He Was A Murderer, Then He Went On TV

[00:00:11][music] [music] Many of the women in these photos are a mystery.

[00:00:27]They all posed for a man who on the surface appeared to be a handsome, charismatic photographer who had away with the ladies.

[00:00:35]>> Rodney El Kella was able to disarm a woman. Never [music] sense that they were in any danger.

[00:00:41]>> But in reality, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[00:00:45]>> Would you girls mind if I take your picture?

[00:00:46]>> He's a devil. He's a devil himself.

[00:00:49]>> He captured the [music] images of countless women on film.

[00:00:55]>> This was his thing. and he was driving around. He was, [music] "Hey, I'm a photographer. I'd like to take pictures of you. It was a part of his ruse."

[00:01:02]>> And then brutally [music] murdered them in horrifying ways.

[00:01:07]>> They would never see it coming.

[00:01:12]>> He liked to watch [music] the light of life go out of their eyes and then he would release and [music] bring them back only to do it again. And while he was sexually assaulting them and torturing them, He enjoyed killing when he was a sadistic, [music] horrific murderer.

[00:01:31]>> This guy was really [music] sick.

[00:01:36]>> An appearance on a popular game show brought him notoriety.

[00:01:40]>> And welcome to the dating game.

[00:01:42]>> This murderer was a contestant on the game show and he won it.

[00:01:47]>> Number one. That's your number one. All right.

[00:01:51]And when he was finally brought to justice [music] for his atrocities, photographic evidence was uncovered that pointed to more potential victims.

[00:02:00]>> The police found about 1,700 photos of mainly girls and women.

[00:02:06]>> We don't know who they are. We don't know what happened to them. We just have a photograph and it will be in an apartment or in a field. For decades, authorities have wondered who are the unidentified subjects in the photos taken by Rodney Alcala.

[00:02:23]What happened to them? Did they escape or are they lost victims of the serial murderer known as the dating game killer?

[00:02:31]>> I still think there's quite a few people out there that could be Rottney Ocala's victims.

[00:02:42]>> [music] >> The photos number in the hundreds. In many cases, the women are unknown and unidentified. Are they alive, missing, or were they murdered by photographer and prolific serial killer Rodney Alcala?

[00:02:58]What is known is that they all posed for Alcala, and for some, it would end in death.

[00:03:05]But who are these mystery women? and how did they succumb to a man who once appeared on a classic game show?

[00:03:12]>> And welcome to the dating game.

[00:03:13][cheering] >> Upon first glance, this episode of The Dating Game would appear to be nothing more than vintage7s television.

[00:03:23]But at the time of its taping in 1978, Rodney Alcala, Bachelor number one on this episode, harbored a dark secret.

[00:03:34]Rodney Alcala was one of the most prolific killers ever in the US.

[00:03:44]By the time Alcala appeared on the dating game, he had murdered a number of women and served prison time after brutally raping and attempting to murder an 8-year-old girl.

[00:03:55]He was a registered sex offender, but still brazenly appeared as a contestant on the popular game show.

[00:04:03]>> The dating game did not do any background checks. It wasn't something that they actually typically did back then.

[00:04:10]>> This is your date and [music] I want to tell you something about him.

[00:04:14]>> When I saw that video and I'm watching, I said, "No, she's not going to pick him."

[00:04:19]>> So, I'll take one.

[00:04:21]>> Number one. That's your number one. All right. And I thought, "Oh my god."

[00:04:26]>> Say hello to Rodney Alkala. Rodney, come on. Say hello.

[00:04:30]>> Rodney Alcala. Loved Rodney Alkali. He's the classic psychopathic [music] narcissist.

[00:04:35]>> Rodney, thank you.

[00:04:37]>> After his appearance on the dating game, Alcala committed a string of other assaults and murders before finally being arrested and sentenced to death.

[00:04:50]I have prosecuted serious sex offenders and child molesters for over 20 years.

[00:04:54]Some of the worst of the worst. But this is the one time I can say I really looked into the eyes of evil.

[00:05:00]>> Rodney Alcala has been in prison for decades, but several cold cases are still being connected to him due to the hundreds of photographs he took over the years.

