All language subtitles for Episode 06 Rodney Alcala

-In September 1978,

one of the contestants on a U.S.
TV show called "The Dating Game"

was hiding a deadly secret.

Nobody knew it, but the bachelor
in seat number one

was responsible
for the death of four women.

-Please welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

-When I found out he was
a serial killer,

it was like, "Bing."

It just all came together
like a slap in the face.

-By the time 35-year-old
Rodney Alcala

was finally arrested
10 months later,

he had killed another two women
and a 12-year-old girl.

Pictures of missing persons
found hidden away

pointed towards there being
even more victims.

-I think the day he rots away
and finally dies

will be a good day
for the whole world.

-After two convictions
were quashed,

Alcala was given
the death sentence

for a third time in 2010.

-I really hope that he's
suffering and that, one day,

I get that phone call
that he is gone,

and nobody will ever have
to hear his name again.

-Rodney Alcala
will go down in history

as one of the world's
most evil killers.

It was a murder
that stunned a community.

When the remains
of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe

were found
on July the 2nd, 1979,

the schoolgirl had already
been missing for 12 days.

The police were certain
that the killer

was a 35-year-old photographer
named Rodney Alcala.

After his arrest, hundreds
of pictures of young women

were found in his possession,
but who were they?

It would take 34 years

before Alcala was finally found
to be responsible

for the death of at least
seven women across two states.

Orange County Deputy D.A.
Matt Murphy

was the third prosecutor
to take Alcala

to trial for the murder
of Robin Samsoe

after the first two
death-penalty sentences

were overturned.

-The tough part about that
and what nobody thinks about

is there's a victim's
family involved in this.

And Robin Samsoe had
a mother who loved her,

and she had brothers
who loved her.

She had friends who loved her.

And every time
the case gets reversed,

you have to drag
the family through this,

and they have to go through
the process again.

I don't think
it's a stretch to say

this ruined the life

of this girl's poor mother.

-At Alcala's third trial
in January 2010,

the convicted killer
decided to defend himself.

District Attorney Matt
spent weeks

sparring with the 67-year-old

and had to treat him
with respect in the courtroom.

-After my closing argument,
that's when he realized --

After I pointed at him
and called him the devil,

he realized I wasn't his buddy.

I think the day he rots away
and finally dies

will be a good day
for the whole world.

-This killer's story began
over 70 years ago.

Rodney Alcala was born
in San Antonio, Texas,

on the 23rd of August, 1943.

-He was, on the surface,
a perfectly normal boy --

didn't kill small animals

or do any of those
other horrible things

that serial killers
tend to on to do.

But in 1951, when he was 8,

his grandmother, who was ill,

decided that she wanted
to go back to die in Mexico.

And so the whole family
left Texas

and went to Mexico.

-But while living south
of the U.S. border,

Alcala's father
left the family home

to start a new life.

-The father abandons the family
at that point in time

and then goes back
to living in the U.S.,

and I think that's quite
a significant thing.

I think that Alcala's
relationship with his father

was quite an important
one to him.

And I think that's something

that stayed with Alcala
throughout his life,

and I think it does feed
into his offending behavior.

-Age 12, Alcala's mother

moved him and his three siblings
to Los Angeles

to start a new life
back in the U.S.

-He's popular.
He's on the yearbook committee.

He plays the piano.

He runs for the school.

He has girlfriends.

He's, on the surface,
an All-American,

or All-Mexican-American boy.

-After graduating
from high school,

Alcala joined the Army.

But his time was cut short

after a death in the family
had a devastating effect on him.

-Whilst he's in the Army,
he has a nervous breakdown,

and this is after
his father has died.

And he's given a medical
discharge from the Army

because he has
this nervous breakdown,

and then he kind of goes off
the radar for a while.

So I think this is the period

in which he starts,
perhaps, fantasizing.

His offending starts
to take shape in his mind,

if not in reality.

-And in September 1968,

Alcala committed
a horrific crime.

He lured an 8-year-old girl

into his Hollywood home.

-This is the worst nightmare
for any parent.

Rodney Alcala and people
like him are the reason

why you can't send your kids
walking to school alone.

He kidnaps her.

He rapes her.

