All language subtitles for Very Scary People s05e02 Trailside Killer 2.eng

[gun cocking]

Welcome to Very Scary People.
I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

For nature lovers,

the hiking trails
of Northern California

are nothing short of paradise.

Stunning scenery,
breathtaking views,

and the chance to escape
from the pressures of daily life.

But beginning in 1979,

a chilling mystery
was unfolding on those trails.

A man known as
The Trailside Killer was targeting women,

raping, torturing,
and murdering them

in a place where
they had always felt safe.

Investigators had few clues
to the killer's identity,

but the last five murders
were all committed with the same weapon,

and the attacks happened
on weekends and holidays.

Could this pattern
bring detectives closer to catching this monster?

Here's part two
of The Trailside Killer.

Police are still trying
to find the person, or persons,

responsible for
seven grisly murders in Marin County, California.

It was the dominating news
of the time.

The Trailside Killer was huge.

[Wood] It was random,
random victims,

and those are
the most terrorizing of killers

because you don't know
who's next.

You don't know if you're next.

[man] I got close enough
and I saw two people,

and...

It looked like
they were executed.

[Graysmith]
This is beyond belief.

That's four bodies
on the same trail.

This was so deliberate.
Just...

[sighs]

[Det. Sgt. Brook]
They found 38 bullets

in all of them.

That really made it
a serial murder case.

Who is this person
that's doing this?

[reporter] As this pattern
of killings emerged,

fear changed the way

practically every
Bay Area hiker

enjoyed the outdoors.

There is a lot of ugliness
in those mountains.

We had an awareness
because it was in the media all the time,

but the next leap is
did I know the person who was doing these things?

Never entered my mind.

[Ludlow] David Carpenter
had actually been in the juvenile justice system.

At the age of 14,
he was committed to the Napa State Hospital

for sexual offences.

[Keraghosian]
He was too ordinary [chuckling] to notice,

but he certainly
didn't have the record of an ordinary person.

July 12, 1960,
he was charged with assault and kidnapping.

[Ludlow] Lois noticed
as soon as he started the attack on her

he didn't stutter at all,

like it calmed him.

David was raping,
and burglarizing homes,

-and kidnapping people,
and stealing cars. -[engine starts]

[Graysmith]
Later, the doctor said

this man had
an overwhelming desire,

but it couldn't
stay bottled up, it had to come out.

[Det. Henard]
What did he learn

the first two times
he went to prison?

Kill your victim.
Chances of you getting caught are a lot less.

[gunshot]

Ellen Hansen
and Steven Haertle

were college students
from Davis

who had come down here
for the weekend

to enjoy the park.

[Ludlow] Ellen was familiar
with camping,

but it would be
Steven's first camping trip,

and she really wanted him
to experience

this beautiful area.

Ellen and Steve were hiking
toward an observation deck.

[Ludlow] Steven and Ellen
had passed this man on the trail,

and he seemed to have
this stern look on his face

like he was really in a hurry
to get somewhere.

Later that day,
they saw him again,

and this time
he was coming towards them,

and he said something
to the effect of,

"Oh, so, we meet again."

And Steven
was about to make a joke or say something in response,

and the man pulled out a gun.

Steven starts to tell the man,
"You can have my wallet, you can take our cash."

And the man tells him,
"I'm not here to rob you.

I'm gonna rape
your girlfriend."

Well, Steve is trying
to talk him out it.

"You don't want to do this."

[Ludlow] The man
is pointing his weapon at them,

trying to take them
off the trail.

Ellen tells Steven,
"Don't do it,

don't listen to him,
he's gonna shoot us anyway."

At the same time,
Steven starts to stumble.

It was almost like
an automatic response

where she put up her hand
as if to ward off the gun.

-The man
shoots the weapon... -[gunshot]

...and hits both
Ellen and Steven.

Steve goes down to the side,
and he gets shot in the neck.

-She got shot twice
in the torso... -[gunshots]

...and then he did
an execution shot to her head.

[gunshot]

In 1981, I was 18 years old.

My dad and I went
for a trip together,

and we had hiked
to this observation deck.

It was a little bit
before sunset.

There was actually a man
on the observation deck.