[00:05:19]He would approach [music] uh young girls and offer them to take their picture and he would suggest that they were really beautiful. So he would uh set them up that way and that would be how he would start taking pictures of them.

[00:05:34]>> Most haunting is the stash of images Alcala secreted away in a Seattle storage locker.

[00:05:42]Uncovered by authorities, they hint to more potential victims.

[00:05:47]Originally uncovered in 1979, this collection of photographs is as mysterious as the monster who took the pictures.

[00:05:55]>> I still think there's quite a few people out there that could be Rodney Alcala's victims. And uh more than likely there there is.

[00:06:06]>> Born in [music] 1943, Rodney Alcala's upbringing was He was on the yearbook committee. It's kind of your all-American boy.

[00:06:40]>> After graduating [music] high school, Alcala joined the United States Army in 1961 and entered a training program in North Carolina.

[00:06:52]Alcala was only in the army for a short time before he suffered from what appeared to be a mental breakdown.

[00:07:12]One [music] night in 1963, Alcala's mother was cooking dinner and was surprised by an unexpected visit from her son. He had gone awall and hitchhiked all the way from Fort Bragg, [music] North Carolina to Los Angeles, California.

[00:07:29][music] After Alcala turned himself in to military authorities, an [music] army psychologist suggested hospitalization for psychiatric treatment.

[00:07:41]>> His commanding officer [music] wrote a review of Rodney Alcala that was prophetic. This is a selfish man who manipulates others, who's only driven by his own need, his own personal gain. He really kind of laid out the psychology of Rodney Alcala very early.

[00:07:58]>> Since Alcala's condition prevented him from performing [music] his military duties, he was discharged from the army in 1964.

[00:08:08]Soon after, Rodney Alcala enrolled in the UCLA School of Fine Arts to pursue his dream of [music] becoming a photographer.

[00:08:17]He was an honor student at UCLA and graduated with a Bachelor of [music] Fine Arts degree in 1968.

[00:08:26]In the fall of that year, Alcala drove down Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

[00:08:33]Walking to school nearby was young Tally Shapiro.

[00:08:37]>> Tally Shapiro was a young, pretty girl living in Hollywood with her parents.

[00:08:43]She was going to public school.

[00:08:47]Tally Shapiro knew she shouldn't talk to strangers, but Rodney Alcala used a ruse to trick her.

[00:08:55]>> And he said, "It's okay. I know your parents."

[00:08:58]He charmed her to the point where she thought, "Well, if he knows my parents, everything must be okay." And he talked her into getting into the car.

[00:09:07]>> A motorist, Donald Haynes, witnessed the scene as it unfolded and was immediately suspicious. So he followed them to Alcala's apartment >> and he sees them get out of the car and walk in to the apartment and he thought, "This doesn't look right." So he calls the police and he says, "Hey, there's this guy. He went in with a little girl.

[00:09:30]I don't know." Black and White responds from Hollywood. They get their door knocking.

[00:09:35]>> Rodney Alcala responded to the police by telling them he had just gotten out of the shower and was getting dressed.

[00:09:44]When they heard a pained moan, the officers sprang into action.

[00:09:50]>> They kick the door.

[00:09:53]>> In they go and he's gone out the back.

[00:09:59]>> The police found Tally Shapiro being choked by a metal bar Alcala had placed across her neck in an attempt to kill her. They quickly removed it and tried to save her life.

[00:10:13]He [music] actually took an 8-year-old girl walking to school. He raped her and almost killed her. And the police officer, of course, that responded had a choice between save the little girl or catch the bad guy running out the back door. And he saved the little girl.

[00:10:29]>> As a prosecutor, we prosecute a lot of bad actors, people who do a lot of bad things. I don't think all criminals are evil, but this man is evil.

[00:10:40]They rush her to the hospital. They're able to save her life. Obviously, this is not a who done it. We know this is his place. We've got all of his stuff.

[00:10:49]>> Detectives found cameras, tripods, and dozens of photos of young girls. They also discovered the UCLA student ID of Rodney Alcala. [music] LAPD detective Steve Hodell led an exhaustive search for the elusive photographer. He started by interviewing people who knew Alcala at UCLA >> and we're shaking doors and checking all last known addresses and he's just disappeared. He's vanished. Talked to one of his professors at UCLA and I said, "We're looking for Rodney Alcala.

