Lisa Rinna Recounts Harrowing Story of How Her Mom Survived Near-Fatal Trailside Serial Killer Attack (Exclusive)

In an exclusive 'IMPACT x Nightline' clip, the former 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star details how her mother Lois DeAndrade survived a near-fatal encounter with David Carpenter

NEED TO KNOW

• Rinna recalls the chilling moment her mom, Lois DeAndrade, realized something was very wrong in the presence of the Trailside Killer
• Two of her mother’s fingers were severed before she was repeatedly struck over the head with a hammer 
• A military police officer intervened, ultimately saving her life

Lisa Rinna detailed the terrifying moment her mother, Lois DeAndrade, realized she was in imminent danger before facing off with one of California’s most notorious serial killers.

In an exclusive clip from this week’s IMPACT x Nightline, the actress, 62, recounts how her late mom survived a violent encounter with David Carpenter, the man who would later become known as the Trailside Killer.

“I think my mom was positive. And never played a victim. Never felt sorry for herself,” Rinna says. “And she could have been the most miserable, f—ed up, traumatized human being, and I never saw that.”

According to Rinna, her mother’s near-fatal encounter began as a routine morning.

“One morning she was waiting at the bus stop to go to the dentist,” she recalls. “And he came by the bus stop and say, ‘Lois, I want you to meet my new baby!’ And she was like, no I have to go to the dentist. And he was like, ‘Oh I’ll drive you.’ And she got in the car with him.”

But something quickly felt off.

“He started talking to her and he wasn’t stuttering. That was the first sign,” Rinna says. “He was driving in a weird direction. And she said, ‘David, what’s going on with you? You’re not stuttering. You’re speaking clearly.’ And he said, ‘I don’t know Lois, something just comes over me.’ And that’s when she knew she was f—ed.”

What followed was a violent attack that nearly turned deadly.

“As David Carpenter parked the car, he literally straddled my mom, grabbed the knife out of the glove box… goes at my mom,” Rinna recounts. “My mom grabs it with her hand. And it severs these two fingers, so her fingers are like dangling.”

“Then David starts to freak out because he sees the car coming. So he grabs a hammer… And starts smashing my mom over the head with a hammer,” she continues.

A military police officer (MP), who had spotted the car driving down a deserted road, intervened just in time.

“The MP shoots David in the stomach. Doesn’t kill him,” Rinna says. “My mom is in the hospital for three months. She had to get a big metal plate put into her head.”

Carpenter would later plead guilty, then shortly after his release from prison, go on a deadly spree of killings in the 1970s and ’80s.

“She had no idea she was one of the first victims of a serial killer,” ABC News contributor, Ana Garcia, points out, before adding that if the officer hadn’t intervened, Rinna's mother “most likely would’ve been his first murder victim.”

The episode, titled IMPACT x Nightline: Terror on the Trails, explores the chilling case of the Trailside Killer, who targeted women and couples in wooded areas, and examines whether there could be more victims.

The special also features interviews with survivors, investigators and victims’ loved ones — including John Alderson, who returns to the Mount Tamalpais State Park trail where his sister Anne was killed.

Now in its fourth season, ABC News Studios’ IMPACT x Nightline continues to explore stories shaping the cultural conversation.

The story is one Rinna and her mother have spoken about before.

On a 2019 episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Rinna revealed, “A few years before I was born my mom was attacked by a man that she worked with.”

“That was a really bad thing,” Lois, who died at age 93 following a stroke in November 2021, said at the time. “I knew him.”

Recalling the attack, Lois added, “I thought that was it. He’s straddling me. He had a hammer in one hand and a knife in another.”

The Trailside Killer would go on to terrorize Northern California, stalking victims along hiking trails in state parks near San Francisco.

At one point, investigators even explored whether he could be the Zodiac Killer, though that theory was later disproven.

Lois is believed to be among Carpenter’s earliest adult victims.

“I was the first one he went to jail for,” she said of his 1960 conviction. “They gave him seven and a half years.”

Carpenter had previously been incarcerated as a teen for molesting two young relatives, and later served time again in 1970 for kidnapping and rape.

After his release, authorities say he carried out a series of killings that shocked the Bay Area. Within a six-week span in 1980, he murdered multiple victims, including a young couple, a 26-year-old woman and others, according to reports.

He later raped and killed 20-year-old Heather Scaggs and murdered UC Davis student Ellen Marie Hansen. Hansen’s boyfriend, Steven Haertle, survived being shot and was able to identify Carpenter.

In 1984, Carpenter was convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to death. He remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Reflecting on the case years later, Rinna admitted the reality of what happened to her mother was difficult to process.

“When you first hear about it you’re like, that can’t be real — how is that real?” she said.

It wasn’t until she was older that she learned the full truth.

Lois had previously told her daughter that the metal plates in her head — and her loss of smell — were “because some kid hit' her 'in the head with a hammer.”

“When I finally learned the truth, I had such great sadness and empathy for my mom,” Rinna said. “Knowing that not only did this happen to her but that she basically just stuffed those feelings for how many years.”

“She never dealt with it, she never talked about it — she never even told her daughter about it,” she added. “It takes so much courage to come forward. I think the least we can do is show these victims some compassion.”

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IMPACT x Nightline: Terror on the Trails streams Thursday, April 9, on Hulu and Disney+. 

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