The Dating Game Killer: Persuasion, Charm, and a Depraved Murderer at Large

Rodney Alcala, AKA The Dating Game Killer, was a depraved murderer who eluded authorities for years. He hid his true identity behind charm and persuasion. He worked as a summer camp counselor while on the lam for the savage assault of an eight-year-old girl. He convinced his parole officer to let him take a vacation to the other side of the country, where he proceeded to commit another of his many murders. While New Yorkers were watching their backs for the Son of Sam in the summer of ’77, he killed again. And at the height of his killing spree, he managed to star in one of the creepiest moments in Hollywood history as a contestant on a popular television game show.

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Speaker 1: What's up, guys at Zeth Wondi good doctor. Here at

Speaker 1: Double Elvison, co hosts of the Hollywood Lamp podcast, and

Speaker 1: welcome once again as we dive into our archive of

Speaker 1: stories that take place at the intersection of Hollywood and

Speaker 1: true crime. Today, we're bringing you our episode on the

Speaker 1: infamous Dating Game Killer. The Dating Game was this proto

Speaker 1: reality TV show that debuted in the mid nineteen sixties

Speaker 1: and ran through the eighties, and in it, a bachelorette,

Speaker 1: the show's contestant, as it were, would ask questions of

Speaker 1: three bachelors that she could hear but not see, and

Speaker 1: then select one of these bachelors to go on a

Speaker 1: date with. A man named Rodney Alcala was in the

Speaker 1: middle of a killing spree when he appeared on the

Speaker 1: show as one of its eligible bachelors. And that's not

Speaker 1: even the craziest part of the story. I hope you

Speaker 1: dig this episode on the Dating Game Killer, and then

Speaker 1: I hope you joined me Wednesday here in the Rap Party,

Speaker 1: where I answer your calls and texts, and again on

Speaker 1: Friday for a new installment of the Screening Room, in

Speaker 1: which I'll do a deep dive into the twenty twenty

Speaker 1: three film Woman of the Hour.

Speaker 2: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.

Speaker 2: Please check the show notes for more information.

Speaker 3: Hollywood Land is a production of Double Elvis.

Speaker 4: I Am Lovely Holy.

Speaker 3: The stories about Rodney Alcala, aka The Dating Game Killer

Speaker 3: are insane. He was a depraved serial killer who alluded

Speaker 3: authorities for years. He hit his true identity behind charm

Speaker 3: and persuasion. He worked as a summer camp counselor while

Speaker 3: on the lamb for the savage assault of an eight

Speaker 3: year old girl. An eight year old, he convinced his

Speaker 3: parole officer to let him take a vacation to the

Speaker 3: other side of the country, where he proceeded to commit

Speaker 3: another of his many murders. While New Yorkers were watching

Speaker 3: their backs for The Son of Sam. In the summer

Speaker 3: of seventy seven, Rodney al Kala killed again. It's widely

Speaker 3: believed that he murdered dozens of women, perhaps even more

Speaker 3: than one hundred, even though he had less than ten convictions.

Speaker 3: And did Rodney Alcala make great films? Hell No, but

Speaker 3: his appearance on the popular ABC show The Dating Game

Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy eight, which he made in the midst

Speaker 3: of his killing spree is one of the most bizarre

Speaker 3: and creepy moments in Hollywood history. Kind of like that

Speaker 3: clip I played for you at the top of the

Speaker 3: show that wasn't from a great film, that was a

Speaker 3: fair youth sample from the Library of Congress of J. W.

Speaker 3: Myers performing I'm Tired in nineteen oh four. I played

Speaker 3: you that clip because I can't afford the rights to

Speaker 3: a clip from William Wilder's Funny Girl.

Speaker 2: And why would I play you.

Speaker 3: That's Pacific slice of Hello Gorgeous Cheese. Could I afford it?

Speaker 3: Because that was the number one movie in America on

Speaker 3: September twenty fifth, nineteen sixty eight, and that was a

Speaker 3: day authorities suspect Rodney al Kala first followed through on

Speaker 3: his darkest instincts and abducted a girl on her way

Speaker 3: to school and brutally assaulted her, an event that would

Speaker 3: kick off a decade of rape, murder, and extreme personality

Speaker 3: disorders in full effect. On this episode a depraved serial killer,

Speaker 3: charm and persuasion creepy Hollywood history. In the Depraved Dating

Speaker 3: Game Killer Rodney Alcala, I'm Jake Brennan, and this is

Speaker 3: Hollywood Land. Mary Anne calmly sat anxiously in the courtroom.

