Lisa Rinna reveals mother survived Trailside Killer attack in new memoir

Lisa Rinna’s mother once survived a vicious attack by the notorious “Trailside Killer.”

In her new memoirs… “You better believe I’m going to talk about it.” The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills TV star pulls back the curtain on her whirlwind life in Hollywood — and the terrifying chapter that nearly ended her story before it even began. In it, the 62-year-old reveals how her mother came face to face with a serial predator who terrorized California and lives to tell the tale.

Candice DeLonge, retired FBI agent and true crime podcast host “Psycho killer” David Carpenter, who targeted victims along hiking trails in Northern California during the 1970s and 1980s, was known for his “snap” attacks, Fox News Digital said.

Lisa Rinna attends the Fashion Awards presented by Pandora at the Royal Albert Hall on December 4, 2023 in London. The “Real Housewives” alum wrote about her mother surviving an attack by the “Trailside Killer” in her new memoir. (Joe Maher/Getty Images)

“Many serial killers deal with their victims by being calm and quiet,” DeLong said. “They try to lure victims into going with them. It’s very much a fantasy. As I recall, the ‘Trailside Killer’ didn’t do that.”

“I’m familiar with that area — those trails in the Mount Tamalpais area of ​​Marin County where he worked,” DeLong said. “To think you could be out Beautiful California day “On a road – sometimes you can see the ocean – and it could be destroyed by a serial killer who works there.”

Picturesque Marin County, California was David Carpenter’s hunting ground. (Carol M. Highsmith/BowenLarge/Getty Images)

“I don’t know why it doesn’t have as bad a reputation as some of the others,” DeLong said. “I think it might have been his criminal career or history as well Overshadowed by Ted Bundy, Which in the late 1970s, as I recall, was making most of the headlines. Also, we weren’t as interested in true crime as we are today. “There are a lot of mediums to get information to people, including exactly what we are doing today.”

WATCH: Candice DeLong details the arcade killer’s deadly tactics

Rena wrote that in 1960, two years before she was born, her mother was kidnapped by Carpenter, a co-worker.

“He drove her to a deserted road where he stabbed her and hit her on the head with a hammer several times.” “Rina wrote. “Thank God, a military policeman saw Carpenter turning off and thought it was strange. When Carpenter realized they were following him, he got out of his car to attack the policeman, who shot him in the stomach.”

Candice DeLonge speaks onstage during “Wondery Exhibit C: A True Crime Experience Live” at Gotham Ballroom on October 24, 2023, in New York City. DeLong is a retired FBI analyst and homicide expert. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Wondery)

“Half of my mom’s head was taken off, but she opened the car door and spilled her purse,” Rina wrote. “She was in such shock, all she could do was put the things back in her bag. She was in hospital for three months. My mum and dad had only started dating six weeks before.”

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David Carpenter, who had a previous criminal record, is shown here in a police photo. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)

Rinna revealed that Carpenter only served seven years for attacking Lois Rinna. Then, “after his release from prison,” he was convicted of killing “at least seven other people” nearby San Francisco Between 1970 and 1981.

At one point, investigators believed Carpenter might have been the Zodiac Killer, who carried out a series of attacks in Northern California between 1968 and 1969 — a theory that has since been debunked.

San Francisco Police distributed this compound of the “Zodiac Killer” in the Bay Area. At one time, it was believed that David Carpenter could have been the “Zodiac Killer.” (Getty Images)

DeLonge said she once worked with a fellow agent in San Francisco who confronted Carpenter while surveilling him.

Public Defender Frank Cox, left, at the defense table with David Carpenter, in San Rafael, California, in December 1984. (MediaNews Collection/Marin Independent Journal via Getty Images)

“He actually went up and talked to her,” DeLonge said. “Of course, he didn’t know she was an FBI agent watching him. And one of the things she told me about what happened, which I found fascinating, was that he was thought to have a stutter or stutter. She was aware of that.”

“And when he went up to talk to her, the stuttering stopped. He was completely focused on her face. God knows what he was thinking, but he was as calm and calm as a cucumber. The stuttering was gone.”

