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

Summary

Summary of "Morbid" Episode 663: David Carpenter: The Trailside Killer (Part 1)

Introduction

In Episode 663 of "Morbid," titled "David Carpenter: The Trailside Killer (Part 1)," hosts Ash and Elena from the Morbid Network | Wondery delve into the harrowing story of David Carpenter, a serial killer whose decade-long spree terrorized the Santa Cruz area. The episode meticulously unpacks Carpenter's troubled upbringing, the systemic failures that allowed his crimes to escalate, and the profound impact on his victims and community.

---

Early Life and Family Background

David Joseph Carpenter was born on May 6, 1930, in San Francisco to Elwood and Francis Carpenter, a postal worker and a homemaker, respectively [09:10]. Carpenter described his early life as "hellish," attributing much of his trauma to his mother's domineering and abusive behavior.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [09:10]: "By his own accounts, his early life was, quote, unquote, hellish…"

---

Childhood Struggles and Abuse

From a young age, Carpenter faced significant challenges, including a pronounced stutter and poor eyesight, which his mother perceived as personal failings. These physical imperfections made him a target for both verbal and physical abuse at home.

Notable Quote:

Ash [10:12]: "They were somewhat ashamed of his speech impediment."

Carpenter struggled with left-handedness, another trait that his mother harshly criticized, further isolating him from his peers and family.

---

School Years and Social Isolation

Despite being intelligent, Carpenter was largely disengaged in school and suffered from severe social skills deficits, making him an easy target for bullying. His interactions were often marked by cruelty, such as pulling the wings off flies to shock his classmates.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [14:01]: "David's stutter and his poor social skills made him a frequent target for bullying."

Teachers found it challenging to connect with him, noting his disengagement and inability to thrive in traditional educational settings.

---

Early Offenses and Institutionalization

At the age of 14, Carpenter committed his first sexual assault against a younger family member, leading to his commitment to Napa State Hospital. His behavior showed a clear pattern of escalating violence, including threats and sexual assaults on young children.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [24:55]: "He met them at Diamond's Heights... and was quickly arrested for the assault and sentenced to the California Youth Authority at Preston."

Carpenter's time in juvenile detention was marked by further misconduct, emphasizing his dangerous proclivities.

---

Rehabilitation and Release

After serving nine years of a 14-year sentence, Carpenter was paroled in April 1969. Despite his violent history, the parole board deemed him rehabilitated, a decision that Ash and Elena critically examine throughout the episode.

Notable Quote:

Ash [53:35]: "I feel like we shouldn't offer people like that welding classes."

---

Series of Violent Attacks Post-Release

Following his release, Carpenter's violent tendencies did not subside. Instead, he embarked on a series of brutal assaults against women in the Santa Cruz area, signaling a clear escalation in his criminal behavior.

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The Attack on Lois Deandrati

One of Carpenter's earliest post-release crimes involved Lois Deandrati, a friend he had known for years. In January 1970, Carpenter brutally attacked Lois with a hammer, leaving her with severe injuries. The intervention of military police officer Jewel Wayne Hicks was pivotal in resisting Carpenter's assault.

Notable Quote:

Elena [47:18]: "I can't imagine knowing someone for years and then having them snap on you."

Despite the horrific nature of the attack, systemic failures allowed Carpenter's violent behavior to continue unchecked.

---

The Murder of Etta Kane

On August 19, 1979, the community was shocked by the murder of Etta Kane on Mount Tamalpais. Etta, an experienced hiker, was found with a bullet hole in the back of her head. Carpenter was identified as a suspect based on witness descriptions and prior assault patterns.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [60:13]: “This is awful too. In the days after that, he kidnapped and assaulted two other women…”

---

Systemic Failures and Legal Oversights

The episode highlights significant systemic failures that permitted Carpenter's continued threat to society. Inadequate psychiatric evaluations, lenient parole decisions, and insufficient legal repercussions for his early offenses all contributed to his ability to commit further crimes.

Notable Quote:

Ash [25:46]: "I hate that."

Carpenter's case underscores the critical need for robust mental health interventions and stricter parole regulations to prevent similar tragedies.

---

Conclusion

Episode 663 of "Morbid" serves as a stark reminder of the devastating consequences that arise when systemic flaws intersect with individual pathology. David Carpenter's journey from a troubled youth to a serial killer illuminates the urgent need for comprehensive support systems, effective legal frameworks, and proactive mental health care to safeguard communities and prevent such horrific outcomes.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [25:46]: "He could have been stopped many times and no one had to die. Yeah. No one had to die here at all."

---

Key Takeaways and Reflections

Ash and Elena emphasize the importance of recognizing early warning signs in behavior and the necessity for timely intervention. They discuss how bullying, abuse, and neglect can contribute to the development of antisocial personalities and the tragic outcomes that can ensue when these issues are ignored.

Notable Quote:

John Kane [14:29]: "But you can also sit there and go, maybe I shouldn't treat people like shit."

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• John Kane [09:10]: "By his own accounts, his early life was, quote, unquote, hellish…"
• Ash [10:12]: "They were somewhat ashamed of his speech impediment."
• John Kane [14:01]: "David's stutter and his poor social skills made him a frequent target for bullying."
• John Kane [24:55]: "He met them at Diamond's Heights... and was quickly arrested for the assault and sentenced to the California Youth Authority at Preston."
• Ash [53:35]: "I feel like we shouldn't offer people like that welding classes."
• Elena [47:18]: "I can't imagine knowing someone for years and then having them snap on you."
• John Kane [60:13]: “This is awful too. In the days after that, he kidnapped and assaulted two other women…”
• Ash [25:46]: "I hate that."
• John Kane [25:46]: "He could have been stopped many times and no one had to die. Yeah. No one had to die here at all."
• John Kane [14:29]: "But you can also sit there and go, maybe I shouldn't treat people like shit."

---

This comprehensive summary captures the essence of Episode 663, providing an engaging and detailed overview for those who haven't listened to the episode. It highlights key discussions, insights, and notable quotes, all structured into clear sections for easy navigation.

Transcript

[Ash]

Hey weirdos, it's Ash here.

[Elena]

Ready to share a little secret.

[Ash]

Have you heard of Wondery Plus?

[Elena]

With ad free episodes and one week.

[Ash]

Early access, it's like having an all access pass to our lighthearted nightmare.

[Elena]

So come join us on the dark.

[Ash]

Side and try Wondery. Today. You can join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or in Apple podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid network podcast.

[Elena]

Let Audible expand your life by listening explore over 1 million audiobooks and exclusive Audible originals that will inspire and motivate you all in one easy app. Tap into your well being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career, finance, investing and even more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. Recently I listened to so Thirsty which was really good. I like how the narrator went between the two characters voices.

[Ash]

That was really fun.

[Elena]

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[Lindsey Graham]

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[John Kane]

Hey weirdos. I'm Elena.

[Ash]

I'm Ash.

[John Kane]

And this is Morbid.

[Ash]

Hi.

[John Kane]

We were just talking about Dorinda Medley from New York Housewives.

[Ash]

Always and forever.

[John Kane]

Because I'm watching the old episodes again. They're so fun.

[Ash]

They're constant in my house. If we don't know what to watch, we just put that on and disassociate.

[John Kane]

Old New York Housewives.

[Ash]

Jules forever. Jules should have.

[John Kane]

Jules forever.

[Ash]

Jewel should have gotten went wedding more. I was gonna say way more. And then I said many, so many more seasons.

[John Kane]

She should have.

[Ash]

I loved her.

[John Kane]

I liked her personality.

[Ash]

She was great.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Ash]

Carol.