He was
looking through binoculars,

he was wearing blue jeans,
a golden color windbreaker, and a cap,

and he had a backpack.

He just looked like
the average Joe, basically.

We actually did
talk to the man a little bit.

This is a wonderful location
to see the scenery,

and he agreed but he said that

he wished the sun
wasn't so bright.

A few minutes
after this man departed the observation deck,

we heard this popping sound.

Pop, pop, pop.

[gunshots]

[Fritz]
We didn't really know exactly what that popping sound was.

My dad and I,
we decided to proceed on,

and off in the distance
we saw a man approaching us, yelling for help.

He was holding his neck
and said, "I've been shot.

My girlfriend is shot.
I believe she's dead."

And then he described the man
who did the shootings.

The description
fit exactly the man that my dad and I spoke with.

We had to come up with a plan.

My dad would stay
with the man.

I was to run
as fast as I could to get help.

I got to where
the trail head is,

and people
that happened to be camping

gave me a ride
to the ranger's station.

My dad,
with the man who was shot,

somehow
they were able to make it to the park ranger's station,

and while we were
standing there,

we saw a car leave,
and that's him.

He was leaving in
a red economy-type car.

This crazy person
is out loose now. Now what?

[Det. Henard]
There was a shooting at Henry Cowell Park.

A female was shot
and died at the scene,

and her male companion,
he was shot,

and he had been transported

to Dominican Hospital
for treatment.

I started bringing in guys,
getting everybody organized

who had a ride to work
right then that day.

We started getting the people
that were the witnesses.

I remember the father,
Leland Fritz,

watched him drive away

and was able to give us
a pretty good description of the red car.

[Fritz] My dad was obviously
very observant.

He saw the bent exhaust pipe.

That information
went out in a bulletin

to all the police departments.

[Det. Henard]
The individual was seen

by a number of witnesses
that were also in the park.

The description was
that he was an older man in his '50s,

he had a hat, baseball hat,
clean shaven,

5'10", 5'11", over 185lbs,

and he had
a distinctive jacket on.

This was
a golden color windbreaker that, on the back,

it described something
about a beer drinking contest in Montana.

It was really a unique jacket.

[beeping]

[Det. Henard]
I didn't see Steven.

I was just told

that he was in distress

at Dominican Hospital.

[Det. Sgt. Brook]
Steve can't talk

because he's got
this bullet wound

in his throat,

and it damaged
his vocal chords.

So, we had
a very accomplished artist,

and he starts with
the composite,

but he makes it more realistic
so it's almost more like a portrait.

And we're showing it to Steve,
who's in the bed, and he goes...

Starts slapping
with the back of his hand,

and he goes,
"That's it, that's it."

He's saying this is the guy,

and that's the one
that we put out.

[Fritz] It's a day of tragedy.

It's still difficult,
and just really hard to understand why.

I was aware that they thought
that they had a serial killer in the parks

in Marin County.

[Det. Sgt. Brook]
But the description that was put out by Marin

did not match
the one of the guy that we were getting,

so we didn't know
if we had two people doing these same cases

or was the same guy
and a bad description.

Marin's or theirs,
we had no idea at that point.

And so, it was not until
we compared the ballistics

for the bullets removed
from Ellen and Steven,

that we were able
to match those up

with the ballistics
from the bullets

recovered from
the shootings in Marin.

[Lt. Besse]
Suddenly, we knew we had a serial murder case

that was going over
two counties.

[reporter] All the crimes
are thought to be the work of a psychotic killer

whose composite sketch
was widely publicized.

That's when we knew
we were looking for the same person.

[Wood] I didn't learn about
David Carpenter's sex drive until he told me about it

when he met his girlfriend,
Candy.

And, you know, I mean,

this is not something

you typically talk about
with people.

He had met Candy,
and I remember him coming into my office,

and just busting out
about how he had met this woman,

and he was madly in love,
and that her sex drive was as strong as his.

He had never met anybody
like her.

[Det. Sgt. Brook] He met her
after going to his parole officer's office.

Candy was sitting on the curb
by her car.

The car had stopped running,
and she didn't have any money or anything.

So, he saw her
and started chatting with her.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
They tow her car,

and he takes her for a ride
to the parking lot

at Mount Tamalpais.

Oh, lady,
you don't have a clue.

