00:00:06
Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid. [Music] Hi. We were just talking about Dinda
00:00:26
Medley from uh New York Housewives. always in forever. Uh cuz I'm watching the old episodes on they're so fun.
00:00:34
They're constant in my house. If we don't know what to watch, we just put that on and disassoc New York
00:00:38
housewives. Jules Forever. Jules should have gotten Jules should have gotten when more. I was going to say way more
00:00:45
and then I said many. So many more seasons. She should have. I loved her. I liked her personality. She was great.
00:00:51
Yeah. Yeah. Carol, I didn't like her husband, but I liked her. No. And that's why she should have stayed on because
00:00:56
they ended up divorcing and I'm pretty sure she like might have um He got his Yeah. Which like nobody should Nobody
00:01:05
should hit anyone. No, it's probably not. No, don't hit people. Yeah, don't do that. Did she hit him? I think there
00:01:12
was some allegations. I will say I'm not saying that I know what happened, but there was a little bit of allegations.
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So like keep your hands to yourself. But Well, anyway, he was a turd. Yeah. How How do you soo away from that? How
00:01:25
do you get out of that? How do you Where do we go from here? Anywhere, baby? I I've had like not enough and too
00:01:33
much coffee all at the same time today. I haven't had enough cuz for some reason
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last night I couldn't fall asleep, which I I rarely have trouble falling asleep.
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I'm usually a hit the pillow kind of gal. I know. Uh it just I don't know. There's nothing really going on that's
00:01:48
like keeping me up at night, you know? Like maybe it's cuz like we got some sickies in my house and I think I'm just
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on high alert. Oh my god, your kids are sick again. Oh my god, they're actually on the mend. Everybody John's on the
00:02:02
mend as well. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Isn't that such a fun thing to
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say? It is. I like that. It's good cuz it's just it's very aggressive. It's so aggressive. Yeah, I like that. I like
00:02:13
being aggressive sometimes. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. But yeah, everything's, you know, things are
00:02:20
things are here. You know, spring is is springing in in New England. It is. I'm I'm about to plant a little bit. I
00:02:27
actually I'm, you know, my witchy class, we planted um we got to pick what flower
00:02:32
we wanted to do and we did like a little um Oara celebration. Oh, cute. And I planted a little moonflower and it's
00:02:38
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
00:02:44
little um affirmation or like wish in the jar and in the pot and you put the soil over it and then you planted it.
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So, like your It's like as the flower grows like your wish is growing. Oh, I really dig that. Yeah, my wish is
00:02:57
growing everywhere. I dig that a lot. Do you know what flower Sabrina picked? I don't I She might have picked a
00:03:04
moonflower. I feel like she would have I feel like that's very Yeah. Me and my girly Sabrina from Two Girls One Ghost
00:03:09
are taking the class together. Go listen to Two Girls, One Ghost, too. They're awesome. They're really great. What are
00:03:15
you doing if you're not listening to Two Girls One? You got to go listen to them.
00:03:18
Don't be an idiot. They're a great podcast and great ladies. Put two girls, one ghost in your pipe and smoke it.
00:03:25
There you go. I like that. Aggressively supporting our friends. Aggressively. Oh, you know, I think I'm tired. You're
00:03:36
like, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I don't know. No, you just said you didn't have enough caffeine,
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but too much all at once. That's what I said. So, that was different. Yeah. Um, we Yeah, I don't think we have a whole
00:03:47
lot more business to attend to. I can't really think of anything. And I'm trying
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to think of any fun life updates that some people will will like to hear, but what's going on? I know there's some
00:03:59
people that are like, just get to the [ __ ] case. Yeah, I don't really have I don't really have much life going on
00:04:03
right now. It's really only it's if I have exciting things, I like to say it. But it's like we said spring was coming,
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but it's also sort of that weird transitional transitional period. Yeah. So, it's like spring is coming, but also
00:04:15
it's [ __ ] 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
00:04:20
where we're in the 50s now, which is New England summer, and that feels so everybody's wearing shorts and t-shirts.
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Not me. That's for me. You go outside and it's shorts and t-shirts. Drew is fully in his shorts mode, which is fun.
00:04:32
So, we're almost there. Yeah. Um, we are going to cover this is going to be a two-parter because it's a little intense
00:04:38
and it's there's a lot. This is somebody who kind of got like swept under the wave of serial killers that
00:04:48
were in the Los Angeles, you know, that area. San Francisco, that kind of area in California in the 60s and 70s. Kind
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of like what you were saying when you when we talked about Herbert Mullen. Exactly. I'm kind of hitting that wave
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of these killers and a lot of them got swept under each other because there were other bigger ones, I guess, like
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bigger, you know, uh, victim counts or like more, for some reason, some got more like coverage than others, which is
00:05:15
a little wild to me because they're all awful, equally gnarly. It's just what the media wants to cover. It's very
00:05:21
strange like you just don't know what people latch on to in the media. But uh we are going to cover David Carpenter,
00:05:27
the trailside killer. Oh. Uh we have covered other quote unquote trailside killers. This is not the same. So don't
00:05:36
worry. Uh but even I looked at it and I was like we've covered somebody who would like do this on like trails, but I
00:05:42
think we briefly talked about crime countdown. Exactly. Which sometimes throws me off. Yeah. Uh but David
00:05:50
Carpenter is really rough. Uh trigger warning. He is like a sexual satist. He's He sucks. Uh he sucks a lot. Um and
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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
00:06:05
two parts. Yeah. So you can kind of just like, you know, absorb all the information in small doses. Um so again,
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we're talking about the 60s and 70s, you know, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. At this point, Californians
00:06:21
were literally terrorized. like I was saying by multiple killers. You know, we're talking about the Zodiac Killer,
00:06:27
the Hillside Stranglers, Herbert Mullen, Ed Keer. All of them were in different parts, but like near each other around
00:06:35
the same time. And the decade between the 60s and 70s definitely ended with a lot of these killers either just
00:06:43
disappearing, Zodiac, Yep. or being apprehended. Uh but the terror and the near constant threat of violence and
00:06:49
murder was kind of just simply moving north at this point. So David Carpenter terrorized Point Reyes in Santa Cruz
00:06:58
County for a decade, which is where Santa Cruz is where Herbert Mullen was also hanging out a lot, right? Um he
00:07:05
assaulted, he kidnapped, and he killed at least eight people and he was suspected of more. Wow. Yeah. Now, who
00:07:13
is David Carpenter? Tell me. because unfortunately we got to know who this dumb [ __ ] is. So David Joseph Carpenter
00:07:20
was born May 6th, 1930 in San Francisco. He was born to Lwood and Francis Carpenter. Lwood. Um Lwood. Yeah. Close.
