

Decades later, when he was evaluated by psychiatrists, David would minimize the abuse he suffered from his father.

Huh.

And he would focus instead on his mother as the instigator of all his problems.

I mean, she was beating the shit out of them.

It sounds like she was fucking terrible.

It sounds like the dad was fucking terrible too.

Now, if David's home life was hellish, his experience at school was not much better.

He was very intelligent and very capable of doing well in school, but if you're dealing with that at home as a child, I'm sure that is difficult.

Yeah.

His teachers struggled to work with him.

They said he was largely disengaged, which of course

one teacher said, I tried and tried and I just couldn't get through to him.

That's sad.

David's stutter and his poor social skills made him a frequent target for bullying.

And he endured years of physical and emotional torment from his peers.

People saw.

Yeah.

And again, you can feel bad for the child.

No child deserves to go through that.

No.

And it also teaches you, like, not that this is like, people go through shit like that and they come out and they're good people.

Yeah, I don't do this.

You know what I mean?

Like, I'm not saying this is the like, you do that, then that's cause and effect.

But you can see all that.

But you can also sit there and go, maybe I shouldn't treat people like shit.

Yup.

Like, do you think about it the next time that you want to like ruthlessly bully someone?

Because this guy like if they are slightly unstable if there's something slightly off chemically then you have just lit the match and it's like just don't treat people like shit it's just a weird thing to do anyway like i just don't bully people if you're a bully go fuck yourself like honestly if you're like if you're a bully out in life if you're a bully in your job if you're a bully on the internet go fuck yourself like you're gonna get what you deserve i agree like this is just like i don't understand treating people like this

unhappy people treat people that way yeah and oftentimes it's easier to see that as you grow older yeah i think like kids just don't see that no you just you kids automatically think it's my fault what did i do what's wrong with me but it's like damn just the oldest shit i like the people i'm awesome exactly like let's go yeah so In one evaluation written by Dr.

Ralph Allison, a psychiatrist, he wrote, at school, he was always made fun of because of the stammer and inability to get answers out, even though he was brighter than most children in the school.

And additionally, it looks like David's kind of like unusual and disturbing behavior sometimes made him a target because he would also do things because, again,

he's being abused at home.

So there's going to be some emotional issues here.

He would regularly do things like pull the wings off of flies to try to shock kids.

And if a kid is doing that to something smaller than him, that is a big red flag.

But again, we're in the 50s.

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So that's just boys being boys.

That's just boys being boys.

Now, on the rare occasion that David would make a friend in school or in the neighborhood, Frances, his mother, would inevitably interfere in the relationship, not allowing any children in the house or putting very strict time limits on her son's socialization with other kids.

The fuck?

It's like, you don't want him at home.

Well, that's what I never get with these kind of parents.

It's like, so you're abusing your kid.

You clearly don't like them.

You don't like being a parent.

You don't like the responsibility of being a parent.

But then you like won't allow that kid to go out of your responsibility.

Like let him go out.

You're not responsible.

Yeah.

But instead, that to me shows that you are like, you're a monster that just likes hurting this child.

Absolutely.

It's not that you are not capable of being a, it's like you are just

evil.

Yeah.

and you just enjoy hurting something smaller than you.

And it's like, and you should be fucking locked up.

So David's friend, Robert Gorabeek, said Francis and Elwood had laying down specific rules.

It was like you had to make an appointment before you could go over and see him.

The fuck?

Instead, Frances would make sure to fill David's afternoons.

She signed him up for violin and ballet lessons, which at this time made him a bigger target for bullying because we're in the 50s again.

And these are seen as two very unmasculine activities to do.

But you almost wonder if that was like another layer of her cruelty.

Yeah.

I mean putting him in ballet in the 50s was pretty cruel.

Putting your kids in ballet now.

Fuck yeah.

Everybody's in ballet.

Put everybody in ballet now.

Back then.

But like everybody had, it had a

it just we're in the 50s where masculinity is looked at in a very different way.

Yes.

And it's like that's he's going to be targeted and you know that.

And if he's not passionate about ballet, which it doesn't

like he was then you're really doing a detriment here it's like if he's passionate about

ballet then yeah like but otherwise it's a what purpose but you're just doing this to kind of like get him one out of your hair but making sure he's not doing something that fulfills or him or makes him happy yeah yeah while he's out of your hair yep which is like another layer of fucked up

now these were exacerbated by how she would dress him as well.

She would make him dress in like very formal outfits.

um his friend there said they always dressed him up like some fancy pants and the kids on the block were always pounding the hell out of him which is so shitty because it's like he's obviously not choosing this no and it's just like fucking a this woman has a strange pathology yeah it's true and it's just like god just stop being mean to people Now, obviously, due to a variety of factors, David struggled to develop positive social skills.

You don't say.

And developed a reputation for now inappropriate and cruel cruel behavior because he's also being shown cruel behavior.

You show a child cruel behavior.

They will then show others cruel behavior.

That is kind of an effect.

Like that just is.

So unable to bond with boys, his own age, because that wasn't working, David would socialize with the girls in the neighborhood.

