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It was a feeding ground for him.

You see him walking in your neighborhood.

You might think he's a nice guy.

He probably used the ruse of camera work.

He was a very charming individual.

He was good looking, mild mannered.

Not the monster that I know those victims saw.

Just dead eyes of evil.

Welcome to Very Scary People.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

On the outside, Rodney Alcala seemed to have it all. Good looks, charisma,

intelligence. But on the inside, he was, in fact, a psychotic killer.

His tools of choice to lure unsuspecting prey, a camera, and his charm.

It was his personality and good looks that landed him on one of the most

TV game shows in history, The Dating Game.

As he dazzled the audience with his smile and easy quips, No one could

the dark and terrifying plans he may have had.

This is part one of The Dating Game Killer.

From Hollywood, the dating capital of the world, it's The Dating Game.

Well, let's see. Bachelor number one is a successful photographer. Please

welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

He had a terrible history, yet they allowed him on the game show.

You have to wonder how this type of a character was able to get on television.

We're going to have a great time together, Cheryl.

It's 1968.

Tali Shapiro, an 8 -year -old girl, is making her way down Sunset Boulevard in

West Hollywood to school.

As she was walking to school, this young male, mid -20s, basically pulled up in

a car and said, Hello, can I give you a ride?

And she said, I don't take a ride from strangers.

And he said, well, I'm not a stranger. I know your parents.

And she was kind of hesitant, but he was smooth talking, charming, soft spoken.

She decided, okay, I guess if he knows my parents, it must be okay.

A good Samaritan saw this happening. He felt it was kind of suspicious.

So what he did was he watched them and followed them.

And when he saw them park at the apartment and go up into it, decided to

the police.

As I approached the house, I saw the car was a Plymouth.

I'll never forget that. It had no license plates.

And I thought, okay, that's cause for suspicion.

When the police arrive on the doorstep, they knock on the door.

The suspect appeared, moved the curtain back.

I looked him in the face.

I said, I need to talk to you. Please open the door.

He relayed to me, I just got out of the shower. Give me a moment.

And I am looking at him. He's not wet, doesn't have a towel, and he's nude.

There was a rage about him.

He wasn't calm.

His eyes were fixated and angry.

So that's when I told him, I said, you need to open the door. I need to come in

and talk to you.

He was very, very agitated.

At that instant, I heard some moaning.

That's when I finally kicked the door in and entered the residence.

The first thing I saw as I entered was this little girl, blood all over the

place, with this bar across her neck.

Here's the little eight -year -old Tally laying on the floor in a pool of blood.

We all thought she was dead. She wasn't breathing.

There was no pulse.

They kick the door in.

He's out the back. He's in the wind.

And they could go after him and probably catch him.

But they look over and see this little girl, unconscious and profuse, bleeding

around the head.

So they make the choice to try and save her life.

I just couldn't leave that little girl with that bar across her neck.

And that was breaking all protocol because the crime scene, you're supposed

contain it, not touch anything.

But I grabbed a towel and I took the bar off her neck and set it on the side.

She was breathing but barely alive.

They call for a rescue unit, rush her to the hospital.

We continued searching the residence. We found a wallet.

We found photographs.

And they found one other thing, the photo ID of a college student at UCLA,

Rodney Alcala.

I went to his professors at UCLA, and right out of the bat, they said, hey,

detective, you got the wrong guy.

This guy wouldn't hurt a flea.

It's 1968, and eight -year -old Tally Shapiro has been rescued after being

abducted, raped, and bludgeoned nearly to death.

As the police are coming in the front door to rescue Tally, the perpetrator

escaped out the back door.

But the police find his ID from UCLA, and the name on the ID, Rodney

Alcala.

We're searching the apartment.

We found a lot of photographic equipment, professional type.

There were hundreds and hundreds of pictures of young girls.

We set up a command post, started going around the neighborhood to see if we

could apprehend him.

Unfortunately, he was gone.

Basically, it was a...

Not whodunit. We'd had him identified, so it was basically the process of

to locate him.