00:07:29
Um neither all both of them suck. Uh so I'm just going to say that right up front. Don't get attached to either of
00:07:35
them. I won't. Um they were a postal worker and a homemaker. Uh by his own accounts, his early life was quote
00:07:42
unquote hellish. um due in large part, according to him, by what he described as his mother's
00:07:49
quote unloving, inflexible, and exceedingly doineering stance. Damn. According to Carpenter himself, uh his
00:07:57
unhappy home life and constant fighting between his parents led his father um to
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move out for a year while David was 14 years old, leaving David and his sister an alone with his mother. That's a rough
00:08:08
time for your dad to move out. I mean, it's always a pretty rough time for your dad to move out. feel that. But like I
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feel like that would be rough no matter what. So the biggest issue that was affecting his relationship with his
00:08:19
parents was and this is this is sad again feel bad for the child. It was his pronounced stutter that he had which he
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developed at a very early age. Uh one probation officer later wrote quote his parents and siblings were not fond of
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him at all being somewhat ashamed of his speech impediment. What the [ __ ] Yeah,
00:08:38
they're just pieces of [ __ ] Yeah, don't help him with that at all or anything.
00:08:41
On top of this, David also had really bad eyesight and was left-handed. Both of these things were viewed by his
00:08:47
mother as being failings. The work of the devil. Yeah. Just complete failings. I love that being left-handed is a fail.
00:08:54
Yeah. That's like what? Wow. That's like kind of cool. Yeah. That's different, man. Yeah. But even seeing what she
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deemed to be big issues and failings, Francis refused to seek treatment for her son's developmental problems, uh
00:09:07
choosing instead to address the problem in the home with very aggressive discipline. Oh. Cuz that always works.
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No, it doesn't. That doesn't turn people into angry adults. That's totally fine.
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Uh when those attempts strangely failed, uh Francis made a series of appointments
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finally at the University of California Medical Center, which when I first read this, I said, "Okay." But then the day
00:09:29
of the appointments would arrive and she would drive to the hospital, sometimes get as far as the door, and then just
00:09:35
turn around and go home. That's a waste of time. And whenever she was asked about the missed appointment, she would
00:09:39
just blame him. Oh, okay. But she was just like blame the child and didn't want to do it. Neglectful. Yeah. So
00:09:47
while Francis was, you know, she was verbally abusive, she was emotionally abusive towards David, she was also
00:09:53
known to be very physically abusive, like very physically abusive. According to Ivonne Kerry, who grew up a few
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houses down from the Carpenters, she said it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that Francis Carpenter was
00:10:05
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
00:10:10
my god. Yeah. Um, she later recalled, "Then when he would come back, meaning David, he would be covered with bruises
00:10:17
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
00:10:24
his arms and face." It's crazy that back then, like that didn't cause anybody to
00:10:28
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
00:10:34
it's fine to beat the [ __ ] out of your kids. It's just expected like keep them
00:10:37
in line. Oh my god. the point where they have to beat your kids ever and then to
00:10:42
the point where they have welts and bruises. Like, oh my god. Also, again, you have to be a literal sociopathic
00:10:50
monster to hit a child to harm a child like that. You simply do and I will take no arguments to the like I just No. I
00:10:57
mean, I will never understand that kind of behavior with a child. I will never understand it. Nope. I just won't. And
00:11:04
especially like in the 50s it's like oh yeah, that was just like the thing. Okay, cool. That was the thing. You
00:11:09
still have to be a [ __ ] monster to be able to do that to a child. Well, and it's like I think people get confused
00:11:16
because it's like in the 50s like spankings were normal and like hitting your, you know, like using a belt even
00:11:21
that is [ __ ] awful. But this is like beating and literally like punching a child in the face. That shouldn't have
00:11:27
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
00:11:31
things. People just looked the other way. Yeah. And it was So it wasn't just his mother. Carpenter said that Elwood
00:11:38
was equally distant and abusive when it came to David. But his abuse was mostly verbal. Okay. I mean, still that's
00:11:44
awful. Decades later, when he was evaluated by psychiatrists, David would minimize the abuse he suffered from his
00:11:50
father. Huh. And he would focus instead on his mother as the instigator of all his problems. I mean, she was beating
00:11:57
the [ __ ] out of them. Sounds like she was [ __ ] terrible. It sounds like the dad was [ __ ] terrible, too. Now, if
00:12:03
David's home life was hellish, his experience at school was not much better. Um, he was very intelligent and
00:12:10
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.
00:12:15
Yeah. Uh, his teachers struggled to work with him. Um, they said he was largely disengaged, which of course he was. Sure
00:12:22
he was. Um, one teacher said, "I tried and tried and I just couldn't get through to him." That's sad. David's
00:12:28
stutter and his poor social skills made him a frequent target for bullying. And he endured years of physical and
00:12:34
emotional torment from his peers. People suck. Yeah. And again, you can feel bad
00:12:39
for the child. No child deserves to go through that. No. Um and it also teaches you like not that this is like people go
00:12:47
through [ __ ] like that and they come out and they're good people and they don't
00:12:50
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
00:12:54
can see how but you can also sit there and go maybe I shouldn't treat people like [ __ ] Like do think about it the
00:13:00
next time that you want to like ruthlessly bully someone because this guy like if they are slightly unstable,
00:13:08
if there's something slightly off chemically, then you have just lit the match. And it's like just don't treat
00:13:16
people like [ __ ] It's just a weird thing to do anyway. Like I just don't bully people. If you're a bully, go [ __ ]
00:13:22
yourself. Like honestly, if you're like if you're a bully out in life, if you're
00:13:26
a bully in your job, if you're a bully on the internet, go [ __ ] yourself. Like
00:13:30
you're going to get what you deserve. I agree. Like this is just like I don't understand treating people like this.