[Det. Henard] This guy had
a heck of an appetite for sex,

and it just so happened
that Candy gave in to him.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
Next thing, they're having sex in the backseat in the car.

[Det. Henard] I firmly believe
sex is what saved Candy.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
Few hours later,

he's inviting her
to come live with him.

[chuckling] I guess
he fell in love with her

because he ends up
taking her home.

And she found a job
bartending.

Before you know it,

she's his fiancee.

Whoa, that was fast.

Very strange relationship.

David would offer
to help people even if they didn't want help.

He wanted them to owe him.

[Keraghosian]
He knew exactly what to say.

He knew exactly how
to get people

in the positions
that he wanted

in order to kill them.

[Graysmith]
Carpenter had switched jobs,

and he's going
to Econo Quick Print...

Where he is excelling.

[Wood] I remember
writing them a letter

in which, basically,
was a warning

that this guy
should not be around women

because of his
assaultive behavior in the past.

It was certainly something
that I was concerned about.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
Heather Scaggs was a young lady

who was living in San Jose.

[Det. Robinson]
She was very interested in graphic design,

and she hooked up
with a print school,

and next door to the school
was a quick print operation,

and so,
as she was attending school,

she would work
at the quick print shop.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
She commuted up to the trade school.

She had a little Volkswagen,
and at some point it quit working,

and so she wanted
to get another one.

And this male co-worker
that she had,

he had a contact
in Santa Cruz County that had a used Volkswagen,

much newer than
the one she had,

and she could
buy that Volkswagen.

And then he
sweetened the pot a little bit

with, "If you don't have
all the money,

I'll loan you
the rest of the money,

and you can
pay me back monthly."

[Det. Robinson]
She was pretty desperate to get transportation

to make her life
a little easier.

Said she was working
and going to school at the same time.

The co-worker
did not want Heather to tell anybody

what they were doing
and where they were going.

Apparently,
Heather had said to her boyfriend,

"I'm kind of apprehensive,
but I'm gonna be okay.

I'm gonna take a steak knife
and I'm gonna keep it in my purse."

And she also said
that the co-worker wanted them to stop in the Redwoods

and find a fern for a gift
for this individual,

kind of soften him up
to see what kind of good deal she could get from him.

So, she said,
"If you don't hear from me by 7 o'clock,

call the police."

Out of abundance
of caution and concern,

she left that name,
and address, and phone number with her boyfriend.

The co-worker was a gentleman
by the name of David Carpenter.

She had told her boyfriend
that the co-worker was gonna pick her up,

at 7 o'clock in the morning,

a block away
from her apartment at the convenience store.

And, as far as we know,
the clerk was the last person to have saw her that day.

She had reservations
about going

because of the way
this guy acted.

I don't know why she went.

When Heather didn't come back,
the bells started going off.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
Her boyfriend, Dan, and his next door neighbor

called the phone number
that Heather had provided,

and they ended up
talking to David's mother.

[Det. Robinson]
David wasn't home. He was at the ballet.

As far as his being
with Heather that day,

the mother had
no information about that.

She said, however,
that David did leave the house

between 5AM
and 5:30 that morning to go to work.

Dan and his next door neighbor
ended up driving to San Francisco.

[Det. Robinson]
They waited until David did finally arrive at home,

and they challenged him.

"Hey, where is Heather?
What happened to her?"

Of course,
David's response was,

"Nah, I didn't wake in time
and I wasn't feeling well,

so I haven't seen Heather
since yesterday."

[Det. Robinson]
David told the boys that he didn't even leave his house

until approximately 11:00
that morning,

and that it was to go to work
and fix his car.

Carpenter didn't know
that they'd talked to mom.

Of course, then they came home
and called the police.

We went to the workplace,
and we talked to the two owners,

and we learned
as much as we could about Heather

and who she got
to associate with there.

And when we get to David
it's like,

"Hmm, this is interesting.
Really?"

[Det. Robinson]
He was a unique character, a very affable person.

He got along well
with everybody, pretty much,

and he had a stutter.

He seemed to be
overly attentive to Heather.

According to some co-workers,
Carpenter tried to become a father figure to her,

and we were later to find out
that Carpenter was a parolee.

