Saving a Soul

In November 1958, Tom Pendergast picked up a teenage hitchhiker near San Diego who called himself Charles Harrison. Feeling sorry for him, Tom let the boy stay with his family in El Cajon, California. The boy was really Carl Eder, a 16-year-old runaway from upstate New York.

On December 15, 1958, about six weeks after he moved in, Eder lost his temper with one of the children. He shot Lois Pendergast and killed all four of her children: David, 9, Thomas Jr., 6, Diane, 4, and Allen, 2. When Tom came home, Eder forced him at gunpoint to drive him toward San Diego, and Tom managed to get away. Police caught Eder in Mission Beach three days later, and he confessed to all five killings.

Because he was a minor, Eder was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison. In October 1974 he walked away from a minimum-security work detail at the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, reportedly leaving a note that said he had served enough time. His last reported sighting was in 1976 near Calistoga and St. Helena in the Napa Valley. Tom Pendergast died in 2012 without seeing him recaptured. Eder remained on the wanted list, with a $20,000 reward offered for information.