00:13:35
Unhappy people treat people that way. Yeah. And often times it's easier to see that as you grow older. I think like
00:13:42
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
00:13:47
me? But it's like damn, just don't you get the people I'm awesome. Exactly. like let's go. Yeah. So, in one
00:13:55
evaluation written by Dr. Ralph Ellison, um a psychiatrist, he wrote, "At school,
00:14:00
he was always made fun of because of the stammer and inability to get answers out
00:14:05
even though he was brighter than most children in the school. And additionally, it looks like David's kind
00:14:10
of like unusual and disturbing behavior sometimes made him a target because he would also do things because again, he's
00:14:17
doing he's being abused at home, so there's going to be some emotional issues here. He would regularly do
00:14:23
things like pull the wings off of flies to try to shock kids. And if a kid is doing that to something smaller than
00:14:31
him, that is a big red flag. But again, we're in the 50s. So that's just boys being boys. That's
00:14:38
just boys being boys. Now, on the rare occasion that David would make a friend in school or in the neighborhood,
00:14:43
Francis, his mother, would inevitably interfere in the relationship, not allowing any children in the house or
00:14:49
putting very strict time limits on her son's socialization with other kids. The [ __ ] It's like you don't want them at
00:14:54
home. Well, that's what I never get with these kind of parents. It's like, so you're abusing your kid. You clearly
00:14:59
don't like them. You don't like being a parent. You don't like the responsibility of being a parent, but
00:15:04
then you like won't allow that kid to go out of your respons like like So you're not responsible. Yeah. But
00:15:11
instead you that that to me shows that you are a like you're a monster that just likes hurting this child. It's not
00:15:18
that you are not capable of being a big it's like you are just you're getting enjoyment out of it. You are evil and
00:15:23
you just enjoy hurting something smaller than you and it's like and you should be
00:15:27
[ __ ] locked up. So David's friend Robert Gorabek said Francis and Elwood had lain down specific rules. It was
00:15:36
like you had to make an appointment before you could go over and see him. The [ __ ] Instead, Francis would make
00:15:41
sure to fill David's afternoons. Um, she signed him up for violin and ballet lessons, which at this time made him a
00:15:49
bigger target for bullying because we're in the 50s again. And these are seen as
00:15:54
two very unmasculine activities to do. Would you almost wonder if that was like another layer of her cruelty? Yeah. I
00:16:00
mean, putting him in ballet in the ' 50s was pretty cruel. putting your kids in ballet now. [ __ ] yeah. Everybody put
00:16:07
everybody in ballet back then. But like everybody had it had a uh it just we're in the 50s where masculinity is looked
00:16:15
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
00:16:20
not passionate about ballet, which it doesn't sound like he was, then you're really doing a detriment here. It's like
00:16:26
if he's passionate about ballet, then yeah, like otherwise it's okay. But you're just doing this to kind of like
00:16:33
get him one out of your hair, but making sure he's not doing something that fulfills or him or makes him happy.
00:16:38
Yeah. While he's out of your hair, y which is like another layer of [ __ ] up. Now, these were exacerbated by how
00:16:47
she would dress him as well. She would make him dress in like very formal outfits.
00:16:53
um his friend there said they always dressed him up like some fancy pants and the kids on the block were always
00:16:58
pounding the hell out of him which is so shitty cuz it's like he's obviously not
00:17:03
choosing this. No. And it's just like [ __ ] a dude. This woman has a strange pathology. Yeah, it's true. And it's
00:17:09
just like God just stop being mean to people. Now obviously due to a variety of factors David struggled to develop
00:17:17
positive social skills. You don't say. and developed a reputation for now inappropriate and cruel behavior because
00:17:24
he's also being shown cruel behavior. You show a child cruel behavior, they will then show others cruel behavior.
00:17:32
That is cause and effect. Like that just is so unable to bond with boys his own age cuz that wasn't working. David would
00:17:41
socialize with the girls in the neighborhood. They were often in the beginning very sympathetic and like pied
00:17:46
him a little bit and were like, "You know what? let's just like try to help him out, you know, just girls being
00:17:51
girls. Girls being like, "Come on, take care of you." Yeah. But while the neighborhood girls were definitely more
00:17:58
patient with him, even their sympathy had limits, obviously. Yeah. Everybody does. One girl recalled, "He usually had
00:18:05
my sympathy, but then he'd do something cruel, like twisting the head off of some girl's doll, and he'd get that
00:18:10
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
00:18:16
trying to help you out." And you're like, "Not Yeah. like don't [ __ ] with my dolls. Like I feel like he's
00:18:20
acting out like a typical boy. He thinks like taking the head off a doll or like
00:18:26
you know doing some kind of prank like that. But it's like not cuz he's not been socialized to know what is of his
00:18:33
age. You know what I mean? What a typical prank of his age is. Well, and if you're ripping the heads off of
00:18:38
dolls, that's like alone. That's one thing. Like that's an very annoying boy thing to do. But if it goes hand inhand
00:18:44
with you also pulling the wings off flies, I'm going to be a little scared of you. Yes, exactly. You know, now his
00:18:50
and it gets and it started getting worse because his cruel and inappropriate behavior started getting increasingly
00:18:56
sexual in nature. I had a feeling that was coming and soon he found that the girls around him were perfect targets or
00:19:03
um years later he told psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Allison, "I pulled down a little girl's pants for the first time when I
00:19:09
was 8 years old." Oh, Christ. Eight years old. That's a baby. Mhm. In Allison's estimation, by the time he was
00:19:18
10 years old, David had quote learned to take out his anger sexually. And that was by the time he was 10.
00:19:25
Yeah. Which would eventually become one of the driving forces of his personality
00:19:30
as an adult. Sure. You start that at 10 years old. And it was never addressed. Like it's like he it was not addressed
00:19:38
until he saw the law for it. Like it was never addressed in any kind of like medical way. Yeah. They should have
00:19:44
gotten past the doors of the hospital. Yeah. When he was a child, this should have been taken care of. Yeah. Um by the
00:19:50
time he was 14 years old, he had committed his first sexual assault. Wow. Against one of his younger family
00:19:55
members. Oh. The assault result resulted in him being committed to the Napa State
00:20:00
Hospital and he was housed with other sex offenders there. Um upon his release, he returned to his parents
00:20:06
house, but everything just kept going downward. When he wasn't in school, he started spending a lot of time alone in
00:20:12
the woods. Oh god. Before long, he was suspected of committing burglaries and homes in and around Santa Cruz. The next
00:20:20
year, when David was in the 10th grade, he ran away from home and hid out for a few days in the uh family cabin in
00:20:26
Redwood Grove. And this disappearance was the last straw because so the school um uh expelled him because he stopped
00:20:34
going to school. Oh, okay. Okay. Now, a year after being kicked out of school, he was in trouble with the law again,
00:20:40
and this is awful. after he committed a sexual assault against two cousins. Not his cousins, but they were cousins. A
00:20:47
pair of cousins, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old. Oh god. Uh he met them at Diamond's Heights, Diamond Heights
00:20:54
Park, and according to Dr. Allison's evaluation, he threatened the two with a knife, which marked the first time that
00:21:00
he used a weapon in an assault. Uh which indicates a very severe escalation in violent behavior. Yep. Um, and this
00:21:07
again, this was when he was 15. Holy [ __ ] Maybe 15 or 16. Yeah, around there. Yeah. Um, he was quickly arrested
00:21:16
for the assault and sentenced to the California Youth Authority at Preston. Do you remember that? We covered Yeah,
00:21:23
we covered the Preston School, right? Yeah. Preston School of Industry. Yeah. Go back to that episode. Uh, where
00:21:30
he was held until his 18th birthday. Oh, [ __ ] After he turned 18, he was transferred to Napa State Hospital for
00:21:37
observation and after 90 days, he was determined no longer a threat. I don't know about that. There um this this is a
00:21:45
story of many failures. It usually is. Um he could have been stopped many times. No one had to die. Yeah. No one
00:21:53
had to die here. [ __ ] hate that. Now, looking back, his juvenile record, which
00:21:58
contained a number of incidents that, you know, if we looked at now in 2025, they would be the most giant red flags,
00:22:06
right? Five arrests for sexual assault, one escape from juvenile detention, a long history of bragging about sexual
00:22:14
assaults to the other inmates. All of that would now be looked at as like, oh no, this is going to escalate. Yeah.
