Washington rape kit leads to arrest in 1979 Lake Tahoe murder
Submitted by paula on Wed, 03/01/2023 - 4:30pm
EL DORADO COUNTY, Calif. - On September 28, 1979, Patricia Carnahan was beaten, strangled, and left for dead at Sugar Pine State Park at Lake Tahoe.
Carnahan died, and her body was recovered and investigators gathered evidence, including a sexual assault kit (SAK) which provided a DNA sample. At the time, no suspect(s) were identified or arrested. Her identity was unknown at the time, and she was buried in a nondescript grave marked "Unidentified Female" with Tahoma 9-79 as the location and date.
In 2015, investigators with the El Dorado County Cold Case Homicide Unit revived the case. A forensic anthropologist from California State University, Chico exhumed her body. After detectives placed photos of her jewelry in a newspaper, family members identified a pendant worn by Carnahan. After comparing family DNA to that of the victim, Carnahan was identified and her body was released to the family for proper burial.
But the killer remained a mystery, that is, until now.
As part of a nationwide effort to eliminate the backlog of untested SAKs, authorities in Washington tested a SAK collected in a 1994 rape investigation in Spokane. The rape case was deemed "unprovable" in 1994 and the kit remained untested until 2023.
Once the kit was tested, the CODIS system - the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System - recently found that the DNA collected from the Washington victim also matched the DNA evidence collected from Patricia Carnahan, identifying the suspect in her murder as Harold Carpenter.
Investigators from El Dorado County developed probable cause to arrest Carpenter for murder. They traveled to Spokane traveled to assist in the arrest with Spokane Police Department. The suspect is now 63 years old.
This is one of the oldest cold case murders in the country to be solved through a sexual assault DNA review run through CODIS.
The arrest is the result of dogged detective work on the part of investigators in El Dorado County and the Spokane Police Department. Key was a Washington Attorney General initiative that resolves to examine the evidence in a backlog of thousands of unexamined SKAs statewide.
Carpenter is in the Spokane County Jail on a fugitive charge without bond, pending extradition to California on a murder warrant.
“This is the 13th case solved after the creation of the cold case task force,” said El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson. “I’m proud to say our Cold Case Unit is one of the most successful of its kind in the United States. Sadly, Ms. Carnahan was buried in a potter’s field under a headstone of an ‘unidentified female.’ Because of the tireless dedication of our investigators, she was identified and returned to her family. Now due to multi-state collaboration by numerous agencies, her killer will finally be held accountable.”
Funds from the Washington State Attorney General’s Office’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative paid for the 1994 sexual assault kit’s testing, allowing the suspect’s DNA profile to be added to CODIS. The Washington initiative is a statewide effort to eliminate a backlog of untested sexual assault kits in Washington that began in 2017 when the Attorney General’s Office was awarded a $3 million federal grant to fund the work.
“Cases like this illustrate the need to test every sexual assault kit and get their DNA profiles loaded into the federal database,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said. “Every untested kit could be a potential break in a cold case. Hard work and cross-state collaboration made this case successful. I’m grateful for the hard work from law enforcement to pursue justice in this case.”
The Spokane rape case will not continue forward as the statute of limitations has expired and the victim is now deceased.
If anybody has any information on this case or Harold Carpenter, please contact the El Dorado Cold Case Task Force at (530) 621-4590 or email us at coldcasetaskforce@edcda.us.
The El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office would like to thank and acknowledge the following Law Enforcement Agencies for their assistance in this investigation:
El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, Spokane Police Department, Spokane County District Attorney’s Office, Washington State Attorney’s General’s Office, Lassen County District Attorney’s Office, Lassen County Sheriff’s Office, California Department of Justice-DNA Crime Lab, California Department of Justice-Latent Prints, Federal Bureau of Investigations and the Arlington County Police Department in Virginia.