[John Kane]

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

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

And that's why she should have stayed on because they ended up divorcing and I'm pretty sure she like, might have. He got his.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Which like, nobody should. Nobody should hit anyone. No, it's probably not.

[Ash]

No. Don't hit people.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Don't do that.

[Elena]

Did she hit him?

[John Kane]

I think there was some allegations. I will say. I'm not saying that I know what happened, but it was a little bit of allegations, so that's not okay. Well, anyway, he was a turd.

[Ash]

Yeah. How do you segoo away from that?

[John Kane]

How do you get out of that? How do you.

[Ash]

Where do we go from here?

[John Kane]

Anywhere, maybe. I. I've had, like, not enough and.

[Ash]

Too much coffee all at the same time today.

[John Kane]

I haven't had enough. Cause for some reason, last night I couldn't fall asleep, which I. I rarely have trouble falling asleep. I'm usually a hit the pillow kind of gal.

[Ash]

I know.

[John Kane]

It just. I don't know. There's nothing really going on that's, like, keeping me up at night, you know? Like, maybe it's cause, like, we got some sickies in my house, and I think I'm just maybe on high alert.

[Ash]

Oh, my God. Your kids are sick again.

[John Kane]

Oh, my God. They're actually on the mend, everybody. So John's on the mend as well.

[Ash]

Put that in your pip smoke it. Isn't that such a fun thing to say?

[John Kane]

It is. I like that.

[Ash]

It's good because it's just.

[John Kane]

It's very aggressive.

[Ash]

It's so aggressive.

[John Kane]

Yeah, I like that.

[Ash]

I like being aggressive sometimes. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[John Kane]

But, yeah, everything's. You know, things are. Things are here. You know, spring is springing in New England.

[Elena]

It is.

[Ash]

I'm about to plant a little bit. I actually, I'm. You know, my witchy class, we planted. We got to pick what flower we wanted to do, and we did, like, a little Ostara celebration.

[John Kane]

Oh, cute.

[Ash]

And I planted a little moonflower, and it's starting to bloom. Yeah. So what we did was we got, like, a little pot and we painted it, and then you put a little affirmation or like, wish in the jar in the pot, and you put the soil over it, and then you planted it. So like that. It's like, as the flower grows, like, your wish is growing.

[John Kane]

Oh, I really dig that. Yeah.

[Ash]

My wish is growing everywhere.

[John Kane]

I do that a lot. Do you know what flower Sabrina picked?

[Ash]

I don't.

[John Kane]

I.

[Ash]

She might have picked a moonflower. I feel like she would have.

[John Kane]

I feel like that's very.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Go listen to Two Girls, One Ghost, Too.

[Ash]

They're awesome.

[John Kane]

They're really great.

[Ash]

What are you doing? If you're not listening to two girls.

[John Kane]

You gotta go listen to them.

[Ash]

Don't be an idiot.

[John Kane]

They're a great podcast and great ladies.

[Ash]

Put two girls, one ghost in your pipe and smoke it.

[John Kane]

There you go.

[Ash]

I like that. Aggressively supporting our friends.

[John Kane]

Aggressively.

[Ash]

Oh, you know, I think I'm tired. You're like.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Did I say that already?

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

That's what I said.

[John Kane]

So that was different. Yeah, we. Yeah. I don't think we have a whole lot more business to attend to.

[Ash]

I can't really think of anything and.

[John Kane]

I'm trying 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 people that are like, just get to the case.

[Ash]

Yeah, I don't really have. I get it. I don't really have much life going on.

[John Kane]

Right. It's really only. It's. If I have exciting things. I like to say it, but it's.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Yeah. But it's not super cold. It's like that. We're getting into that place where we're in the 50s now, which is New England summer and that. So everybody's wearing shorts and T shirts.

[Ash]

Not me.

[John Kane]

That's everyone. You go outside and it's shorts and T shirts.

[Ash]

Oh, Drew is fully in his shorts.

[John Kane]

Mode, which is fun. So we're almost there. Yeah. We are going to cover. This is going to be a two parter because it's a little intense and there's a lot. This is somebody who kind of got like swept under the wave of serial killers that were in the Los Angeles, you know, that area, San Francisco, that kind of area in California in the 60s and 70s.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

It's just what the media wants to talk about.

[John Kane]

It's Very strange. Like, you just don't know what people latch onto in the media. But we are going to cover David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer. Oh, we have covered other, quote, unquote, Trailside killers. This is not the same, so don't worry. But even I looked at it and I was like, we've covered somebody who would, like, do this on, like, trails.

[Ash]

I think we briefly talked about him on Crime Countdown.

[John Kane]

Exactly. Which sometimes throws me off.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

But David Carpenter is really rough trigger warning. He is like a sexual sadist. He's. He sucks. He sucks a lot. And we're going to be talking about, like, some rough stuff, so just so you know. But again, we're going to break it into two parts a little more palatable. Yeah. So you can kind of just, like, you know, absorb all the information in small doses. So again, we're talking about the 60s and 70s. You know, from Los Angeles to San Francisco. At this point, Californians were literally terrorized, like I was saying, by multiple killers. You know, we're talking about the Zodiac Killer, the Hillside Stranglers, Herbert Mullen, Ed Kemper. All of them were in different parts, but, like, near each other around the same time. And the decade between the 60s and 70s definitely ended with a lot of these killers either just disappearing Zodiac or being apprehended. But the terror and the near constant threat of violence and murder was kind of just simply moving north at this point. So David Carpenter terrorized Point Reyes in Santa Cruz county for a decade, which is where Santa Cruz is, where Herbert Mullen was also hanging out a lot. Right. He assaulted, he kidnapped, and he killed at least eight people. And he was suspected of more.

[Ash]

Wow.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Now, who is David Carpenter? Tell me, because unfortunately, we gotta know who this dumb fuck is. So David Joseph Carpenter was born May 6, 1930, in San Francisco. He was born to Elwood and Francis Carpenter. Elwood. Elwood. Yeah, Close. Both of them suck. So I'm just gonna say that right up front, don't get attached to either of them.

[Ash]

I won't.

[John Kane]

They were a postal worker and a homemaker. By his own accounts, his early life was, quote, unquote, hellish, due in large part, according to him, by what he described as his mother's, quote, unloving, inflexible, and exceedingly domineering stance. Damn. According to Carpenter himself, his unhappy home life and constant fighting between his parents led his father to move out for a year while David was 14 years old, leaving David and his sister Anne alone with his mother.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

I feel that.

[Ash]

But, like, at 14, I feel like.

[John Kane]

That would be rough no matter what. So the biggest issue that was affecting his relationship with his parents was, and this is, this is sad again, feel bad for the child. It was his pronounced stutter that he had, which he developed at a very early age. One probation officer later wrote, quote, his parents and siblings were not fond of him at all, being somewhat ashamed of his speech impediment.

[Ash]

What the fuck?

[John Kane]

Yeah. They're just pieces of shit.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

On top of this, David also had really bad eyesight and was left handed. Both of these things were viewed by his mother as being failings.

[Ash]

The work of the devil.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Just complete failings.

[Ash]

I love that. Being left handed is a fail.

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

That's like, what? Meanwhile, that's like, kind of cool.

[John Kane]

Yeah, that's different, man.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

No, it doesn't.

[John Kane]

That doesn't turn people into angry adults.

[Elena]

It does.

[John Kane]

Totally fine. When those attempts strangely failed, Frances made a series of appointments. Finally, at the University of California Medical center, which, when I first read this, I said, okay. But then the day of the appointments would arrive and she would drive to the hospital sometimes get as far as the door, and then just turn around and go home.