So I went to his professors at UCLA, and right out of the bat, they said, hey,

detective, you got the wrong guy.

This guy wouldn't hurt a flea. He says he's super nice, he's very charming,

great attitude.

There's no way he could commit an attempt murder and rape of a child.

We had APBs, all -point bulletins out across throughout California.

We had checked with his parents' locations. We had done a lot of follow

we were coming up with nothing.

I spoke to the mother and the sister.

They were adamant that their son didn't do this.

But I saw his face. I saw him. I knew what he was capable of.

There was speculation that he had gone to Mexico, other rumors that he had gone

to Europe.

But really, no clue.

I knew that we had not heard the last of him. I knew he would resurface and it

would not be good.

At that point, my senior sergeant, Audrey Fletcher, said, look, this guy's

to wind up killing somebody.

There's no doubt about it. So we've got to get him into the FBI most wanted.

And initially they said, no, we're not going to do it.

She was like a pit bull. She just wouldn't quit. And I think she just wore

FBI agent down to the point where he says, okay, okay, we'll do it.

I wanted to go to the hospital and check up on her.

The doctor said to me, had you not taken that bar off her neck, she probably

wouldn't be alive because you opened up her airway.

It struck me profoundly.

It took months for Tali Shapiro to recover, but eventually she did get to

home. And while she didn't remember most of what happened to her, what she did

remember was chilling.

Rodney Acala asked me if I wanted to ride to school.

He kept trying to engage me in conversation, and I kept trying to walk

go on my way.

I really didn't want to talk to him.

When he said he was friends with my parents, that he knew my parents, I

reluctantly got in.

I just took it like, well, it could be, you know. I mean, I wasn't going to be

rude to the guy.

But as soon as he suggested we go see a poster at his house, I really didn't

feel comfortable at that point.

I don't even remember getting out of the car or going up to the apartment. Not

at all.

Nothing.

I have detached myself, you know. It's just like, obviously it's something that

happened to me, but it's almost like third person.

It was not an impulsive act. It's not like you just saw an eight -year -old

walking down the street and said, oh, I think I'm going to pull up and see if I

can get her into the car and take her home.

He had been thinking about that for years.

Rodney Alcala is the main suspect in the rape and abduction of eight -year -old

Tally Shapiro.

Rodney escaped and he's on the run, so police are interviewing family and

friends, trying to build a profile of who this perpetrator is and what may

triggered such a monstrous act.

Rodney Alcala was born in San Antonio, Texas, August 23, 1943.

He lived with his parents and his maternal grandmother. He had three

an older brother and sister.

and then a younger sister.

Overall, he was a good student. He seemed to be smarter than average.

He went to Catholic school and had a pretty standard middle -class

And his father eventually abandoned the family.

When Alcala was about 11 years old, his mother moved the family to the Los

Angeles area.

Rodney went to high school. He graduated.

Very good marks.

popular student, one of the most popular students amongst the girls. And after

that, he decided he was going to join the military.

And so he applied at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and that's where he headed.

Two years after Alcala joins the Army, 1963, and he goes AWOL.

He disappears.

and he shows up at his mother's house.

She was totally shocked, and she talked him into turning himself in.

An army psychologist evaluated Alcala and decided that he needed to be

hospitalized, that he was suffering from some type of a nervous breakdown before

he left Fort Bragg and is suffering from an antisocial personality disorder.

Because of that, He's discharged from the Army.

After Rodney was discharged, he returned back to his home and lived with his

mother.

He went back to school at the behest of his mother. He enrolled at the

University of California, Los Angeles, and he graduated from the College of

Arts.

Rodney O 'Connell's background is fairly...

Unremarkable. He grew up in a middle -class family. There's no history of any

sexual abuse or any physical abuse that we're aware of. He self -reported some

experimental and periodic drug use. He has a reported genius IQ.

So he has an unremarkable, in that sense, background until...

You get to the point where he started his acts of violence.

And then, of course, it becomes extraordinarily remarkable.

Alcala, who's now on the run after what he did to little eight -year -old Talia

Shapiro, has made it to New York City, where he's now going by the name John

Berger.