Now we are
a little more concerned.

I mean, this is not
your average co-worker.

[Det. Robinson] Before we left
the trade school,

we went out
to the parking lot.

Off in the corner,
behind some other cars, was this dusty red Fiat.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
I walk by that car and go, "Whose car is that?"

"Oh, that's David's car."

[Det. Robinson]
We asked the employers,

and they said,
"Well, he's got two cars.

He's got a green
Chevy '69 Nomad,

and he has a little red Fiat."

Hmm, this is curious,

because it matched
the description

that was put out on
the law enforcement information bulletin

of a dirty red compact car
that has a square, rectangular back end

and a bent down tailpipe
on the right side.

So, I photographed it.

[Det. Robinson]
Heather's mother, Mary, mentioned Heather had a habit

of carrying lots of
green tissue, Kleenex, with her all the time,

which was interesting
in that on the seat was some green tissues,

and then more green tissues
on the floor.

We felt we needed now
to talk to David

and find out
what he could tell us.

[Det. Sgt. Womack] I contacted
David's parole officer

and said,
"We'd like to do this interview."

And he said,
"Oh, David would prefer to meet in my office,

and he's more than willing
to help you

in any way he can."

[Wood] He wasn't this
milk toast kind of guy that I saw all the time.

He was, I thought,
in his element.

He was enjoying this.

Welcome back
to Very Scary People.

20-year-old Heather Scaggs
went missing on May 2nd, 1981.

She was supposed
to meet a co-worker

named David Carpenter
that day,

and drive to Santa Cruz
to buy a used car from his friend.

Heather was apprehensive
about the trip,

but she decided to go anyway.

Investigators decided
to meet with Carpenter to question him about Heather.

Turned out to be a meeting
no one would forget.

[reporter]
At a stop-and-shop market in San Jose,

the place at which
Heather Scaggs last was seen alive,

her picture this afternoon
was posted on the window.

[Wood]
David walked in my office,

and he's grown a beard,
and he wasn't wearing glasses,

So he was
altering his appearance.

The bells and whistles
were going off at that point.

My first impression was that
he was very pleasant,

eager to be there for us.

Kind of a out-of-shape,
middle aged, balding,

well-dressed,
well-groomed person.

But I hadn't heard him speak
at that point.

My partner asked him
the first question,

and I couldn't believe
what happened.

He started
to contort his body,

he twisted his neck,
and was looking upward,

and he was
struggling to speak.

And I thought, "My gosh,
this guy is having a seizure."

It was a lot more
than just a mild stutter.

A lot of noises
before he could get a word out,

and clearly, the situation
was distressing to him.

[Det. Robinson]
We continued on,

and I was kind of
getting skeptical

that this man
could be a harmful individual

because of the way
he was struggling and behaving.

Kind of a meek, mild,
harmless guy.

How would he be able
to give commands

if he was facing
Ellen and Steven Haertle?

Steven, an excellent witness,

said this man had
no speech impediments, no lisps.

[Wood] I don't believe
they ever talked about

the murders
in Santa Cruz County or Marin County.

This was solely focused on
Heather Scaggs.

[Det. Sgt. Womack] He admitted
that he had made arrangements to pick her up

and take her to Santa Cruz
to see about buying a car.

And then he said
he just didn't make it.

The arrangement
he had made with Heather was to pick her up at 7:00,

and if he wasn't there by 8:00
it was off

and they'd do it another time.

[Det. Robinson]
He said, "My car broke down."

Then, he pulled out a receipt
for an auto repair

for his 1969
Chevy station wagon.

I said, "Do you have access
to any other vehicles?"

And he said,
"No, no, that's my only car. I don't have any other car."

And I didn't challenge him
on it,

but it was very significant
that he didn't want me to know about the red Fiat.

[Wood]
He was a driving a car that nobody knew about.

I don't know about it.

[Det. Robinson]
But this interview went for

probably an hour-and-a-half,

and during that time
these flags kept flying.

He was, I thought,
in his element.

He was enjoying
the verbal fencing.

I saw a really assertive,
almost powerful guy

that I've never seen before.

[Det. Robinson] And one of
the significant things

was he says, "I'm a parolee.

I should be
your number one suspect.

The reason I'm a parolee
is because of my mother.