[Ash]

That's a waste of time.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh, okay.

[John Kane]

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

[Elena]

Neglectful.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Jesus.

[John Kane]

Like, very physically abusive. According to Yvonne Carey, who grew up a few houses down from the Carpenters, she said it was common knowledge in the neighborhood that Frances Carpenter was abusing her children. At times it would be so bad that they would have to be kept out of school for a day or two.

[Ash]

Oh, my God.

[John Kane]

Yeah. She later recalled then when he would come back, meaning David, he would be covered with bruises from head to toe. He wore short pants, so you could see the black and blue marks on his legs as well as painful welts on his arms and face.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

I don't think it. I think it was literally, like. I mean, this is the 50s, so I think it's fine to beat the shit out of your kids. It's just expected, like, keep them in line.

[Ash]

Oh, my God.

[John Kane]

Which is a point where they have.

[Ash]

To beat your kids ever. And then to the point where they have welts and bruises, like, oh, my God.

[John Kane]

Also, again, you have to be a literal sociopathic 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 mean, I will never understand that kind of behavior with a child. I will never understand it. Nope. I just won't. And especially, like, in the 50s, it's like, oh, yeah, that was just, like, the thing. Okay, cool. That was the thing. You still have to be a fucking monster to be able to do that to a child.

[Ash]

Well, it's like, I think people get confused because it's like, in the 50s, like, spankings were normal. Like, hitting your. You know, like using a belt, even. That is fucking awful. But this is like beating.

[John Kane]

And this is literally like punching a child in the face. Like, what?

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

It definitely shouldn't have been. But I don't think it was. I think it was one of those things.

[Ash]

People just looked the other way.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And it was. So it wasn't just his mother. Carpenter said that Elwood was equally distant and abusive when it came to David, but his abuse was mostly verbal.

[Ash]

Okay. I mean, still, that's awful.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Huh.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Sounds like she was fucking terrible. It sounds like the dad was fucking terrible, too. Now, if David's home life was hellish, his experience at school was not much better. He was very intelligent and very capable of doing well in school. But if you're dealing with that at home as a child, I'm sure that is difficult. Yeah. His teachers struggled to work with him. They said he was largely disengaged, which, of course, he is. I'm sure he was. One teacher said, I tried and tried, and I just couldn't get through to him.

[Ash]

That's sad.

[John Kane]

David's stutter and his poor social skills made him a frequent target for bullying. And he endured years of physical and emotional torment from his peers.

[Ash]

People suck.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And again, you can feel bad for the child. No child deserves to go through that.

[Ash]

No.

[John Kane]

And it also teaches you, like, not that this is, like, people go through like, that and they come out and they're good people and they don't do this. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not saying this is the. Like, you do that, then that's cause and effect.

[Ash]

But you can see how.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Yep.

[John Kane]

Like, do think about it the next time that you want to, like, ruthlessly bully someone. Because this guy, like, if they are slightly unstable, if there's something slightly off chemically, then you have just lit the match and it's like, just don't treat people like.

[Ash]

It's just a weird thing to do anyway.

[John Kane]

Like, I just don't bully people. If you're a bully, go yourself. Like, honestly, if you're like, if you're a bully out in life, if you're a bully in your job, if you're a bully on the Internet, go fuck yourself. Like, you're gonna get what you deserve.

[Ash]

I agree.

[John Kane]

Like, this is just, like, I don't understand treating people like this.

[Ash]

Unhappy people treat people that way.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And oftentimes it's easier to see that as you grow older. I think, like, kids just don't see that.

[Ash]

No, you just. You kids automatically think, it's my fault. What did I do? What's wrong with me?

[John Kane]

But it's like, damn, just the older.

[Ash]

You get, you're like, I'm awesome.

[John Kane]

Exactly. Like, let's go.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

So in one evaluation written by Dr. Ralph Allison, a psychiatrist, he wrote at school, he was always made fun of because of a stammer and inability to get answers out, even though he was brighter than most children in the school. And additionally, it looks like David's kind of, like, unusual and disturbing behavior sometimes made him a target, because he would also do things because, again, he's being abused at home. So there's gonna be some emotional issues here. He would regularly do things like pull the wings off of flies to try to shock kids. And if a kid is doing that to something smaller than him, that is a big red flag. But again, we're in the 50s.

[Elena]

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[Ash]

So that's just boys being boys.

[John Kane]

That's just boys being boys now. On the rare occasion that David would make a friend in school or in the neighborhood, Francis, his mother would inevitably Interfere in the relationship, not allowing any children in the house or putting very strict time limits on her son's socialization with other kids.

[Ash]

The fuck. It's like you don't want them at home.

[John Kane]

Well, that's what I never get with these kind of parents. It's like, so you're abusing your kid. You clearly don't like them. You don't like being a parent. You don't like the responsibility of being a parent. But then you, like, won't allow that kid to go out of your response like.

[Ash]

Like, let him go play. So you're not responsible. Yeah.

[John Kane]

But instead you. That. That to me, shows that you are, like. You're a monster that just likes hurting this child. Absolutely. It's not that you are not capable of being a. It's like you are just.

[Ash]

You're getting enjoyment out of it.

[John Kane]

You are evil. And you just enjoy hurting something smaller than you. And it's like. And you should be fucking locked up.

[Ash]

Up.

[John Kane]

So David's friend Robert Gore Beak said Francis and Elwood had lain down. Specific rules. It was like you had to make an appointment before you could go over and see him.

[Ash]

The.

[John Kane]

Instead, Francis would make sure to fill David's afternoons. She signed him up for violin and ballet lessons, which at this time made him a bigger target for bullying. Because we're in the 50s again. And these are seen as two very unmasculine activities to do, which you almost.

[Ash]

Wonder if that was like, another layer of her cruelty.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Putting your kids in ballet now. Fuck yeah, Everybody.

[John Kane]

Hell yeah. Put everybody in ballet.

[Ash]

But back then. But, like, everybody had it. Had it.

[John Kane]

Just. We're in the 50s where masculinity is looked at in a very different way. Yes. And it's like that's. He's gonna be targeted. And you know that. And if he's not passionate about ballet, which it doesn't sound like he was, then you're really doing a detriment here. It's like, if he's passionate about ballet, then. Yeah, yeah. Like, otherwise it's okay. But you're just doing this to kind of, like, get him one out of your hair, but making sure he's not doing something that fulfills him or makes him happy. Yeah.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

While he's out of your hair.

[Ash]

Yep.

[John Kane]

Which is like another layer of fucked up. Now, these were exacerbated by how she would dress him as well. She would make him dress in, like, very formal outfits. His friend there said they Always dressed him up like some fancy pants. And the kids on the block were always pounding the hell out of him.

[Ash]

Which is so shitty, because it's like, he's obviously not choosing this.

[John Kane]

No. And it's just like a.

[Ash]

This one has a strange pathology.

[John Kane]

Yeah, it's true. And it's just like, God, just stop being mean to people now. Obviously. Due to a variety of factors, David struggled to develop positive social skills.

[Ash]

You don't say.

[John Kane]

And developed a reputation for now, inappropriate and cruel behavior. Because he's also being shown cruel behavior. You show a child cruel behavior, they will then show others cruel behavior. Yeah, that is kind of an effect. Like, that just is so unable to bond with boys his own age because that wasn't working. David would socialize with the girls in the neighborhood. They were often in the beginning, very sympathetic and, like, pitied him a little bit and were like, you know what? Let's just, like, try to help him out. You know, just girls being girls. Girls being like, come on, take care of you. Yeah. But while the neighborhood girls were definitely more patient with him, even their sympathy had limits, obviously.