They were often in the beginning very sympathetic and like pitied him a little bit and were like, you know what, let's just like try to help him out.

You know, just girls being girls, girls being like, come on, like take care of you.

Yeah.

But while the neighborhood girls were definitely more patient with him, even their sympathy had limits, obviously.

Yeah, everybody does.

One girl recalled, he usually had my sympathy, but then he'd do something cruel, like twisting the head off of some girl's doll, and he'd get that stupid smile on his face like it was a prank.

So it's like he's doing things like that.

And they're like, dude, we're trying to help you out.

And you're like, not.

Yeah, like, don't fuck with my dolls.

Like, I feel like he's acting

out like a typical boy, he thinks, like, taking the head off a doll or, like, you know, doing some kind of prank like that.

But it's like not because he's not been socialized to know what is of his age.

You know what I mean?

What a typical prank of his age is.

Well, and if you're ripping the heads off of dolls, that's like alone, that's one thing.

Like, that's a very annoying boy thing to do.

Yeah.

But if it goes hand in hand with you also pulling the wings off flies, I'm going to be a little scared of you.

Yes, exactly.

You know, now his, and it gets, and it started getting worse because his cruel and inappropriate behavior started getting increasingly sexual in nature.

I had a feeling that was kind of worse.

And soon he found that the girls around him were perfect targets.

Or nor.

Years later, he told psychiatrist Dr.

Ralph Allison, I pulled down a little girl's pants for the first time when I was eight years old.

Oh, Christ.

Eight years old.

That's a baby.

In Allison's estimation, by the time he was 10 years old, David had, quote, learned to take out his anger sexually.

And that was by the time he was 10.

Yeah.

Which would eventually become one of the driving forces of his personality.

I'm sure you start that at 10 years old.

And it was never addressed.

Like, it's like

it was not addressed until he saw the law for it.

Like, it was never addressed in any kind of medical way.

Yeah, they should have gotten past the doors of the hospital.

Yeah.

When he was a child, this should have been taken care of.

Yeah.

By the time he was 14 years old, he had committed his first sexual assault against one of his younger family members.

Oh.

The assault resulted in him being committed to the Napa State Hospital, and he was housed with other sex offenders there.

Upon his release, he returned to his parents' house, but everything just kept going downward.

When he wasn't in school, he started spending a lot of time alone in the woods.

Oh, God.

Before long, he was suspected of committing burglaries and homes in and around Santa Cruz.

The next year, when David was in the 10th grade, he ran away from home and hid out for a few days in the family cabin in Redwood Grove.

And this disappearance was the last straw because so the school

expelled him because he stopped going to school.

Oh, okay, okay.

Now, a year after being kicked out of school, he was in trouble with the law again.

And this is awful.

After he committed a sexual assault against two cousins.

Not his cousins, but they were cousins.

A pair of cousins.

An eight-year-old and a three-year-old.

Oh, God.

He met them at Diamond's Heights, Diamond Heights Park.

And according to Dr.

Allison's evaluation, he threatened the two with a knife, which marked the first time that he used a weapon in an assault, which indicates a very severe escalation in violent behavior.

Yup.

And this, again, this was when he was 15.

Holy shit.

Maybe 15 or 16?

Yeah.

Around there.

Yeah.

He was quickly arrested for the assault and sentenced to the California Youth Authority at Preston.

Do you remember that?

Yeah, we covered the Preston School, right?

Yeah, Preston School of Industry.

Yeah, go back to that episode

where he was held until his 18th birthday.

Oh, fuck.

After he turned 18, he was transferred to Napa State Hospital for observation.

And after 90 days, he was determined no longer a threat.

I don't know about that.

This is a story of many failures.

It usually is.

He could have been stopped many times.

No one had to die.

No one had to to die here.

I hate that.

I fucking hate that.

Now, looking back, his juvenile record, which contained a number of incidents that, you know, if we looked at now in 2025, they would be the most giant red flags.

Right.

Five arrests for sexual assault, one escape from juvenile detention, a long history of bragging about sexual assaults to all the other inmates.

All of that would.

now be looked at it as like, oh, no, this is going to escalate.

Yeah, like let's keep him locked up.

And his personal history included several experiences and characteristics that are now associated with antisocial personalities

and serial murders in particular including a history of bedwetting and cruelty to animals yeah it's like he's got all the red flags yeah he's ticking all the boxes if psychiatrists had known then what we know now they would have had every reason to believe that david carpenter would pose a severe threat to those around him and they and it kills me that they didn't now in 1950

so actually most of what he was going through when he was younger was in the 40s.

So I was wrong about the 50s.

It was even worse.

In 1950, when he was 20 years old, Carpenter found work as an office assistant and messenger for the H.B.

Thomas Company on Battery Street in San Francisco.

One day in midsummer, he ended up picking up a girl he knew who was hitchhiking to a friend's house, and he offered to drive her the rest of the way.

So he knew this girl.

As they drove, he said, do you actually mind if I make a quick stop at my house?

Yes, I do.

And she was like, yeah, totally.

Yeah, why would she think anything of that?

Once inside the house, though, he started to become sexually aggressive with her.