Killer Psyche host Candice DeLonge told Fox News Digital that David Carpenter was known for sneak attacks on his victims. (Molly Corbett)

Rinna wrote that she didn’t know the truth until she was 18, when Lewis finally told her what had happened. Before that, her mother claimed that she was “hit on the head with a hammer by children in the street.”

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Lisa Rinna’s new memoir, You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It, is out now. (Day Street Books)

“…All I could think to say was, ‘Oh, that’s why you can’t smell or taste anything!'” Rina recalls. “I wasn’t mad at her because she lied to me my whole life, but she should have told me sooner. “I told my Housewives co-star, Dorit Kemsley, after she was robbed at gunpoint in her home, to tell her kids sooner rather than later because they deserve to know why their mother is the way she is and what she went through.”

Despite the sentence, DeLong said Carpenter received Because attacking Lewis was difficult to accept, and it was not unexpected at that time period.

Lisa Rinna wrote that she was 18 years old when she first learned what really happened to her mother, Lois Rinna. (Jesse Grant/WireImage/Getty Images)

“It was the afternoon,” she said. “This doesn’t happen anywhere today as it did then. There was a belief that prison or prison could rehabilitate a criminal. No, they can’t. No. We know that. Let me tell you what FBI analysts call prisons — rape and murder universities.”

Killer Psyche host Candice DeLonge spoke to Fox News Digital about what made David Carpenter different from other serial killers of his time. (audio original)

“The perpetrator comes in and they find each other, just like people on the outside find like-minded people to spend time with,” DeLong explained. “What happens is someone goes to prison for the first time. They talk, they learn how not to get caught. Unfortunately, one of the lessons they learn is to kill the victim, you don’t leave a living witness. The victim is a witness.”

She continued: “Prison now is to prevent a person from interacting in society because he has shown that he cannot be trusted.”

Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin married in March 1997 and have two daughters. (Roxanne McCann/Getty Images)

“That’s what prisons are for, to protect us from them. So, the sentences are more realistic. I can’t even remember the last time I was aware of a murder conviction where the person received a reduced sentence or anything other than life imprisonment. You wouldn’t get a chance to leave. That doesn’t happen anymore.”

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Lois Rinna, Lisa Rinna’s mother, poses for a photo at Lisa Rinna’s wedding at the Bel Air Hotel in Los Angeles in March 1997. (Roxanne McCann/Getty Images)

Lewis, who died in 2021 aged 93, survived what is believed to be Carpenter’s first known adult attack.

For decades, Carpenter, now 95, has been on death row at San Quentin State Prison. He has since been transferred to the California Health Care Facility in Stockton.

“Last time I checked, he had been moved off death row,” Lisa Rinna wrote about “Trailside Killer” David Carpenter. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

“for me My mother’s shock “It made me wary and distrustful of others,” Rena admitted. “But Lois always had a sense of humor about her ordeal. I mean, how many people do you know who not only survived a serial killer, but could laugh at him?”

From left: Louis Rinna, Lisa Rinna and Harry Hamlin attend the “Christmas Celebration on Skid Row” at the Los Angeles Mission on December 23, 2019. (David Livingston/Getty Images)

“…That’s the thing. My mother never went to therapy,” Rina wrote. “Well, she went once, and they gave her Seconal; It made her very tired… She never went to therapy again… My mother dealt with her trauma, not to mention the metal plates in her head, completely on her own. She could have been a drug addict and very chaotic. Instead, my mom chose to wake up every day, put on nice clothes, put on her makeup, and go about her life. This is the kind of power I’m talking about.”

From left: Lisa Rinna and Dorit Kemsley attend the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s 31st Annual Academy Awards Gala on March 12, 2023, in West Hollywood. (Michael Kovach/Getty Images for the Elton John AIDS Foundation)

“Listen, I’m not trying to magically repress trauma,” she continued. “…It was different back then, and women who went through the wringer like my mother and still ran the household were superheroes. They were experts at sweeping everything under the rug.”

“My mother didn’t have a choice. I grew up in a time when you were supposed to be a good wife, cooking for your husband and cleaning and fulfilling the traditional feminine role, which I didn’t necessarily know how to do, but she did. She played those roles perfectly.”

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