He reinvented himself, was able to get ID because you didn't need a picture.

once you got some sort of government ID, you were able to get photo ID.

So he got ID with that name, driver's license, work ID, library card, and

was able to get an apartment, lease an apartment. In that name is John Berger

also.

He's living in Greenwich Village, that kind of 60s, hippie, laid -back,

lifestyle. He makes friends.

He charms people, and he even enrolled in NYU's film school.

Alcala was believed to go everywhere with one of his cameras and tell people

that he was a photographer.

He was enjoying the freedom of the late 60s in New York City.

That's what he did.

Walking around.

and saying, hey, I'm John Berger. Want to take a picture?

And once he fell into that groove, then that's who he was.

Rodney Alcala was a very talented photographer.

He had a camera every place, and I think he used the camera to get close to

people.

Everything with him was the camera and his smooth talk.

He is a trauma. With women, he probably just kept cajoling them,

taking pictures, you know, while they're saying, no, no, no, you know, no, I

don't want to do it, and he just kept doing it.

He had the confidence he could go up and talk to these ladies.

He had a funny side to him where he could get them to laugh and relax and be

around them.

There was a connection he made with people almost instantly.

You could call him the perfect predator in the sense that he was so far ahead of

his prey.

In other words, an 8 -year -old, he would react as he needed to to control

-year -old. A 28 -year -old, same thing.

So he was constantly bouncing at that ability to perceive his victim and to

control the victim is what made him so dangerous.

Rodney Alcala went to New York City and was...

acting in a way of complete supreme confidence and fearlessness, which is

aligned with his psychopathy.

He's confident he's not going to get caught.

He's arrogant enough to think that he's smarter than law enforcement.

And it's very high risk, but he doesn't see it as high risk. He sees it as just,

I'm starting my life here. I'm going to have a good time. There are more

potential victims here in New York.

And life goes on.

Rodney Alcala is on the run from police.

He's fled Los Angeles for New York City and has a new identity.

He is now calling himself John Berger.

He gets into NYU film school and becomes an aspiring photographer.

No one in New York knows about his dark past, but Alcala is about to act on his

evil urges again.

Rodney the Predator.

And what that means is he walks around and, you know, he meets people. He meets

far more people than he ever kills.

Cornelia Crilley was a TWA flight attendant.

She was beautiful, smart, very popular amongst her friends, and she had just

moved into a brand -new apartment on 83rd in Manhattan.

Neighbors in the building reportedly saw Cornelia moving furniture and boxes

into an apartment on the second floor.

She was moving in that day, so chances are that Cornelia was out on the

and maybe had been walking along, moving things. He had spotted her and just

initiated a conversation with her.

Something that we've seen with other serial killers, like Ted Bundy.

Where they say, can I help you move that mattress into your apartment? Do you

need someone to help you with the other side of the sofa?

Cornelia was excited to show her boyfriend her new apartment later that

However, when he called her, when he showed up, there was no answer.

Her boyfriend finally called the police and when they came, there was no forced

entry and no forced exit.

A young officer came in through a bedroom window and

found her gagged and she'd been sexually

assaulted.

She was terribly brutalized and she was found on the floor and she had

suffered from severe blunt force trauma.

One of the injuries on Cornelia was a bite mark on her breast.

When we look for signature behaviors in a homicide, these are behaviors

offenders engage in because that's what motivates them to commit the crime.

And we look for the continuation of those same signature behaviors as they

forward with more victims.

What they were able to do on the bite mark on her breast is they took a swab

that. And back in 1971, the only thing they could do was ABO typing.

And they found that the person who had left that saliva on the bite mark had

type A blood.

When she was found by the patrolman at the time, she was found naked on the

floor.

And under her body.

is an envelope with a fingerprint that would prove crucial down the line.

At the time, the fingerprint system was different.

There was no DNA.

Whatever fingerprints were recovered had to be done by hand and by eye. There

were no computers to run it through.

And unfortunately for them, he had no criminal record in New York that we

compare to.

The investigation was a big challenge for the New York police.

In the 70s, there was a lot of killings going on.