And she was like, no.

And then she was like, I want to leave.

But he said, no, you're not going to leave.

Oh.

The girl only managed to escape after fighting him off and locking herself in the bathroom and climbing through a very small window that left outside.

That's literally what nightmares are made of.

And she had to run somewhere and and contact the police.

Now he was quickly picked up on a charge that he, quote, willfully and feloniously made an assault upon a female under the age of 18 with the intent to have and accomplish the act of sexual intercourse upon said female.

He pled not guilty and was taken to trial where he was acquitted.

What the fuck?

Hello, 1950s.

For real.

Hello, now.

Ralph Allison's notes, though, indicate that David, quote, made no attempt to deny the allegations against him and had been quite cooperative and asked only that he be placed in a facility where he could receive help.

So he even asked for help.

The 1950s, they were like, nah,

you're good.

Just get on.

Get on out of here.

Yeah.

In 1955, David ended up dating and then marrying.

a 19-year-old woman named Ellen Ellen Headle, I believe it is.

The pair met at in Daly City a few years earlier.

And

when they met, David was briefly dating her sister, Wilhelmina.

Oh, low.

Yeah.

When she broke off their relationship after only a few dates, he turned his attention to Ellen.

And within a few months, they were married.

Yeah.

That is not girl code.

No.

That is not sister code.

No.

Sister code goes above girl code.

It certainly does.

And they were married at San Francisco City Hall.

Less than a year later, Ellen gave birth to their first child, Michael.

And the family moved to a small house in West Lake, and David found a steady job as a shipping clerk there.

Two years later, Ellen gave birth to their second child, Gabrielle, who was followed in 1960 by their third child, Cersei.

By this point in his life,

his attitude towards women was pretty fucking clear.

He

without fail portrayed himself as the victim of women.

Like women were to blame his mother was to blame immediately therefore women were to blame he basically said everything he did it it was going to fall upon women as being the problem here not him he was never to be placed blame upon it wasn't him and it's like you dude yeah you're your own person plenty of people go i'm not saying he had a great he had a terrible life no but you can't you make excuses for your behavior once you become an adult no it's like based on your child i'm sorry you got to look at people who make that and again, he's in a different like time period.

So I don't know like what's going on.

And all the resources that we have now are not failing.

There are still people who went through like, you really do.

Like, you can't just blame how you were raised on how you act as an adult.

Like, you can't, if you're, you can't hurt people.

Like, that's not, it just, it drives me crazy.

And it's like, so many of these guys will be like, well, I kill women because of my mom.

Get, get over it.

Like, really, you're going to kill women because you're your mom.

Not all women are your mom and you should be able to to make that differentiation exactly now unfortunately like we've said before medical understandings of personalities like his were very poorly understood in 1950 so they weren't exactly like analyzing david's symptoms right instead like his psychiatrist ralph allison who we've cited here before he was focusing more on like finding effective treatment yeah which yeah that's good but like you also need to figure out what the fuck is going on here well and also there's just not treatment for everybody exactly and as we know now there's not treatment for people like this really no

and from allison's perspective dr allison he said he thought it came down to david stutter he said i think it's a lot more than that if he could get proper therapy for the stammer we might be able to prevent further catastrophes of this sort that's what he had

that's a wild point of view yeah I also think that is a very wild point of view.

Absolutely bonkers.

I think that's the most 1950s point point of view i have ever seen in my life i think psychiatrist just being like

i think if you could just speak clear you

wouldn't want to kill people it's like nope i don't think that's the driving force no i think that's part of his struggles sure and especially that that was not taken as something that like they worked through with him or made him accept and and be able to, you know, work through.

Right.

It was treated as like, we're ashamed of you.

Like, that's awful.

Of course, that's going to affect somebody.

Not to this extent.

I think there's other things here at play, and I think we should maybe look at them.

I agree with you.

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Between the responsibilities of his new job and now his growing family, He was feeling like he was under a lot of pressure, which left him with a lot of rage.

Oh, goody.

Because Because this is not a man who can handle even the slightest inconvenience in his life.

The only thing that seemed to keep his anger in check, according to Ellen, his wife at the time, was his need to have sex at least three times per night.

Oh, honey.

Your face.

I'm not laughing at this.

No, she's not like a match in her face.

Never.

Yeah, that's, I was like, whoa.

That's wild.

And it's like, fucking, poor Ellen.

She has three children.

Has three children.

And she's dealing with this fucking man child who is like abusive, uncontrollably angry.

And I, I just like wonder what what he presented to her.

I know.

To to get, like, to get him to marry her.

You know what I mean?

Like, it is so weird how we hear about these men who have these awful childhoods and they have a lot of issues with girls and women.

And then they find one woman who they are able to woo.

Yeah.

You know?

And I think it's because they see that there's an end result where they can have the control they want.

So they're

cunning enough to know that they have to put some effort in in the beginning to, you know, like the

means justify the end kind of thing.

Yeah.

And like, and vice versa.

So I think it's like the mask falls.

That feels like it was probably the scenario.

And I, and I feel so badly for Ellen because like it sounds like she was just completely entrapped.