[00:11:24]He was a student of yours. We've got a felony warrant out for child molestation and assault, attempted murder." And the professor says, "You got the wrong man."

[00:11:34]He says, "Acala was one of my best students. he wouldn't hurt a fly.

[00:11:39]>> It was a real surprise for people that knew Rodney Ocala to find out that he was such a a vicious killer.

[00:11:47]>> No one had anything derogatory to say about Alcala [music] and no one knew where he was, but he soon resurfaced in the last place anyone would expect.

[00:11:58]And his killing spree continued.

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[00:13:06]>> The identities of countless young women in photos taken by Rodney Alcala, the man who will be dubbed the dating game killer due to his appearance on that game show are still a mystery to this day. They were unaware the photographer taking their picture was a rapist and a murderer. Did some of these women become his victims or did they escape his evil [music] grasp?

[00:13:32]In 1968, another puzzle was what happened to Alcala who went on the run after the attempted rape and murder of young Tally Shapiro.

[00:13:43]Unbeknownst to police, Alcala had fled the West Coast and moved to New York City. Rodney would uh live under the alias of John Burgerer or John Burgger depending on um who he was involved with.

[00:13:59]>> With a fake ID, Alcala enrolled in New York University film school as an undergraduate. One of Alcala's professors at NYU was Roman Palansky, who had recently directed Rosemary's Baby. In a tragic twist, Palansky [music] would lose his wife Sharon Tate and their unborn child the very next year at the hands of the followers of Charles Manson.

[00:14:23]Alcala was a monster, but a monster with a pretty face and a nice smile and charm and intelligence.

[00:14:31]>> Ronnie Alcala had a a way about him that he could charm out not only his victims but everybody he was around. He had this way of of focusing in on who he was talking to directly, eye to eye contact, [music] and he made the person he was speaking with feel like they were the only person in the world.

[00:14:55]Airline stewardist Cornelia Krilly became a victim of Rodney Alcala during his time in New York when he was on the run from the crime he committed in Los Angeles. Police found her brutalized, raped, and strangled body in June of 1971.

[00:15:12]It would take authorities decades to prove Rodney Alcala was her murderer.

[00:15:17]At the time, he wasn't even considered a suspect, so he was able to keep up his wolf and sheep's clothing routine.

[00:15:26]He soon managed to find work as a counselor at a New Hampshire arts camp for young girls.

[00:15:32]One of the strangest things was Rodney Alcala was able to be a counselor for an all teen girls school summer camp and and for a couple of seasons. So, you know, I think that comes back to the way he was able to charm his way in the interview. LAPD detective Steve Hodell had not given [music] up on the chase for Alcala and he convinced the FBI to put him [music] on its 10 most wanted list. Posters went up in post offices everywhere, including the small town in New Hampshire where Alcala worked as a camp counselor. Amazingly, a couple of teenage girls on a rainy afternoon in New Hampshire go to the post office and they're looking at the FBI wanted posters and they look up and they say, "Hey, there's our counselor, Mr. Burgerer."

[00:16:31]And uh no doubt about it. So the FBI are called.

[00:16:39]He's arrested.

[00:16:44]I get a phone call saying, "He's in custody. Come and get him."

[00:16:47]>> Detective Odell escorted Alcala back to Los Angeles to be prosecuted in the Tally Shapiro case.

[00:16:54]>> He's pretty quiet the whole flight, but he's still putting on this charming demeanor as if he doesn't have a care in the world. You know, this is all a big mistake. This guy is smooth, calm, collected, you know, as if he doesn't have a worry in the world. So, we get back, we take him in, book him, and start the process.

[00:17:15]The family of Alcala's first known victim, Tally Shapiro, who miraculously survived a rape and attempted murder by the killer in 1968, had moved to Mexico.

[00:17:27]As a result, Alcala received a sentence of one year to life in prison.

[00:17:33]But after less than 3 years in prison, Rodney Alcala was evaluated and found to be significantly improved. He was released in 1974.

[00:17:45]>> They could have kept him in for life.

[00:17:47]But after 2 and 1/2 years, [music] a psychologist said that he no longer posed a danger to women or children.

