Dating Game Serial Killer Rodney Alcala

'Dating Game Killer' Case Goes to Jury
Accused Serial Killer Rodney Alcala Shows Video of Himself on Game Show as Part of Defense

By MIKE von FREMD and BONNIE McLEAN
Feb. 24, 2010

The year is 1978, and the syndicated show "The Dating Game" is a household hit from coast to coast. A bachelor on one episode stands out for his looks and charm as he answers questions posed by a bachelorette in search of a date.

A former "Dating Game" contestant could be one of history's worst serial killers"Bachelor No. 1, what's your best time?" she asks.

"The best time is at night, nighttime," says the bachelor, whose name is Rodney Alcala.

"Why do you say that?" she asks.

"Because that's the only time there is."

What's wrong with morning or afternoon?"

"Well, they're OK, but nighttime is when it really gets good. Then you're really ready."

The bachelorette seems intrigued by 35-year-old Alcala. The audience also seems to think he's handsome and charming. In the end, Alcala wins the date.

But what the bachelorette doesn't know is that the man she just picked may turn out to be one of the most brutal and terrifying serial killers in history.

Watch the full story Thursday on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m. ET.

Related
Zodiac Murders Continue to HauntWATCH: Amateurs Chase the Zodiac KillerSuspected Killer Uses 'Dating Game' Defense"This could easily be another Ted Bundy," said Steve Hodel, a retired detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. "It could be 20, 30 victims." Now, 66-year-old Rodney Alcala is charged with murdering four California women and one girl in the late 1970s. Arguments in his multiple murder trial, in which he is representing himself, closed today. The case, at Orange County Criminal Courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., is now in the hands of the jury.

Some investigators believe the five killings are just the tip of the iceberg.

"He's right up somewhere just below Hitler and right around Ted Bundy," said Det. Cliff Shepard, an LAPD cold case investigator. "There is no rhyme or reason for what he is doing. I mean it is not humane, whatever he does to these victims. It is a torturous, terrible murder."

By many accounts, Alcala was a man with a bright future. He had a Fine Arts degree from the University of California-Los Angeles, studied film at New York University and had worked for director Roman Polanski.

"I talked to his professor at UCLA and his professor came out and said this guy is a top honor student," said Hodel. "He is really a nice guy. He wouldn't hurt a fly. You've got the wrong man. ... I got this very smart, very polished guy and ... the acts he committed, you've got this monster inside of him."

Investigators said the slayings happened between late 1977 and mid-1979.

One of the alleged victims, Jill Barcomb, was a free spirit. In 1977, when she was just 18, she traveled from her home in Oneida, N.Y., out to California with friends. She was in Hollywood for only a few weeks when she met Alcala.


'He Gets Off on the Infliction of Pain'
Shepard took ABC News to the site where Barcomb's body was found.

Rodney James Alcala, right, was twice previously convicted of the 1979 killing of a 12-year-old...
Rodney James Alcala, right, was twice previously convicted of the 1979 killing of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, Robin Samsoe, left, but the convictions were overturned on procedural grounds. He has been convicted once again of the killing and four others.
(newscom.com/AP Photo)"Jill's found right here," said Shepard, "around Franklin Canyon Drive, Nov. 10, 1977."

It isn't clear how Alcala allegedly picked up Barcomb, but police say the ending is certain.

"What he was doing was choking her out unconscious, bare-handed, and allowing her to regain consciousness because he enjoys that," said prosecutor Matt Murphy at Alcala's trial. "He gets off on the infliction of pain on other people."

Only one month later, prosecutors said, Alcala spotted beautiful 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, who had just recently moved into her first apartment.

"He followed her home. He crawled in her window and he absolutely brutalized her," said Murphy.

Wixted was found dead Dec. 16, 1977.

"He committed unspeakable acts of horror upon that beautiful young woman," said Murphy.

Police say Alcala likely spotted beautiful Charlotte Lamb in a local bar and tried to approach her.

"Before Rodney Alcala, just like the others, a beautiful young woman," said Murphy. "After Rodney Alcala she's a brutalized, ripped-up corpse."

Lamb was discovered in the laundry room of her building.

"He posed her dead body," said Murphy. "He propped her arms up under her back, probably to arch her up so that her breasts would be better exposed."

One year later, Alcala was spotted dancing at a bar with an attractive 21-year-old named Jill Parenteau. Just a few days later, Parenteau was found dead, her tortured body posed in almost the exact same fashion as Wixted and Lamb.

"Living alone, another independent person," said Shepard. "That was just another brutal, brutal murder."

Just six days after Parenteau's body was found, Alcala met his youngest victim, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. The girl was riding her bicycle to her very first ballet class when Alcala allegedly convinced her to get in his car. Her body was found 12 days later.