She was very domineering
with me,

and my mom made me
take ballet lessons,

and I didn't want
to take ballet lessons."

So I said,
"Well, David, you know,

when I was nine-years-old
my mom did the same thing to me.

I had to take ballet lessons,
and you know what, I resented it too."

[chuckling]
And he looked at me

and he said,
"Let me show you."

And he got up,
and he started demonstrating, doing plies and pirouettes.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
I'm sitting there, watching this happen,

and going,
"I don't believe it."

[Det. Robinson]
And the whole time that he was doing this,

we ceded control
of that interview to him.

He never stuttered one time.

Is this the same guy
that an hour-and-a-half ago could hardly get a word out?

The transformation
was amazing.

[Det. Robinson]
He carried this on for several minutes.

While he is expressing
these angers and frustrations,

it's occurring to me
that this man has a grudge against his mom,

and it probably explains
the hostility that,

if he was a sexual predator,
he hates women.

And when he sat down
he started stuttering again.

It was dramatic.

[Det. Sgt. Womack]
We were shutting down the interview,

we were getting ready
to leave,

and he looked at me directly
and said,

"I pray to God
no one finds her body

and finds
that she's been raped."

And we had never discussed
a homicide,

we had never discussed a rape,

we had never even
discussed a crime.

That was speaking volumes
to us.

[Det. Womack]
At that point, I know.

I can't prove it yet
but I know.

[Det. Robinson]
When we finished that interview,

I really believed
Heather was dead.

The next thing
that went off in my mind was,

"We just let a killer
walk out of this office,

and it's the weekend."

That's when
The Trailside Killer

-usually killed his victims.
-[gunshot]

It was a big enough concern,

that we contacted both
Santa Cruz County and Marin County

that very evening and said,

"We have information
on the suspect that you need to know,

because," we said,
"he's quite possibly The Trailside killer."

When San Jose

had that
missing persons report,

those two officers went
and saw the car in the parking lot,

and put those together,
took the pictures, that was it.

We knew that we had the guy,

but we knew
we need more evidence.

We started the surveillance
on Saturday, May 9th.

The FBI had
an airplane over the sky every daylight hour.

They had vans following him.

I got reports daily,
sometimes more than once a day

of what he was doing,
where he was.

It was getting
toward the weekend,

and they were concerned
that he could kill somebody else.

And so that's how that
whole week got started.

It came together
in warp speed.

I've never seen anything
quite like that.

We went out and interviewed
David's parents,

and that interview confirmed

he was, uh,
living with a woman

by the name of Candy.

She was a part-time bartender
in the San Francisco area.

She'd already moved out,

she left in April
of that year.

[Kenn Womack]
I get a hold of Stoney, we sit down with Candy,

and was that an interview.

Wow.

[Stoney Brook] Candy was, uh,

a free spirit,
I think I'll use that term.

[Womack] We talked to her
about her relationship with David,

and, um, was he ever
aggressive or violent,

and she only had
one occasion where he got a little bit aggressive,

and she got in his face
right away,

and he backed right off.

I said to her, "Did you
ever give him a present?"

And she was, "No, I never
gave him a present,"

but she says,
"He took something of mine.

It was this yellow jacket
that said

'Olympic beer drinking team',
uh, 'Billings, Montana'.

It was a little large for me,
so he just took it.

My boss who owned the bar,
he ordered 12 of 'em."

And then I said, "Whatever
happened to that jacket?"

And she said, "Oh, David
told me it was stolen out of his car,"

and Stoney and I are smiling
at each other, going,

"Got it!

Got it!"

[Brook] That was the connector
to put him at the crime scene

wearing something unique
that was golden,

no pun intended.

Now we have our case.

Authorities
in Northern California

have arrested a suspect
in the so called

"Trailside murder cases".

David J. Carpenter has been
charged with one murder,

and he may soon
be charged with more.

There was no resistance.

It was almost like he
expected, sooner or later,

they were gonna be
knocking on his door.

[reporter] The arrest warrant
charges Carpenter

with the March 29th
shooting murder

of 20-year-old Ellen Hansen,

and the attempted murder
of her companion,

Steven Haertle.

[Walt Robinson]
When we had arrested David,

a line-up was done.