00:22:21
Like, let's keep him locked up. and his personal history included several experiences and characteristics that are
00:22:27
now associated with antisocial personalities and serial murders in particular, including a history of bedwedding and
00:22:34
cruelty to animals. So, it's like he's got all the red flags. He's ticking all the boxes. If psychiatrists had known
00:22:41
then what we know now, they would have had every reason to believe that David Carpenter would pose a severe threat to
00:22:47
those around him. And they and it kills me that they didn't. now in 1950. So actually most of what he was
00:22:55
going through when he was younger was in the 40s. So I was wrong about the even worse. Um in 1950 when he was 20 years
00:23:02
old, Carpenter found work as an office assistant and messenger for the HB Thomas company on Battery Street in San
00:23:09
Francisco. One day in midsummer, he ended up picking up a girl he knew who was hitchhiking to a friend's house, and
00:23:16
he offered to drive her the rest of the way. So he knew this girl. Uhhuh. As they drove, he said, "Do you actually
00:23:22
mind if I make a quick stop at my house?" "Yes, I do." And she was like, "Yeah, totally." Cuz she Yeah. Why would
00:23:27
she think anything of that? Once inside the house, though, he started to become sexually aggressive with her, and she
00:23:33
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
00:23:40
only managed to escape after fighting him off and locking herself in the bathroom and climbing through a very
00:23:47
small window that left outside. That's literally what nightmares are made of. And she had to run somewhere and contact
00:23:54
the police. Now, he was quickly picked up on a charge that he quote willfully and
00:24:00
feloniously made an assault upon a female under the age of 18 with the intent to have and accomplish the act of
00:24:07
sexual intercourse upon said female. He plead not guilty and was taken to trial where he was acquitted.
00:24:15
What the [ __ ] Hello, 1950s. For real. Hello. Now, Ralph Allison's notes, though, indicate that David quote made
00:24:23
no attempt to deny the allegations against him and had been quite proerative and asked only that he be
00:24:30
placed in a facility where he could receive help. So, he even asked for help. But 1950s, they were like, "Nah,
00:24:37
you're good. Just get on out. Get on out of here." Yeah. In 1955, David ended up
00:24:44
dating and then marrying a 19-year-old woman named Ellen uh Ellen Heedel, I believe it is. The pier the pair met at
00:24:52
um in Daily City a few years earlier. And when David u they when they met, David was briefly dating her sister
00:25:00
Willilamina. Oh. Um yeah. when she broke off their relationship after only a few
00:25:06
dates, he turned his attention to Ellen and within a few months they were married at Yeah, that is not girl code.
00:25:13
No, that is not sister code. Sister code goes above girl code. It certainly does.
00:25:18
And they were married at San Francisco City Hall. Less than a year later, Ellen gave birth to their first child,
00:25:25
Michael. And the family moved to a small house in West Lake, and David found a steady job as a shipping clerk there.
00:25:31
Two years later, Ellen gave birth to their second child, Gabrielle, who was followed in 1960 by their third child,
00:25:39
Cersei. By this point in his life, his attitude towards women was pretty [ __ ] clear. He without fail
00:25:49
portrayed himself as the victim of women. Like women were to blame. His mother was to blame, therefore women
00:25:57
were to blame. He basically said everything he did it it was going to fall upon women as being the problem
00:26:04
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
00:26:11
own person. Plenty of people go I'm not saying he had a great he had a terrible life. No, but you can't make excuses for
00:26:17
your behavior once you become an adult. No, it's like based on your childhood. I'm sorry. You got to look at people who
00:26:22
make that. And again, he's in a different like time period, so I don't know like what's going on here. all the
00:26:27
resources that we have now are not available. Still, there are still people who went through like so you really do
00:26:32
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
00:26:39
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
00:26:46
kill women because of my mom." Get get over it. Like really, you're going to kill women because of your mom. Like not
00:26:52
all women are your mom and you should be able to make that differentiation. Exactly. Now, unfortunately, like we've
00:26:57
said before, medical understandings of personalities like his were very poorly understood in 1950. So, they weren't
00:27:05
exactly like analyzing David's symptoms, right? Instead, like his psychiatrist, Ralph Allison, who we've cited here
00:27:12
before, he was focusing more on like finding effective treatment. Yeah. Which Yeah, that's good. But like you also
00:27:18
need to figure out what the [ __ ] is going on here. Well, and also there's just not treatment for everybody. And as
00:27:24
we know now, there's not treatment for people like this really. No. And from Allison's perspective, Dr. Allison, he
00:27:32
said he thought it came down to David's stutter. He said, I think it's a lot more than that. If he could get proper
00:27:38
therapy for the stammer, we might be able to prevent further catastrophes of this sort. That's what he had. I think
00:27:44
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
00:27:51
the most 1950s point of view I have ever seen in my life. A psychiatrist just being like I think if you could just
00:27:59
speak clear, you wouldn't want to kill people. It's like no, I don't think that's the
00:28:05
driving force. No, I think that's part of his struggles. Sure. And especially that that was not taken as something
00:28:14
that like they worked through with him or made him accept and and be able to, you know, work through, right? It was
00:28:21
treated as like we're ashamed of you. Like that's awful. Of course, that's going to affect somebody. Not to this
00:28:26
extent. I think there's other things here at play and I think we should maybe look at them. I agree with you. Between
00:28:32
the responsibilities of his new job and now his growing family, he was feeling like he was under a lot of pressure,
00:28:39
which left him with a lot of rage. Oh, goody. Because this is not a man who can handle even the slightest inconvenience
00:28:45
in his life. The only thing that seemed to keep his anger in check, according to
00:28:49
Ellen, his wife at the time, was his need to have sex at least three times per night. Oh,
00:28:58
honey, your face. I'm not laughing at this. No, she's about to match his face. Never. Yeah, that's I was like, wo,
00:29:06
that's wild. And it's like [ __ ] poor Ellen. She has three children, has three children, and she's dealing with this
00:29:13
[ __ ] manchild who is like abusive, uncontrollably angry, and I I just like wonder what she what he presented to
00:29:22
her. I know, like to to to get like to get him to marry her. You know what I mean? Like it is so weird how we hear
00:29:31
about these men who have these awful childhoods and they have a lot of issues with girls and women and then they find
00:29:36
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
00:29:44
where they can have the control they want. So they so they're cunning enough to know that they have to put some
00:29:50
effort in in the beginning to, you know, like the the means justify the end. Yes.
