MASS MURDERER CARL EDER ESCAPED FROM JAIL IN '74

WHERE IS Carl Alfred Eder? On Dec. 12, 1958 the 16-year-old butchered five members of the Pendergast family of El Cajon, California. Father Thomas Pendergast had picked him up hitchhiking the month before, the boy said he was homeless so the kind man took him in until he got a job. That decision would cost Pendergast his family. Thomas was at work when the massacre occurred. Eder told detectives that Diane Pendergast, 4, was bothering him and he exploded in rage. He threw the child against a wall, then grabbed a gun and shot the mom, Lois Pendergast in the head. Cops say the crazed teen grabbed a knife from his

suitcase and then slashed the throats of Diane and her brother Allen, 2. They were stabbed so violently, they were disemboweled. Thomas Jr., 6, and David, 9, were next and killed in the same gruesome way. When Thomas got home, Elder made him drive around until he fled on foot. When he got home he made the horrifying discovery. Eder was nabbed and charged with first-degree murder three days later and received two life terms.

In 1974, he escaped from a MINIMUM security prison. he has not been seen since. Two years later a badly composed body was discovered on the Pendergast property--chained to two cinder blocks. The male had been dead two weeks but it wasn't Eder.

 If you have any information regarding this case please contact the Cold Homicide Unit of the El Cajon Police Department. coldhomicideunit@ci.elcajon.ca.us or 619-441-5530.