[Ash]

Yeah, everybody's does.

[John Kane]

One girl recalled. He usually had my sympathy. But then he'd do something cruel, like twisting the head off of some girl's doll. And he'd get that stupid smile on his face like it was a prank. So it's like he's doing things like that, and they're like, dude, we're trying to help you out. And you're like, not. Yeah.

[Ash]

Like, don't fuck with my dolls.

[John Kane]

Like, I feel like he's acting out like a typical boy. He thinks, like, taking the head off a doll or, like, you know, doing some kind of prank like that. But it's like, not. Because he's not been socialized to know what is of his age. You know what I mean? What a typical prank of his age is. Well.

[Elena]

And if you're ripping the heads off.

[Ash]

Of dolls, that's, like, alone. That's one thing. Like, that's a very annoying boy thing to do.

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

I had a feeling that was kind of.

[John Kane]

And soon he found that the girls around him were perfect targets. Or years later, he told psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Allison, I pulled down a little girl's pants for the first time when I was Eight years old.

[Ash]

Oh, Christ.

[John Kane]

Eight years old.

[Ash]

That's a baby.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Which would eventually become one of the driving forces of his personality, I'm sure.

[Ash]

You start that at 10 years old.

[John Kane]

And it was never addressed. Like, it's like it was not addressed until he. He saw the law for it.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Like, that's like it was never addressed in any kind of, like, medical way.

[Ash]

Yeah. They should have gotten past the doors of the hospital.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

By the time he was 14 years old, he had committed his first sexual assault against one of his younger family members. Oh. The assault resulted in him being committed to the Napa State Hospital and he was housed with other sex offenders there. Upon his release, he returned to his parents house, but. But everything just kept going downward. When he wasn't in school, he started spending a lot of time alone in the woods.

[Ash]

Oh, God.

[John Kane]

Before long, he was suspected of committing burglaries and homes in and around Santa Cruz. The next year, when David was in the 10th grade, he ran away from home and hid out for a few days in the family cabin in Redwood Grove. And this disappearance was the last straw because. So the school expelled him because he stopped going to school.

[Ash]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[John Kane]

Now, a year after being kicked out of school, he was in trouble with the law again. And this is awful. After he committed a sexual assault against two cousins. Not his cousins, but they were cousins.

[Ash]

A pair of cousins.

[John Kane]

An eight year old and a three year old.

[Ash]

Oh, God.

[John Kane]

He met them at Diamond's Heights. Diamond Heights Park. And according to Dr. Allison's evaluation, he threatened the two with a knife, which marked the first time that he used a weapon in an assault. Which indicates a very severe escalation in violent behavior. Yup. And this again, this was when he was 15.

[Ash]

Holy.

[John Kane]

Maybe 15 or 16.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Around there. Yeah. He was quickly arrested for the assault and sentenced to the California Youth Authority at Preston. Do you remember that?

[Ash]

Yeah. We covered the Preston School, right?

[John Kane]

Yeah. Preston School of Industry. Yeah. Go back to that episode where he was held until his 18th birthday.

[Ash]

Oh.

[John Kane]

After he turned 18, he was transferred to Napa State Hospital for observation. And after 90 days, he was determined no longer a threat.

[Ash]

I don't know about that.

[John Kane]

There. This. This is a story of many failures.

[Ash]

It usually is.

[John Kane]

He could have been stopped many times and no one had to die. Yeah. No one had to die here at all.

[Ash]

I hate that.

[John Kane]

Now, looking back, his juvenile record, which contained a number of incidents that, you know, if we looked at now in 2025, they would be the most giant red flags, right? Five arrests for sexual assault, one escape from juvenile detention, a long history of bragging about sexual assaults to all the other inmates. All of that would now be looked at it as like, oh, no, this is gonna escalate.

[Ash]

Yeah, like, let's keep him locked up.

[John Kane]

And his personal history included several experiences and characteristics that associated with antisocial personalities and serial murders in particular, including a history of bedwetting and cruelty to animals. So it's like he's got all the red flags.

[Ash]

He's ticking all the boxes.

[John Kane]

If psychiatrists had known then what we know now, they would have had every reason to believe that David Carpenter would pose a severe threat to those around him. And they. And it kills me that they didn't now in 1950. So actually, most of what he was going through when he was younger was in the 40s. So I was wrong about the 50. Even worse, in 1950, when he was 20 years old, Carpenter found work as an office assistant and messenger for the H.B. thomas Company on Battery street in San Francisco. One day in mid summer, he ended up picking up a girl he knew who was hitchhiking to a friend's house, and he offered to drive her the rest of the way. So he knew this girl.

[Ash]

Girl, huh?

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Yes, I do.

[John Kane]

And she was like, yeah, totally, because she.

[Ash]

Yeah, why would she think anything of that?

[John Kane]

Once inside the house, though, he started to become sexually aggressive with her. And she was like, no. And then she was like, I want to leave. But he said, no, you're not gonna leave.

[Ash]

Oh.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

That's literally what nightmares are made.

[John Kane]

And she had to run somewhere and contact the police. Now, he was quickly picked up on a charge that he, quote, willfully and feloniously made an assault upon a female under the age of 18 with the intent to have and accomplish the act of sexual intercourse upon said female. He pled not guilty and was taken to trial, where he was acquitted.

[Ash]

What the.

[John Kane]

Hello? 1950s. For real? Hello. Now, Ralph Allison's notes, though, indicate that David, quote, made no attempt to deny the allegations against him and had been quite cooperative and asked only that he be placed in a facility where he could receive help.

[Ash]

So he even asked for help.

[John Kane]

But 1950s, they were like, nah, nah, you're good.

[Ash]

Just get on. Get on out of here.

[John Kane]

Yeah, yeah. In 1955, David ended up dating and then marrying a 19 year old woman named Ellen. Ellen heel. I believe it is the peer the pair met at in Daly City a few years earlier. And when David. They. When they met, David was briefly dating her sister, Wilhelmina. Oh, no. Yeah. When she broke off their relationship after only a few dates, he turned his attention to Ellen, and within a few months, they were married. Yeah.

[Ash]

That is not girl code.

[John Kane]

No.

[Ash]

That is not sister code. No, sister code goes above girl code.

[John Kane]

It certainly does. And they were married at San Francisco City Hall. Less than a year later, Ellen gave birth to their first child, Michael, and the family moved to a small house in Westlake, and David found a steady job as a shipping clerk there. Two years later, Ellen gave birth to their second child, Gabrielle, who was followed in 1960 by their third child, Cersei. By this point in his life, his attitude towards women was pretty clear. He without fail portrayed himself as the victim of women. Like, women were to blame. His mother was to blame immediately, therefore women were to blame. He basically said everything he did, it was going to fall upon women as being the problem here, not him. He was never to be placed blame upon. It wasn't him. And it's like, you, dude.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

You're your own person. Plenty of people go, I'm not saying he had a great, he had a terrible life.

[Elena]

No.

[Ash]

But you can't make excuses for your behavior once you become an adult.

[John Kane]

No, it's like, based on your child. I'm sorry, you gotta look at people who make that. And again, he's in a different, like, time period, so I don't know, like, what's going on?

[Ash]

And all the resources that we have.

[John Kane]

Now are not available. There are still people who went through. Like, you really do. Like, you can't just blame how you were raised on how you act as an adult. If you're. You can't hurt people. Like, that's not. It just. It drives me crazy. And it's like, so many of these guys will be like, well, I kill women because of my mom. Get. Get over it. Like, really? You're gonna kill women because of your mom?