00:29:56
Kind of thing. Yeah. Um and like and vice versa. So I think it's like the mask falls. That feels like it was
00:30:03
probably the scenario. And I and I feel so badly for Ellen cuz like it sounds like she was just completely entrapped
00:30:11
in this. Well, and remember this wasn't a time where she could even seek a divorce. Exactly. That's the other thing
00:30:17
to keep in mind. And she's got three kids now. Um, but there were times that even that wasn't enough for him and he
00:30:24
would come explosively violent with her. Um, and then he would claim to have no recollection of it. So, he's like
00:30:31
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
00:30:37
pretend it didn't happen. I'm sure probably like I'm sure like that accounts for some instances, but I do
00:30:42
believe that some people are so scary that they do black out. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. But I don't think it counts for
00:30:47
every instance. Now, in mid July 1960, he ran into an old friend, Lois Deandradi, Lisa Rena's mother. I was
00:30:57
just going to say, I don't know if that sounds familiar to you, Lisa Rena. You guys, like, you know, she's been a soap
00:31:03
opera actress forever. Days of our lives. She's she's on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I I don't I
00:31:10
haven't watched it in forever, but she was on it. She dances on TikTok. You might remember her mother Lois who
00:31:16
passed away recently, I think, didn't she? A couple years. Couple years. Um, she was adorable. Oh, I loved Lois. Lois
00:31:22
was the cutest thing. And they seemed like they were they were superly close. Yep. So, like, I'm sorry. And Lois went
00:31:29
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
00:31:36
are we mentioning Lois in this story?" Yeah. And why are we mentioning her as an old friend? She was they worked
00:31:44
together, I think, right? Yeah. So, they had met through mutual acquaintances a few years earlier. And again, they had
00:31:50
like and they had gone to coffee together a couple times in the past. They knew each other, you know? They
00:31:55
just knew each other. Like, they were friends. It was whatever. Lois had been on her way to work one
00:32:01
morning when David offered her a ride. That's what it is. Again, they're friends. Cool. David's offering me a
00:32:08
ride. no reason not to. Why the [ __ ] would I care? As he'd done a few years earlier,
00:32:13
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
00:32:20
wife, Ellen, and my new baby." Disarming. So, of course, Lois is like, "Of course you can. That sounds lovely.
00:32:27
I'd love to see the babe." But the more they drove, the more Lois began to wonder whether they were actually going
00:32:33
to pick up his wife and baby. Finally, David pulled over on the side on a side street and Lois immediately knew
00:32:40
something wasn't right. She later said, "By then I was really nervous, so I started to get out of the right hand
00:32:46
side of the car and I started to run." Wow. Now, Carpenter managed to reach Lois before she had gone far and she he
00:32:54
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
00:33:01
compartment and threatened her to keep quiet. And later she said, "He told me to be quiet, and if I was quiet, he
00:33:07
wouldn't kill me, but if I made any noise, he would." Now, the entire scene was [ __ ] terrifying and
00:33:15
completely confusing to Lois, who'd known Carpenter for years, and she was like, "I'd never seen him behave
00:33:23
violently." Right. His violent [ __ ] was contained. Yeah. To his home, right, behind closed doors. going to say
00:33:29
everyone else saw this pretty normal like guy like they're just David like what? So I I can't imagine knowing
00:33:38
someone for years and then having them snap on you like this. That must be uh and like it would be paralyzing. Yeah.
00:33:46
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
00:33:50
kill me. Like what? So she later said per she said she thought perhaps David went crazy. That's a quote. I was so
00:33:58
terrified. I don't think I moved after that. Yeah. And although she wasn't planning on moving at that point because
00:34:03
she was terrified, she was looking around and scanning her surroundings trying to look for anything that could
00:34:09
help her get out of this situation. Smart. So, she's desperately searching for a sign of anyone around her. And
00:34:15
David reached into the back seat and grabbed a hammer. At the same time that he was doing that,
00:34:21
Lois spotted a car a few dozen yards away. And without thinking, she threw her hand out and slammed down on the car
00:34:28
horn just to that's the only thing she could think of. But Carpenter immediately slashed at her with the
00:34:35
knife he had slicing into her hand. He ended up lacerating tendons in two of her fingers. Now, despite that injury,
00:34:43
which is a pretty [ __ ] massive injury, gnarly, Lois managed to get the door open and she tumbled out and hit
00:34:49
the ground running. David Carpenter got out and [ __ ] chased her at full speed. Oh my god.
00:34:56
This must have been horrifying. Absolutely he did. He caught up with her and he raised he's right behind her
00:35:02
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
00:35:10
hands up to deflect the blow from the hammer and the hammer struck a watch she was wearing and shattered it.
00:35:18
But there was only a brief moment of luck because he raised the hammer again and brought it right down on her head
00:35:25
and it made contact. So she knocked it right to the ground and he struck her five more times in the head with the
00:35:32
hammer. I didn't realize that she did. I thought she got out of this like unharmed. Oh no, she got ruthlessly
00:35:39
beaten in the head with this hammer. Holy [ __ ] Barely conscious, she managed to scream for help, which caught the
00:35:46
attention of a military police officer, Jewel Wayne Hicks, who happened to be driving down the narrow street at the
00:35:54
time. Whoa. What are the odds? And also, a military police officer caught this man doing this, but we have eight
00:36:03
stories of murder to tell. Yeah. Huh. That should be your first like knowledge of how many times
00:36:11
this is uh a failure to keep a absolute animal locked up. Ticking box number one. Yeah. Whoa. Um so Hicks, the
00:36:20
military police officer, slammed on his brakes, got out and ran in the direction
00:36:24
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
00:36:31
way we get out of the car, folks. That's how we get out of the car for one of these scenes. At first, he couldn't he
00:36:36
couldn't see the two people on the ground since there was a car door in the way, but he could hear the sounds. And
00:36:41
he said he immediately knew what was happening. By the time he made it to the car, Carpenter was on top of Lois still
00:36:47
hitting her with the hammer. Jesus. And Hicks said even when he saw me coming down the hill, he kept hitting her.
00:36:55
So he saw this man and just kept hitting. So that makes you like honestly question if he is in a blind rage at
00:37:02
this point. It's so scary cuz that is and I think it I mean I think it's how you define a blind rage. Like I still
00:37:11
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
00:37:17
he is singularly focused on his rage and the and the focus of his rage and it just doesn't matter. So wild to think of
00:37:28
somebody's thought process because then officer Hicks shouted for him to stop obviously and that caused David to jump
00:37:36
up and run, but he ran at Hicks swinging the hammer at him. He's a mad man. And he said he was quote screaming in rage.
