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He posed his victim?

She is posed on the floor.

with her arms behind her back displayed like a subject of a photo shoot.

And this is the killer's way of objectifying her as worthless.

It's for shock value on those who discover her, of course, but it's more

of what he thinks about his victims.

Welcome to Very Scary People. I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Serial killer Rodney Alcala was a charming monster.

His good looks and winning smile hid his true nature.

He was a psychopath.

He selected his victims carefully.

Beautiful, vulnerable young women and girls.

Even children were not safe.

An aspiring photographer, he sometimes posed his dead victims after torturing

and raping them. In a chilling testament to his charisma, Alcala was chosen to

be a contestant on the popular TV show The Dating Game, where he would compete

against other eligible bachelors for the affections of a pretty bachelorette.

Will he be the winner who gets to take her on a dream date?

This is part two of The Dating Game Killer.

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

Son of Sam was running around, and they had the blackout.

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

She had a date with Rodney Alcala the day after the big blackout.

When her parents didn't get her nightly call, they called the police to do a

welfare check.

She wasn't there.

However, her calendar was open, and on July 15th, written right there, John

Berger, photographer.

John Berger was an alias for Rodney Alcala.

The FBI did interview him in connection with Ellen Holver.

He said he had been on a date with her but brought her back, and that was all

knew. That was it. They had to drop it at that point.

They hired private detectives.

She just vanished.

Cornelia Crilly was a TWA flight attendant. She was quite beautiful,

popular amongst her friends.

She was murdered.

And under her body is an envelope with a fingerprint.

One of the injuries was a bite mark.

on her breast.

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.

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.

I knew that We had not heard the last of him.

Rodney Alcala has gone from New York across the United States back to L .A.

where he's comfortable when he finds his next victim.

Georgia Wickstead was a 27 -year -old nurse.

She had recently moved out of her house and gone on her own in Malibu.

She was supposed to pick up a friend on the way to work, and she never showed

up.

Law enforcement did a welfare check and found that there was evidence of forced

entry into her apartment.

A screen had been removed from her window and a box had been moved over so

somebody could step up.

Her apartment was in complete disarray. Blood everywhere on her bed, the walls,

the floor, the bedsheets.

She was completely naked.

She had been brutally assaulted.

Georgia was found in this posed position.

She was also strangled.

and had bite marks.

Posing is very rare in homicides. I think it's about one or two percent of

murders are posing, which is the worst of the worst, the most evil.

After two brutal murders just four weeks apart, Alcala doesn't strike again for

six months.

Charlotte Lamb was a legal secretary, very beautiful woman.

She lived in Santa Monica and called up some friends to go out to a bar. Her

friends were not able to go with her, but her car was parked in a location she

had intended on visiting.

32 -year -old Charlotte Lamb was discovered in the laundry room of a

apartment complex in El Segundo.

She was... found naked with her arms bent and propped up behind her back,

to protrude her chest area.

We believe for him taking his death pictures after the crime.

She didn't have her earrings, and she had gone to the club the night before

earrings in her ears, so they were removed and missing, presumably by the

who killed her.

Her body is found in a building where she has no contact.

Even people that resided in that building did not know Charlotte.

Rodney Alcala had to move her into that apartment.

It really goes to his sense of confidence and to the fact that that

-taking does not bother him whatsoever.

In fact, it probably makes the crime even that much more interesting and that

much more erotic for him.

My mother called and said the worst has happened.

This is Bill McCreary in North Tarrytown with a story about the discovery of the

body of a millionaire's daughter missing for the past 11 months.

Almost a year passed before Ellen Hover's body was discovered.

And it happened after detectives got a tip that Ronnie Alcala liked to watch

sunsets in the cliffs up by the Rockefeller Estate in Westchester.

Then they found her skeletal remains.

And it was through dental records that they were able to identify that it was

indeed Ellen Hover.

Police say they do have the identity of a possible suspect in this case. Right

now, the body of Ms. Hover is in the medical examiner's office up here, where

they're trying to determine if foul play was involved in her death.

Because the remains were all skeletalized, we didn't really have a

death. All we know is that because they were buried, it was homicidal.

People don't die and bury themselves.

It's just a horrible, random, tragic thing that happened.

What if she hadn't been where she was when she met him? What if it had been a

different day?

It was such a chance encounter.

And he pursued her and pushed for the date. And she was kind and sweet, and

agreed to go on it. What if that had not happened?

It was horrible and an incredible tragedy.

During the 1970s, there were so many serial killers.

Everyone was running around scared of serial killers.

There seemed to be an endless amount of them. Green River Killer and the

Hillside Strangler and Son of Sam.