A good Samaritan sees her
get into his car,

and it doesn't look right.

And he follows the car
to the house,

and it doesn't look right.
Now, this is 1968,

so it's long before cellphones.

He finds a pay phone,
calls it in.

The police get there,
knock on the door.

Rodney shows up naked

and says,
"Hey. I'll be right with you."

-The 25-year-old Alcala

wasn't planning on
getting caught red-handed.

-He runs out
the back naked, okay,

and the police officer,
who's by himself, looks down,

and it's one of those situations

where it's save this bleeding
little girl on the floor

who's unconscious
and very close to death --

She was in a coma for 33 days
after this happened --

So it's save the little girl
or catch the bad guy

running out of the back,
and he did the right thing.

He saved the little girl.

But that meant Alcala got away.

-It was a horrifically depraved
and violent attack on a child

that seemingly
came out of nowhere.

-Where was the motive for that?

There was no sexual abuse that
we know of in his childhood.

There was no antipathy to women.

It was an unexpected bolt
from the blue.

-Alcala decided to run away
from his crimes --

3,000 miles across the U.S.

-He does not hang around.

He decides to leave Los Angeles

and turns up in New York,

where he enlists
in the New York Film School

under the name of John Berger.

-This is quite a cunning way
of both avoiding detection

and of starting to build up
these new personas,

these knew characters,

to present to the people
that he comes into contact with.

So he's somebody who can put on
and shed identities

just like a snake,

and that's how
I describe Alcala.

He's constantly shedding his
skin and reinventing himself.

-Under the name John Berger,
Rodney Alcala

had begun teaching at
a summer camp in New Hampshire.

But by July 1971,

his time was running out.

Three years after the attack
on the 8-year-old girl

in his own home,

Alcala was still
the prime suspect,

and he was added to the FBI's
nationwide 10 most-wanted list.

He was soon spotted
by two of his students.

-So two of these girls
go to the post office

to mail a letter,

and they see
Rodney Alcala's picture

under the name of,
you know, Rodney Alcala.

They're like,
"Hey. That's Mr. Berger.

He works at the camp."
So that's how he got caught.

They extradite him
back to California,

and they try him
for the kidnapping,

and he received a life sentence.

-But unbelievably,
in August 1975,

after serving
less than three years,

Alcala was freed

and soon found work
as a photographer.

-I have no idea what
the parole board was thinking.

They're looking at this guy.
He kidnapped,

raped, and almost murdered
an 8-year-old little girl

who was a stranger.

Wasn't even somebody
that lived in his house.

This was a girl
walking down the street.

That is as predatory,
pathological, and psychotic

as you can possibly get.

And they released him
after 34 months.

He had a life sentence.

They released him
after 34 months.

-But his freedom
didn't last long.

Just two months later,
Alcala was arrested once more,

this time for plying
a minor with drugs.

-He leaves state custody
in August.

In October, he kidnaps
a 13-year-old

and provides her with marijuana.

And he's convicted
of breaking his parole

and selling drugs to a minor.

He goes back to jail.

-Again, Alcala's stay in prison

was surprisingly brief.

He was declared reformed
by authorities

after 2 1/2 years.

In the summer of 1977,

he was allowed,
by his parole officer,

to head back to New York.

-There's a huge lesson here
on Rodney Alcala,

because people are starting
to do this again.

In California,
the pendulum is swinging

back towards early release,

towards therapy for these guys,
all that sort of thing.

People like Rodney Alcala,
when they get out,

they are going
to kill other people.

Sex offenders do not
get better, okay?

All the treatment in the world
does not fix sex offenders.

So if you release violent sex
offenders like Rodney Alcala,

at the very least, they're going
to commit additional rapes

or child molestations.

-Alcala's stay
in New York was brief.

In September 1977,

he was back
in Southern California.

Two years later,
12-year-old Robin Samsoe

would disappear after being
approached by a photographer

on Huntington Beach.

By the summer of 1979,

convicted child molester
Rodney Alcala

had been in prison twice

and was flitting between
two separate lives --

one in California

and one in New York.

The 35-year-old was unemployed

but remained a keen
amateur photographer.