00:37:46
Oh, that's horrifying. So he's just an animal. Yep. And when the officer finally managed to successfully fend off
00:37:53
the hammer with his baton, Carpenter pulled out a quote fountain pen tear gas gun and fired it in Hicks's face. [ __ ]
00:38:02
what? So he came fully prepared to incapacitate someone. I had no idea that this was this that this was this. I also
00:38:12
didn't know that they briefly discussed this at a dinner on housewives briefly over sushi, I believe. Holy [ __ ] The
00:38:19
gun produced a large plume of smoke which confused Hicks momentarily. But he wasn't quite sure what happened. He just
00:38:27
got hit in the face with this tear gas pen which is nothing new for a military police. And he said he recognized the
00:38:33
sound of a gunshot. Oh [ __ ] And instinctively raised his pistol and fired in the direction of where
00:38:38
Carpenter was. And Hicks was didn't know where he was at the time, but he still managed to hit Carpenter twice. once in
00:38:46
the abdomen and once in the leg which knocked him off his feet and caused him to shout that he surrendered. So he got
00:38:53
shot twice and surrendered. Hello. Now I want to be So when you guys hear this that he was on top of this
00:39:02
woman hitting her in the head with a hammer repeatedly, uh what would you say is the uh end result that he was
00:39:10
probably looking for by doing that? Either rape or murder. Uh both. I would say you don't hit someone five times in
00:39:16
the head with a hammer and not assume that they're going to die. Yep. He was trying to murder her. Yep. 100%. Yeah,
00:39:22
definitely murder. I was just questioning I'm sure he was also going to do that. But he This is a murder that
00:39:28
he failed at. Yep. This isn't assault. No, this is attempted. This is a murder that he fa that he failed to commit. And
00:39:35
you guys know how we feel about attempted murder. So with Carpenter incapacitated, Hicks went back to his
00:39:40
car and radioed for backup, which arrived very quickly. Lois was taken to the hospital. She was treated for a
00:39:46
fractured skull, which was broken in two places. Her skull was shattered in two places. It's remarkable that she
00:39:53
survived this. Yeah. And she also had severe lacerations on her hands and face after multiple surgeries during which
00:40:00
metal plates were placed in her skull and tendons were grafted in two fingers and nearly 2 months of
00:40:08
hospitalization. She recovered. Unreal. But she never regained full use of those
00:40:13
fingers. Oh. In her statement to police, Lois detailed what happened from the moment Carpenter picked her up,
00:40:19
including that he had told her, quote, "I have a sex quirk just moments before attacking her." A quirk? A quirk? Babe,
00:40:27
that's not a kink. Like a quirk. David Carpenter was taken to Letterman General General Hospital where surgeons
00:40:35
removed the two bullets from his body before I know unfortunately before he was cuffed to a bed and he recovered
00:40:42
there before being transferred to San Quentin like a little over a week later I think it was to await his hearing.
00:40:48
Okay, this it turned out would take much longer than expected. Um because due to
00:40:54
his injuries and his claims of mental illness, it was going to go a lot longer than just like charge. blah blah blah.
00:41:01
In the two months that followed, he was evaluated twice by psychiatrists before finally being indicted on September 22nd
00:41:08
where a grand jury returned four counts of assault that if convicted would have put
00:41:14
him in jail for 30 years. Question, which like cool 30 years, but but like where's the attempted murder
00:41:21
assault? Yeah. Where's the attempted murder charge? Right. Like are we really pretending that he wasn't trying to kill
00:41:27
her? You fractured her skull in two places and hit her over five times with a hammer and sliced her hands open. Like
00:41:32
he attacked her with a knife and a hammer. Yeah. Are we all okay? At his arraignment in October, Carpenter plead
00:41:38
not guilty and his lawyer indicated their intent to plead insanity as a defense. But you already got evaluated.
00:41:44
Yeah. Instead, just as they were preparing to go to trial, he accepted a plea deal from the prosecution and plead
00:41:52
guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon. Um, I I'll say I understand plea deals
00:42:03
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
00:42:10
got him on all those four counts. Well, and Judge Oliver Carter wasn't certain he would accept the deal and instead
00:42:18
blame him, he ordered Carpenter to a 90-day hold in federal prison where he was going to be examined thoroughly by
00:42:24
psychiatrists. And on March 9th, 1961, Carpenter was back in front of a judge after having been evaluated many times
00:42:32
at San Quinton. And after reading the reports, which diagnosed Carpenter as a sociopathic personality, Uh-huh. The
00:42:40
judge deemed David a quote personality who should be locked away in the interests of society. That's completely
00:42:46
correct. Thank you, sir. Given the brutality of the attack and his past offenses, he sentenced him to 14 years
00:42:52
in federal prison. Okay. Like I wish it was the full 30 though. Yeah. But then for some reason the judge kind of like
00:42:59
softened somewhat after announcing the ruling and recommended the parole board conduct routine evaluations and release
00:43:07
Carpenter quote at any time he is considered rehabilitated. Oliver like I'm sorry. What the [ __ ] You literally
00:43:14
said he's a threat to society and then they're like hey Pearl Board like keep it keep tabs on that though. Check it
00:43:19
out. If you feel like it's cool that day just let him out. Yeah. Just be be cool,
00:43:23
man. Don't be all uncool. He was diagnosed as a sociopathic personality. Yeah. And tried to kill this woman.
00:43:30
Yeah. And this officer tried to kill Lois and this officer. Yeah. So, after the sentence was passed, Ellen
00:43:38
filed for divorce. Oh, good. Uh listing their separation as July 12th, 1960, the
00:43:44
night of the attack on Lois. Wow. Good for her. That's women supporting women. Hell yeah. And she cited extreme cruelty
00:43:50
as a reason. Yeah. and wrongfully inflicting upon her grievous mental suffering. Um, so she I guess you could
00:43:57
file for divorce back then as a woman. The divorce was finalized on o August 27th, 1962 and Carpenter was ordered to
00:44:04
pay $1 per month in child support and $1 per month in alimony. Three kids. Yeah. She was awarded the
00:44:13
couple's assets, including the house. That's good. and granted her requ they granted her request for a restraining
00:44:18
order to prevent David from quote annoying or molesting the children. Oh god. Yeah. Um I don't know if that means
00:44:28
what that word means. Some that there's terms legal terms that that can mean like bothering which is weird I know but
00:44:37
I'm not sure where how that one was used. Blesting is what I'm talking about. Okay. But he is also he has like
00:44:44
pedophilic tendencies. So it's like I that could um but I am not positive. Yeah. Now in
00:44:50
the meantime, David was sent to McNeel Island Correctional Facility and began serving his sentence on April 12th,
00:44:57
1961. Now he applied for parole in 1964, but it was unanimously rejected. Good. In April 1969, however, he came up for
00:45:07
parole a second time and his petition was granted. bad on the grounds that he'd served the minimum 9-year sentence.
00:45:15
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,
00:45:20
he just served his minimum sentence, so you're going to let him out? So, it's all good regardless of what kind of
00:45:24
person he is. So, now he's a free man. Christ. And he moved in with his stepbrother, William, and began taking
00:45:31
welding classes at the local vocational school. I feel as though we shouldn't offer people like that welding classes.