There seemed to be no end.

To top it off, none of these were being resolved quickly. People just kept on

getting killed and it didn't seem to end.

In an age before internet, before the police were coordinated, before...

we could actually trace and track similar homicides and realize there was

serial killer in our midst.

Rodney Alcala capitalized on all of that.

Shortly after Charlotte Lamb's murder, Rodney Alcala was filmed as

a contestant on The Dating Game.

Around Hollywood, the dating capital of the world.

Yes. The dating game was back in the 70s, a

popular game show.

You had three single guys behind this partition, and the eligible bachelorette

would ask questions without seeing them. And after a series of questions, she

would decide which bachelor she would go out with.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

In 1978, on a Saturday afternoon, Rodney came in, you know, he was one of

several bachelors that came in to apply for the show. And the way that worked

was mostly by referral.

Somebody that would come in for the show would give us a sheet of other people

that they knew that were single that they thought might enjoy being on the

We really didn't vet people in those days. I don't think any television shows

any kind really did.

It was a different era.

And even if we wanted to, we wouldn't have the same kind of access.

I mean, we didn't have Google. So you couldn't just look someone up.

I do recall that he seemed strange to me. I picked up on something

about him that I absolutely didn't like. He was, I hate the word to use the word

spooky, but there was something devilishly spooky about the guy. And I

said. I'm not going to put him on the show.

Michael and I did not agree on this particular person. It was very rare to

disagree. And me and my assistant were like, uh, what?

No, no, you don't understand.

He was really smart and he went to UCLA and he was a photographer and he was

like so happening. He had the long black hair and he was attractive, very

attractive. And they said, you got to use him, you know.

So I did.

Well, let's see. Bachelor number one is a successful photographer who got his

start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13, fully

developed.

Between takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling. Please

Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

He's wearing this brown leisure suit. He has his hair feathered out and back.

He's a handsome man.

Number one.

Would you say hello to Cheryl, please?

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

And he comes in with the attitude that he's going to win this contest, and he

makes it very clear to the other two bachelors that are there with him. I

remember that he was very strange and obnoxious in posing and trying to be

smiley and friendly at the same time, not giving you a chance to speak when he

was speaking.

He convinced a lot of women that he was harmless and that he was approachable

and he had a beaming smile.

Bachelor number one.

Yes. What's your best time?

The best time is at night.

Nighttime is when it really gets good.

During that show, Rodney seemed to be the most playful and certainly the one

got on best with. Bachelor number one.

you for dinner oh what are you called and what do

you look like i'm called the banana and i look really good

can you be a little more descriptive peel me

the crowd is eating it up everyone's loving this banter back and forth

later bachelor one later

We know that the dating game of the 70s was very contrived, and the whole point

was to use a lot of sexual innuendo, tremendous over -the -top flirtation,

because that's what the crowd wanted.

And Alcala played the part perfectly.

Number one, would you say hello to Cheryl, please?

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

Alcala is a master manipulator, and he does this by role -playing. And by going

on the dating game, remember the cat and mouse that he does with the cops? He's

now doing it with the audience.

I'm a drama teacher, and I'm going to audition each of you for my private

Bachelor number one.

You're a dirty old man.

Take it.

Come on over here.

Rodney James Alcala is one of the most dangerous types of serial killers you

could come across in the sense that he's good looking. He's articulate,

charming, high IQ, intelligent, able to manipulate almost anybody about

anything. I'm called the banana, and I look really good.

And then the moment of truth.

Would he get picked for the date?

You've heard from the bachelors, you've got some great dramatic presentations,

some good answers, but now I'm going to ask you a question. Will that date be

bachelor number one, bachelor number two, or bachelor number three? Who gets

dates? Well, I like bananas.

So I'll take one. Number one. That's your number one. All right.

No one would ever dream that a serial killer is winning the girl on the

dating game. Say hello to Rodney Alcala.

Rodney, come on and say hello.

But during the commercial break, when they were together,

She got, as she said, very creepy vibes from him. She felt very uncomfortable.

She called me at the office, and she was like, Ellen, I can't go. I can't go out

with this guy. I mean, he is a creep. I'm not going. I can't. And I went,

God, no, don't go. I mean, you don't have to go.

And she was extremely relieved.

So she didn't go on the date.

I think it may have saved her life for sure.

My sense is Rodney would have been very, very angry that she would have the

nerve to reject him. And afterwards, he may have made the decision that he was

going to get back into following women, predating, and ultimately committing

more murders.

In February of 1979, Alcala picked up a 15 -year -old hitchhiker, Monique Hoyt.

He ended up taking her about 75 miles outside of Los Angeles and took her out

a wooded area.