On June the 20th, 1979,

12-year-old Robin Samsoe
disappeared

after speaking to a stranger

on Huntington Beach
in Orange County, California.

-He approached Robin

and her friend,
who was also 12 years old.

They were sunbathing
on Huntington Beach

right before
Robin's ballet lesson,

and he said, "Hey.
I'm in a photography contest.

Will you allow me
to take your picture?"

This photographer
was a suspect right away,

because 45 minutes later,

Robin disappeared
and was never seen again.

-Robin had last been spotted
on her bicycle

heading to her ballet class.

The following morning,

police officer Steve Mack

reported for duty.

-I'd only been with the City
of Huntington Beach for a year.

We go to briefings
in the morning,

and they give us any crimes that
have occurred during the evening

that we should be
on the lookout for.

And that morning, on the 21st,

they told of us
Robin's disappearance

and the description
of the bicycle

that she was riding at the time
of her disappearance.

-The vanishing of Robin Samsoe
rocked Orange County.

-This was an extreme rarity
in Huntington Beach.

It was a bedroom community,
quite quiet and peaceful.

We get literally hundreds
of thousands of people

coming to our beach annually

because of its serenity
and beauty.

They put out a press release,

and they talked to one
of Robin's friends

that she was with the day before

and obtained a composite
of a person

that had been taking photographs
of them at the beach.

As patrol officers, we began
scouring the alleys

and behind grocery stores
and shopping centers

looking to see if the bicycle
had been discarded.

For probably the next two weeks,

the alleys and behind
shopping centers

were probably some
of the safest places,

because even though
they'd been checked

at 10:00 in the morning,

somebody was probably driving by
at 2:00 in the afternoon.

Everybody wanted to find
that bicycle.

-The description
of the potential kidnapper

given to a police sketch artist
by Robin's friend

looked remarkably similar
to a known child molester.

-This was a big deal media-wise

because we had a missing
12-year-old girl.

And Alcala's parole officer

saw the composite on TV,

and he called detectives
and said,

"You guys need to check out
Rodney Alcala.

It looks like him.
It sounds like him.

You got to look
at Rodney Alcala."

And like 15 minutes after
they received that phone call,

one of the cops is home,
turns on the TV

and sees Alcala
on "The Dating Game."

-Bachelor number one
is a successful photographer.

Please welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

-And the host introduced
the bachelors,

and bachelor number one
was Rodney Alcala.

The detective frantically tried
to call the police department

and let other detectives know
that he was on television

so that they could
turn it on and see him.

-Alcala's appearance
on the program,

where women pick
eligible bachelors

without seeing their faces,

was recorded 10 months earlier
in September 1978.

On the show that day with Alcala

was actor Jed Mills.

-The vibes I got from him,
while we were doing the show

and backstage and even during
the actual filming

were not good vibes.

There was something wrong
with this guy.

-Jed had met Alcala backstage

before the recording.

-Didn't talk much. We were guys,

and he was this
rather good-looking,

creepy-looking guy, though.

He had the weirdest
football haircut.

You know, everything
was, like, perfect.

The other guy and I were
getting along very nicely,

and we were talking
about this and that.

And every now and then, this
creepy guy would say something.

Like, he had an attitude,

'cause he knew better
than everybody else.

-When the cameras
began rolling,

Alcala turned on the charm.

-I'm called "The Banana,"

and I look really good.

-Can you be a little
more descriptive?

Peel me.

-On "The Dating Game" show,
the woman questioner

asks each of
the eligible bachelors...

"I'm going to eat you.

What food are you?"

So Alcala, when he gave
his answer, says,

"Well, I'm a banana. Unpeel me."

-And I said, "Oh, my God.

This guys is such a creep."

-But it was enough
to win him the date.

-Well, I like bananas,
so I'll take one.

-Number one,
bachelor number one. All right.

-On the outside, Alcala appeared

to be a charming,
good-looking man.

But deep inside, he was
hiding a dark history.

What the viewing public
didn't know

was that contestant number one
was a serial killer.

By the time he appeared
on the show in September 1978,

Alcala had already
killed five women.

Over 35 years on,

Jed Mills still feels anger
towards his fellow contestant.

-Thinking back on it,
it was very scary.

