May 6, 1930 - David Carpenter
His crimes unfolded on hiking trails in the Bay Area, where the isolation and the approach of unsuspecting victims gave him a tactical advantage he exploited repeatedly. All of the killings attributed to him occurred while he was on parole for prior rape and kidnapping convictions, making him a study in the failure of institutional safeguards. The detail noted by pathologists — that the act of tormenting victims caused his stutter to disappear — offers an unsettling window into the psychology behind the crimes.
From Wikipedia
David Joseph Carpenter (born May 6, 1930), also called the Trailside Killer, is an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured, and murdered various victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1979 and 1981. He was sentenced to death for seven murders and is believed to be responsible for several more.
Carpenter began committing sexual assaults at age 15 and was admitted to a mental hospital at age 17. He committed all of his murders while on parole for rape and kidnapping convictions. Active primarily in Marin County and Santa Cruz County, Carpenter would hide along tree lines on secluded trails and wait for his target to approach and then would restrain, rape, and sometimes torture them before killing them. A .38 caliber handgun was his preferred weapon, which was used in all but one of the killings. According to pathologists, Carpenter would get so much enjoyment from tormenting his victims that he would lose his stutter.
Both of Carpenter's trials had to be moved to Southern California due to extensive publicity.
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