American homicide, leaving the California parks in terror after a trail of rape, robbery and murder with victims shot and stabbed, a series of macabre murders. A clean cut white male, medium height and build, the son of a delivery truck driver, Carpenter was in the custody of prisons since 1960 when he was sentenced to 16 years for assaults on women dating back to the late ’40s.
He was paroled in May 1970 and five months later again arrested for robbery and kidnapping. He was tried and found guilty of robbery and rape. In May 1979, he was released to a halfway house. Three months later, the murders began. Carpenter’s m.o. was to stalk women in remote parks, those who appeared vulnerable. He would force them off the trail and then psychologically torture them before ritualistic murders.
By December 1980, he was sought for questioning in seven unsolved murders during the past 15 months in the area from Point Reyes National Seashore to Mt. Tamalpais, near San Francisco. Four bodies had been discovered on 11/29/1979 near Point Reyes Station, two so badly decomposed that they could not be identified. The other two had disappeared 24 hours before, found nude lying near to each other, shot to death. Their clothes were scattered nearby. There was no indication that the two women knew each other and they had been killed separately.
In August, 1979, he shot a hiker to death, Edda Kane, 44. The second victim was Barbara Schwartz, 23, who was stabbed to death in March 1980. The third, Anne Alderson, 26, was shot to death October 3rd. All three women lived in Marin county and had been hiking on Mt. Tamalpais. There was no evidence of sexual molestation. Further victims were missing on 10/13/1980, 12/28/1980, 3/29/1981 and 5/02/1981.
Carpenter was arrested 5/15/1981 while living with his parents. On 7/06/1984, he was convicted of first-degree murder on two counts.
Link to Wikipedia biography