It was spooky, you know, that
I was in a room with this guy.

Had I known, I'd have
killed him right there

with my bare hands, you know --

that he's killing women.

Horrible, just horrible.

-Prior to his national
TV appearance,

Alcala had already murdered
23-year-old Cornelia Crilley

in June 1971 in New York.

And then in July 1977,

he killed another young woman
in the city --

23-year-old Ellen Hover.

Over the following 12 months,
he struck again,

this time
in Southern California.

Among his innocent victims,

18-year-old Jill Barcomb,

27-year-old Georgia Wixted,

and 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb.

All were murdered
by the 34-year-old

who was now hiding
in plain sight.

-Most serial killers
or killers in general

want to avoid detection,
want to avoid publicity,

want to avoid the spotlight.

And this guy was actually
seeking it out,

which is, you know, an
indication of his personality.

-He really does love
being in the limelight,

so I think he would've
really enjoyed a pairing

on that dating show in the 1970s

because he's the center
of attention.

He's the one
that this woman's picked,

and he really is
on top of the world.

-Serial killer Alcala's joy,
however,

would be short-lived.

-He's saying all of these
awfully cheesy things,

and the audience
are laughing along,

but this is a man who's killed.

This is a man
who is going to kill again.

And I think that the lady

that was going to have
the date with him

was lucky to escape
with her life,

because she went
and chatted to him backstage

just before they were about
to go on the date,

and picked up on the fact

there was something
a little bit creepy about him

and decided not to go through
with that date.

And I think that's probably
the best decision she ever made.

-She did not go out with him,
you know,

'cause he was too creepy.

She did not keep the date.

So even though he won,

she refused to go
on the date with him.

-So that kind of gives you
an indication

of what kind of person
you're dealing with

where, on the surface, when she
only could hear his voice

and then ultimately
see his face, it's okay.

But then when she started
interacting with him

on a more human level,
she realizes,

"There's something
wrong with this guy

that just makes me
uncomfortable."

And as a female, she said no.

-Now, whether Alcala took that
as a rejection,

which I think is possible,

it was no doubt an accelerant

to his later killings.

If you have
this narcissistic character,

and suddenly, someone
turns him down,

I think he takes his revenge
on women in general,

women as a group.

So anyone becomes fair prey.

You then get a run of killings.

-Eight months after his TV
debut, Alcala killed again.

On the 14th of June, 1979,

21-year-old Jill Parenteau
was found dead

in her Burbank apartment
in Los Angeles county.

And just six days later,
Rodney Alcala

abducted 12-year-old
Robin Samsoe in Orange County.

Her body was found
in the Angeles National Forest

on July the 2nd, 1979.

-Robin's body was discovered
12 days after her disappearance

up in an area
called Chantry Flats.

It was her remains.
He whole body wasn't found.

Oddly enough, a forest ranger

had seen Alcala,

who we refer to
as "The Monster" --

The family prefers
that his name never be used --

dragging a blonde little girl
into the woods.

And then it was 12 days later,

they were doing
some fire prevention clean-out

up in the area, and they came
across some human bones.

-It was heartbreaking news.

The entire state of California

wanted to see justice
for the murder of Robin Samsoe.

The police had
a number-one suspect,

but he had a history
of absconding.

They needed
to find Rodney Alcala,

and they needed to do it fast.

In July 1979,

detectives in
Orange County, California,

had begun to investigate

the murder
of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe

after her remains
had been discovered

in the Angeles National Forest.

Having been seen on national TV

and his face matched
to a sketch of a man

seen in the area
where Robin had disappeared,

detectives honed in
on Rodney Alcala.

The convicted child molester
was now their prime suspect,

and they were certain
he was culpable

in the murder
of the little girl.

-It turns to a homicide
investigation immediately,

and the detectives ramp up their
investigation and work it hard.

And ultimately,
Alcala is arrested

on July 24th.

-Alcala had been found
staying with his parents

40 miles north of Huntington
Beach

in Monterrey Park.

-As luck would have it,
on the day

that Alcala was arrested,

they did a search warrant
at his house,

and one of the detectives
saw a receipt

for a storage facility

in the Seattle area.

