Shauna May was 25 and from Point Reyes Station, California, when she was killed on November 28, 1980. Her body was found on Mount Wittenberg at Point Reyes National Seashore alongside Diane O’Connell. Both women were shot to death with a .38-caliber pistol.

Their murders were part of a series committed by David Joseph Carpenter, the Trailside Killer, whose attacks on hikers in Marin and Santa Cruz counties occurred between 1979 and 1981. Carpenter had a long criminal history as a repeat sex offender and was not initially identified; his arrest in May 1981 followed information from a surviving victim’s boyfriend and a woman who had encountered Carpenter on a cruise decades earlier.

Carpenter was later charged and convicted in multiple murders, including those of Shauna May and Diane O’Connell, and was sentenced to death. The case highlighted failures in monitoring repeat offenders and gaps in lists used to track released prisoners and sex offenders.

Did anyone who knew Shauna May or frequented Mount Wittenberg around 1980 notice anything unusual at the time?