Murder Case Reopened
The case was reopened in 1990, twelve years after the murder. A 1978 attempt to test the blood found in the car that Carpenter had rented resulted in a match to Bob Crane's blood type, but it failed to produce any additional results. DNA testing in 1990 could not be completed due to an insufficient remaining sample. The detectives in charge, Barry Vassall and Jim Raines, instead hoped that additional witnesses and a picture of a possible piece of brain tissue found in the rental car (which had been lost since the original investigation) would incriminate Carpenter. He was arrested and held for trial after a preliminary hearing before a Superior Court Judge finding that evidence presented justified a trial by jury.
During Carpenter's 1994 trial, defense attorneys attacked the prosecution case as circumstantial and inconclusive. They denied the claim that Carpenter and Crane were on bad terms just before the slaying, and they said the police theory that a camera tripod was the murder weapon was sheer speculation based on Carpenter's occupation. They also disputed the claim that the rediscovered photo showed brain tissue, and they noted that authorities did not have the tissue itself. The defense pointed out that Crane had been videotaped and photographed in compromising sexual positions with numerous women, implying that a jealous person or someone fearing blackmail might have been the killer.
Carpenter was found not guilty. He maintained his innocence until his death on September 4, 1998, and the murder remains officially unsolved.
In July 1978, Bob Crane was interred in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California. More than 20 years later, Crane's family had the actor's remains exhumed and transported approximately 25 miles southeast to Westwood Village Memorial Park, located in Westwood.
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