SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco police say DNA ties a California death row inmate convicted in the killings of seven hikers to the unsolved 1979 murder of a jogger.
Cold-case Inspector Joe Toomey said Tuesday that DNA evidence in the stabbing of 23-year-old Mary Bennett matched a sample belonging to David Joseph Carpenter.
Carpenter became known as the "Trailside Killer" after the murders of seven hikers in the San Francisco Bay area in the early 1980s. He was sentenced to death twice in separate trials for the killings.
Investigators long suspected Carpenter in the slaying of Bennett in a San Francisco park but were never able to bring a case against him. Prosecutors have not decided whether to file new charges against the now 79-year-old San Quentin State Prison inmate.
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