[Ash]

Not all women are your mom, and you should be able to make that difference. Differentiation.

[John Kane]

Exactly. Now, unfortunately, like we've said before, medical understandings of personalities like his were very poorly understood in 1950. So they weren't exactly like analyzing David's symptoms. Right. Instead, like his psychiatrist, Ralph Allison, who we've cited here before, he was focusing more on, like, finding effective treatment.

[Ash]

Yeah. Which, yeah, that's good.

[John Kane]

But, like, you also need to figure out what the. Is going on here.

[Ash]

And also, there's. There's just not treatment for everybody.

[John Kane]

Exactly.

[Ash]

And as we know now, there's not treatment for people like this.

[John Kane]

Really? No. And From Allison's perspective, Dr. Allison, he said he thought it came down to David's stutter.

[Ash]

He said, I think it's a lot more than that.

[John Kane]

If he could get proper therapy for the stammer, we might be able to prevent further catastrophes of this sort. That's what he had.

[Ash]

That's a wild point of view.

[John Kane]

Yeah. I also think that is a very wild point of view. I think that's absolutely bonkers. I think that's the most 1950s point of view I have ever seen in my life. I think it's psychiatrists just being like, I think if you could just speak clear, you wouldn't want to kill people. It's like, nope, I don't think that's the driving force.

[Ash]

No.

[John Kane]

I think that's part of his struggles.

[Elena]

Sure.

[John Kane]

And especially that that was not. Not taken as something that, like, they worked through with him or made him accept and, and be able to, you know, work through.

[Ash]

Right.

[John Kane]

It was treated as like, we're ashamed of you. Like, that's awful. Of course that's gonna affect somebody. Not to this extent. I think there's other things here at play, and I think we should maybe look at them.

[Ash]

I agree with you.

[Elena]

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[Ash]

Your credit card debt.

[Elena]

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[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh goody.

[John Kane]

Because this is not a man who can handle even the slightest inconvenience in his life. The only thing that seemed to keep his anger in check, according to Ellen, his wife at the time, was his need to have sex at least three times per night.

[Ash]

Oh, honey, your face.

[John Kane]

I'm not laughing at this.

[Ash]

No, she's laughing at my lashes. No.

[John Kane]

But, yeah, that's. I was like, whoa, that's wild. And it's like, poor Ellen.

[Ash]

She has three children.

[John Kane]

Has three children. And she's dealing with this manchild who is, like, abusive, uncontrollably angry. And I. I just, like, wonder what. What he presented to her.

[Ash]

I know.

[John Kane]

You know, to.

[Ash]

To.

[John Kane]

To get, like, to get him to marry her. You know what I mean?

[Ash]

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

[Elena]

Then they find one woman who they.

[Ash]

Are able to woo.

[John Kane]

Yeah. You know, and I think it's because they see that there's an end result where they can have the control they want.

[Ash]

So they.

[John Kane]

So they're cunning enough to know that they have to put some effort in. In the beginning to, you know, like, the means justify the end kind of thing. Yeah. And like. And vice versa. So I think it's like that, but the mask falls. That feels like it was probably the scenario. And I. And I feel so badly for Ellen, cuz, like, it sounds like she was just completely entrapped in this.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Exactly. That's the other thing. Keep it in mind. And she's got three kids now, but there were times that even that wasn't enough for him. And he would come explosively violent with her, and then he would claim to have no recollection of it.

[Ash]

So he's like, blacking out, potentially, or.

[John Kane]

He'S just lying about it and being like, I don't want to take responsibility for that, so I'm gonna pretend it didn't happen.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Oh, I'm sure. Yeah.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Now, in mid July 1960, he ran into an old friend, Lois Deandrati, Lisa Rinna's mother. I was just gonna say, I don't know if that sounds familiar to you, Lisa Rinna. You guys, like, you know, she's been a soap opera actress forever.

[Ash]

Days of Our Lives.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

She was.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

She dance was on TikTok.

[John Kane]

You might remember her mother, Lois. You both passed away recently, I think. Yeah, a couple years. Years. She was adorable.

[Ash]

Oh, I loved.

[John Kane]

Lois was the cutest. And they seemed like they were. They were super wildly close.

[Ash]

Yep.

[John Kane]

So, like, I'm sorry.

[Ash]

And Lois went through a lot.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Yes, Lois did go through a lot. Because you might be saying, I'm sorry. Back it up. Why are we mentioning Lois in this story?

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

And why are we mentioning her as an old friend?

[Ash]

She was. They work together, I think. Right, right.

[John Kane]

So they had met through mutual acquaintances a few years earlier. And again, they had like. And they had gone to coffee together a couple times in the past. Yeah, they knew each other, you know, they just knew each other. Like they were friends. Yeah, it was whatever. Lois had been on her way to work one morning when David offered her a ride.

[Ash]

That's what it is again, they're friends.

[John Kane]

Cool. David's offering me a ride issue. Why the would I care? As he'd done a few years earlier, David asked whether Lois would mind if they made a quick stop. But this time he said, hey, Lois, I gotta pick up my wife Ellen, and my new baby.

[Ash]

Disarming.

[John Kane]

So of course Lois is like, of course you can. That sounds lovely.

[Ash]

I'd love to see the babe.

[John Kane]

But the more they drove, the more Lois began to wonder whether they were actually going to pick up his wife and baby. Finally, David pulled over on the side on a side street. And Lois immediately knew something wasn't wrong. Right. She later said, by then, I was really nervous, so I started to get out of the right hand side of the car and I started to run. Wow. Now, Carpenter managed to reach Lois before she had gone far, and she. He dragged her back to the car.

[Ash]

Oh, my God.

[John Kane]

And she's unable to move. And he pulled out rope and a knife from the glove compartment and threatened her to keep quiet. And later she said, he told me to be quiet, and if I was quiet, he wouldn't kill me. Me. But if I made any noise, he would. Now, the entire scene was terrifying and completely confusing to Lois, who'd known Carpenter for years. And she was like, I'd never seen him behave violently.

[Ash]

Right.

[John Kane]

His violent was contained.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

To his home. Right behind closed doors. I was just gonna say everyone else saw this pretty normal, like, guy.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Like, it's just David did, like, what? So I. I can't imagine knowing someone for years.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

And then having them snap on you.

[Ash]

Like this, that must be. And like, it would be paralyzing.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And she said it was. She was like, I literally didn't know what to do. I was like, what are you talking about? You'll kill me?

[Ash]

Like, what?

[John Kane]

So she later said perhaps. She said she thought perhaps David went crazy. That's a quote. I was so terrified, I don't think I moved after that. Yeah. Yeah. And although she wasn't planning on moving at that point because she was terrified, she was looking around and scanning her surroundings, trying to look for anything that could help her get out of this situation. So she's desperately searching for a sign of anyone around her. And David reached into the back seat and grabbed a hammer. At the same time that he was doing that, Lois spotted a car a few dozen yards away, and without thinking, she threw her hand out and slammed down on the car horn. Just. That's the only thing she can think of. But Carpenter immediately slashed at her with the knife he had slicing into her hand. He ended up lacerating tendons in two of her fingers. Now, despite that injury, which is a pretty massive injury, gnarly. Lois managed to get the door open, and she tumbled out and hit the ground running. David Carpenter got out and chased her at full speed.

[Ash]

Oh, my God.

[John Kane]

This must have been horrifying.

[Ash]

Absolutely.

