One of the most recognized prisoners on San Quentin’s Death Row was, born May 6, 1930 in San Francisco. His name is David Joseph Carpenter.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s Carpenter was convicted of 10 homicides, which gave him the moniker—The Trailside Killer.
Carpenter says he spends the better part of every day writing letters and working on his complex legal case.
“There are many [court] cases to research and staying up with laws pertaining to my case is essential to my on-going appeal,” said Carpenter. During the 30-minute interview, Carpenter picked up a very long, hand-written letter from his bunk, “This letter is for my sister who will be 79 years old this year. We are very close,” he said.
Sitting at the end of his bunk, Carpenter said, speaking through the heavily meshed screen covering the bars on his cell door, that he is a devout Catholic. He attends a service every week in the East Block section of Death Row. Carpenter said he has a great relationship with San Quentin’s priest, Father George Williams and enjoys conversations with him often.
According to Father Williams, Carpenter “is a very devout, well informed Catholic who attends all services provided to the men on his yard on death row. He is well liked by many of the guys there and those who are in contact with him.”
“A few friends come to visit me, and I am extremely grateful to them.” Carpenter said that he receives visits about once a month. When he’s not working on his legal case or writing letters, his favorite television stations are ABC’s Channel 7 and KQED-Channel 9. He listens to both 1050 and 1140 AM Bay Area sports radio stations for daily updates on his favorite teams.
Carpenter 83, is the oldest man on San Quentin’s Death Row and one of the oldest in the country, and he has been on Death Row since 1984. “Despite my age, I’m relatively healthy. My medical issues are minor in comparison to others here [on death row] and I have them under control,” Carpenter insisted.
David Carpenter insisted that he is innocent of the murders of which he was convicted.
Authorities said Carpenter was guilty of these crimes based on his association with a young student. “They claimed I was the logical suspect. By then, everyone believed I was the Trailside Killer. It began because I was supposed to pick up Heather Scaggs on May 2, 1981 but I did not. That is why I became the logical suspect,” said Carpenter.
“I was convicted by the media long before I was even found guilty of a crime.”
According to www.CrimeLibrary.com, “A DNA sample obtained from the evidence was matched to Carpenter through state Department of Justice files. In February 2010, San Francisco police confirmed the match with a recently obtained sample from Carpenter.”
Carpenter says he commits many waking hours to pouring over the details of his murder convictions. After 30 years, he said he knows the details by heart. His claims of innocence have been rejected at every level of the judicial system.
The trailside killings involved multiple victims on hiking trails near San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
Carpenter pointed out some investigators thought he might, in fact, be the Zodiac Killer, who was also active some years before and who was never caught. But they later dropped that line of inquiry after handwriting and DNA analysis cleared him. Carpenter said this was proof that investigators had it in for him.
At this point during the interview, because of the din of San Quentin’s East Block Condemned Row, to better facilitate the interview, Carpenter scooted closer toward the front of his bunk in the small condemned cell to be heard more clearly.
Carpenter, who has a pronounced speech impediment, accommodated the interviewer in front of his cell, #1-EB-114L, on San Quentin’s Death Row, at midday on June 18, 2013.
He was unyielding while making his argument about not being the “monster” as painted by the media. “For weeks, newspapers published stories about me, the supposed Trailside Killer,” said Carpenter.
On July 6, 1984, in Los Angeles County, Carpenter was convicted of first-degree murder. The penalty phase jury found multiple “special circumstances” that warranted the death penalty.
“I was convicted by the media long before I was even found guilty of a crime.”
Carpenter’s second trial involving a second group of victims began in San Diego in January 1988. Although few witnesses were called to testify in his defense in his Los Angeles trial, in the San Diego trial, more than 30 defense witness testified.
Carpenter disagrees with accounts that he had no alibi during some of the murders. “Investigators said that if I did not have an alibi, then I must be guilty. I produced credible alibis and they knew it. But even where there wasn’t an alibi, that does not make someone guilty,” he said.
Prosecutors assert that Carpenter “offered carefully constructed alibis,” by claiming that he had either “altered or that he’s been mistaken about some of the dates.” Carpenter said that prosecutors’ accounts of his alibis were “carefully twisted to sway the jury into believing my alibis were false.”
Carpenter took the stand, but in May that same year, he was convicted of five more murders. Just as the Los Angeles jury had done, the San Diego jury also recommended the death penalty.
His mantra is, “prosecutorial misconduct” or abuses by law enforcement.
Carpenter’s defense team, he said, “discovered that jury forewoman, Barbara Durham, revealed she lied under oath” of her knowledge about his convictions in Los Angeles in 1984 for the Santa Cruz murders. A fact that he said prosecutors were aware of beforehand. A new trial was ordered by Appeals Court Judge Herbert Hoffman who said by law he “had to order a new trial.”
The state Supreme Court, however, upheld the death penalty on two of the killings in 1997, and upheld carpenter’s death penalty from his second trial in 1999. Six of seven judges agreed that Carpenter had a fair trial for the Marin County and Santa Cruz murders and had been sentenced appropriately.
On March 6, 1995 Carpenter was denied a new trial by the California Supreme Court in San Francisco, overturning Judge Hoffman’s order for a new trial. Justice Armand Arabian said it was “virtually impossible to keep secrets in such cases,” and he “believed that the forewoman’s knowledge had not unduly biased the jury.”
With just a few minutes left on the interview, Carpenter said he could not go into any further details due to his on-going appeals and the advise of his attorneys.
To close the interview, Carpenter was asked, “If and when authorities ever catch the real Trailside Killer, what do you hope happens to that person?”
Carpenter’s response was, “I hope he gets a fair trial.”
David Carpenter remains on Death Row in San Quentin pending the exhaustion of all his appeals, which he suspects might take up to four more years, and possible execution.
San Quentin’s Public Information Officer Lt. Sam Robinson said that Carpenter “has been very compliant and conforming during the time he has spent on death row. He’s not been a problem.”
According to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), “Since 1978, 59 condemned prisoners in California have died from natural causes, 22 have committed suicide and 13 have been executed.” There are 725 prisoners on death row in California. The last state sanctioned execution carried out in California was in 2006, bringing the number to 13—all men.
