Carpenter was born in 1928 in
Los Angeles, Carpenter served in the
United States Army and was married twice. Following his retirement from the Army, he took a job marketing video technology, achieving expertise in that field and becoming head of the video wing of a new Japanese electronics company debuting in the United States, later known as
Sony.
Relationship with Bob Crane During the run of ''
Hogan's Heroes'' (1965–1971), actor
Richard Dawson introduced
Bob Crane, star of the series, to Carpenter, then a regional sales manager for
Sony Electronics. The two men struck up a friendship and began going to bars together. Crane attracted women due to his celebrity status and good looks, and introduced Carpenter as his manager. Later, the two would videotape their sexual encounters with women they met. While Crane's son Robert later insisted that all of the women were aware of the videotaping and consented to it, some, according to one source, had no idea they had been recorded until informed by police after Crane's murder. During his friendship with Crane, Carpenter became national sales manager at
Akai and arranged his business trips to coincide with Crane's
dinner theater touring schedule, so that the two could continue seducing and videotaping women after ''Hogan's Heroes'' had run its course. Crane was discovered bludgeoned to death in
Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 29, 1978.
Investigation and trial The crime scene yielded few clues; no evidence was found of forced entry, and nothing of value was missing. Detectives examined Crane's extensive videotape collection, which led them to Carpenter, who had flown to
Phoenix on June 25 to spend a few days with Crane. Carpenter's rental car was impounded and searched. Several blood smears were found that matched Crane's blood type; no one else of that blood type was known to have been in the car, including Carpenter.
DNA testing was not yet available, and the
Maricopa County district attorney declined to file charges. In 1990, investigators re-examined the evidence from 1978 and persuaded the county attorney to reopen the case. DNA testing was inconclusive on the blood found in Carpenter's rental car, but an evidence photograph of the car's interior appeared to show a piece of brain tissue. The actual tissue samples recovered from the car had been lost, but an Arizona judge ruled that the new evidence was admissible. Carpenter was tried in 1994 and eventually acquitted. As a result of the accusation, he was fired from work as National Service Manager at the electronics firm
Kenwood USA. He always maintained his innocence, and later said he felt a huge relief after his name had been cleared. One jury member later said in an interview that the jury believed there was insufficient proof to determine Carpenter's guilt and that "you cannot prove someone guilty on speculation." Carpenter died in 1998 in
Torrance, California. In the 2002
biopic Auto Focus, Carpenter was played by
Willem Dafoe. ==References==