[00:17:55]>> In a way, it doesn't surprise me because he was such a smooth talker. Not only does he manipulate eight-year-olds and young women, but men, too. I mean, he just had that ability. And I could see him giving the shrink all of the right answers.

[00:18:11]Looking at that now, in retrospect, I don't know what they were thinking, but by releasing Rodney Alcala, it resulted in literally probably dozens of people losing their lives in the most horrific way possible.

[00:18:26]Rodney Ocala uh has been convicted [music] and been in prison for child molesting and he convinced this parole officer that he was uh not a flight risk and wanted to go to New York and the parole officer led him. So it was just amazing how he could charm him his way through to get what he wanted.

[00:18:51]In New York, Alcala used photography to meet his next victim, Ellen Hoverver.

[00:18:58]Raised in Beverly Hills, Hoover was the goddaughter of Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

[00:19:05]Alcala killed the socialite in July 1977.

[00:19:10]Her body would not be discovered [music] for months.

[00:19:15]Another mystery that summer involved Christine Thornton. [music] The pregnant 28-year-old left her home in Texas and embarked on a cross-country trip.

[00:19:24]>> She had actually told her parents she was going to go panning for gold and um never returned.

[00:19:32]>> Christine Thornton seemingly disappeared without a trace. It would take decades and a link to Rodney Alcala to discover her fate.

[00:19:42]Rodney Alcala returned to Los Angeles where in late 1977 Jill Barcom from Onida, New York had recently arrived.

[00:19:52]>> She was technically a teenage runaway. I guess you would consider her that. She was young and it was the '7s and she was not uh making the best decisions.

[00:20:01]>> She was 18 years old, so she was very young to be out in Los Angeles on her own. She had gotten caught up in the prostitution world. She was an extremely attractive girl, so I'm sure she caught his eye.

[00:20:14]>> And we believe that he picked her up on Hollywood Boulevard while she was working uh prostitution.

[00:20:22]Could have used his ruse of photography.

[00:20:25]We don't know that, but that that would make sense. And drive her up into the Franklin Canyon Drive in the Hollywood Hills to a remote area off of a dirt road.

[00:20:37][laughter] Please. He incapacitated her in some way like he did often with some sort of a blunt force trauma. No, some blow to the head to knock her out so he could control her.

[00:20:52]He had three liatures on her. He had a nylon stocking, a belt, and a pant leg from her pants that she was wearing.

[00:21:01]He was pulling so hard, probably bringing her in and out of consciousness like he liked to do to watch the light of life go out of their eyes and then come back cuz that's his way to control and see the control. They probably broke and he had to go not through one, not through two, but through three different liatures to gain the control he wanted to gain over her and to continue to torture her as he sexually assaulted her and dominated her. She fought back very bravely [music] and what he did to her was completely disfigure her face down into her bones with that rock such that her brother describes how she was almost unrecognizable.

[00:21:50]You know, there there's murder, there's rape, there's murder and rape. And there's the unequivocal carnage of his style murder and rape. He was anim animalistic and brutal.

[00:22:01]And what was ultimately taken from her was not only her life, but her ability to turn her life around. That's really the travesty in that cuz she was a beautiful human being. Um, heart, mind, spirit.

[00:22:13]The next morning on November 10th, 1977, LAPD officers responded to a call about a dead body. They soon discovered Jill Barkcom's corpse off Molehulland Drive.

[00:22:27]Actor Marlon Brando was even questioned by police because he lived in the neighborhood where the body was found.

[00:22:34]In 1977, police were trying [music] to connect the murder cases of 11 women whose bodies were discarded on the hillsides of LA.

[00:22:44]At the time, police believe that Jill Barhol's murder might have been connected to the so-called hillside strangler murders.

[00:22:54]Jill Barholm's body was posed, which became a critical clue for police.

[00:22:59]He left her, posed, as we believe he did with all of his victims, posed in a way that we believe he took photographs of them [music] after they were dead. The photographs that Rodney Alcala loved taking would prove to be more than just mmentotos. They would also link him to some of the most brutal murders, both solved and unsolved, ever committed.

[00:23:28]All of these photos were taken by Rodney Alcala, the serial murderer known as the dating game killer due to his notorious appearance on the popular television dating show.