Yes.

Well, Well, and remember, this wasn't a time where she could even seek a divorce.

Exactly.

That's the other thing.

Keep it for her own credit.

And she's got three kids now.

Yeah.

But there were times that even that wasn't enough for him.

And he would become explosively violent with her.

And then he would claim to have no recollection of it.

So he's like blacking out.

Or he's just lying about it and being like, I don't want to take responsibility for that.

So I'm going to pretend it didn't happen.

I'm sure, probably.

Like, I'm sure like that accounts for some instances, but I do believe that some people are so scary that they do blackout.

Oh, I'm sure.

Yeah.

But I don't think it accounts for every instance.

No.

Now, in mid-July 1960, he ran into an old friend, Lois DiAndrotti.

Lisa Rinna's mother.

I was just going to say, I don't know if that sounds familiar to you.

Lisa Rinna.

You guys, like, you know, she's been a soap opera actress forever.

Days of our lives.

She's, she's on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

She was.

I haven't watched it in forever, but she was on it.

she dances on tick tock you might remember her mother lois you both passed away recently i think yeah a couple of years

um she was adorable oh my i loved lois was the cutest and they seemed like they were they were super wildly close yep so like i'm sorry and lois went through a lot yeah yes lois did go for through a lot because um you might be saying i'm sorry back it up why are we mentioning lois in this story yeah and why are we mentioning her as as an old friend?

She was.

They worked together, I think, right?

Yeah.

So they had met through mutual acquaintances a few years earlier.

And again, they had like, and they had gone to coffee together a couple of times in the past.

Yeah, they knew each other.

You know, they just knew each other.

Like, they were friends.

Yeah.

It was whatever.

Lois had been on her way to work one morning when David offered her a ride.

That's what it is.

Again, they're friends.

Cool.

David's offering me a ride.

She has no reason not to.

Why the fuck would I care?

As he'd done a few years earlier, David asked whether Lois would mind if they made a quick stop.

But this time he said, hey, Lois, I got to pick up my wife, Ellen, and my new baby.

Disarming.

So, of course, Lois is like, of course you can.

That sounds lovely.

I'd love to see the babe.

But the more they drove, the more Lois began to wonder whether they were actually going to pick up his wife and baby.

Finally, David pulled over on the side, on a side street, and Lois immediately knew something wasn't right.

She later said, by then I was really nervous.

So I started to get out of the right-hand side of the car and I started to run.

Wow.

Now, Carpenter managed to reach Lois before she had gone far and he dragged her back to the car.

Oh my God.

And she's unable to move and he pulled out rope and a knife from the glove compartment and threatened her to keep quiet.

And later she said, he told me to be quiet.

Now if I was quiet, he wouldn't kill me.

But if I made any noise, he would.

Now the entire scene was terrifying and completely confusing to lois who'd known carpenter for years and she was like i'd never seen him behave violently right his violent shit was contained yeah to his home right behind closed doors

everyone else saw this pretty normal like guy yeah like it's just david like what so i i can't imagine knowing someone for years yeah and then having them snap on you like this that must be uh and like it would be paralyzing yeah and she said it was she was like i literally didn't know what to do i was like what are you talking about you'll kill me right like what so she later said perhaps she said she thought perhaps david went crazy that's a quote i was so terrified i don't think i moved after that yeah And although she wasn't planning on moving at that point, because she was terrified, she was looking around and scanning her surroundings, trying to look for anything that could help her get out of this situation.

So she's desperately searching for a sign of anyone around her.

And David reached into the back seat and grabbed a hammer.

At the same time that he was doing that, Lois spotted a car a few dozen yards away.

And without thinking, she threw her hand out and slammed down on the car horn.

Just that's the only thing she can think of.

But Carpenter immediately slashed at her with the knife he had, slicing into her hand.

He ended up lacerating tendons in two of her fingers.

Now, despite that injury, which is a pretty fucking massive injury,

Lois managed to get the door open and she tumbled out and hit the ground running.

David Carpenter got out and fucking chased her at full speed.

Oh my God.

This must have been horrifying.

Absolutely.

He did.

He caught up with her and he raised.

He's right behind her, running after her, and he raised the hammer.

to hit her in the head.

But just as he came down with it, she threw her hands up to deflect the blow blow from the hammer.

And the hammer struck a watch she was wearing and shattered it.

But

there was only a brief moment of luck because he raised the hammer again and brought it right down on her head and it made contact.

So she knocked it right to the ground and he struck her five more times in the head with the hammer.

I didn't realize that she did.

I thought she got out of this like unharmed.

Oh no, she got ruthlessly beaten in the head with this hammer.

Holy shit.

Barely conscious.

She managed to scream for help, which caught the attention of a military police officer, Jewel Wayne Hicks, who happened to be driving down the narrow street at the time.

Whoa, what are the odds?

And also, a military police officer caught this man doing this, but we have eight stories of murder to tell.

Yeah.

Huh.

That should be your first

knowledge of how many times this is a failure to keep an absolute animal locked up.

Ticking box number one.

Yeah.

Whoa.