They didn't have the forensic skills that we have today. They didn't have the

investigation tools that they do now.

The detectives did a tremendous amount of work. The case went cold.

In the summer of 1971, Alcala, he's still going by John Berger at this

though, leaves New York City and heads up to George's Mills, New Hampshire, on

the shores of Lake Sunapee, where he works as a camp counselor teaching

photography.

He had been spending his summers working there while still enrolled at NYU.

He was actually working at a teenage girls' camp, and I had some information

about he was dating the owner of the camps.

Teenage daughter?

Ronnie purposely put himself in an environment where he could be around

girls. That was not an accident.

A couple of teenage girls on a rainy New Hampshire day stop in the post office

near their summer camp.

While there, they were looking at the board and came across the FBI most

list.

And as they looked at the pictures, one of them looked strikingly like one of

their favorite camp counselors, Mr. Berger.

But no, it couldn't be him, they thought, because he was just the nicest

They report it. FBI goes out, grabs him up, snatches him up, arrests him, makes

him on fingerprints, of course, as Alcala.

And I get that telephone call from back east saying, hey, we've got your guy in

custody. Come and get him.

We pick him up from a detention facility.

We drive him to the airport.

My partner was sitting in the window seat.

Alcala's in the middle, and I'm on the aisle. And we're flying back.

He seems charming, relaxed, doesn't seem to have many worries, despite the fact

that he's looking at 20, 30 years in prison.

One of the things that I did sense in him was that he was quite intelligent,

I could almost see him thinking almost like a chess game, thinking two or three

moves ahead of us in anticipation.

You could see it in his eyes. You could see him thinking, how should I react to

these guys?

What did he say? Did he admit to the crime? His response is basically, well,

doesn't want to talk about it.

I said, he? Who are you talking about?

He says, well, Alcala.

I said, he's John Berger and Rodney Alcala is somebody else.

Rodney Alcala has now been caught and charged with the abduction, rape, and

attempted murder of 8 -year -old Tyler Shapiro.

I wasn't concerned about... The prosecution on this, it's what you call

dunk. You've got the witness identification.

You've got his personal property and stuff all there. His identification.

You've got the Good Samaritan citizen who can identify him. So really, it was

slam dunk. There was no question about it.

But things don't go as planned.

And that's mainly because Tally Shapiro's family had moved to Mexico and

were not about to bring her back to Los Angeles to re -traumatize her.

and have her testify in a trial.

So prosecutors decide to offer him a plea deal for child molestation.

He took the deal, but the judge's sentence stunned those who were working

case.

He gave Alcala one year to life in prison.

At the time, the sentencing scheme was an indeterminate sentence.

of one year to life. That meant that he could be kept in prison for life or he

could be released any time after serving the first year in prison.

It was up to the parole board to decide how long Alcala would actually serve in

prison.

We got him off the streets and there'll be no more problems.

That was kind of how I was looking at it.

I would be proved wrong.

Alcala is sentenced to indeterminate sentence of one to 99 years.

So basically, the sentence is actually determined on the severity of the crime.

That meant that he could be kept in prison for life or he could be released

time after serving the first year in prison.

It left it up to the parole board to decide how long Alcala would eventually

serve in this case.

My impression of what is going on with Rodney once he was in prison is that he

became a model prisoner by design, purposely, so he could get out as soon

possible. And by being a model prisoner, you go to counseling, and you can

pretend like you're doing really well, and you're really benefiting from the

counseling that takes place in prison.

You're manipulating everybody that you have contact with and doing it quite

effectively.

He was evaluated by a psychologist in prison who determined that he no

longer presented a risk to women or children and was released in less than

years.

There was an emphasis in those years on rehabilitation.

And I think that because he was as smooth and slick as he was, I think he

his mental magic on the psychologist, and that recommendation came out. He's

well now. He's cured.

He can go back into society.

How come just because I wasn't there to be in the court when a call was finally

captured, why did he only get such little time? Because I wasn't physically

there.

He did what he did to me.

There's no question about it. Why did I have to be dragged into it?

for him to get a longer sentence.