He asked her to pose for some photographs.

She agreed.

As they were taking the photographs, he bashed her over the head

with a rock.

She woke up with her hands and feet bound.

He beat her. He sexually assaulted her, raped her, and strangled her.

She went unconscious, but eventually she woke up.

When she awoke, she was tied up, but she started talking to him.

apologizing to him, telling him, this is my fault. I'm sorry. I put you in this

position.

With that, he started talking to her more.

And Rodney Ocala broke down crying for some reason.

He took off the clothing that was binding her, and she asked that,

okay, can I go clean up?

She asked him if she could stop at a gas station to use.

the restroom.

And that is when Monique Hoyt saw her moment and she ran to safety and called

authorities.

Rodney is arrested.

He is charged with kidnapping and sexual assault.

And what's particularly interesting is that when he was arrested, he was only a

$10 ,000 bail signed to him.

And his mother paid that.

And so he was free and in the public while he was waiting his trial.

After Monique Hoyt, his cooling off period is four months before the murder

Jill Parenteau.

She was found naked, strangled, sexually assaulted.

Prior to her murder, she had actually been in a pub where she and a friend had

met up with Rodney Akala.

He definitely wanted Jill.

And so he's willing to take the extra risk of going to her home.

When you see an offender do that, that tells me as a profiler that that is the

victim that he wants. He's taking the extra risk to get that victim.

No other victim is going to satisfy him at that point.

Welcome back to Very Scary People.

Rodney Alcala has left a trail of dead bodies in New York and California and

successfully eluded the police.

But he is losing control.

It's not a matter of if he will kill again.

It's a matter of when.

In the late 70s, Huntington Beach is a surf capital.

Everybody allowed their kids to go to the beach. They could ride their

They could take the bus, ride their skateboards.

Robin Thamso was a 12 -year -old girl.

She was a typical young, precocious, preteen girl.

She loved to dance. She loved her friends.

She loved her brothers and sisters. She just loved life, as any 12 -year -old

should, without a care in the world.

On June 20, 1979, Robin and her friend Bridget went down to the beach in the

afternoon to play in the sand and have a cartwheel competition.

While at the beach, they were approached by a man with curly hair who had a

camera and wanted to take their pictures.

They were a little bit reluctant.

He was saying that he was a photographer and he wanted to take their photographs

and enter into a photo contest.

And if they won, he could get some money and he would be willing to share it.

He was taking their pictures and all of a sudden out of the blue, A neighbor

approached them to see if everything was okay.

When she approached, the photographer turned his face away from them and then

walked off in a quick fashion.

He approached two 12 -year -old girls.

Who does that? Just as creepy in 1979 as it would be today.

Shortly after that, Robin was supposed to be at her ballet class at 4 o 'clock,

so... Bridget suggested Robin take her bicycle to get to the ballet class

quicker, and then Robin left and went on her way.

A few hours later, the ballet studio called Robin's mother and said, why

she show up?

And, of course, then right away they knew there was something wrong and

the police.

Robin was missing.

Huntington Beach did an extraordinary job on the investigation.

They tracked down the people on the beach. They tracked down the woman who

seen this photographer approaching these two girls.

Her friend Bridget met with a sketch artist and had a composite drawn of the

person that she talked to.

That composite was put out and a parole officer called the Huntington Beach

Police Department.

and said that looked like a former parolee of his, Rodney Alcala.

At that time, detectives found out who Alcala was, obtained his photograph,

which bore a striking resemblance to the composite.

Shortly after, the investigator in the case goes home and is watching TV, and

the dating game episode from the summer before is now airing on his television.

Good luck, gentlemen.

Jim Lang from The Dating Game introduces bachelor number one. Please welcome

Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

The detectives immediately started calling the police department, trying to

a hold of the sergeants and supervisors to let them know that he had just seen

Rodney Alcala on TV.

And then the FBI called me, us, Chuck Beres Productions, and...

wanted to know all about him.

So they came to the office, and that's really when we found out what we were

even dealing with.

And we sat down with them and gave them a copy of the form that he had filled

out. The show was instrumental in having identified him to the police.

The best time is at night.

After that, the detective obtained a copy of the program, and that program

shown to Bridget.

And she positively identified Rodney Alcala as the one that was taking her

photograph. Nighttime is when it really gets good.

After getting him identified, they located him living at his mother's house

Monterey Park, California, and they began round -the -clock surveillance,

to find out his habits and patterns.

They started digging more and more, finding out about his background,

out about his conviction for kidnapping the 8 -year -old in Hollywood in 1968,

finding out about another girl he kidnapped in Huntington Beach in 1975.

