Lisa Rinna reveals that her mother survived the Trailside Killer attack in a new book 2026

Lisa Rinna reveals that her mother survived the Trailside Killer attack in a new book Lisa Rinna’s mother once survived a brutal attack by the infamous “Trailside Killer”.

In her new memoir, “You Better Believe I’m Gonna Talk About It,” the soap opera star and “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” alum pulls back the curtain on her whirlwind Hollywood life — and the terrifying chapter that nearly ended her story before it began. In it, the 62-year-old reveals how his mother faced off against a California gangster and lived to tell the tale.

Candice DeLong, a retired FBI agent and host of the true crime podcast “Killer Psyche,” told Fox News Digital that David Carpenter, who targeted victims on mountain roads in Northern California in the ’70s and ’80s, was known for his “blitz” attacks.

“Most serial killers approach their victims by being cool, calm and collected,” DeLong said. “They’re trying to lure the victims into going with them. It’s a big part of the fantasy. As I recall, ‘Trailside Killer’ didn’t do that.”

“I know that place – those trails in Mount Tamalpais in Marin County where he worked,” DeLong said. “To think that you can have a beautiful California day on the trail – sometimes you can even see the ocean – and it can spoil the killer who works there.”

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

“I don’t know why he’s not as popular as the others,” DeLong said. “I think maybe his crime career or history might have been overshadowed by Ted Bundy, who in the late 1970s, as I recall, was getting a lot of headlines. And again, we weren’t as into real crime as we are today. And there are a lot of other resources to bring information to people, including exactly what we’re doing today.”

WATCH: CANDICE DELONG DETAILS TRAILSIDE KILLER TRACKS

Rinna wrote that in 1960, a few years before she was born, her mother was kidnapped by Carpenter, who she worked with.

“He drove her down a deserted street where he stabbed her and hit her in the head with a hammer multiple times,” Rinna wrote. “Thank God, the army police officer saw Mbazi turning off and thought it was strange. When Mbazi saw that they were being followed, he got out of his car to attack the policeman, who shot him in the stomach.”

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

“My mother had part of her head taken off, but she opened the car door and her purse spilled out,” Rinna wrote. “He was very scared, the only thing he could do was put the things back in his bag. He was in the hospital for three months. My mother and father had started dating six weeks before.”

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

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

At one point, investigators believed that Carpenter may have been the Zodiac Killer, who went on a series of rampages in Northern California between 1968 and 1969 – a theory that has since been disproved.

San Francisco police have busted the Bay Area’s “Zodiac Killer” compound. At one time, it was believed that David Carpenter could be the “Zodiac killer.” (Getty Images)

DeLong said he once worked with an agent he worked with in San Francisco who met Carpenter while guarding him.

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

“He actually went up and talked to him,” said DeLong. “Yeah, he didn’t know he was an FBI agent watching him. And one of the things he told me that happened, which I found remarkable, was that he was believed to have tongues or a stutter. He knew that.

“And when he went up to speak to him, the stuttering stopped. He was staring right into his face. God knows what he was thinking, but he was as calm and cool as a cucumber. The stuttering stopped.”

Candice DeLong, host of “Killer Psyche,” told Fox News Digital that David Carpenter was known for his “blitz” attacks on his victims. (Molly Corbett)

Rinna wrote that she didn’t learn the truth until she was 18, when Lois told her what had happened. Before that, his mother said “he 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. (Dey Street Books)

“… All I could think to say was, ‘Oh, that’s why you can’t smell or taste anything!'” Rinna recalled. “I wasn’t mad at her for lying to me all my life, but she should have told me quickly. I told pop star Dorit Kemsley, after she was robbed at gunpoint in her home, to tell her children immediately because they deserve to know why their mother is the way she is and what she’s been through.”

DeLong said that although the sentence received by Carpenter for attacking Lois was difficult to accept, it was not expected at the time.

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

“It was a season,” he said. “That doesn’t happen anywhere today like it did back then. There was a belief that a jail or prison couldn’t rehabilitate a criminal. No, they can’t. No. We know that. Let me tell you what FBI writers call prisons – universities of rape and murder.”

Candice DeLong, host of “Killer Psyche,” spoke to Fox News Digital about what makes David Carpenter different from other killers of his time. (Real Sound)

“A criminal comes in, they find each other, like outsiders they find like-minded people to spend time with,” DeLong explained. “What happens is someone goes to jail first. They talk, they learn how not to get caught. And unfortunately, one of the lessons they learn is to kill the victim, don’t leave a living witness. And the victim is the witness.”

“The prison is now to prevent a person from communicating with the community because he has shown that he is not trusted,” he continued.

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

“That’s what prisons do, to protect us from it. So, the sentences are very real. I can’t even remember the last time I heard of a manslaughter case where someone got a lesser sentence or anything other than life in prison. You don’t get a chance to walk away. Not anymore.”

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

Lois, who died in 2021 aged 93, survived what is believed to be the first known Carpenter attack.

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

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

“My mother’s trauma made me cautious and distrustful of other people,” Rinna admitted. “But Loysi always had a sense of humor about her plight. I mean, how many people do you know who not only survived mass murder but can’t laugh about it?”

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

“. . . Here’s the thing. My mom never went to therapy,” Rinna wrote. “Well, she went once, and they gave her Seconal; it really bothered her… She didn’t go to therapy… My mom dealt with her trauma, not to mention the metal in her head, on her own. She could have been a drug abuser and f—–g. Instead, my mom chose to wake up, she chose to wake up to her life with that kind of power that I’m talking about.”

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

“Listen, I’m not trying to condone oppressive trauma,” he continued. “. . . It was different then, and women who walked the same path as mothers and still ran the household were heroes. They were experts at sweeping everything under the carpet.”

“My mother didn’t have a choice. She grew up in a time where you had to be a good wife, cook for your husband and clean and fill the traditional female role, which I didn’t really know how to do, but she knew. She played those parts perfectly.”

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