[John Kane]

He did. He caught up with her, and he raised. He's right behind her, running after her, and he raised the hammer to hit her in the head. But just as he came down with it, she threw her hands up to deflect the blow from the hammer, and the hammer struck a watch she was wearing and shattered it. But there was only a brief moment of luck because he raised the hammer again and brought it right down on her head, and it made contact, so she knocked it right to the ground. And he struck her five more times in the head with the hammer.

[Ash]

I didn't realize that she did. I thought she got out of this, like, unharmed.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Holy shit.

[John Kane]

Barely conscious, she managed to scream for help, which caught the attention of a military police officer, Jewel Wayne Hicks, who. Who happen to be driving down the narrow street at the time.

[Ash]

Whoa. What are the odds? And also, a military police officer caught this man doing this. But we have eight stories of murder to tell.

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Huh.

[John Kane]

That should be your first knowledge of how many times this is a failure to keep an absolute animal locked up.

[Ash]

Ticking box number one.

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Whoa.

[John Kane]

So Hicks, the military police officer, slammed on his brakes, got out and ran in the direction of the car and the screams. And he was holding a riot baton in one hand and a.45 pistol in the other.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

That's how we get out of the car for one of these scenes. At first, he couldn't see the two people on the ground since there was a car door in the way, but he could hear the sounds, and he said he immediately knew what was happening. By the time he made it to the car, Carpenter was on top of Lois. Lois still hitting her with the hammer.

[Ash]

Jesus.

[John Kane]

And Hicks said even when he saw me coming down the hill, he kept hitting her. So he saw this man and just kept hitting.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

It's so scary because that is. And I think it. I mean, I think it's how you define a blind rage.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

I think he is singularly focused on his rage and the focus of his rage. Yeah. And it just doesn't matter.

[Ash]

That's so wild to think of somebody's.

[John Kane]

Thought process because then Officer Hicks shouted for him to stop, obviously, and that caused David to jump up and run. But he ran at Hicks swinging the hammer at him.

[Ash]

He's a madman.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh, that's horrifying.

[John Kane]

So he's just an animal.

[Ash]

Yep.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

What?

[John Kane]

So he came fully prepared to incapacitate someone.

[Ash]

I had no idea that this was. Was this. That this was this.

[John Kane]

I also didn't know that they briefly.

[Ash]

Discussed this at a dinner on Housewives.

[John Kane]

Briefly over sushi, I believe. Yeah.

[Ash]

Holy fuck.

[John Kane]

The gun produced a large plume of smoke, which confused Hicks momentarily. But he wasn't quite sure what happened. He just got hit in the face with this tear gas pen, which is.

[Ash]

Nothing new for a military police officer.

[John Kane]

And he said he recognized the sound of a gunshot.

[Ash]

Oh, fuck.

[John Kane]

And instinctively raised his pistol and fired in the direction of where Carpenter was and Hicks was. Didn't know where he was at the time, but he still managed to hit Carpenter twice. Once in the abdomen and once in the leg, which knocked him off his feet and caused him to shout that he surrendered. So he got shot twice and surrendered. Hello. Now I want to be. So when you guys hear this, that he was on top of this woman, hitting her in the head with a hammer repeatedly, what would you say is the end result that he was probably looking for by doing that? Either rape or murder? Both, I would say. You don't hit someone five times in the head with a hammer and not assume that they're gonna die.

[Ash]

Yup.

[John Kane]

He was trying to murder her.

[Ash]

Yep.

[John Kane]

100.

[Ash]

Yeah, definitely murder. I was just questioning.

[John Kane]

He was sure he was also gonna do that, but he. This is a murder that he failed at Yelp. This isn't assault.

[Ash]

No. This is attempted murder.

[John Kane]

This is a murder that he. That he failed to commit.

[Ash]

And you guys know how we feel about attempted murder.

[John Kane]

So with Carpenter incapacitated, Hicks went back to his car and radioed for backup, which arrived very quickly. Lois was taken to the hospital. She was treated for a fractured skull, which was broken in two places. Her skull was shattered in two places.

[Ash]

It's remarkable that she survived this.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And she also had severe lacerations on her hands and face. After multiple surgeries, during which metal plates were placed in her skull and tendons were grafted in. Two fingers, and nearly two months of hospitalization, she recovered.

[Ash]

Unreal.

[John Kane]

But she never regained full use of those fingers.

[Ash]

Aww.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

A quirk?

[John Kane]

A quirk, babe, that's not a kink like, a quirk. David Carpenter was taken to Letterman General Hospital, where surgeons removed the two bullets from his body before. I know, unfortunately, before he was cuffed to a bed, and he recovered there before being transferred to San Quentin, like, a little over a week later, I think it was to await his hearing.

[Ash]

Okay.

[John Kane]

This, it turned out, would take much longer than expected, because due to his injuries and his claims of mental illness, it was going to go a lot longer than just, like, charging, blah, blah, blah. In the two months that followed, he was evaluated twice by psychiatrists before finally being indicted on September 22, where a grand jury returned four counts of assault that, if convicted, would have put him in jail for 30 years.

[Ash]

Question. Which, like, cool, cool, 30 years.

[John Kane]

But, like, where's the attempted murder? Yeah, where's the attempted murder charge?

[Elena]

Right?

[John Kane]

Like, are we really pretending that he wasn't trying to kill her? He fractured her skull in two places and hit her over five times with.

[Ash]

A hammer and sliced her hands open like, he attacked her with a knife and a hammer.

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

Are we all okay?

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

But you already got evaluated.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

I. I'll say. I understand plea deals for certain things. They piss me off, but I got them this. Yeah.

[John Kane]

I don't see this one.

[Ash]

I feel like they would have got him on all those four cat. Well.

[John Kane]

And Judge Oliver Carter wasn't certain he would accept the deal. And I don't blame him. He ordered carpenter to a 90 day hold in federal prison where he was going to be examined thoroughly by psychiatrists. And on March 9, 1961, Carpenter was back in front of a judge after having been evaluated many times at San Quentin. And after reading the reports which diagnosed Carpenter as a sociopathic personality.

[Ash]

Huh.

[John Kane]

The judge deems David a, quote, personality who should be locked away in the interests of society.

[Ash]

That's completely correct. Thank you, sir.

[John Kane]

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

[Elena]

Okay.

[Ash]

Like, I wish it was the full 30, though.

[John Kane]

Yeah. But then, for some reason, the judge kind of, like, softened somewhat after announcing the ruling and recommended the parole board conduct routine evaluations and release Carpenter, quote, at any time, he is considered rehabilitated. Oliver, like, I'm sorry. What the fuck?

[Ash]

You literally said he's a threat to society. And they were like, hey, Pearl board. Like, keep it. Keep tabs on that.

[John Kane]

Check it out. If you feel like it's cool that day. Just let him out.

[Ash]

Yeah, just be. Be cool, man. Don't be all uncool.

[John Kane]

He was diagnosed as a sociopathic personality.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

And tried to kill this woman.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

And this officer tried to kill Lois and this officer.

[Ash]

Yup.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh, good.

[John Kane]

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

[Elena]

Good for her.

[Ash]

That is Women supporting women.

[John Kane]

Hell, yeah. And she cited extreme cruelty as a reason.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

And wrongfully inflicting upon her grievous mental suffering.

[Ash]

I guess you could file for divorce.

[John Kane]

Back then as a woman. The divorce was finalized on August 27, 1962. And Carpenter was ordered to pay $1 per month in child support and $1 per month in alimony. She got three kids. Yeah. She was awarded the couple's assets, including the house.

[Ash]

That's Good.

[John Kane]

And granted her request. They granted her request for a restraining order to prevent David from, quote, annoying or molesting the children.

[Ash]

Oh, God.