"Robin was in the innocent child stage of 12," said Murphy. "All she cared about was ballet. ... He turned this beautiful young girl into a rotting corpse, eaten by animals."



Alcala has been twice convicted for the murder of Robin Samsoe, but both times the verdicts were overturned.

"I wish I had a gun again today," the girl's mother, Marianne Connely, told ABC News.

Connely was in court, once again facing her daughter's accused killer. During the first trial, in the days before metal detectors, she says she carried a pistol in her pocketbook when she took the stand, with the intent of making her own justice.

"He was blowing kisses at me across the courtroom, and I thought I was going to lose my mind," Connely said. "And I thought I was going to go crazy, you know. And I reached into my purse and I was going to grab it, you know, and I thought, 'I can't do this.'"

Police say Alcala has spent more than 30 years obsessing about the murder of Robin. He has even written a book proclaiming his innocence.

Robin's brother Tim Samsoe, 44, said the worst thing is watching Alcala perk up in court every time he get the chance to see old photographs of his alleged victims.

"You see the gleam in his eye," said Samsoe. "He's enjoying this again."



http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/dating-game-serial-killer-rodney-alcala-murder-trial/story?id=9924537&page=2

Robin Samsoe was murdered 23 years ago, allegedly, by Rodney James Alcala. He claims he never met her....

Man Stalked, Killed 5 Calif. Victims
Accused serial killer stalked Calif. women like prey, took earrings as trophies

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer
SANTA ANA, Calif. February 22, 2010 (AP)

A man accused of five serial slayings in the late 1970s stalked women like prey, kept binoculars in his car and took earrings as trophies from some of his victims after they died, a prosecutor said Monday.

"You're talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it," Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy said about Rodney James Alcala during closing arguments at his trial.

"I don't think in your lifetime you will ever see cases with more brutality, and there is ample evidence that all of these women put up some resistance and they were punished for it."

Alcala, 66, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of first-degree murder in the killings of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and four Los Angeles County women between 1977 and 1979. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9906179

I just happened to look at Nancy Grace tonight,for about 5/10 minutes, and saw this creep...I couldn't believe my eyes...It showed a bit from when he was on Dating Game, and another of the male contestants said he was odd to say the least...

I had no idea N Grace was covering this..

NG will cover anything that might make her numbers go up.

Here is the psycho's appearance on The Dating Game.

Thanks J4A, I was going "a hunting" for that!

Rodney Alcala Sentenced To Death

GILLIAN FLACCUS
3/9/10 9:45 PM

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Relatives of four women and a 12-year-old girl who were brutally slain in the late 1970s exploded in applause Tuesday as the jury recommended death for Rodney Alcala, a convicted serial killer whose bizarre defense strategy included lyrics from an Arlo Guthrie song and showing an episode of "The Dating Game."

Jurors took just an hour to return the death recommendation after a six-week trial in which the 66-year-old Alcala – who was representing himself – grilled the mother of one of his victims, cross-examined police investigators and answered his own questions while taking the stand in his own defense.

Alcala has been sentenced to death twice before in the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, but those verdicts were overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors refiled charges in that case and added the four other murders in 2006 after investigators linked them to Alcala using DNA samples and other forensic evidence. Those cases, which had gone unsolved for decades, went on trial for the first time this year.

Alcala, an amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, focused his entire defense on the Samsoe case and ignored the murders of the four Los Angeles County women murdered between 1977 and 1979.

Samsoe's surviving siblings, now in their mid-40s, thanked the jury and said they were glad to see the other families get closure after years of not knowing who had killed their loved ones.

"Thirty-six people now have convicted him of death and that's a great feeling knowing that Robin did not die for nothing. We took a monster off the street, we've got closure for other families who didn't have it," said Robin's older brother, 44-year-old Robert Samsoe. "This is a joyous occasion."

Alcala gave his own closing arguments earlier Tuesday, telling jurors that a death recommendation would make them "de facto killers" and "wannabe killers in waiting."

He then played a piece of Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant," in which the narrator tries to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War by trying to convince a psychiatrist that he's unfit for the military because of his supposed extreme desire to kill.

"I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth," the song's narrator sings. "Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean: kill, kill, kill, kill."

Robert Samsoe stalked out of court as the song was played.

Juror Greg Lacey said the lyrics had a chilling effect on the panel – but not the one Alcala had hoped for.

"It didn't make sense to us. We're sitting there doing our duty, we're not out there stalking someone," Lacey said, adding that the gruesome evidence in the case gave him many sleepless nights.

Choosing the death penalty "was something we had to do as part of a civilized society," he said.

Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach was kidnapped while riding a bicycle to ballet class on June 20, 1979. Her body was found 12 days later in the Angeles National Forest, where it had been mutilated by wild animals.

Alcala was arrested a month after Samsoe's disappearance when his parole agent recognized him from a police sketch and called authorities. Alcala has been in custody ever since.

He was first tried in Samsoe's murder in 1980. Prosecutors added the murders of the four women in 2006 after investigators discovered forensic evidence linking him to those crimes, including DNA found on three of the women, a bloody handprint and marker testing done on blood Alcala left on a towel in the fourth victim's home.

The jury convicted Alcala of the murders on Feb. 25, and also found true special-circumstance allegations of rape, torture and kidnapping, making him eligible for the death penalty.

A defense psychiatrist testified during the trial penalty phase last week that Alcala suffers from a borderline personality disorder that could lead to psychotic episodes. Alcala has claimed he doesn't remember some of his actions.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy called the defense psychiatrist's diagnosis "garbage" and argued that Alcala was a remorseless predator who enjoyed killing and kept earrings and other trophies of his victims.

After the verdict Tuesday, Murphy said conceded that Alcala was smart but working with him professionally as his own defense attorney was emotionally taxing.

"It was interesting, but you feel like you've got to take a shower at the end of each day," Murphy said.

During the guilt phase of trial, Alcala's defense took a surreal turn when he played a seconds-long clip of himself on a 1978 episode of "The Dating Game."

He said the grainy clip proved that he was wearing a gold-ball earring almost a year before Samsoe was killed.

Prosecutors said the earring, found in a small pouch with other earrings in a storage locker Alcala had rented, belong to Samsoe and that Alcala had taken it as a trophy. They also found the DNA of another Alcala's victims on a rose-shaped earring in the same pouch.

In addition to Samsoe, Alcala is charged with killing Jill Barcomb, 18, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Oneida, N.Y.; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/rodney-alcala-sentenced-t_n_492500.html

Piper wrote:Thanks J4A, I was going "a hunting" for that!

You are welcome Piper. I found the video with one of the articles when I was searching for more info on this case.

Did NG mention this info?

He had already raped an 8 year old before he appeared on the show..


"He was creepy. Definitely creepy," fellow contestant Jed Mills, who sat next to Alcala on the show, told CNN.

Alcala already had been convicted for the 1968 rape of an 8-year-old girl, according to CNN, but that didn't stop him from making an impression on the female participant, Cheryl Bradshaw.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_serial_killer_rodney_alcala_won_the_dating_game_just_before_murder_spree.html

Are There More Rodney Alcala Victims? Police Reach Out to Public with Hundreds of Photos

March 11, 2010 5:29 PM

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CBS/AP) Investigators are asking for the public's help in identifying any potential victims among hundreds of pictures of young women and men. The photos were apparently snapped by Rodney Alcala, who was recently convicted in the serial murders of four women and a 12-year-old girl.

PICTURES: Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?



(Credit: Huntington Beach Police Dept.)

Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified, and officials worry that they might have uncovered a trophy case of additional victims of Alcala.

"We'd like to locate the women in these pictures," prosecutor Matt Murphy told the Orange County Register. "Did they simply pose for a serial killer, or did they become victims of his sadistic, murderous pattern?"

Hundreds of photos recovered during court-authorized searches of Alcala's Monterey Park home and a storage locker were released Wednesday.

Police say some of the photos show women and young girls in the nude and engaging in sex acts.

Prosecutors said Alcala, the 66-year-old amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, used his camera as a way to convince victims to trust him.

A jury on Tuesday recommended a death sentence for Alcala for five murders he committed in the seventies. Jurors took just an hour to return the death recommendation after a six-week trial in which Alcala represented himself and took the stand in his own defense.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000317-504083.html

Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?

A few of Rodney Alcala's photos are of young men in sexually suggestive poses. Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified. In his final argument during Alcala's 2010 murder trial, Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, called Alcala a "hunter" and "a predatory monster." Murphy later said he can't help but wonder if the people in the photographs are still alive. All of the photos were taken before 1979. If you can identify these people, please contact Huntington Beach police detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066 or email at pellis@hbpd.org.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10002762.html?tag=page

Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?

On March 10, 2010, Huntington Beach police released hundreds of photos taken by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala. The images were taken before Alcala was arrested in 1979 for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified and police are asking for the public's help in figuring out who they are. If you can identify these people, please contact Huntington Beach police detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066 or email at pellis@hbpd.org.

It's unnerving to look at these photos, wondering if they are his victims...there are so many young women and girls...

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10002762-25.html?tag=page

I'm afraid to look at the pictures...