So Hicks, the military police officer, slammed on his brakes, got out, and ran in the direction of the car and the screams.

And he was holding a riot baton in one hand and a 45 pistol in the other.

And that's the way we got out of the car, folks.

That's how we get out of the car for one of these scenes.

At first,

he couldn't see the two people on the ground since there was a car door in the way.

Right, right.

But he could hear the sounds and he said he immediately knew what was happening.

By the time he made it to the car, Carpenter was on top of Lois, still hitting her with the hammer.

Jesus.

And Hicks said, even when he saw me coming down the hill, he kept hitting her.

So he saw this man and just kept hitting.

So that makes you like, honestly, question if he is in a blind rage at this point.

It's so scary.

Because that is.

And I think it, I mean,

I think it's how you define a blind rage.

Like, I still think he knows what he's doing is wrong, but like, you're looking at a police officer and you're not stopping.

I think he is singularly focused on his rage

and the, and the focus of his rage.

Yeah.

And it just doesn't matter.

But that's so wild to think of somebody's thought process.

Because then Officer Hicks shouted for him to stop, obviously.

And that caused David to jump up and run.

But he ran at Hicks, swinging the hammer at him.

He's a madman.

And he said he was, quote, screaming in rage.

Oh, that's horrifying.

So he's just an animal.

Yup.

And when the officer finally managed to successfully fend off the hammer with his baton, Carpenter pulled out a, quote, fountain pen tear gas gun and fired it in Hicks' face.

Bitch, what?

So he came fully prepared to incapacitate someone.

I had no idea that this was this.

That's the thing.

I also didn't know that.

They briefly discussed this at a dinner on Housewives.

Briefly.

Over sushi, I believe.

Yeah.

Holy fuck.

The gun produced a large plume of smoke, which confused Hicks momentarily, but he wasn't quite sure what happened.

He just got hit in the face with this.

tear gas pen, which is nothing new for a military police.

And he said he recognized the sound of a gunshot.

Oh, fuck.

And instinctively raised his pistol and fired in the direction of where Carpenter was.

And Hicks didn't know where he was at the time, but he still managed to hit Carpenter twice, once in the abdomen and once in the leg, which knocked him off his feet and caused him to shout that he surrendered.

So he got shot twice.

And surrendered.

Hello?

Now I want to be.

So when you guys hear this, that he was on top of this woman, hitting her in the head with a hammer repeatedly.

What would you say is the end result that he was probably looking for by doing that?

Either rape or murder.

Both, I would say.

You don't hit someone five times in the head with a hammer and not assume that they're going to die.

Yep.

He was trying to murder her.

Yep.

100%.

Yeah, definitely murder.

I was just questioning him.

Oh, I'm sure he was also going to do that.

But this is a murder that he failed at.

Yep.

This isn't assault.

No, this is attempted.

This is a murder that

he failed to commit.

And you guys know how we feel about attempted murder.

So with Carpenter incapacitated, Hicks went back to his car and radioed for backup, which arrived very quickly.

Lois was taken to the hospital.

She was treated for a fractured skull, which was broken in two places.

Her skull was shattered in two places.

It's remarkable that she survived this.

Yeah.

And she also had severe lacerations on her hands and face.

After multiple surgeries, during which metal plates were placed in her skull and tendons were grafted in two fingers.

And nearly two months of hospitalization, she recovered.

Unreal.

But she never regained full use of those fingers.

In her statement to police, Lois detailed what happened from the moment Carpenter picked her up, including that he had told her, quote, I have a sex quirk just moments before attacking her.

A quirk?

A quirk.

Hey, that's not a kink.

Like, a quirk?

David Carpenter was taken to Letterman General Hospital, where surgeons removed the two bullets from his body before, I know, unfortunately, before he was cuffed to a bed.

And he recovered there there before being transferred to San Quentin, like a little over a week later, I think it was, to await his hearing.

Okay.

This, it turned out, would take much longer than expected

because, due to his injuries and his claims of mental illness, it was going to go a lot longer than just like charges.

Blah, blah, blah.

In the two months that followed, he was evaluated twice by psychiatrists before finally being indicted on September 22nd, where a grand jury returned four counts of assault that, if convicted, would have put him in jail for 30 years.

Questionable.

Which is like cool, cool 30 years, but like, where's the attempted murder?

Yeah.

Where's the attempted murder charge?

Right.

Like, are we really pretending that he wasn't trying to kill her?

He fractured her skull in two places and hit her over five times with a hammer.

And sliced her hands open.

Like, he attacked her with a knife and a hammer.

Yeah.

Are we all okay?

At his arraignment in October, Carpenter pled not guilty and his lawyer indicated their intent to plead insanity as as a defense.

But you already got evaluated.

Yeah.

Instead,

just as they were preparing to go to trial, he accepted a plea deal from the prosecution and pled guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon.

I'll say, I understand plea deals for certain things.

They piss me off, but I get them.

This?

Yeah, I don't see this one.

