David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer: Trials, Appeals, and DNA

David Carpenter, known as the Trailside Killer, is a convicted California serial murderer who shot hikers on popular Bay Area trails between 1979 and 1981. He was sentenced to death twice, in 1984 and 1988, for a total of seven murders. At 95, he remains on California’s condemned inmate list and is the oldest person on the state’s death row.¹

Who David Carpenter Is

Carpenter was born May 6, 1930, in San Francisco. By the time he began killing hikers in the fall of 1979, he was 49 years old and had already served a combined 11 years in federal prison and seven years in state prisons for five violent assaults on women.² He had been paroled in May 1979 to a federal halfway house and released that September. Within weeks, the Trailside killings began.

The Trailside Murders

Carpenter’s known victims were attacked on hiking trails across the San Francisco Bay Area over roughly 20 months. All were shot with the same .38-caliber Rossi revolver. Several of the women were also sexually assaulted.

Mary Frances Bennett, 23, found October 21, 1979, at Lands End in San Francisco. She had been stabbed at least 25 times. Carpenter was not linked to her death until DNA testing in 2010.³
Anne Alderson, 26, killed in autumn 1980 on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County.⁴
Diane O’Connell, 22; Shauna May, 25; Cynthia Moreland, 18; and Richard Stowers, 19, found in shallow graves along the Sky Trail at Point Reyes National Seashore in autumn 1980. Stowers is the only known male victim.⁴
Ellen Hansen, killed March 29, 1981, at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park near Santa Cruz. Her companion, Steven Haertle, was shot in the chest but survived and escaped.⁵
Heather Scaggs, 20, who disappeared in May 1981 after telling others she was meeting Carpenter to look at a used car. Her body was found that month in Big Basin Redwoods State Park.⁵

The killings emptied Northern California’s park system. By December 1980 a ranger at Point Reyes said visitor traffic was less than half of normal, and bright orange trailhead signs warned hikers not to walk alone. Sheriff’s deputies on Mount Tamalpais stopped drivers to issue warnings and ran mounted patrols. The signs stayed up until Carpenter’s arrest in May 1981.⁴

How Carpenter Was Caught

The breakthrough came from Steven Haertle, the survivor of the Henry Cowell shooting. He described the gunman as 45 to 50 years old with dark hair, hazel eyes, and crooked teeth, and the resulting composite was later described by prosecutor John Posey as “remarkably close” to Carpenter.⁵ Ballistics tied all the killings to the same .38, and witnesses had seen a red Fiat matching Carpenter’s at several scenes.

When Heather Scaggs vanished in May 1981 after telling people she was meeting Carpenter, investigators came to question him. He matched Haertle’s description, his car matched the witness reports, and he was arrested shortly afterward.⁵ The Rossi revolver itself was recovered after an acquaintance who had received it from Carpenter and used it in a bank robbery led police to a vacant lot where he had buried it. Testing conclusively matched the gun to all seven murders and to the shooting of Haertle.⁶

Two Trials, Two Death Sentences

Because the crimes crossed county lines, Carpenter was prosecuted twice, each case moved to a different county on a change of venue.

Santa Cruz County Case

The first trial, moved to Los Angeles County and heard by Judge Dion G. Morrow, covered the murders of Ellen Hansen and Heather Scaggs and the attempted murder of Steven Haertle. Evidence included Haertle’s identification, the ballistics match, witnesses to the red Fiat, plaster casts of shoe prints matching Nike shoes Carpenter had bought the day before the Hansen shooting, and testimony about a distinctive gold “Western Bar Olympic Drinking Team” jacket worn by the gunman.⁷ The jury convicted on all counts on July 6, 1984, found the special circumstance allegations true, and returned a death verdict. Sentence was imposed November 16, 1984.⁸

Marin County Case

The second trial, moved to San Diego County, covered the five Marin killings along with rape and attempted rape charges. The prosecution again rested on the common ballistics, semen evidence consistent with Carpenter’s blood type, eyewitness identifications, and vehicle sightings. In May 1988 the jury convicted on all counts and returned a second death sentence.⁹

Appeals and the Juror Misconduct Ruling

The California Supreme Court affirmed the Santa Cruz judgment in 1997 and the Marin judgment in 1999.⁹