They started developing more and more information on him.

They canvassed the neighborhood.

They find a business that was a bike shop that somebody left a bike that

to have been the bike that Robin borrowed.

They believe sold.

A lot of circumstantial stuff is being developed that's tying Rodney to Robin

Samson's kidnapping.

Twelve days after her disappearance, Robin's body is found up in the area of

Sierra Madre. There have been a lot of... animal activity and decomposition.

There wasn't much left. She was pretty skeletal. There was some hair.

It was to the point where they could only identify her through her dental

records.

On July 24, 1979, police show up to Alcala's mother's house to arrest

him in the death of Robin Samso.

He was arrested and taken to the Huntington Beach Police Department for

interview.

There's been a gross miscarriage of justice for being found guilty of

that I didn't do.

At Rodney's house, they find photographs, photographs of kids and

of dress.

But nothing that ties him to Robin Samsell's disappearance.

During the course of the search warrant...

One of the sergeants at the house saw a receipt for a storage locker out of King

County, Washington, in Alcala's name. The receipt wasn't on the search

so he didn't take it. However, he did write down all of the information on it

his notebook.

Later, at the Huntington Beach Police Department, during the course of his

interview, Alcala asked if he could speak with his sister, who was at the

department.

Detectives allowed them to converse with each other, them not knowing that it

was still being recorded and monitored.

Rodney said to his sister, at least they don't know about the storage locker, at

which time bells went off in the sergeant's head, and he pulled out his

and gave the information to the investigation team.

Then they discovered that Rodney drove to Seattle and rented that storage

locker a couple days after the murder.

The very next day, two detectives were on a plane to the state of Washington to

obtain a search warrant and go through that storage locker.

We conduct a search on the storage facility with the assistance of Seattle

recover many rolls of undeveloped film and many photographs of potential

victims that Rodney Mays targeted.

They found over a thousand pictures of young girls and boys that were in

explicit and sexually provocative poses and a lot of them were naked.

They found a few other items, including a pouch that had jewelry in it.

That jewelry included earrings, which became extremely important.

And remember, he had taken mostly earrings from his victims' bodies or

their jewelry boxes.

The jewelry seemed to be, if we could prove it, trophies that would remind

Rodney of a particular victim.

Robin Samso's mother was able to identify two gold ball earrings as

that were hers that little 12 -year -old Robin had borrowed from her mother and

was wearing the day she disappeared.

Trophies are often taken so that the offender can relive the homicide, relive

the sexual assault.

And it's a reminder to them what happened.

Just believe that if you want, but Rodney wanted to remember.

Those earrings were never recovered until they were recovered in that

locker in that pouch.

Those became very significant piece of evidence.

Nearly a year after Robin Samsoe was found murdered, Rodney Alcala went on

and Every seat in the courthouse was taken.

Two mothers in the gallery, one of whom is Rodney Alcala's mother, holding her

rosary beads.

The other mother is Marianne Frazier.

She's Robin's mother, and she's holding her handbag on her lap with her hand

inside, and that hand is clutching a gun.

She is ready to pull that gun out, point it at Rodney Alcala, and pull the

trigger. so that he can never do this to another child ever again.

At one point, she began to reach in her purse, and she felt Robin's hand touch

hers and could smell Robin's shampoo and knew that it wasn't right and that

Robin wouldn't want it.

The trial lasted two and a half months, and on April 30th, The

jury reached a decision.

They came with the verdict of guilty.

And in the penalty phase, they sentenced him to death.

I think that his strategy has been the classic witch hunt strategy, and I think

the case will be reversed on appeal.

Will Rodney Alcala ever be put to death in your estimation?

Not if I can have anything to do with it.

But shortly after that, that case was reversed on appeal.

In 1984, the California Supreme Court overturned the conviction in Alcala's

because they argued that the trial judge should not have allowed for the jury to

hear about his previous child rape and kidnapping convictions.

I just can't believe that we have to be punished for what he did.

He's got nothing to do but gain.

All we have to do is...

Be destroyed and be pulled down a little bit further. I don't know if we can,

really. They had to retry the case in front of a new jury. A new jury

him again and sentenced him to death again.

Rodney Alcala sat on death row for 23 years going through numerous appeals.

And again, his case was overturned on appeal for the second time.

This time it was because of evidence that the judge ruled.

Alcala should have been allowed to present.

Every time this happens, it's like losing Robin all over again, you know?

I don't know if you've ever lost a child, but there's nothing,

nothing that hurts like that, nothing.

Now, we had to come back after 30 years and...

Present the evidence anew for the third time in the Robin Samsoe case.