I feel like they would have got him on all those four counts well and judge oliver carter wasn't certain he would accept the deal and i don't blame him he ordered carpenter to a 90-day hold in federal prison where he was going to be examined thoroughly by psychiatrists and on march 9th 1961 carpenter was back in front of a judge after having been evaluated many times at san quentin and after reading the reports which diagnosed carpenter as a sociopathic personality uh-huh the judge deemed david a quote personality who should be locked away in the interests of society.

That's completely correct.

Thank you, sir.

Given the brutality of the attack and his past offenses, he sentenced him to 14 years in federal prison.

Okay, like I wish it was the full 30, though.

Yeah.

But then for some reason, the judge kind of like softened somewhat after announcing the ruling

and recommended the parole board conduct routine evaluations and release Carpenter, quote, at any time he is considered rehabilitated.

Oliver.

Like, I'm sorry, what the fuck?

You literally said he's a threat to society.

And then I'm like, hey, Pearlboard, like, keep it, keep tabs on that.

Check it out.

If you feel like it's cool that day, just let him out.

Yeah.

Just be, be cool, man.

Don't be all uncool.

He was diagnosed as a sociopathic personality.

Yeah.

And tried to kill this woman.

Yeah.

And this officer.

Tried to kill Lois.

And this officer.

Yup.

So after the sentence was passed, Ellen filed for divorce.

Oh, good.

Listing their separation as July 12th, 1960, the night of the attack on Lois.

Wow.

Good for her.

That is women supporting women.

Hell yeah.

And she cited extreme cruelty as a reason.

Yeah.

And wrongfully inflicting upon her grievous mental suffering.

I guess you could file for a divorce back then as a woman.

The divorce was finalized on August 27th, 1962.

And Carpenter was ordered to pay $1 per month in child support and $1 per month in alimony.

She also.

She had three kids.

Yeah.

She was was awarded the couple's assets including the house that's good and granted her request they granted her request for a restraining order to prevent david from quote annoying or molesting the children oh god yeah

um i don't know if that means what that word means some that there's terms legal terms that that can mean like

bothering which is weird i know but i'm not sure where how that one was used molesting is what i'm talking about okay but he is also he has like pedophilic tendencies so it's like i that who knows right um but i am not positive yeah

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Now, in the meantime, David was sent to McNeil Island's correctional facility and began serving his sentence on April 12, 1961.

Now, he applied for parole in 1964, but it was unanimously rejected.

Good.

In April 1969, however, he came up for parole a second time, and his petition was granted.

Bad.

On the grounds that he'd served the minimum nine-year sentence.

What about the maximum, though?

We don't want to talk about that today.

And also, like, okay, we're not going to like.

So he just served his minimum sentence.

So you're going to let him out?

So it's all good.

Regardless of what kind of person he is.

So now he's a free man.

Christ.

And he moved in with his stepbrother, William, and began taking welding classes at the local vocational school.

I feel as though we shouldn't offer people like that welding classes.

Let's not give him tools.

I don't think.

Yeah.

In his free time, he started attending group therapy on the recommendation of his parole officer.

And it was there that he met Helen.

Bad question mark.

David and Helen began dating that spring.

And on August 8th, 1969, they were married at City Hall.

He gets that woman to marry him quickly.

Yeah.

William Carpenter, his stepbrother, was the witness to the marriage.

It appears little is known about this period of his life.

He remained in regular contact with his probation officer at this point, and he was meeting all the conditions of his parole for a week.

So he's probably laying low low at this point.

Yeah.

Then rather suddenly, he cut off all communication with the probation officer and the parole board that December.

Huh.

And he had like years left on his probation.

So there's no reason for this.

And around the same time, Helen, having been driven to what author Robert Graysmith referred to as, quote, the edge of a nervous breakdown, left California on a long trip to Hawaii and just left her husband behind.

Damn.

Yeah.

Who knows what that poor woman

endured what was going on.

The fact that she left the entire state of California tells us everything we need to know.

Yeah.

Now, without anyone watching over him, it didn't take long before David Carpenter began losing control of his rage.

On the evening of January 27th, 1970, he went out for a drive on Highway 280 towards Santa Cruz.

And at some point, the driver of a passing car, who was a young blonde woman, caught his attention.

And for no explicable reason, she became the focus of his fucking rage.

Oh, no.

Without any warning to this driver, David sped up beside her and forced her car off the road.

Oh, that's so scary.

She's just driving.

That is so scary.

Terrified, she jumped out of the car and ran into the underbrush, quickly losing him.

And he stood at the side of the road and called out to her in threatening voices.

What the fuck?

But when he heard no sounds, he got back in his Volkswagen beetle and steered the car back onto the highway.

That That poor girl.

Holy shit.

I just can't imagine later in life being like, that would have happened.

And did she ever even realize that it was him?

I don't know.

You know?

Yeah, that's the thing.

It's like, that's why.

Imagine thinking back to that and being like, oh my God.

Like, and you just read this and you're like,

holy fuck.

A short time later, a little past 10 p.m., he found himself driving on Highway 9 towards Boulder Creek, where the only other car on the road easily caught his attention again because he's pissed.

Determined to relieve his tension and anger, he pressed the accelerator and rammed his car into the other driver, who was 19-year-old Cheryl Lynn Smith.

