Death Asked for ‘Trailside Killer’
A jury today recommended that David J. Carpenter, convicted of five Northern California parkland slayings, be executed in the gas chamber for the murders. Judge Herbert B. Hoffman scheduled a July 19 hearing for formal sentencing.
Carpenter, 58, dubbed the “trailside killer,” has already been sentenced to death for the 1981 killings of two 20-year-old women in Santa Cruz County parks. The series of attacks along popular Northern California hiking trails panicked outdoor enthusiasts and left the parks nearly empty of hikers for months. Carpenter was convicted May 10 by the same San Diego jurors of the five 1980 Marin County shootings. The trial was moved to San Diego because of pretrial publicity.
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