-This discovery
would be the first step

in unearthing
the secret murderous history

of Rodney Alcala.

-When we got into
his storage locker

immediately after he was
identified and arrested,

there's thousands
of photographs of young women

and young boys
and adult women, young girls,

that, to this day, we've been
unable to identify many of them.

So being alone in the company
of Rodney Alcala,

knowing what he did
to Robin Samsoe,

we always suspected
that there were more victims.

We just didn't know who they
were and couldn't prove it.

-The photos
in the storage locker

were not only of young girls.

There were pictures
of boys, too.

-So he's targeting
prepubescent girls.

He's targeting women.

Sometimes he taking pictures
of young boys.

But I think we shouldn't look

at the differences
between his victims.

We need to look at
what they've all got in common,

And they've all got in common
a particular vulnerability,

something that he sees
as a weakness,

something that he can prey on.
So that's what he's looking for,

and it doesn't really matter
to him who he sees that in.

-The photos suggested
that all the potential victims

had willingly posed for Alcala.

-Alcala is one of those strange
but not uncommon serial killers

who has a high I.Q.,

is fairly good-looking
by objective standards.

And we've seen this before
with people like Ted Bundy

and others, where, you know,
they could probably,

you know,
attract women themselves

and get into relationships with
women in a normal relationship.

But for some reason,

there's something very wrong
in their minds,

and that they then
get involved with women

and then have that
sexual relationship

and then end up killing them.

-In fact, Alcala
appears to be a person

who could have achieved
many of his sexual desires

without committing a homicide,

and that makes him somewhat
mystifying as serial killers go.

-The police did not know it yet,

but Alcala had killed
at least seven women

over the previous eight years.

12-year-old Robin Samsoe
was his final victim.

Over time, he had perfected

his pernicious pickup technique.

-Essentially, the nature
of Alcala's crimes were

that he would present himself
to women,

often through an alias,
as a photographer.

He would basically
convince people

that he was doing a photo shoot,

that they were a desirable part
of the photo shoot.

He would bring them
to the photo shoot,

and then he would rape,
torture, and kill them.

-Alcala is somebody who knows
what his victims want to hear.

When he comes across
young women,

he knows that he needs to appeal
to their better natures

and to compliment them,
tell them how pretty they are,

that they could be models,
that he's a photographer

who can make all of this
happen for them.

And he knows
how to sound genuine,

so he's a very
accomplished predator.

He sniffs out his prey,

identifies their
vulnerabilities,

and moves in for the kill.

-As well as finding photographs
of unknown victims

in the storage unit,

detectives also uncovered

a bag of jewelry.

-On the serial killers,
especially the rapists,

they'll keep a little keepsake.
They'll keep a trophy.

And we had a silk pouch

with all kinds of unidentified
jewelry in there,

stuff that we still,
to this day,

have no idea where it came from
or who the jewelry belonged to.

-They'll look at the trophy
that they kept,

in this case, jewelry,

and they can relive that crime

by looking at this
piece of jewelry.

The Monster was a sexually
sadistic serial killer.

He literally fantasized
about these cases

and relived them in his mind

when he would look
at these items of jewelry,

these trophies.

-And one particular item

gave investigators
their biggest clue yet.

-One of the pairs
of earrings in there

were gold-ball earrings

that Robin's mother identified

as the ones Robin was wearing.

-It was evidence
that helped convince a jury.

On June the 20th, 1980,

Rodney Alcala
was sentenced to death

for the murder of Samsoe.

But his story
does not end there.

By 1984, the conviction
had been overturned.

-I think for everyone involved
in law enforcement,

it's always frustrating
when a convicted murdered

has his sentence overturned.

But it was first overturned
based on the fact

that improper evidence was
introduced at the penalty phase.

While we suspected that Robin
had been sexually assaulted,

there was no physical
evidence to it at all.

-The Supreme Court ruled
that the jury

should not have been informed
of Alcala's conviction

for molesting
the 8-year-old girl

in 1968.

He remained on remand,

and at a second trial
in June 1986,

Alcala was again found guilty
of Robin Samsoe's murder

and sentenced to death
for a second time.

But, once more,
the conviction was quashed

in April 2001.