Thinking the man was drunk, she shouted at him.

She was like, fuck you, dude.

Yeah.

But Carpenter ignored her and they pulled over to the side of the road and he started like a quote-unquote evaluating the damage.

Oh my god.

So Smith got out of her car and was looking over the damage as well.

And then Carpenter's hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck.

Oh, that's awful.

He grabbed her by the neck and said, I want to rape you.

I'll have to kill you if you don't come with me.

Oh, God.

Like,

what the fuck?

So, and this is like graphic, I apologize.

Carpenter dragged her into the brush where he literally tore off her clothing and violently sexually assaulted her.

As Cheryl tried to get out of his grasp, he sliced her arm with his knife, partially severing the muscles and rendering it temporarily useless.

Oh my God, the

force that would take.

Yeah.

And she said, so she's trying to get away from him.

He does this.

And then she said, she finally was like, I'm just going to look at him because she wasn't looking at him.

And she said, she looked at him and she said she was stunned because she said, all I had seen up till that point was this like violent, scary man.

And she was like, suddenly he looked totally different.

What?

Suddenly she said his features had softened and he spoke to her with a pronounced stutter suddenly which he didn't have before uh-huh and she said to her bewilderment she he looked at her and said look you're hurt and bleeding let me follow you home and i'll bandage you up and i'll promise not to if you promise not to call the police

That's and like said it in like a like look you're hurt and bleeding like not like oh my god I hurt you It was like oh my god Like how did that happen?

But it softened into like oh no Like, I didn't mean like, what?

You violently raped her.

Like, what do you mean?

And Cheryl was like, no, I'm good.

Like, it's

good.

She managed to get back to her own car and drove away.

And he just let her.

Oh, that poor girl.

But 19 years old.

But as she's driving home, She notices that he's driving behind her.

Oh, no.

And he was keeping distance, but he was behind her.

And so she saw a large hotel in the distance.

So she drove in the direction of what she was hoping would be help.

And he was driving behind her the entire way.

So she gets into the very well-lit parking lot and he sped off.

So he was planning on following her right to her house.

Yep.

But she managed to write down his license plate.

Smart.

She immediately reported the attack to police and gave them the license plate number.

And she described her attacker as white, 30 to 35 years of age, 5 feet 10 inches, 160 pounds, and brown hair.

That same night, an anonymous caller reported witnessing what appeared to be a fenderbender accident on Highway 9, which is that.

So later, it was discovered that Cheryl was the second woman that he had attacked that day.

The first was a woman named Wilma Joyce.

Now, this isn't the blonde woman who ran away from him.

This is another one.

Oh, so they think it's two.

Really, it was three.

Yeah.

So far.

Yeah.

That afternoon, Joyce had returned home from a shopping trip to find carpenter waiting in her house with a shotgun nope

no

yeah

walked in from shopping to him sitting in her home with a shotgun you know that's one of my biggest fears that is the scariest thing i've ever heard that's oh fuck that's literally horror movie shit that is horror movie shit And he forced her to leave with him in her car and the two drove for a short time before he sexually assaulted her and then let her out of the car.

What?

This is awful too.

In the days after that, he kidnapped and assaulted two other women, one of whom had a toddler in the car with her.

Oh,

and stole a car from a third woman.

Why was he not stopped?

This is crazy.

When they were interviewed by police, all the women identified David Carpenter as their attacker.

Like they knew his name.

Unanimously.

They were able to identify him.

Oh, okay, okay.

Now, Carpenter was arrested at a motel in Modesto on February 3rd, 1970, after a week-long manhunt conducted by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department.

And this is when he should be put away forever because he has a violent past that he's now continuing.

He has just assaulted numerous women.

Numerous women after assaulting Lois, a police officer, and just dodging parole.

Yeah.

Yep.

So at the time of his arrest, the district attorneys in Santa Cruz County and nearby Calaveras County filed charges against him for attempted rape, rape, kidnapping, and assault.

And because he had been on parole at the time, with four years left on his sentence, he was placed in Calaveras County Jail pending a transfer to a prison where he could serve out the rest of his sentence.

So he has now also violated parole.

These are all huge charges.

Massive.

David was held at Calaveras County Jail for two months.

until he managed to escape on the night of April 26th.

According to the press, he was being held in a cell with four other men, and they managed to cut through the bars, and all five of them escaped out of a skylight.

And that's why we don't let prisoners just hang out together in our cells.

They were unsure how they cut through the bars, but a spokesperson person for the sheriff's office said they may have used a hacksaw blade.

I'm sorry, where the fuck did they get a hacksaw blade?

My question, exactly.

These violent prisoners

had access to a hacksaw blade.

Just oops.

We forgot the hacksaw blade was in there.

I'm a normal bitch.

I don't have access to a hacksaw blade.

Yeah.

I've never committed a violent crime.

The fuck?

And how would they, one, have a hacksaw blade and two, have enough time to hacksaw through bars?

Like, that's going to also make some noise.

No one was looking at them.

No one was checking.

I wonder if they like bribed a guard or something.

Yeah.

