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On May 15, 1981,
David Joseph Carpenter was arrested at 38 Sussex
Street in Glen Park, ending the siege of the Trailside Killer.
Carpenter's history included a conviction in 1961 at the age of 34 for
attacking a woman with a hammer and a knife. He was sentenced to 14 years
in prison and was released after seven years. Carpenter returned to prison
on a kidnapping conviction in 1970. Released again in 1977, the severe
stutterer and sex addict began his reign as a serial killer beginning with
the 1979 murder of Anne Kelly Menjivar, whose body was found in Mt. Tamalpais
Park in Marin. As police searched for Menjivar's unknown killer, Mt. Tam
became the scene of three more murders. In August, 1979 Edda Kane vanished
while hiking. She was found shot in the back of the head, execution style.
In March, 1980 Barbara Schwartz, 23, was found dead of stab wounds to the
chest. Next, 26-year old Anne Alderson was found shot in the head after
she disappeared while jogging. More victims followed: Shawna May, 25, Diane
O'Connell, 22, Cynthia Moreland, 18, and Richard Towers, 19. When the last
four bodies were discovered in a single day in 1980, extensive media coverage
stoked the fears of an anxious public. In March, 1981 the Trailside Killer
claimed his next victim, Ellen Hansen, in a park near Santa Cruz. Hansen's
boyfriend survived the attack and provided police with a description of
a suspect. Witness reports of a small red car in the area during the attack
also provided a clue to the killer's identity. Next victim: Heather Scaggs,
20, a co-worker of Carpenter's at a San Francisco print shop who disappeared
on May 1, 1981. When police came to Carpenter's home on Sussex Street to
question him about Scaggs, they immediately connected him to the composite
sketch of the Trailside Killer. Carpenter, who drove a red Fiat, was arrested
after Scaggs' body was found in Big Basin State Park. A man admitted selling
Carpenter a gun that was used in several of the killings, though the gun
was not found. A second gun used in the last two killings was found by
investigators and entered into evidence by prosecutors. Carpenter was convicted
of the murders of Hansen and Scaggs on July 6, 1984. In a separate trial
he was convicted of five murders in Marin County. On Nov. 16, 1984, Trailside
Killer David Carpenter was sentenced to death. |