-The Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals felt that the defense

didn't give him
adequate protection

and that they should've
gone to the crime scene

where the body was discovered,

and, for that reason,
it was overturned.

-Once again, Alcala remained
on remand

while authorities considered
whether to try him

for the murder of Robin Samsoe
for a third time.

It was heartbreaking
for her family.

-The Samsoe family
was devastated

each time it was overturned.

I know this
after talking to them.

Through the years, I've become
friends with the family.

I know their personal feelings
and their frustrations,

and it was devastating
to Robin's mother,

as well as her siblings.

-Next in line
to prosecute the 58-year-old

was Orange County Deputy D.A.
Matt Murphy.

Since Alcala's arrest
in July 1979,

technology had made
great advances.

And investigators
had begun to look

into other possible victims.

-I obtained court orders with
the assistance of Matt Murphy

from the District
Attorney's Office

to get certain pieces of
evidence out of court evidence

to have resubmitted
for DNA testing.

In the 1980s, when these trials
were taking place,

nobody had ever heard of DNA.

Now there had been advancements
which, even since that time,

have been further advanced.

-Revisiting postmortem reports,

investigators found that Alcala
was likely to be responsible

for more deaths
than just Robin Samsoe's.

-There were four unsolved
murders out of L.A. County.

There was Jill Barcomb,
who was found on a fire road

up in the mountains
about Hollywood.

There was Georgia Wixted,
who was a young woman

who'd just moved into
her own apartment in Malibu.

There was Charlotte Lamb,
who was another woman

who'd moved here
from the Midwest.

She was found in a laundry room
in an apartment complex

in the city of El Segundo.

And then we have Jill Parenteau,
who lived in Burbank.

We had these four murders.

Now, three of them,
we had really good DNA,

and one of the things
that was consistent

with all of Rodney Alcala's
rapes and murders

is that his semen was located

in virtually every inch
of the body of these poor women.

So they're --
These were long, ongoing,

torturous murders and rapes.

-Over the years, Alcala had
developed a familiar M.O.

-He would kill, very often,
by strangulation.

But before ultimately
killing somebody,

he would strangle them
to the point of near death

and then allow them
to be revived.

Strangle them
to the point of death,

allow them to be
returned to life,

and then finally,
at some point, kill them.

This is a man who got his
sexual excitement and arousal

from being right there at
the precipice of life and death.

He needs to see the fire
of terror in the woman's eyes

as he's on the verge
of snuffing out her soul

for him to be aroused.

-As Matt Murphy
prepared to try Alcala

with the four newly
discovered murders,

he was still intent on getting
a third guilty verdict

for Robin Samsoe and her family.

-There's no free murders.

If somebody kills 10 people,

and there's an 11th out there
that's really hard,

we don't give them a freebie
and just go with the 10.

We hold them accountable for
every single person they kill.

And it's more work
for the prosecution.

It's more work for the police.
But to a man and woman,

the police who have worked
on this, they understand.

People are happy to do the work

if we can bring justice
to the families, so it's --

Every one that we can get him
on, we're going to try him on.

-Rodney Alcala's latest trial

was set
for January the 11th, 2010,

but this time, he was ready
to employ a new tactic.

The 66-year-old believed there
was only one person in the world

who could do a decent job
of defending him,

and that man was himself.

He was accused of the murder
of four women

and one child,
12-year-old Robin Samsoe.

-Alcala decides
to represent himself at trial.

And there's an old saying
that says,

"Anyone who chooses
to represent themselves

has a fool for a client," and
that's very true in this case.

And he's not just a fool.

He's an absolute
narcissist, as well.

-He wanted to be up there
in the spotlight,

and he wanted to tell
his side of the story,

because he thought he was
the smartest guy in the room.

-Alcala was up against
the formidable prosecution team

of Gina Satriano

and Orange County Deputy D.A.
Matt Murphy.

-Matt Murphy is
a prosecutorial genius.

He's got the charm and the wit

to draw a jury in

and control them
in the palm of his hand.

He knows what to say and when to
say it for its maximum effect.

I couldn't have asked for a
better prosecutor in this case.

-It's kind of
this very surreal process,

but you actually kind of
get to know the guy.