[John Kane]

Yeah. I don't know if that means what that word means. There's terms, legal terms, that. That can mean, like bothering, which is weird, I know, but I'm not sure where. How that one was used. Molesting is what I'm talking about.

[Ash]

Okay.

[John Kane]

But he is also. He has, like, pedophilic tendencies. So it's like, that could be.

[Ash]

Who knows, right?

[John Kane]

But I am not positive.

[Ash]

Yeah, foreign.

[Mike Corey]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Lindsey Graham from the podcast American Historytellers. And if you're still reeling from Ash and Elena's episode on the Boston Molasses disaster and you want to dive even deeper, you're in luck. My show doesn't usually venture too far into the spooky or creepy, but we've dedicated two full episodes to uncovering fascinating details about this bizarre molasses catastrophe, from the company's negligence to the victims. Harrowing stories. We explore how this strange event reshaped industrial safety laws and left an indelible mark on Boston's history. And the Boston Molasses disaster is just one of many fascinating stories waiting for you On American Historytellers. We take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped our nation and show you how our history affected them, their families, and affects you today. Follow American Historytellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Wondery subscribers can listen to both American Historytellers and Morbid early and ad free your free trial in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today.

[John Kane]

Now, in the meantime, David was sent to McNeil Island Correctional Facility and began serving his sentence on April 12, 1961. Now, he applied for parole in 1964, but it was unanimously rejected.

[Ash]

Good.

[John Kane]

In April 1969, however, he came up for parole a second time time. And his petition was granted. Bad. On the grounds that he'd served the minimum nine year sentence.

[Ash]

What about the maximum, though? We don't want to talk about that today.

[John Kane]

And also, like, okay, we're not gonna like. So he just served his minimum sentence, so you're gonna let him out.

[Ash]

So it's all good, regardless of what.

[John Kane]

Kind of person he is. So now he's a free man.

[Ash]

Christ.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Let's not give him tools.

[Ash]

I don't think.

[John Kane]

Yeah. In his free time, he started attending group therapy on the recommendation of his parole officer. And it was there that he met Helen.

[Elena]

Bad question mark.

[John Kane]

David and Helen began dating that spring, and on August 8, 1969, they were married at City Hall. He gets that women to marry him quickly. Yeah. William Carpenter, his stepbrother, was the witness to the marriage. It appears little is known about this period of his life. He remained in regular contact with his probation officer at this. This point, and he was meeting all the conditions of his parole for a.

[Ash]

While, so he's probably laying low at this point.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Then rather suddenly, he cut off all communication with the probation officer and the parole board that December. Huh. And he had, like, years left on his probation, so there's no reason for this. And around the same time, Helen, having been driven to what author Robert Graysmith referred to as, quote, the edge of a nervous breakdown, left California on a long trip to Hawaii and just left her husband behind. Damn. Yeah.

[Ash]

Who knows what that poor woman endured.

[John Kane]

What was going on?

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

Yeah. Now without anyone watching over him, it didn't take long before David Carpenter began losing control of his rage. On the evening of January 27, 1970, he went out for a drive on Highway 280 towards Santa Cruz Cruise. And at some point, the driver of a passing car, who was a young blonde woman, caught his attention. And for no explicable reason, she became the focus of his rage. Oh, no. Without any warning to this driver, David sped up beside her and forced her car off the road.

[Ash]

Oh, that's so she's just driving. That is so scary.

[John Kane]

Terrified, she jumped out of the car and ran into the underbrush, quickly losing him. Him. And he stood at the side of the road and called out to her in threatening voices.

[Ash]

What the.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

That poor girl.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

And did she ever even realize that it was him?

[John Kane]

I don't know. You know? Yeah. That's the thing. It's like. That's why. Imagine thinking back to that, being like, oh, my God. God. Like, and you just read this and you're like, holy. A short time later, a little past 10pm, he found himself driving on Highway 9 towards Boulder Creek, where the only other car on the road easily caught his attention again, because he's pissed. Determined to relieve his tension and anger. He pressed the accelerator and rammed his car into the other driver, who was 19 year old Cheryl Lynn Smith. Thinking the man was drunk, she shouted at him. She was like, fuck you, dude.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh my God.

[John Kane]

So Smith got out of her car and was looking over the damage as well. And then Carpenter's hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck.

[Ash]

Oh, that's awful.

[John Kane]

He grabbed her by the neck and said, I want to rape you. I'll have to kill you if you don't come with me.

[Ash]

Oh God.

[John Kane]

Like, what the fuck? So, and this is like graphic, I apologize. Carpenter dragged her into the brush where he literally tore off her clothing and violently, sexually assaulted her. As Cheryl tried to get out of his grasp, he sliced her arm with his knife, partially severing the muscles and rendering it temporarily useless.

[Ash]

Oh my God. The, the, the force that would take.

[John Kane]

Yeah. And she said, so she's trying to get away from him. He does this. And then she said she finally was like, I'm just going to look at him because she wasn't looking at him. And she said, she looked at him and she said she was stunned because she said all I had seen up till that point was this like, violent, scary man. And she was like, suddenly he looked totally different.

[Ash]

What?

[John Kane]

Suddenly she said his features had softened and he spoke to her, her with a pronounced stutter suddenly, which he didn't have before.

[Ash]

Huh.

[John Kane]

And she said to her bewilderment, she, he, he looked at her and said, look, you're hurt and bleeding. Let me follow you home and I'll bandage you up and I'll promise not to if you promise not to call the police.

[Ash]

That's.

[John Kane]

And like, said it in like a, like, look, you're hurt and bleeding.

[Ash]

Like, not like, oh my God, I hurt you.

[John Kane]

It was like, oh my God, like.

[Ash]

How did that happen?

[John Kane]

But it's softened into like, oh, no, Like, I didn't mean like, what? You violently raped her? Like, what do you mean? And Cheryl was like, no, I'm good.

[Ash]

Like, it's good.

[John Kane]

And then she managed to get back to her own car and drove away. And he just let her.

[Ash]

Oh, that poor girl. But 19 years old, but as she's.

[John Kane]

Driving home, she notices that he's driving behind her.

[Ash]

Oh no.

[John Kane]

And he was keeping distance, but he was behind her. And so she saw a large hotel in the distance. So she drove in the direction of what she was hoping would be help. And he was driving behind her the entire way. So she gets into the very well lit parking lot and he sped off. So he was planning on following her?

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Right to her house.

[Ash]

Yup.

[John Kane]

But she managed to write down his license plate. Smart. She immediately reported the attack to police case and gave them the license plate number. And she described her attacker as white, 30 to 35 years of age, 5ft 10 inches, 160 pounds and brown hair. That same night, an anonymous caller reported witnessing what appeared to be a fender bender accident on Highway 9, which is that. So later it was discovered that Cheryl was the second woman that he had attacked that day. The first was a woman named Wilma George Joyce. Now, this isn't the blonde woman who ran away from him. This is another one. Oh, so they think it's two. Really?

[Ash]

It was three?

[John Kane]

Yeah.

[Ash]

So far.

[John Kane]

Yeah. That afternoon, Joyce had returned home from a shopping trip to find Carpenter waiting in her house with a shotgun.

[Ash]

Nope. No.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Walked in from shopping to him sitting in her home with a shotgun.

[Ash]

Do you know, that's one of my biggest fears?

[John Kane]

That is the scariest thing I've ever heard.

[Ash]

That's. Oh, fuck. That's literally horror movie shit.

[John Kane]

That is horror movie shit. And he forced her to leave with him in her car. And the two drove for a short time before he sexually assaulted her and then let her out of the car.