[00:23:40]In 1977, Alcala added 18-year-old Jill Barcom to the list of victims he had brutally raped, strangled, and killed.

[00:23:52]Rodney Alcella was very violent in his crimes.

[00:23:56]>> He is absolutely the worst of the worst.

[00:23:59]No question about it. If he's strangling them almost to death and then letting them recover and revive and then doing it again, that's just classical sadism.

[00:24:11]He's enjoying this. No, >> please.

[00:24:14]>> This is what makes him feel powerful.

[00:24:18]Alcala could have even more victims since many of the women shown in his collection of photographs have never been identified. Did they survive or did they fall prey to him during his murder spree in the 1970s?

[00:24:34]In the fall [music] of 1977, Alcala landed a job at the Los Angeles Times as a type setter. He used his real name, but a fake resume. In an ironic twist, he began working for a newspaper that would soon be reporting on his own crimes.

[00:24:54]Alcala's next victim was 27-year-old Georgia Wixed. In December of 1977, her body was found in her bedroom. She had been raped and savagely attacked with a clawhammer.

[00:25:08]Alcala wasn't the only killer at work in Los Angeles during this time. Another murderer dubbed the hillside strangler due to his propensity for discarding the strangled dead bodies of young women on Los Angeles hillsides made frequent headlines.

[00:25:25]Because of the strangler murders, police interviewed all known sex offenders in the area and that included Rodney Alcala.

[00:25:35]Be very careful of the smooth talkers because they are the best manipulators.

[00:25:41]And if they're real smooth, that could be a good indication that they've got something to hide or they are hiding something. Generally, the truth is the truth. And you get a sense when you hear it. And if somebody overtruths, you better be careful because they're probably lying.

[00:26:00]Rodney Alcala did indeed kill Jill Barholm, but authorities wouldn't discover this for years. They would believe that Bararkholm was the victim of the hillside strangler and not the man they had questioned.

[00:26:14]>> They threw that crime onto the hillside strangler. Um, but they were so similar in where they left the victim and what he did to the victim. No longer considered a suspect, Rodney Alcala was released.

[00:26:31]This would prove unfortunate for his next victim, 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb.

[00:26:37]Her body was found posed in the laundry room of an apartment complex [music] in 1978.

[00:26:44]>> Welcome to the dating game.

[00:26:48]It was also during this same year that Alcala was chosen to appear on a popular national television show.

[00:26:57]>> The dating game did not do any background checks. I mean, it was the same time that you could get on a plane without being searched or having your luggage checked. So, it's probably to do with the time era.

[00:27:12]>> He was one of three men. If you watch that show back then, there was a woman who's sitting behind a shield who would ask them questions, they'd give answers, and she'd pick someone to go on a date with at the end of the dating game. If you watch the show, there's one question where she asks the the contestants to sound like a a dirt what a dirty old man would sound like. Ask her out. And he makes this growling noise, guttural noise.

[00:27:44]that once you know who he is and what he's done just sounds monstrous.

[00:27:51]>> In the style of the show, contestant Cheryl Bradshaw asked playful [music] questions to which the bachelors frequently responded with double entandra answers.

[00:28:01]Cheryl asked Alcala, [music] I am serving you for dinner. What are you called and what do you look like? Alcala answered, "I am called the banana and I [music] look really good." When Cheryl asked if he could be more descriptive, Alcala answered, quote, "Peel me." At [music] the end of the game, it was time for Cheryl to pick her date.

[00:28:25]>> Who will the date be? Will it be Bachelor number one, bachelor number two, or bachelor number three? Who gets the date?

[00:28:33]When I saw that video and I'm watching, I thought, "No, she she's not going to pick him."

[00:28:40]>> Well, I like bananas, so I'll take one.

[00:28:43]>> Number one. That's your number one. All right.

[00:28:47]>> And I thought, "Oh my god."

[00:28:49]>> Well, there they go. However, you did leave.

[00:28:52]>> Cheryl Bradshaw would seem to be really excited and happy with him throughout the the performance of it. But when they were backstage after the show aired, she felt really creeped out by the way he uh would look at her and way he kind of hovered over her almost like he was really imposing on her own personal space. [music] And it was enough so that she wouldn't take the free trip or dinner that was offered by the dating game uh to go with him as a prize.