You know,
it's like you would a lawyer.

You spend hours together. You're
sitting next to each other.

You're working out
complex evidentiary things

and figuring out
what the questionnaires

are going to contain.

And just like
you get to know a lawyer,

here was Rodney Alcala.

It was very dark

but also fascinating.

Maybe I'm twisted,
but it was interesting.

-Murphy would have
to treat Alcala

with the same respect he did

with any other defense attorney
he may have come up against.

-As a professional,
you've got to deal with him,

and you've got to
engage him in conversation,

and you got to talk to him.

And what I saw
when I dealt with him

is I could see how every one
of these young women

would get in the car,
because he was so intelligent.

He was a handsome guy --

not by the time we got to him,
but back then.

You know, all that, you could
see how this very intelligent,

very charming, very handsome guy

could lure these women
into positions of vulnerability

where he would rape them
and murder them.

-During one of
their conversations,

Alcala shared his experience

of living on death row.

-He goes, "We have six yards."
He goes --

They have a softy yard,
basically.

They call it the wienie yard.

And he goes, "Matt --"
He called me Matt --

"Matt, I'm not violent.

I'm not a violent guy.
I'm in the wienie yard.

I'm not with those guys.
I'm not violent."

This is a guy who raped
and bashed the skull in

of Georgia Wixted.

This is a guy who smashed
the face in of Jill Barcomb

with a rock,
and he's looking at me like,

"Hey, buddy, I'm not violent.

I'm not on that yard
with those guys.

I'm with the respectable guys
on death row."

You know, that was just --

That was a moment
I'll also never forget.

-Alcala didn't seem
to offer any defense

to the four new murder charges
against him,

but he defiantly fought
the Robin Samsoe one.

By 2010, Huntington Beach
detective Steve Mack had retired

after spending
most of his career

fighting for justice
for Robin's family.

-I sat with the family
through a lot of the trial,

and I would speak to them
before we went into court

and afterwards.

And every now and then,
I would talk to Matt Murphy

regarding the tactics
of the trial.

But since I wasn't
actually participating,

I tried to stay out
of that aspect of it.

-During the five-week trial at
Orange County Superior Court,

Alcala continued
to mentally torture

Robin Samsoe's mother.

-This woman has been --
Her credibility is questioned.

And, you know, here,
the third time around,

Rodney Alcala is
representing himself,

so she's getting cross-examined
by the murderer of her daughter,

who's calling her a liar.

I mean, imagine that.

-To watch him cross-examine
Robin's mother

and get within feet of her

and ask her personal questions
really made me angry

that he should be allowed
to be that close.

I think the court
should've ruled

that if you want to talk to her,
you want to cross-examine her,

that you need to remain
in your chair

and sitting
at the counsel table.

It got real frustrating for me
that he was allowed to do that.

Again, in my mind,

he's reliving that incident

through his questions
of Robin's mother.

-This time around,
the prosecution were armed

with new evidence in relation
to Robin's murder --

a pair of earrings found
in Alcala's storage locker

back in 1979.

The killer had always claimed
that they belonged to him,

but DNA testing proved that
to be a lie.

They in fact belonged
to another of his victims.

-We got 0.06 nanograms of DNA
belonging to Charlotte Lamb,

so when we're in that courtroom,
it's almost like Charlotte Lamb

is whispering
from the grave to our jury,

"Robin's mother was right.

Rodney Alcala keeps earrings."

It was the most powerful
evidence you could ever hope.

And just this tiny,
little piece of DNA

that sat there for decades

and, you know, technology
caught up to it, thank God.

And that was sort of
an emotional part of the trial,

when the jury got to realize
that Robin's mother,

after all of these years

and after all of these
cross-examinations,

was conclusively
proven to be right

by the DNA of Charlotte Lamb
on another earring

found in the exact same pouch

as the ones that Robin
was wearing that day.

-Linking the murder
of Charlotte Lamb

to the murder of Robin Samsoe

looked to be the final nail
in the coffin for Rodney Alcala.

On February the 25th, 2010,

the jury had reached a verdict

on all five murder charges.

-Three of those cases,
we had very strong DNA,

but on Jill Parenteau,
it was a tougher case.