00:45:36
Let's not give him tools. I don't think. Yeah. In his free time, he started attending group therapy on the
00:45:41
recommendation of his parole officer. And it was there that he met Helen. Bad question mark. David and Helen began
00:45:48
dating that spring and on August 8th, 1969, they were married at city hall. He gets that woman to marry him quickly.
00:45:56
Yeah. Um William Carpenter, his stepbrother, was the witness to the marriage. It appears little is known
00:46:01
about this period of his life. Um he remained in regular contact with his probation officer at this point and he
00:46:07
was meeting all the conditions of his parole for a while. He's probably laying low at this point. Um yeah. Then rather
00:46:13
suddenly he cut off all communication with the probation officer and the parole board that December. Huh. And he
00:46:21
had like years left on his probation. So there's no reason for this. And around the same time, Helen, having been driven
00:46:28
to what author Robert Gaymith referred to as quote, "The edge of a nervous breakdown, left California on a long
00:46:35
trip to Hawaii and just left her husband behind." Damn. Yeah. Who knows what that
00:46:40
poor woman endured what was going on? The fact that she left the entire state of California tells us everything we
00:46:46
need to know. Yeah. Now, without anyone watching over him, it didn't take long before David Carpenter began losing
00:46:52
control of his rage. On the evening of January 27th, 1970, he went out for a drive on Highway 280 towards Santa Cruz.
00:47:01
And at some point, the driver of a passing car, who was a young blonde woman, caught his attention. And for no
00:47:08
explicable reason, she became the focus of his [ __ ] rage. Oh no. Uh without any warning to this driver, David sped
00:47:15
up beside her and forced her car off the road. Oh, that's so scary. She's just driving. That is so scary. Terrified,
00:47:22
she jumped out of the car and ran into the underbrush, quickly losing him. And he stood at the side of the road and
00:47:30
called out to her in threatening voices. What the [ __ ] But when he heard no sounds, he got back in his Volkswagen
00:47:37
Beetle and steered the car back onto the highway. That poor girl. Holy holy [ __ ]
00:47:45
I just can't imagine later in life being like that. What would have happened? And
00:47:49
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.
00:47:55
Imagine thinking back to that being like, "Oh my god." Like, and you just read this and you're like, "Holy fuck."
00:48:01
A short time later, a little past 10 p.m., he found himself driving on Highway 9 towards Boulder Creek, where
00:48:07
the only other car on the road easily caught his attention again cuz he's pissed. Determined to relieve his
00:48:14
tension and anger, he pressed the accelerator and rammed his car into the other driver, who was 19-year-old Cheryl
00:48:21
Lynn Smith. Thinking the man was drunk, she shouted at him. She was like, "Fuck you, dude." Yeah. But Carpenter ignored
00:48:28
her and they they pulled over to the side of the road and he started like quote unquote evaluating the damage. Oh
00:48:35
my god. So Smith got out of her car and was looking over the damage as well. And
00:48:39
then Carpenter's hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck. Oh, that's awful. He grabbed her by the neck and
00:48:46
said, "I want to rape you. I'll have to kill you if you don't come with me." Oh god. Like what the [ __ ] So, and this is
00:48:57
like graphic. I apologize. Carpenter dragged her into the brush where he literally tore off her clothing and
00:49:03
violently sexually assaulted her. As Cheryl tried to get out of his grasp, he sliced her arm with his knife, partially
00:49:11
severing the muscles and rendering it temporarily useless. Oh my god, the the force that would take. Yeah. And she
00:49:20
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
00:49:25
at him. Cuz she wasn't looking at him. And she said she looked at him and she said she was stunned because she said
00:49:32
all I had seen up until that point was this like violent scary man and she was like suddenly he looked totally
00:49:38
different. What? Suddenly she said his features had softened and he spoke to her with a pronounced stutter suddenly
00:49:46
which he didn't have before. Uh-huh. And she said to her bewilderment she he looked at her and said, "Look, you're
00:49:53
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
00:49:58
call the police. That's and like said it in like a like look you're hurt and bleeding like not
00:50:05
like oh my god I hurt you for it was like oh my god like how did that happen? But it softened into like, "Oh no, like
00:50:11
I didn't mean like what? You violently raped her? Like what do you mean?" And Cheryl was like, "No, I'm good." Like
00:50:19
it's it's good. She managed to get back to her own car and drove away and he just let her.
00:50:28
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
00:50:39
he was keeping distance, but he was behind her. And so she saw a large hotel in the distance. So she drove in the
00:50:45
direction of what she was hoping would be help. And he was driving behind her the entire way. So she gets into the
00:50:51
very well-lit parking lot and he sped off. So he was planning on following her right to her house. Yep. But she managed
00:50:59
to write down his license plate. Smart. She immediately reported the attack to police and gave them the license plate
00:51:06
number. and she described her attacker as white, 30 to 35 years of age, 5' 10 in, 160 lb, and brown hair. That same
00:51:15
night, an anonymous caller reported witnessing what appeared to be a fender bender accident on Highway 9, which is
00:51:22
that. So later, it was discovered that Cheryl was the second woman that he had attacked that day. The first was a woman
00:51:29
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
00:51:35
two. Really? It was three. Yeah. So far. Yeah. That afternoon, Joyce had returned
00:51:40
home from a shopping trip to find Carpenter waiting in her house with a shotgun. Nope. Nope. Yeah. Walked in
00:51:49
from shopping to him sitting in her home with a shotgun. Do you know that's one of my biggest fears? That is the
00:51:54
scariest thing I've ever heard. That's Oh, [ __ ] That's literally horror movie [ __ ] That is horror movie [ __ ] and he
00:52:01
forced her to leave with him in her car and the two drove for a short time before he sexually assaulted her and
00:52:08
then let her out of the car. What? This is awful, too. In the days after that, he kidnapped and assaulted two other
00:52:16
women, one of whom had a toddler in the car with her. Oh, and stole a car from a
00:52:23
third woman. Why was he not stopped? This is crazy. When they were interviewed by police, all the women
00:52:29
identified David Carpenter as their attacker. They like they knew his name unanimously. They were able to identify
00:52:35
him. Oh, okay. Okay. Now, Carpenter was arrested at a motel in Modesto on February 3rd, 1970 after a week-long
00:52:42
manhunt conducted by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department. And this is when he should be put away forever
00:52:48
because he has a violent past that he's now continuing. He has just assaulted numerous women. Numerous women. after
00:52:55
assaulting Lois, the police officer, and just dodging parole. Yeah. Yep. Um, so at the time of his arrest, the district
00:53:04
attorneys in Santa Cruz County and nearby uh Calaveris County filed charges against him for attempted rape, rape,
00:53:11
kidnapping, and assault. And because he had been on parole at the time with four
00:53:16
years left on his sentence, he was placed in Calaveris County Jail pending a transfer to a prison where he could
00:53:22
serve out the rest of his sentence. So he has now also violated parole. These are all huge charges. Massive. David was
00:53:29
held at Calaveris County Jail for two months until he managed to escape on the night of April
00:53:37
26th. According to the press, he was being held in a cell with four other men and they managed to cut through the bars
00:53:44
and all five of them escaped out of a skylight. And that's why we don't let prisoners just hang out together in the
00:53:51
cells. They were unsure how they cut through the bars, but a spokesperson person for the sheriff's office said
00:53:59
they may have used a hacksaw blade. I'm sorry. Where the [ __ ] did they get a hacksaw blade?