In between, the Marin case produced a serious dispute over juror misconduct. The jury foreperson, Barbara Durham, learned during deliberations from newspaper accounts that Carpenter had already been convicted and sentenced to death in the Santa Cruz case, and later discussed it with non-jurors at a dinner party. A San Diego Superior Court judge granted habeas relief and vacated the death sentence, calling the misconduct “inherently prejudicial.”¹⁰ In 1995 the California Supreme Court reversed, applying an objective “substantial likelihood” test for prejudice and concluding that the evidence of guilt and the appropriate penalty were overwhelming. The death sentence was reinstated.¹¹

Carpenter also sought federal relief. After three unsuccessful state habeas petitions, a federal judge in 2008 denied his request for an evidentiary hearing, ruling that the state courts’ factual findings were entitled to deference under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.¹²

The 1979 Cold Case Linked by DNA

For 30 years, Carpenter was suspected but never charged in the Mary Frances Bennett killing. In December 2009, San Francisco cold case investigators retested preserved evidence and recovered a male DNA profile. A database search pointed to Carpenter, and a confirmation sample taken from him at San Quentin on February 3, 2010, matched.³ When confronted, Carpenter denied knowing Bennett or killing her.¹³ No new charges were brought; he was already under two death sentences.

Why Carpenter Has Never Been Executed

Carpenter has been a condemned inmate since November 1984, more than 41 years. California has not carried out an execution since 2006, when a federal judge found the state’s lethal injection protocol unconstitutional. In 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions for the length of his term and ordered the execution chamber at San Quentin closed.¹⁴ California voters rejected ballot measures to abolish capital punishment in 2012 and 2016, so the sentence remains on the books even though it is not being carried out.

Where Carpenter Is Today

After San Quentin’s death row was dismantled, Carpenter was transferred to the California Health Care Facility in Stockton. A 2025 report described him as 94, using a wheelchair and walker, housed in a single cell, enrolled in a computer education class, and attending prison church services. He had contracted COVID-19 in September 2024 and spent several days in isolation before recovering. He compared the environment to a “retirement home.”¹⁵ The state’s condemned inmate list, updated March 10, 2026, still shows him as a condemned prisoner at age 95.¹

Earlier Crimes That Preceded the Trail Killings

Carpenter’s record of violence against women stretched back two decades before his first known Trailside victim. In July 1960 he attacked a co-worker, Lois DeAndrade, after offering her a ride in San Francisco’s Presidio. He drove to a deserted road, slashed her with a knife from his glove box, severing two of her fingers when she grabbed the blade, and struck her repeatedly in the head with a hammer. A military police officer who had been following the car shot Carpenter in the stomach and saved her life.¹⁶ DeAndrade spent three months in the hospital, needed a metal plate in her skull, and permanently lost her sense of smell. Carpenter pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.²

DeAndrade’s daughter, television personality Lisa Rinna, spoke publicly about the attack in 2025, describing the “fear-based environment” it created at home. DeAndrade died in November 2021 at age 93.¹⁷ Paroled in April 1969 after serving roughly half his federal sentence, Carpenter committed a fresh string of violent crimes in January 1970, including the stabbing of one woman and the kidnapping and rape of two others, and was convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, auto theft, and escape.² His release from a federal halfway house in September 1979 came just weeks before the first Trailside killing.

1
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Condemned Inmate List
2
The New York Times. Park Murder Case Focuses Attention on California Sentencing Procedure
3
SFGate. DNA Ties Trailside Killer to ’79 S.F. Slaying
4
SFGate. Trailside Killer at Mount Tam and Point Reyes
5
A&E. David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer
6
GovInfo. Carpenter v. Ayers Federal Habeas Petition
7
Stanford Law School. People v. Carpenter (S004654)
8
Justia. People v. Carpenter (9 Cal.4th 634)
9
vLex. People v. Carpenter (21 Cal.4th 1016)
10
Stanford Law School. In re Carpenter (9 Cal.4th 634)
11
Justia. In re Carpenter (9 Cal.4th 634)
12
GovInfo. Carpenter Federal Habeas Corpus Memorandum Opinion
13
ABC7 News. DNA Links Trailside Killer to 1979 SF Slaying
14
NPR. Gov. Gavin Newsom Suspends Death Penalty in California
15
Los Angeles Times. San Quentin Death Row Dismantled: What Happened to Condemned Inmates
16
People. Lisa Rinna’s Mom Survived Attack by Trailside Killer
17
San Francisco Chronicle. Lisa Rinna Reveals Mother Was Attacked by SF Serial Killer