He should have been put away for life.

Kidnapping, crimes against a child, attempted murder, fleeing the

I was just stunned.

I'm absolutely sure that he went to school off the Talley Shapiro crime.

In other words, the next time I ain't leaving my victim alive.

Two months.

After Ocala has been paroled, he's arrested again.

He picked up a 13 -year -old girl in Huntington Beach on Beach Boulevard and

offered her a ride to school.

Convinced her that it was, I'll just give you a ride to school, get in the

And of course, when they passed her school, she knew something was wrong.

He ends up holding onto her and taking her into the bluff above Huntington

Beach. He's trying to ply her with marijuana.

She's very afraid. She does not want to be there.

when the two were discovered by the park ranger.

He ended up getting charged with supplying a minor with drugs, the

and, of course, breaching his parole.

So he was put back in prison.

And somehow, even though he's a convicted child molester, they just pin

a parole violation, and that's the end of it.

He told his parole agent he wanted to visit his brother in New York. His

was a colonel at West Point, an instructor.

So he gave her an itinerary, said, this is my plan, this is where I expect to

be. The parole agent agreed, said, okay.

So despite being a violent sex offender, despite being a known flight risk,

Alcala's parole officer agrees to allow him to travel to New York City.

1977 was just really a terrible, terrible year in New York City.

Son of Sam's year and a half reign of terror put fear in the hearts of New

Yorkers. Nobody, not even police, knew anything about him. Son of Sam was

running around causing all kinds of chaos.

and fear in lovers' lanes.

And the police department was just stretched in, and they had the blackout.

was a night of terror that lasted for 25 hours.

What happened to this blinded city? How did it happen? And most important, what

can be done to prevent it from happening again?

23 -year -old Ellen Hover was living in Manhattan.

She was living near the Empire State Building.

Ellen was just the sweetest girl. I kind of appointed myself as her big sister,

even though I was her cousin.

Just so wonderful and loving and giving and talented.

She wanted to become a doctor. She was a biology major, moved to New York.

She was very musical. There was a great sweetness and generosity to her.

Ellen Hoover's father was the owner of the popular Hollywood club Cirrus.

Her godfathers were Sammy Davis Jr.

and Dean Martin.

Ellen Hover ran across Rodney Alcala sometime in July of 1977.

She had a date with him the day after the big blackout.

Rodney Alcala came to her building. A neighbor saw him and directed him to Ms.

Hover's apartment.

When her parents didn't get her nightly call, they began to get suspicious.

And the next day, they called the police to do a welfare check.

Nothing seemed out of sort.

She wasn't there. Nothing was missing. However, her calendar was open. And on

July 15th, written right there,

John Berger, photographer.

Six years earlier... Alcala had been arrested using the exact same alias,

Berger.

The NYPD investigated the name but didn't make the connection to Alcala at

time.

My mother called me and said she did not come home.

And then it was all over the papers.

It's now the summer of 1977, and in New York City, 23 -year -old Ellen Hover is

missing.

When Ellen Hover went missing, there were so many police that were assigned

Son of Sam, over 200 officers.

So her missing report was not really on the top of their priority list.

Remember, 1977, missing persons cases weren't.

done the way they are done now, and especially for an adult.

Being an adult, we're not going to start blowing whistles and ringing bells for

someone who could just walk away anytime they want.

As the New York Police Department worked to try to figure out what had happened

to Ellen Hover, her family's high -profile status made it front -page

They called her heiress, you know, was missing.

It was right after the son of Sam was right after the blackout. It was a very

dark summer.

Darkness in the city.

You do what you do as a detective.

You hit the ground.

You reach out to as many people that you can reach out to.

Her father decided to put up a $100 ,000 reward to find her.

And at the same time, he hired a private investigator.

There was a concerted effort to get her disappearance on the minds of everyone

who may have known anything about it.

There were posters put up throughout the city.

The reward was offered, and so then you have to deal with the tips that come in.

It's just a tough thing, a missing person, especially when you don't see

crime having been committed.

There were a lot of people.

connected to her, and they hired private detectives to no avail. She just

vanished.