[00:29:22]She was smart enough not to ever go on the date with him because, in her words, he creeped her out.

[00:29:32]>> Rejected, Alcala went back on the prowl.

[00:29:36]In February 1979, he picked up 15-year-old hitchhiker Monique Hoy. After spending the night at Alcala's house, they took a trip the next day.

[00:29:48]He took her up into the mountains under the ruse, which he used more than once, of taking photographs because he was an amateur photographer.

[00:30:00]Alcala asked Monnique Hoy to pose for several photos and once she was distracted, he knocked her unconscious and then raped her.

[00:30:13]When she awoke, Huait found herself bound and Rodney Alcala sobbing.

[00:30:21]>> He started to cry, which is the only evidence we have that Rodney Alcala ever had any emotion ever.

[00:30:30]>> The street wise Mon'nique thought fast in an attempt [music] to survive. She told Alcala that she had fun with him at his house the previous night and would like to do it again. Her ploy worked and Alcala untied her.

[00:30:45]>> And that is the one person that managed to talk Rodney Alcala out of of murdering her. Alcala later stopped to use a restroom and left Monique Hoy in his vehicle.

[00:30:58]She used this chance to [music] escape and contacted the police.

[00:31:03]Hoit described her attacker to police.

[00:31:06]After being shown photos of men matching the description, she identified Rodney Alcala before she was taken to a hospital to be treated for her numerous injuries.

[00:31:17]Rodney Alcala was quickly arrested. The dating game killer was finally behind bars, but even the law couldn't stop him from killing again.

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[00:32:53]Countless potential victims are featured in a collection of mysterious photos taken by Rodney Alcala, the so-called dating game killer.

[00:33:04]Alcala gained the nickname since he once appeared on the game show in 1978.

[00:33:10]In a chilling turn, Bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw chose Alcala as her date on the episode in which they both appeared. The following year, he was arrested for the rape of 15-year-old Monnique Hoy, but his mother posted his bond and he was released from jail in March 1979.

[00:33:30]While awaiting his upcoming trial for the rape of Monique Hoy, he was free to walk the streets.

[00:33:36]This would prove [music] tragic for 21-year-old Jill Paranto of Burbank, California. At a local saloon, Alcala reportedly chatted with Jill and a friend several times and asked them to dance.

[00:33:51]No one knows how long he did so, but Alcala began to stalk Jill Paranto.

[00:33:58]One night in June, she returned home from attending a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Lying in wait for her was Rodney Alcala, who brutally and sadistically [music] attacked her.

[00:34:16]Jill Paranto was found the next day.

[00:34:19]Like Alcala's other victims, her body had been posed.

[00:34:24]>> She was at the end of her bed. She was naked. She was propped up with her arms underneath her and pillows underneath her to prop up her breasts. [music] >> Jill Parto became the latest in a long line of women killed by Rodney Alcala.

[00:34:39]Like many past murders, he wasn't considered a suspect, so he was able to slip by authorities again and continue to prowl Southern California in search of potential prey.

[00:34:53]On June 20th, 1979, he came across 12-year-old Robin Samso at Huntington Beach.

[00:35:00]>> Competition.

[00:35:01]>> When you say the word sweet, Robin was sweet. I don't think there was anybody that ever said a bad thing about her.

[00:35:09]>> Much like he had before, Rodney Alcala used his hobby of photography to get close to Robin Samso and her friend Bridget Wilbert.

[00:35:18]>> He would suggest to them that they could win a prize in a contest uh that he was involved in because he [music] would suggest that they were really beautiful or dressed a certain way that would that would definitely win.

[00:35:34]Bridget's neighbor, Jackie Young, was also at the beach that day, and what she saw made her suspicious.

[00:35:40]>> Oh, hey, Miss Young.

[00:35:42]>> She intervened and escorted the two girls back home.

[00:35:47]>> He supposedly left, but obviously he didn't because he followed Robin. Robin had to go to her classes. So, she left the beach and she borrowed Bridget's bike to go to class so she wouldn't be late.

[00:35:59]>> What happened next was unknown. Robin never made it to her ballet class.

[00:36:07]>> And that's the day she um was taken.