00:54:05
My question exactly. These violent prisoners. Had access to a uh hacksaw blade. Oops.
00:54:13
We forgot the hacksaw blade was in there. I'm a normal [ __ ] I don't have access to a hacksaw blade. Yeah, I've
00:54:20
never committed a violent crime. The [ __ ] And how would they one have a hacksaw blade and two have enough time
00:54:27
to hacksaw through bars? Like that's going to also make some noise. No one was looking at them. No one was
00:54:34
checking. I wonder if they like bribed a guard or something. Yeah. Now, the good
00:54:39
news is all five of them were rounded up the following day. And while the other four were returned to jail to await
00:54:45
their trials, David Carpenter was transferred to Soladad Prison. On July 17th, a grand jury in Santa Cruz
00:54:52
indicted Carpenter for rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, and assault. District Attorney Peter Chang told the press,
00:55:00
"Right now, Carpenter is serving a minimum 5-year sentence. If we can make the aggravated kidnapping charge stick,
00:55:06
the term will be increased to life." Let's go. Already serving a sentence of 1 to 25 years for the charges in
00:55:13
Calaveris County on October 8th, Carpenter pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one count of armed robbery and
00:55:20
in exchange he was given a sentence of 5 years. That's [ __ ] They should be ashamed of this. Absolutely they should.
00:55:28
These all these deaths are on their hands 100%. Now, despite Peter Chang thinking that he would be able to lock
00:55:37
him up for life, David would only spend nine years at Solidad Prison until being
00:55:42
parrolled to a halfway house in late May 1979. You guys did this before, though.
00:55:47
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
00:55:53
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
00:56:00
May 21st, 1979, he was released on parole and by that time Helen had divorced him and he was to remain on
00:56:08
probation until 1982. So he was sent to live at Reality House West, which was a halfway house for federal prisoners
00:56:16
transitioning back into society, which is not something he should have been. No. As part of his parole conditions, he
00:56:23
was required to find a job. So he started taking classes at the vocational center and eventually began
00:56:29
participating in courses in computer repair. Okay. Around this time he also took up hiking around Santa Cruz. No.
00:56:37
And developed a particular fondness for the trails on Mount Tamalpace. Uh which is which I think
00:56:43
they call it uh Mount Tam for sure. Oh, I've heard of Mount Tam. Yeah. Um it's a
00:56:48
popular hiking spot in Marane County about 10 miles outside San Francisco. At the foot of the mountain was a small
00:56:54
community of renters including John and Edain. Now on the morning of August 19th, 1979, Etakaine was preparing for a
00:57:03
4-hour hike that the couple had planned to take together that afternoon. Uh unfortunately, Jon's arthritis was
00:57:09
acting up that morning, so he was unable to take the hike with Eda. Um she was a
00:57:14
very experienced hiker, so she just decided to go alone. Yeah. Several hours passed and Eda had still not returned
00:57:20
home. This caused Jon to be very anxious. His wife wife was very skilled, but it was getting dark. So, he called
00:57:27
the sheriff's department and reported it and deputies were sent out immediately to look for Eda. Now, sheriff's deputies
00:57:34
along with a search and rescue team and packs of dogs combed the mountain all night. But by dawn, they still hadn't
00:57:40
found Eda. And her car was still in the parking lot where it had been all night.
00:57:43
That's chilling. The only other car that John noticed in the parking lot that morning, other than the members of the
00:57:48
search team, was a Volkswagen Beetle that had been there since the previous evening. Always a Volkswagen Beetle. And
00:57:56
he drives one. Around 1:30 that afternoon, one of the dogs discovered Eda's body. Um, it was a short distance
00:58:03
off Rock Springs Trail. Uh, it's very chilling. She was in a kneeling position and her body had fallen forward face
00:58:10
down with a large bullet hole in the back of her head. Oh. Um, Sergeant Rich Katon said, "When we finally came across
00:58:18
Miss Kane's body, all p items of personal nature of hers had been removed with the exception of one sock." Oh, so
00:58:27
she is nude except for one sock in a kneeling position with her face down. That's awful. The discovery was shocking
00:58:36
for about a million reasons. Not the least of which was the fact that while sheriff's deputies had found many bodies
00:58:43
on Mount Tam, to to their knowledge, Eda was the first person to be murdered on the mountain, right? Um that alone made
00:58:50
the press immediately take notice and start reporting the story. Now, in interviews with those who'd been at the
00:58:56
mountain that day at that went missing, several people reported seeing a single man hiking around the same time Eda was.
00:59:04
Um, Lieutenant Robert Gadini told reporters, "We are by no means certain the man murdered Edain, but
00:59:09
investigators were just trying to come up with a composite sketch of this man from the witness's descriptions." Yeah.
00:59:16
Otherwise, there was very little evidence that could point investigators towards any suspect. There were rumors
00:59:21
and there were rumors that Eda had been having an affair with a younger man. So,
00:59:25
detectives did wonder whether he might have been involved or whether Jon might have killed her out of jealousy. That
00:59:31
was like their initial thoughts. Yeah, they got to go to like that. Yeah, they have to. John Kaine was quickly ruled
00:59:37
out. That's good. But police shifted their attention to the younger man that Eta had allegedly been seeing. Although
00:59:43
he denied seeing Eda that day, the man still couldn't account for his whereabouts. So, detectives couldn't
00:59:48
rule him out. Um, a sergeant working the case later said after Eda's death, John
00:59:54
Kaine just withered away without her and eventually died. Oh, that's so sad. Um,
00:59:58
as for the young man, he killed himself while we were investigating him. Oh wow,
01:00:03
that must have been so strange. Yeah, that's bizarre. Yeah. So, that is where we're going to
01:00:11
leave you in part one. All right. But, um Yeah, it's a lot. And it um it's going to keep going. That's a
01:00:20
crazy leadup. Yeah. Uh wow. And he he This is only the first murder. I was just Yeah, that's what I mean. Uh we
01:00:29
have seven more. We had a full part one um with one murder. Yeah, but his his assaults are enough to They're gnarly.
01:00:36
His assaults are basically attempted murder. Yeah, they are. All of them. Um but yeah, he's a horrible horrible human
01:00:42
being. Like very horrible. He really is. And he somehow gets worse. Well, with that being said, we hope keep listening
01:00:50
and we hope you keep it weird. We're not so weird that you don't tune in to part
01:00:55
two. [Music] [Music]