Steven keyed in on him
right away.

"That's the man right there.
That's the guy."

[reporter] Sheriff Howenstein
describes the mood of the department

as one of elation,

and now there is hope
that the mystery behind this string of murders

that has terrified
and shocked the community

has finally been solved.

We were on the search
warrant team...

...that went
to Carpenter's house.

There was tons of maps.

Marin, Tamalpais, Santa Cruz.

Well, we didn't find
the things we were looking for,

the jacket and the firearms.

I think that when he figured
the noose was getting tighter,

he started getting
rid of the stuff.

Where was this .38?

Will we ever see that gun now?

Where is it?

[Womack] It wasn't
an impossible hurdle,

but it certainly
was a handicap.

[reporter] Fifty-one-year-old
David Joseph Carpenter

was arraigned in Santa Cruz,
California.

The printer, who has
a long criminal-record,

suffers from a crippling
stutter, which was painfully apparent.

[judge] David Joseph Carpenter
is your true name?

[David Carpenter stuttering]

...correct.

Nine days after
David Carpenter was arrested,

Heather Scaggs' body
was finally found.

[Robinson] Heather was
found by two hikers

in the Big Basin State Park.

[Esther Ludlow] Her body
was badly decomposed.

She had been shot
with a .38-caliber weapon.

She was found raped
and with a gunshot to her face.

[Robinson] Carpenter got her
to do what he wanted.

Heather didn't want to go
to the mountains to get a fern,

she just wanted to go
to Santa Cruz, get a car, and come home.

I wish there was a way to see

what was going
through Heather's mind

when she got out of the car
to look for the fern.

Is she noticing that there
are no ferns anywhere in that area?

Was she thinking, "Uh-oh,
this is not going the way I thought it would?"

[gunshot]

[Brook] To this day,
I hike extensively in these mountains.

I cannot see a fern
without thinking of that young woman.

[Donald Besse]
Shane Williams robs a bank,

and gets caught.

So, now that, uh,
he's in federal custody,

and he wants to see
if he can get his break.

[Womack] He says,
"Tell you what, guys,

let's play,
and let's make a deal."

So, he tells them that
he knows where the gun is

that the Trailside
Killer used.

[Besse] Shane said
that Carpenter volunteered

to loan him a gun
for a bank robbery.

so, Shane took him up on it.

[Robert Graysmith]
David Carpenter's plan is,

"Go rob a bank,

you'll be shot and killed
or you'll be arrested,

and there's the murder weapon,

and you're
the Trailside Killer."

He's not a dumb person.

Pretty wily.

[Womack] And then he
realizes he's been set up.

And he takes that gun,
and he goes and hides it.

[Besse] So, Shane tells me
where the gun is,

exactly where it is.

It was at a lot
where a gas station was being torn down,

and he didn't know
the address,

but he describes it perfectly,

so, I hustle right
over to that area.

I start picking up asphalt,

and there's newspaper
in a bundle,

and there's the gun
in the newspaper.

[Brook] They sent it
over to the lab,

and did the ballistics
and they matched.

[Elaine Kendall]
It really wasn't the matter of so much of what he said,

but how he said it.

It just made me shudder.

[reporter] In May of '81,

David Joseph Carpenter
was arrested and charged

with the murder of two
women in Santa Cruz.

Marin County then charged him

with the murder
of five more victims.

By the time that case
went to trial,

it was, it was pretty much
a slam dunk.

[Ludlow] There was two
separate trials in two separate venues.

The trials were moved
out of the Bay area

because of media publicity.

Ended up costing the tax
payer between $3 million and $5 million.

And this was
a death-penalty case.

They wanted to be sure
they were going to get this man.

[Ludlow] In the first trial,
his attorney admitted

that Carpenter was guilty.

He knew that there was
just too much evidence.

His strategy was just to save
him from the death penalty.

[reporter] Haertle calmly
described the sequence of events

that preceded the attack.

[Ludlow] Steven Haertle
was the prosecution's star witness.

[Steven Haertle]
I heard two shots...

...and didn't feel anything.

And then I felt like
somebody hit my neck with a sledgehammer.

[Ludlow] Not only was he one
of the only living witnesses

who had been up close
to the killer,

he was able to give

very disturbing details.