[00:36:13]>> Somewhere between leaving her house, Rodney saw her, almost certainly followed her, got her to get into the car, and she'd seen him from the beach, offered to give her a ride.

[00:36:26]>> And I called the police and told them, I said, "My daughter's missing." and they told me that uh they couldn't take a report for 24 hours. So by the next morning they declared it a kidnapping.

[00:36:40]>> It would take several days before authorities discovered what Alcala did with Robin Samso.

[00:36:46]>> He murdered her and he dumped her body up in the hills above Altadena.

[00:36:51]She was scavenged by animals. Her bones weren't found for a couple of weeks.

[00:36:56]There was virtually nothing left of her by the time she was actually found.

[00:37:01]Robin's mother, Maryanne, was given the devastating news.

[00:37:06]>> And Sergeant Jenkins came in and he said, "Um, we found Robin." I said, I grabbed my purse. I said, "Okay, let's go." He says, "Where do you think you're going?" I said, "Go see Robin." He says, "You can't do that." I said, "Why not?"

[00:37:21]He said, "Um, you don't want to see her like this."

[00:37:26]And I said, "I have a right to see her."

[00:37:29]And he says, "Honey, it took us three days to identify her." And I got angry.

[00:37:35]I got so mad. I said, "Three days?" I said, "How many little girls with long blonde hair disappear in California that took you three days?" And he said, "Don't you understand, honey?" He says, "There was no hair."

[00:37:54]Robin's [music] friend Bridget gave a police sketch artist a description of the photographer on the beach. The sketch was widely distributed.

[00:38:05]When Robin disappeared, it was a media event in Southern California, and Rodney's probation officer out in Riverside saw this composite, [music] looked at it, and went, "You know what?

[00:38:16]That's our guy."

[00:38:20]On July 24th, 1979, police [music] arrested Rodney Alcala at the Monterey Park house he shared with his mother.

[00:38:32]>> He was uh put in a room so that his sister could come in and talk to him and they recorded what was going on in that conversation.

[00:38:41]>> Alcala told his sister [music] Christine that he had a storage unit in Seattle and needed someone to remove the contents.

[00:38:49]Unbeknownst to Alcala, police monitored the conversation and traveled to Seattle to uncover whatever [music] Alcala had secreted away.

[00:39:02]Inside, they found dozens of photos.

[00:39:05]>> The police found about 1,700 photos of mainly girls and women and some boys, and they were all found in his locker in Shoreline, which is north part of Seattle. Also uncovered was a pouch full of jewelry and earrings.

[00:39:22]>> And these turned out to be Rodney Ocala's trophies from his murders.

[00:39:27][music] >> Dozens of pieces of jewelry. Every one of those is a momento of some victim someplace. And from that we found [music] Robin Samo's earrings, the ones that she was wearing.

[00:39:36]>> Rodney Alcala pled not guilty to the murder of Robin Samso.

[00:39:42]A jury trial convicted him in 1980. And despite a retrial and his verdict being overturned twice, he has remained in prison ever since.

[00:39:53]In 2010, after Alcala had spent [music] 30 years in prison, DNA technology had advanced to the point that it could link him to numerous murder cases. With this evidence, prosecutors from Orange and Los Angeles counties held a joint trial.

[00:40:10]>> We started getting DNA hits in Los Angeles County. DNA found at four different crime scenes of murdered women in the 1970s matched that of Rodney Alcala.

[00:40:21]The four victims included Jill Barkcom, Georgia Wixed, Charlotte Lamb, and Jill Paranto. All were raped and murdered by Alcala.

[00:40:32]Almost 30 years after his first conviction in the Robin Samso case, Rodney Alcala stood trial for the murder of both her and the four other victims [music] connected by his DNA.

[00:40:46]Alcala [music] acted as his own attorney during the trial. A very unique point about this case was he was able to defend himself and he was able to ask his victims [music] questions which is just outrageous.

[00:41:02]>> I had a hard time really containing myself because he'd look at me and he'd have this grin on his face. It was the most evil thing I've ever seen, you know, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed every minute of it. We the jury in the >> after two days of deliberation, the jury found Alcala guilty of all five murders >> to be death. [applause] Though it seemed that this verdict put an end to the terror unleashed by the dating game killer, the mysterious photos he had stashed away soon proved there were more victims he had murdered.