While Rodney Alcala was awaiting his third trial in the Robin Samsoe case,

forensic science began gaining on him.

Police in California and New York were looking into cold cases.

During the time that Alcala was active in the 1970s.

When we were looking at the Holman and Prilly homicides and we were going

through the boxes, John Berger's name popped up in there and we're like, who's

this guy? Why would they talk to him? And then we looked into him and we knew

his name was really Rodney Alcala.

What we had that was the most probative was the fingerprint for.

Miss Crilly's murder on that letter. We also had bite mark evidence from her

breast. Detectives actually visited Rodney Alcala in prison just so that

could obtain his dental impression for comparison.

The dentist, he was able to match up her bite marks to that imprint exactly.

We also had gotten a fingerprint card from them of his prints.

And a very good latent print examiner, a detective, told us, hey, that's your

guy, that's his print, that's on that envelope.

With Miss Hover, we really had no evidence other than what was in her

apartment. They knew that in her calendar, she had written down John

photographer.

At this point, they also now know that John Berger was Rodney Akala.

There were other people that were interviewed that put him in place, even

that put him with Ms. Hoover.

So we're just connecting the dots, connecting the dots.

While authorities in New York were building their case, the third trial for

Robin Samsoe's murder was ramping up in California, and prosecutors were about

to have their own breakthrough.

When Matt Murphy and I were preparing to try the Robin Samsoe case for the third

time, DNA technology caught up with Rodney Alcala's crimes.

Thanks to the DNA forensic technology advancements, Rodney Alcala was attached

to four other murders.

We started one by one analyzing each of those murder cases and showing that

Rodney Alcala's Semen was found inside the bodies of each of the L .A. victims

of Georgia Wickstead, Jill Barkham, and Charlotte Lamb.

Jill Parenteau, we had his connection to the basic serology blood, so we

believed that Rodney Alcala was a serial killer.

Rodney Alcala ended up being indicted and tried of all five murders at the

time.

I was able to attend the trial in Orange County, and Gina Satriano and Matt

Murphy were the district attorneys representing the victims.

Representing the defendant was Rodney Ocala.

They say

a lawyer

who represents himself has a fool for a client.

That's the way it went.

Rodney Alcala hardly cross -examined anybody with respect to the evidence in

L .A. case and ignored those victims as if they weren't even important.

He focused on the Robin Samso murder.

We felt very strong about the evidence in our case, being able to present the

jury with a full picture of Rodney Alcala's crimes.

He got her into his car, and he drove her up to those mountains.

And Rodney Alcala smashed her face in, and she was still alive.

He brutalized her.

In closing arguments, District Attorney Murphy painted a picture of a man with

no soul, and he asked the jury to do the right thing.

Robin Samson's day in court is today. You make sure that he is held

for what happened that day.

We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Rodney James

Alcala, guilty of murder in the first degree.

The jury found Alcala guilty of all five murders.

You know that those families in that moment have a piece of

justice that's handed to them after such a long wait of 30 years

for their loved ones.

In the penalty phase, the jury returned a verdict of death.

I have prayed about this, and I've given my hatred all to God, because

I've let this feeling consume me for 31 years,

and I'm not going to give him no more power over me.

If anybody deserves the death penalty,

Rodney Alcala is screaming for it.

The terror he's left behind.

He's destroyed families.

He should have gotten out before he did to me, much less the next person or the

next person.

That's the shame of it.

When he offered to plead guilty at 25 to life on both cases, we were thrilled.

And no matter what happened in California,

This plea would stand forever.

Shocking photos from a dating game killer's picture book. They were

in a storage facility he had. These are some of them. The question is, do they

point the way to more of his victims?

Shortly after the trial concluded, the Huntington Beach Police Department

released 110 photographs that were taken out of the thousands that Alcala had in

his storage locker.

They decided to release them.

because there was hope that family members might see somebody who had gone

missing and never seen again that might lead to more homicide cases.

Making those photos public is huge. If anyone can put something together and

have closure for a family, that would be amazing.

I come out on the other side of it, and I was blessed, but there were so many

other people suffering.

On the cold case squad.

We feel the dead person should not be forgotten.

Their family should not be forgotten.

I'm like, we got them, and you can rest now.

Lack of evidence allowed Alcala to elude prosecution on several cases, but

detectives refused to give up.

Finally, with the advances in DNA forensics, they got their man.

They're still closing cases.

In 2016, Rodney Alcala was charged with the 1977 murder of Christine Thornton.

She was one of the women identified in his photo collection.

He's also been named a suspect in unsolved murders in several states.

Investigators believe Alcala may have murdered more than 100 victims across

United States.

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.

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