I remember waking up
lying on the ground.

[lawyer] What did you see?

[Haertle] Ellen was
lying on the ground,

and her head was
in a pool of blood.

Steven Haertle who,
to this day,

has been living with that
horror that he had to experience.

[lawyer]
Is the man who you saw here in this courtroom?

Yes, he is.

[lawyer] Would you point him
out towards all of us.

It's that gentleman
sitting right there.

-[lawyer] Are you point...
-[Haertle] In the, in the brown sweater.

In the glasses.

The real nail in the coffin
was Steve being able to say,

"He's the one who shot me
and shot Ellen."

That's the man.
No doubt, no hesitation.

[juror] The sixth day of July

in the above entitled action,
find the defendant,

David Joseph Carpenter,
guilty of the crime of murder.

I must conclude with...

[indistinct]

[reporter] Mothers of the two
Santa Cruz County victims

were happy with the verdict.

I think this is
a very fair panel,

I think they've really
been serious about it.

I think it was
a very good jury.

[reporter] Marin County now
are preparing a new trial

for five murders.

[Kendall]
After his first trial, when he got to death row,

I picked up the phone
and I just called San Quentin.

Elaine Corral snagged
the carpenter interview.

[Kendall] He started talking
about how he was not given a fair trial,

that he was not
the Trailside Killer.

But it was when we
got to the words "Killer",

he stuttered with such
a pronounced emphasis

that it just made me shudder.

To think what on Earth
would these victims have,

have thought,
when I'm sitting at table,

um, length away from him,
and I felt it.

[Kendall] "I'm not
a k-k-k-k-killer."

It really wasn't the matter
of so much of what he said,

but how he said it.

And then they had
trial number two.

[Ludlow]
Carpenter got on the stand in his own defense.

[Graysmith] He was
looking for sympathy.

"Poor me,
poor beat up little child."

There was nothing else
going for him.

After I got my... [stutters]
...Chevy station wagon,

I began taking my father...
[stutters] ...shopping.

[Ludlow]
He brought in calendars and detailed receipts

trying to say that he could
not have been in these places at this time.

But his only witnesses
that could corroborate these things

was his father
who had since died,

his mother who was suffering
with Alzheimer's disease,

and these characters
that he said he had been in prison with

that he only knew
by their nicknames.

[Womack] David always
thinks he smart enough

that he can do whatever
he wants to and get away with it.

[juror] We, the jury,
in the above-entitled cause,

determine that the penalty
shall be death.

I felt very good
about the outcomes.

[Womack] Well,
it's rewarding to know

that we were able
to successfully complete the circle,

and put him away.

[Ludlow] David Carpenter was
convicted of seven murders,

and we know that there are
others that they couldn't try him for.

[Besse] We were positive
he killed Schwarz and Kane,

but because they're
different ammos,

he was only tried
for those seven murders

'cause the gun
tied them all together.

[Ludlow] Edda Kane was killed
with a .44-caliber weapon,

and Barbera Schwartz
who had been stabbed to death

could not be linked
to the .38 caliber,

so, they couldn't
positively link him

to the evidence they had.

David Carpenter still
professes his innocence to this day.

[Robinson] I don't think
he wants to allow himself to admit

that he is the ugly,
disgusting,

vile human being that he is.

[reporter] The hikers
are back in numbers,

but for some who remember,

hiking will never
be the same again.

[lady] I've started
to hike again.

-[reporter] By yourself ever?
-No.

No, not anymore.

[Ludlow] David Carpenter
decided to use

the beauty of this area
as a hunting ground

that changed how people
thought about that area

for a long,
long time afterwards.

It was hard to just
be in nature,

and be at peace with it

without thinking about
David Carpenter.

This guy was a predator,

and he hid it beautifully.

[David Carpenter]

In 2010,
cold-case investigators

use advanced DNA technology

tying David Carpenter
to yet another victim,

a 23-year-old woman
named Mary Frances Bennett.

She was found stabbed
to death in San Francisco in 1979.

Carpenter, now in his 90s,

is the oldest inmate still
on California's death row.

California currently has
a moratorium on the death penalty,

so, it is unlikely he will
ever be put to death.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg,
thanks for watching,

good night.

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