[00:41:37]And there could be even more [music] yet to be discovered.

[00:41:45]This haunting collection [music] of photographs was discovered in a storage unit that belonged to Rodney Alcala, the serial murderer known as the dating game killer.

[00:41:56]After numerous trials, Alcala was found guilty of five murders in 2010, but experts believe that he committed many more.

[00:42:06]We really don't know how many people he actually killed. After finding like 1,700 photos of people posed, I think it's estimated somewhere around 130 victims.

[00:42:23]>> During Rodney Alcala's lengthy incarceration on San Quinton's death row, it was proven that he was responsible for two murders that he had long been suspected of committing. In 2012, Alcala confessed to the New York slangs of Cornelia Krilly in 1971 and Ellen Hoverver in 1977.

[00:42:46]To this day, police are still trying to connect Rodney Alcala to many cold cases using the photographs that were found in his Seattle storage locker. [music] When they went through the pictures that they found in the storage locker, the police decided to create a website and place those photos on the website, uh, hoping that people that knew the people in the photos would be able to come forward and say, "Hey, this is who that is." And there was quite a few that were discovered in those photos um from from doing that.

[00:43:19]>> We have cleared case after case after case because of those photographs.

[00:43:25]Over 21 women were accounted for through the photos, while other women and children were recognized by families [music] as loved ones who had been confirmed missing for years.

[00:43:36]>> One [music] proven victim was that of Christine Thornton.

[00:43:43]Christine Thornton was a 28-year-old [music] six-month pregnant girl that had uh went missing in 1977. She had [music] she had actually told her parents she was going to go panning for gold.

[00:43:56]>> Christine Thornton somehow met Rodney Alcala on her journey as his photo taken by Alcala and found in his photo collection attests. When Alcala's photos were released to the public [music] in an attempt to identify potential victims, Kathy Thornton recognized her missing sister Christine and alerted authorities.

[00:44:19]The unidentified remains of Christine [music] Thornton and her unborn child were found by a rancher in Wyoming in 1982. They remained a cold case for decades until Thornton was identified through the Alcala photo and then a DNA match was made.

[00:44:35]>> And so they tied then 40 years later that murder to those remains that were found unsolved murder back in the 70s.

[00:44:44]Now 40 years later to Rodney Alcala.

[00:44:47]Once again, >> Rodney Alcala was charged with the murder of Christine Thornton [music] in September of 2016.

[00:44:55]>> The release of the Alcala photos spurred authorities across the country to look into cold cases [music] that might have links to Rodney Alcala.

[00:45:05]One such case was Pamela Gene Lamson, who vanished in 1977 after meeting a man at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wararf.

[00:45:14]>> The person that Pamela Jean Lamson was supposed to meet at Fisherman's Wararf was a photographer and after her meeting, she never returned home.

[00:45:26]>> Lamson's strangled body was found the next day.

[00:45:31]Rodney Alcala was also considered a person of interest in the disappearances and murders of two young women, Joyce Gaunt and Antwanet Whitaker, in late 1970s Seattle. The murders matched Alcala's mo, and the city was where Alcala's stash of photos was found.

[00:45:52]2010, the Seattle Police Department [music] decided to open up an investigation on the two missing young teens with Rodney Alcala. I don't think we'll ever have a complete answer of how many people or victims Rodney Alcala had in total. One is because of his age being in the late 70s [music] and the other is just being able to gather enough evidence to associate him with the victims.

[00:46:21]Who else is out there? Where [music] are they? And please, can you give the family some peace? That's what I would say to them.

[00:46:28]>> Alcala's last victim, Robin Samso, was memorialized on a plaque at Huntington Beach near the site of her 1979 abduction.

[00:46:39]>> They asked me, they said, "What do you want to say on a plaque?" I said, "You can say anything you want about Robin, but I don't want his name mentioned [music] on there. He's got no place on that plaque. That's her plaque.

[00:46:50]I'm in awe of these victims that survived and these families that have survived all those years trying [music] to hold him accountable for his actions.

[00:47:00]They are courageous, loving people who keep their loved ones close to their hearts. And I just hope they find [music] some peace in the closure through these trials that they had not had thanks to him for decades.

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