[Ash]

What?

[John Kane]

This is awful too. In the days after that, he kidnapped and assaulted two other women, one of whom had a toddler in the car with her and stole a car from a third woman. Woman.

[Ash]

Why was he not stopped? This is crazy.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

They, like they knew his name.

[John Kane]

Unanimously, they were able to identify him.

[Ash]

Oh, okay.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

He has just assaulted numerous women.

[Ash]

Numerous women. After assaulting Lois, the police officer and just dodging parole.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Yep. So at the time of his arrest, the district attorneys in Santa Cruz county and nearby Calaveras county filed charges against him for attempted rape, rape, kidnapping and assault. And because he had been on parole at the time, with four years left on his sentence, he was placed in Calaveras County Jail pending a transfer to a prison where he could serve out the rest of his sentence. So he has now also violated parole. These are all huge charges.

[Ash]

Massive.

[John Kane]

David was held at Calaveras County Jail for two months until he managed to escape on the night of April 26. According to the press, he was being held in a cell with four other men, and they managed to cut through the bars. And all five of them escaped out of a skylight.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

My question exactly.

[Ash]

These violent prisoners had access to a hacksaw blade.

[John Kane]

Just. Oops, we forgot the hacksaw blade was in there.

[Ash]

I'm a normal.

[John Kane]

I don't have. Have access to a hacksaw blade.

[Ash]

Yeah, I've never committed a violent crime. The.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Like that's gonna also make some noise.

[John Kane]

No one was looking at them. No one was checking.

[Ash]

I wonder if they, like, bribed a guard or something.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Now, the good news is all five of them were rounded up the following day. And while the other four were returned to jail to await their trial, David Carpenter was transferred to Soledad prison. On July 17, a grand jury in Santa Cruz indicted Carpenter for rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, and assault. District Attorney Peter Chang told the press, right now, Carpenter is serving a minimum five year sentence. If we can make the aggravated kidnapping charge stick, the term will be increased to life.

[Ash]

Let's go.

[John Kane]

Already serving a sentence of one to 25 years for the charges in Calaveras county on October 8th 8th, Carpenter pleaded guilty to one count of rape and one count of armed robbery. And in exchange, he was given a sentence of five years.

[Ash]

That's bullshit.

[John Kane]

They should be ashamed of this.

[Ash]

Absolutely they should.

[John Kane]

These. All these deaths are on their hands 100%. Now, despite Peter Chang thinking that he would be able to lock him up for life, David would only spend nine years at Soledad Prison until being paroled to a halfway house in late May 1979.

[Ash]

You guys did this before, though?

[John Kane]

Yeah. You did it before and it didn't work out. He just failed.

[Ash]

What?

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Yeah, I bet.

[John Kane]

Yep. Now, on May 21, 1979, he was released on parole and by that time, Helen had divorced him and he was to remain on probation until 1982. So he was sent to live at Reality House west, which was a halfway house for federal prisoners transitioning back into society, which is not something he should have been. No. As part of his parole conditions, he was required to find a job. So he started taking classes at the vocational center and eventually began participating in courses in computer repair. Okay. Around this time, he also took up hiking around Santa Cruz and developed a particular fondness for the trails on Mount Tamalpais, which I think they call it Mount Tam for sure. Oh, I've heard of Mount Tam. Yeah. It's a popular hiking spot in Marin county, about 10 miles outside San Francisco. At the foot of the mountain was a small community of renters, including John and Ada Kane. Now, on the morning of August 19, 1979, Etta Kane was preparing for a four hour hike that the couple had planned to take together that afternoon. Unfortunately, John's arthritis was acting up that morning, so he was unable to take the hike with Etta. She was a very experienced hiker, so she just decided to go alone.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Several hours passed and Etta had still not returned home. This caused John to be very anxious. His wife was very skilled. But it was getting dark, so he called the sheriff's department and reported it, and deputies were sent out immediately to look for Etta. Now, sheriff's deputies, along with a search and rescue team and packs of dogs, combed the mountain all night. But by dawn, they still hadn't found Etta. And her car was still in the parking lot where it had been all night.

[Ash]

That's chilling.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Always a Volkswagen, people.

[John Kane]

And he drives one. Around 1:30 that afternoon, one of the dogs discovered Etta's body. It was a short distance off Rock Springs Trail. It's very chilling. She was in a kneeling position and her body had fallen forward, face down with a large bullet hole in the back of her head. Oh. Sergeant Rich Keaton said, When we finally came across Ms. Kane's body, all items of personal nature of hers had been removed, moved with the exception of one sock. Oh, so she is nude except for one sock, in a kneeling position with her face down.

[Ash]

That's awful.

[John Kane]

The discovery was shocking for about a million reasons, not the least of which was the fact that while sheriff's deputies had found many bodies on Mount Tam to Their knowledge, Etta was the first person to be murdered on the mountain. Right, right. That alone made the press immediately take notice and start reporting the story. Now, in interviews with those who'd been at the mountain that day that Etta went missing, several people reported seeing a single man hiking around the same time Etta was. Lieutenant Robert Gadini told reporters, we are by no means certain the man murdered Etta Kane. But investigators were just trying to come up with a composite sketch of this man from the witnesses descriptions.

[Ash]

Yeah.

[John Kane]

Otherwise there was very little evidence that could point investigators towards any suspect. There were rumors, and there were rumors that Etta had been having an affair with a younger man. So detectives did wonder whether he might have been involved or whether John might have killed her out of jealousy. That was like their initial thoughts. Yeah, they gotta go to like that.

[Ash]

Yeah, they have to.

[John Kane]

John Kane was quickly ruled out.

[Ash]

That's good.

[John Kane]

But police shifted their attention to the younger man that Etta had allegedly been seen. Although he denied seeing Etta that day, the man still couldn't account for his whereabouts, so detectives couldn't rule him out. A sergeant working the case later said, after Etta's death, John Kane just withered away without her and eventually died.

[Ash]

Oh, that's so sad.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

Oh, wow. That must have been so strange. Yeah, that's bizarre.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

All right.

[John Kane]

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

[Ash]

That's a crazy lead up.

[John Kane]

Yeah. Wow. And he, he. This is only the first murder.

[Ash]

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

[John Kane]

We have seven more. We had a full part one with one murder. Yeah, but his, his assaults are enough to.

[Ash]

They're gnarly.

[John Kane]

His assaults are, are basically attempted murder.

[Ash]

Yeah, they are.

[John Kane]

All of them. But yeah, he's a horrible, horrible human being. Like very horrible.

[Ash]

He really is.

[John Kane]

And he somehow gets worse.

[Ash]

Well, with that being said, we hope keep listening and we hope you keep it. We're not so weird that you don't tune in to part two.

[John Kane]

Foreign.

[Ash]

If you like morbid, you can listen.

[Elena]

Early and ad free right now by.

[Ash]

Joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app.

[Elena]

Or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.

[F]

Hey, weirdos. I'm Mike Corey and like you, I'm drawn to true crime, creepy history and all things spook. If you particularly enjoyed Ash and Elena's coverage of the USS Indianapolis, where 900 sailors battled rough seas, sharks, dehydration, and madness in the open ocean, you need to check out my podcast, against the Odds. We dive deep into this survival story across four full episodes, revealing details you haven't heard yet. Each week on against the Odds, we put you in the shoes of real survivors. From the Thai cave rescue to Somali pirate hostages to the Donner Party, these aren't just headlines, they're incredible stories of human endurance. Follow against the Odds on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Wondery subscribers can listen to both against the Odds and Morbid early and ad free. Start your free trial in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify Today.