5 famous California murder trials that were moved to other cities

A change of venue was granted Wednesday in the trial of Paul Flores, accused of the 1996 murder of Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.

Judge Craig Van Rooyen cited the intense and long-running interest in the case within San Luis Obispo County.  “I don’t think this case is discussed around dinner tables in other counties like it is in this county,” he said.

The need for an unbiased jury pool is the reason cited for most changes of trial venue.  Among the high-profile California murder cases that have been moved to other counties are these five:

David Carpenter

The crimes: Carpenter, 51 at the time of his arrest, was suspected in 10 “Trailside Killer” homicides from 1979 to 1981 in the San Francisco Bay Area. One man and nine women — all but one in their teens or 20s — were found dead in wooded areas in Marin, Santa Cruz and San Francisco counties, some of them stabbed, some of them shot. Several of the women were known to have been raped.

The murder spree that set the Bay Area on edge ended after one of the victims, left for dead, was able to provide a description. The survivor had been shot when his girlfriend was killed on March 29, 1981, in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. A month later, police investigating the disappearance of a young San Jose woman noticed the description of the Cowell attacker matched that of one of the missing woman’s co-workers at a print shop — David Carpenter. He was arrested outside his parents’ San Francisco home.

The trials: Carpenter was tried and convicted in Los Angeles County for two murders in Santa Cruz County, and then tried and convicted in San Diego County for five murders in Marin County. The Santa Cruz County convictions were overturned because of juror misconduct but reinstated by the California Supreme Court. Now 91, Carpenter remains on death row at San Quentin.

Charles Ng

The crimes: An investigation that started with a shoplifting report in South San Francisco led police in June 1985 to a Calaveras County ranch where they found videos of sexual torture — and then discovered 12 buried bodies. (Two more were found years later.) The victims were thought to have been lured there to be robbed, abused and killed by Charles Ng, 24, and Leonard Lake, 39.

Lake killed himself with a cyanide pill during a police interview. Ng fled to Canada, where he was caught in July 1985. He was finally extradited back to California in 1991.

The trial: Ng’s trial was moved to Orange County. In 1999, he was convicted of 11 of the 12 homicides: six men, three women and two babies. Now 61, he remains on death row at San Quentin.

Richard Allen Davis

The crime: Polly Klaas, age 12, was kidnapped at knifepoint from a sleepover party in Petaluma on Oct. 1, 1993. She was still missing several weeks later when items associated with her were found on property near Santa Rosa where deputies had encountered a trespasser on the night of the abduction. Investigators contacted that trespasser — Richard Allen Davis, 39 — and on Dec. 4 he led them to the girl’s body.

The trial: Davis was tried in Santa Clara County, and in June 1996 he was convicted. As the verdict was read, he made an obscene gesture to courthouse cameras, and at the sentencing hearing he implied Polly had been molested by her own father.  Now 67, he remains on death row at San Quentin.

Rex Allan Krebs

The crimes: Two years after the disappearance of Kristin Smart — whose body has never been found — two other San Luis Obispo County college students were raped and killed. Rachel Newhouse, 20, disappeared while walking home in November 1998, and Aundria Crawford, 20, went missing from her apartment in March 1999.

The week after Crawford’s disappearance, a parole agent meeting with a parolee — Rex Allan Krebs, a 33-year-old convicted rapist — became suspicious about the man’s explanation of his recent injuries. Krebs was jailed for a parole violation as the investigation proceeded, and on April 23, the bodies were found buried outside his home near Avila Beach.

The trial: The venue was changed to Monterey County. In 2001, Krebs was convicted of both murders. In December 2019, the California Supreme Court rejected his automatic appeal to avoid execution, and with that ruling, his legal options were exhausted. Now 56, he remains on death row at San Quentin.

Scott Peterson

The crime: Peterson’s pregnant wife, Laci, was last seen at her Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002. After almost four months of searching, her body and that of the fetus were found on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The day the bodies’ identities were confirmed — April 18, 2003 — Scott Peterson, then 31, was arrested in La Jolla. He had bleached his hair and was carrying camping equipment, $15,000 in cash, four cell phones and his brother’s driver’s license, leading investigators to suspect he intended to flee.

The trial: Peterson was moved from Stanislaus County to San Mateo County for his trial. On Nov. 12, 2004, he was found guilty of the murders of Laci and the boy who was to be named Conner; his death sentence sent him to San Quentin.

In 2020, his death sentence was overturned, though his conviction was upheld, and in December 2021 he was resentenced, to life in prison. As of March 2022, Peterson, now 49, is back in San Mateo County Jail as he seeks a new trial.

But even extreme notoriety doesn’t guarantee a change of venue. The attorneys for “Night Stalker” suspect Richard Ramirez — charged with 13 murders in Los Angeles, Orange and San Francisco counties in 1984 and 1985- — were denied in their bid to get the trial moved. The judge said he thought the vast pool of Los Angeles County jurors was adequate to ensure a fair trial. “This county is so large and the people here are so sophisticated and so diverse that I just don’t think you can say that you can’t have a fair trial in this county,” he said.

Ramirez, then 29, was convicted in 1989 of all 13 murders as well as sexual assaults, burglaries and attempted murders. His reaction to reporters after his death sentence: “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”

He spent the rest of his life in San Quentin, and died in 2013 at age 53.