But we had a -- Fortunately,
we had a great jury,

and we had Francisco Briseno
as our judge.

So they did the right thing,

and they convicted
on all of the murders --

on Robin, on Jill Barcomb,

on Georgia Wixted, all of them.

So he was held accountable for
every one of those young women.

-On March the 30th, 2010,

Rodney Alcala was sentenced
to death for a third time.

The tactic of representing
himself in court

had backfired spectacularly.

-This guy just thought,
you know,

nothing could touch him,

and he was the smartest
guy in the room,

and as long as he could talk,
he would get away with it.

Ultimately, he was proven wrong.

-When the verdict came back,

it came back
as I expected that it was,

but it's still
a feeling of elation

that this guy lost

his third attempt at freedom.

I'm just waiting for the day
to get the phone call

that Mother Nature
and Father Time

did what the courts
would never do

and that he's no longer
stealing oxygen

from decent people.

-The following year, 2011,

Alcala was charged
with two murders in New York --

23-year-olds Cornelia Crilley
in 1971

and Ellen Hover in 1977.

-Alcala is one of those killers

who believed he was cleverer.

He could hide in plain sight.

"I'm John Berger in New York."

"I'm an ordinary,
humble man in Los Angeles.

I couldn't possibly
be dangerous."

He is, in some respects,

even more dangerous,

like a perfectly
camouflaged snake

that you tread on by accident

because you don't
realize it's there.

-To avoid another trial,
Alcala pled guilty

to both New York murders,

taking his total number
of victims to seven.

In 2010, over 100 pictures

found in Alcala's
Seattle storage unit

were released into
the public domain by detectives

in a bid to identify
potential victims.

As a result,
Alcala has since been charged

with killing a 28-year-old woman

in Wyoming in 1977.

Many of the photographs
found in the locker

were too graphic to be released,

meaning many of the women
remain unaccounted for.

-Alcala may be the most
dangerous of all the killers

that have ever been caught

because while
he was only charged

with a relatively small
number of murders,

the number of pictures he had

means that he may have killed
in excess of 100 people.

-Given the volume
of the photographs,

you know, we always knew
that we had other victims.

We just --
We didn't know who they were.

-Alcala was forced to pay
for some of his crimes.

But for the families
of the deceased,

the pain of losing a loved one

is a punishment
that lasts forever.

-I don't think Robin's family
is ever going to be at peace.

They had their 12-year-old
sister kidnapped

and brutally murdered

in the mountains
of Los Angeles County.

They live with that every day

when they look
at her photographs

that they have on their shelves.

It tormented them then, and
when people bring it up today,

it's further torment for them,

so I don't think
they'll ever be at peace.

They'll certainly be elated
the day he dies,

but at peace?

I think they're just
dealing with it.

-74-year-old Rodney Alcala

remains on death row

in Corcoran State Prison
in California.

He has never admitted
to any other murders.

-Well, if I was
to describe Alcala

with three words,
it would be "me, me, me."

This man is
an absolute narcissist.

And he doesn't care
about the rights

or the feelings of other people,

and all of his behavior
revolves around him.

So he's somebody

who was only going to ever
pursue his own desires,

and unfortunately,

this ended up in a lot of people
losing their lives.

-For these psychopaths,
their main thing --

They want to control things.
They want to be in control.

They want the attention on them.
That's kind of what drives them.

He went up.
He made his whole pitch,

and they soundly rejected him.

They rejected his defense.

They rejected everything
that he stood for

and found that he deserved
to die for what he did.

-My feelings towards
The Monster. It's rage.

It's anger, and I really hope
that he's suffering.

He's in poor physical health.

He's being fed
through a feeding tube.

It's reported
that he has Alzheimer's.

I hope all of this is true
and that, one day,

I get that phone call
that he is gone,

and nobody will ever have
to hear his name again.

-Rodney Alcala killed
at least six women

and a 12-year-old girl.

He was a terrifying predator
hiding behind a charming persona

and attacked his victims

for nothing other
than his own selfish pleasures.

To this day, we still
do not know why he did it.

When he finally dies,
Alcala will be remembered

as one of the most
dangerous men in America

and one of the world's
most evil killers.