After his trip to New York City, Alcala took a meandering road trip back to Los

Angeles.

Rodney Alcala is a dangerous predator, and he was purposely moving around Los

Angeles.

New York and places in between looking for people to target, specifically

looking for women that he can approach, he can talk to,

can take pictures of them, and then maybe decide that that one will become

victim.

Jill Barkham was a young 18 -year -old girl.

who left on an adventure from New York to come to the West Coast and just to be

able to explore California.

My sister Jill was a very beautiful person.

Growing up, she was always there for me. She was a middle child. I have 11 kids.

I'm number six. She's number five.

She was very loving and nurturing for everybody.

She was a candy striper and was considering nursing.

Los Angeles was the place to go to if you were young.

It was just a wild and crazy time for young people.

I called home, and I could hear crying in the background on the phone. One of

younger siblings had answered the phone and said, Bruce, you need to come home.

You need to come home.

Jill Barkham was discovered on Franklin Canyon Drive, south of Mulholland.

Her body had been posed in the middle of a dirt road.

I came through the house that Friday night, and my mother came up to me

and put her arms around me and told me, your sister's dead. And I was in shock.

I go, what sister? Who?

She had been strangled and bludgeoned to death and then posed in a kneeling

position, semi -nude, with some of the clothing draped over her and blood all

over. There was also a bloody rock, a large pointed bloody rock.

We believe how brutally she was beaten that she must have fought back terribly

against him. And she had had her breath bitten as well.

I had no idea who had murdered Jill. I just knew that the carnage visited upon

her was brutal.

Rodney Alcala liked to strangle people to the point of unconsciousness.

then allow them to come back to life, to watch life go out of the person, and

then to strangle them again over and over. And that level of strangulation in

and out of consciousness is the monster in Rodney Alcala of showing those

victims, demeaning them to the point of, I hold your life in my hand and I can

give it and I can take it away.

Your body.

was flown from Los Angeles and landed in Syracuse, New York. And I had my first

night terror that night. I woke up in hot sweats, tears filling down my face.

And my sister Jill, in my dreams, very damaged brutally, telling me it's okay,

I'm okay.

Originally, investigators thought that Jill Barkholm could have been killed by

the hillside strangler because there were some similarities.

to how they found her body and that of other victims, mainly that the fact that

she was dumped in the hills of Los Angeles.

There was no jewelry found on her at all. Detectives thought there could be a

possibility that whoever was doing the killing maybe took her jewelry as some

sort of trophy or memorial of the killings.

Back in the 70s, we weren't as technologically advanced as we are

wasn't even considered.

Best we could do was ABO blood typing. They did, at the coroner's office,

collect the sexual assault kit.

Somebody with some foresight believed that we were going to be able to do

something in the future.

Her murder was pretty quickly dismissed after investigation that she was likely

not one of the Hillside Stranglers' victims.

But at that point, they had no idea who was responsible.

Jill's funeral was attended by all my family members, relatives, Central New

York, Northern New York, friends. I remember my Boy Scout troop coming to

She was loved.

Alcala was a predator. He went out in search of victims.

Guys like him, they elevate.

It keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

And killing becomes a necessity.

It's cooling off, period.

has now become six days. Not months, not weeks, but days.

He had a record. He had been on parole.

He had a terrible history.

But yet, they allowed him on the game show. The best time is at night.

Nighttime is when it really gets good.

I think he thought it was an opportunity, thinking like a predator,

could meet another woman.

And the more the applause goes, the more everyone just oohs and aahs like, oh,

isn't he clever? Isn't he just amazing? She better pick him.

This feeds his psychopathy.

Will that date be bachelor number one, bachelor number two, or bachelor number

three? Who gets the date?

Psychotic serial killer Rodney Alcala has been released from jail on the

that he is reformed.

He is back on the West Coast where the killing continues.

Then, in a stunning twist, he is booked as an eligible bachelor on the dating

game. Will his charm work to win him a date with the unsuspecting bachelorette?

In part two of The Dating Game Killer.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg. Thanks for watching. Good night.

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