May they all rest in peace.

Families report 3 missing women in killer's Seattle photo stash

By Carlene Johnson and KOMO News Staff
Story Updated: Mar 13, 2010 at 10:43 AM PST



Three of the women whose photos were found in a convicted serial killer's Seattle-area storage locker have been linked so far to missing person cases by family members, a police detective said late Friday.

Now detectives are trying to confirm family members' initial identifications of the women, and trying to determine where and how they disappeared.

It's still unclear whether any of the three are from the Seattle area. All three disappeared long ago and haven't been seen since.

The three women's photos were among 2,000 images of young women, children and a few boys found in a Shoreline storage locker rented decades ago by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala, 66, of California.

Most of the dozens of subjects in the photos have never been identified and now police are asking for the public's help in figuring out who the women are.

Police say there may be more potential victims beyond the three tentatively identified so far by family members.

The photos were recovered in July 1979 by detectives during searches of a storage locker in Shoreline that had been rented by Alcala. Also found was jewelry linked to two murder victims in California.

But police didn't release the photos publicly until Wednesday - the day after a California jury recommended a death sentence for Alcala for the murders of a 12-year-old girl and four women dating back to the 1970s.

The photos were apparently taken before Alcala's first arrest in 1979. They feature women and girls in candid and posed shots. Some show them naked and engaging in sex acts.

Prosecutors said Alcala, an amateur photographer, UCLA graduate and one-time contestant on "The Dating Game," used his camera to put his victims at ease.

"We'd like to locate the women in these pictures," prosecutor Matt Murphy told the Orange County Register. "Did they simply pose for a serial killer, or did they become victims of his sadistic, murderous pattern?"

Some photos show women posing in remote settings similar to the locale where 12-year-old Robin Samsoe's body was found in 1979. A few are of young men in sexually suggestive poses.

Police Detective Patrick Ellis of Huntington Beach, Calif., told KOMO News that the photos weren't released earlier due to the investigation and court proceedings.

Since their release on Wednesday, police have received dozens of calls from people who recognize the subjects in the photos.

"The calls are basically along two lines," Ellis said. "No. 1 - yes, that's my photograph - I am alive and well, and giving us details of Mr. Alcala way back when, 30 years ago.

"Or, the calls saying, 'Hey, my sister, mother ... was reported missing back then, and I think her photograph is on the Web site,' and they're providing us with information as far as the person's name, where they were last seen alive," Ellis added. "Some people aren't positive, but they're pretty sure."

Ellis said more investigation is needed before it can be confirmed whether the three women identified so far are victims of foul play.

"Until we talk to the victims' families, get other photographs for comparison purposes and more details on where their bodies were recovered - if they were recovered at all - we can't really say at this point," he said. "We just don't know."

Alcala was sentenced to death twice before in the 1979 murder of Robin Samsoe, but those verdicts were overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors refiled charges in that case and added the four other murders in 2006 after investigators linked them to Alcala using DNA samples and other forensic evidence. Those cases, which had gone unsolved for decades, went on trial for the first time this year.

Alcala, who acted as his own attorney, focused his entire defense on the Samsoe case and ignored the murders of the four Los Angeles County women murdered between 1977 and 1979.

The jury convicted Alcala of the murders on Feb. 25, and also found true special-circumstance allegations of rape, torture and kidnapping, making him eligible for the death penalty.

On Tuesday, jurors recommended the death penalty for Alcala. It marked the third time he was sentenced to death in the Samsoe case.

Relatives broke out in applause in the courtroom and Samsoe's brother shouted out, "Yes!" when the jury's recommendation was read.

Prosecutors relied on witnesses who saw a curly-haired photographer taking pictures of Samsoe, her friend and other teenagers on the beach minutes before she disappeared. Photos of one of the girls were later found in his possession.

Also key to the trial was a pair of gold ball earrings that Samsoe's mother said belonged to her daughter.

The earrings were found in a jewelry pouch in the Shoreline storage locker rented by Alcala.

---

You can see all of the photos on the Orange County Register Web site

Anyone with information about the women in the pictures is asked to call Huntington Beach Police Detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/87586647.html

Oh no, I was so afraid of this............

Me too Piper. It's painful to think about how many more victims Alcala may have.

As I was going through the photo album, looking in their eyes...some of them seemed to have such a sorrowful look in their eyes, or maybe they were high/drugged? And it appeared many were not dressed, at least no shirt. I would go as far to say the pictures we are seeing are tame to what really may be on there, what do you think? I would assume if you have topless photos, he also went a little further.

I think the pictures we are seeing are tame. One of the articles above said "police say some of the photos show women and young girls in the nude and engaging in sex acts."