Now, the good news is all five of them were rounded up the following day.

That's right.

And while the other four were returned to jail to await their trials, David Carpenter was transferred to Soledad prison.

On July 17th, a grand jury in Santa Cruz indicted Carpenter for rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, and assault.

District Attorney Peter Chang told the press, right now Carpenter is serving a minimum five-year sentence.

If we can make the aggravated kidnapping charge stick, the term will be increased to life.

Let's go.

Already serving a sentence of one to 25 years for the charges in Calaveras County on October 8th, Carpenter pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one count of armed robbery.

And in exchange, he was given a sentence of five years.

That's bullshit.

They should be ashamed of this.

Absolutely, they should.

All these deaths are on their hands.

100%.

Now, despite Peter Chang

thinking that he would be able to lock him up for life, David would only spend nine years at Soledad prison until being paroled to a halfway house in late May 1979.

You guys did this before though.

Yeah, you did it before and it didn't work out.

He just failed.

What?

And just like the last time he was released out on parole way too soon, it didn't take long before he returned right back to his old habits.

Yeah, I bet.

Yep.

Now on May 21st, 1979, he was released on parole.

And by that time, Helen had divorced him.

And he was to remain on probation until 1982.

So he was sent to live at Reality House West, which was a halfway house for federal prisoners transitioning back into society, which is not something he should have been.

No.

As part of his parole conditions, he was required to find a job.

So he started taking classes at the vocational center and eventually began participating in courses in computer repair.

Okay.

Around this time, he also took up hiking around Santa Cruz

and developed a particular fondness for the trails on Mount Tamalpace,

which is which I think they call it Mount Tam for sure.

Oh, I've heard of Mount Tam.

It's a popular hiking spot in Marin County, about 10 miles outside San Francisco.

At the foot of the mountain was a small community of renters, including John and Etta Kane.

Now, on the morning of August 19th, 1979, Etta Kane was preparing for a four-hour hike that the couple had planned to take together that afternoon.

Unfortunately, John's arthritis was acting up that morning, so he was unable to take the hike with Eda.

She was a very experienced hiker, so she just decided to go alone.

Several hours passed and Eda had still not returned home.

This caused John to be very anxious.

His wife was very skilled, but it was getting dark.

So he called the sheriff's department and reported it, and deputies were sent out immediately to look for Eda.

Now, sheriff's deputies, along with a search and rescue team and packs of dogs, combed the mountain all night, but by dawn, they still hadn't found Eda.

And her car was still in the parking lot where it had been all night.

That's chilling.

The only other car that John noticed in the parking lot that morning, other than the members of the search team, was a Volkswagen beetle that had been there

the previous evening.

Always a Volkswagen beetle.

Yep, and he drives one.

Around 1:30 that afternoon, one of the dogs discovered Etta's body.

It was a short distance off Rock Springs Trail.

It's very chilling.

She was in a kneeling position and her body had fallen forward face down with a large bullet hole in the back of her head.

Oh

um Sergeant Rich Keaton said, when we finally came across Miss Kane's body, all items of personal nature of hers had been removed with the exception of one sock.

Oh.

So she is nude except for one sock in a kneeling position with her face down.

That's awful.

The discovery was shocking for about a million reasons, not the least of which was the fact that while sheriff's deputies had found many bodies on Mount Tam, to their knowledge, Eda was the first person to be murdered on the mountain.

Right.

That alone made the press immediately take notice and start reporting the story.

Now, in interviews with those who'd been at the mountain that day, that Edam went missing, several people reported seeing a single man hiking around the same time Etta was.

Lieutenant Robert Gadini told reporters, we are by no means certain the man murdered Etta Kane, but investigators were just trying to come up with a composite sketch of this man from the witnesses descriptions yeah otherwise there was very little evidence that could point investigators towards any suspect there were rumors and they were rumors that eda had been having an affair with a younger man so detectives did wonder whether he might have been involved or whether john might have killed her out of jealousy that was like their initial thoughts yeah They got to go to like that.

Yeah, they have to.

John Kane was quickly ruled out.

That's good.

But police shifted their attention to the younger man that Etta had allegedly been seeing.

Although he denied seeing Eda that day, the man still couldn't account for his whereabouts, so detectives couldn't rule him out.

A sergeant working the case later said, after Edda's death, John Kane just withered away without her and eventually died.

Oh, that's so sad.

As for the young man, he killed himself while we were investigating him.

Oh, wow.

That must have been so strange.

Yeah, that's bizarre.

Yeah.

So that is where we're going to leave you in part one.

All right.

But

yeah, it's a lot and it's going to keep going.

That's a crazy lead up.

Yeah.

Wow.

And he

this is only the first murder.

I was just, yeah, that's what I mean.

We have seven more.

We had a full part one.

With one murder.

Yeah, but his assaults are enough to...

They're gnarly.

His assaults are basically attempted murder.

Yeah, they are.

All of them.

But yeah, he's a horrible, horrible human being.

He's very horrible.

He really is.

And he somehow gets worse.

Well, with that being said, we hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

But that's a weird that you don't tune into part two.

Oof.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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