Speaker 3: Her fingers massaged the straw handbag in her lap. Her

Speaker 3: mind raised her heart beat fast. This was taking way

Speaker 3: too long. Where was he and when would they bring

Speaker 3: him in? She just wanted to see his face, look

Speaker 3: into his eyes. She wanted that monster to feel her pain,

Speaker 3: to know that every minute of every day was now

Speaker 3: a living hell, a hell that he created just like

Speaker 3: that snap of a finger, quicker than God had created

Speaker 3: the whole entire earth.

Speaker 2: But he wasn't God. He didn't give her anything.

Speaker 3: All he did was takeaway. Mary Anne's daughter, Robin Samso,

Speaker 3: was found the previous summer in July of nineteen seventy

Speaker 3: nine by a member of a forest crew in the

Speaker 3: foothills above the Sierra Madre. Not her body, though her

Speaker 3: remains bones, her skull in a ravine, her lower teeth fractured,

Speaker 3: her left foot in parts of her hands, missing, her

Speaker 3: tennis shoe in a bush, a kitchen knife stained with

Speaker 3: blood hidden in the leaves. Robin was only twelve years old,

Speaker 3: which coincidentally was the number of days she'd been missing.

Speaker 3: She was last seen on June twentieth, when she borrowed

Speaker 3: a friend's bike to go to a nearby ballet studio,

Speaker 3: where she took lessons and answered phones. That same friend

Speaker 3: remembered an uncomfortable encounter earlier in the day on Huntington Beach,

Speaker 3: when a curly haired man stopped them both and asked

Speaker 3: if he could take their photograph. He touched Robin's leg

Speaker 3: with his hand, and he gave off serious creep vibes.

Speaker 3: And now in Orange County Superior Court, a curly haired

Speaker 3: man matching the description of the creepy man from that

Speaker 3: day on Huntington Beach was being led to the defendant's chair.

Speaker 3: Mary Anne calmly took a deep breath. She knew Rodney

Speaker 3: Alcala was the one, the curly haired man who had

Speaker 3: approached her daughter Robin in June. But he didn't just

Speaker 3: take Robin's photo or just touch her leg. As creepy

Speaker 3: as I was. He marked Robin as his prey the

Speaker 3: moment he saw her, and then he hunted her down,

Speaker 3: brutalized her, fucking animal twelve years old. The pain was unbearable.

Speaker 3: Mary Anne wanted it to end, all of it, not

Speaker 3: just her pain, his life. The solution was easy, what

Speaker 3: goes around comes around. He was right there, not even

Speaker 3: twenty feet away from her. She unlatched her straw handbag

Speaker 3: and casually put her hand inside. She felt the twenty

Speaker 3: five caliber pistol. Getting it inside the courtroom was a

Speaker 3: cinch who was nineteen eighty California was golden and mellow.

Speaker 3: There were no metal detectors to walk through. No security

Speaker 3: guard was about to pack down a grieving mother who

Speaker 3: could barely stand on her own tis shaking feet. She

Speaker 3: wrapped her palm tightly around the pistol's handle. Her finger

Speaker 3: caressed the trigger. It would be so easy. She wouldn't

Speaker 3: even have to say anything, just stand up, pull the

Speaker 3: gun out, and let the handbag fall to the floor,

Speaker 3: aiming at his fucking mop.

Speaker 2: Of curly hair.

Speaker 3: Shatter his teeth like he shattered Robin's. Blow his head

Speaker 3: right off this goddamn body, reduce his face to blood

Speaker 3: and bone with one shot. Rodney Alcala had no way

Speaker 3: of knowing that the mother of his latest victim.

Speaker 2: Was packing heat.

Speaker 3: And even if he didn't know, it wouldn't have faced

Speaker 3: him because he knew she wouldn't go through with it.

Speaker 3: She'd never pull the trigger. Not because of cold feet

Speaker 3: because he.

Speaker 2: Was smarter than she was.

Speaker 3: He was smarter than every single person in that courtroom,

Speaker 3: always one step ahead, IQ like Einstein, and persuasive. He

Speaker 3: could talk anyone into or out of anything. He persuaded

Speaker 3: NYU that his name was John Berger, even though he

Speaker 3: had no proof that that was remotely true. He persuaded

Speaker 3: to Summer Camp in New Hampshire to hire him as

Speaker 3: a counselor, even though at the time he was on

Speaker 3: the FBI's most wanted list of the savage rape and

Speaker 3: attempted murder of an eight year old girl in Los Angeles.

Speaker 3: He persuaded the La Times to give him a job

Speaker 3: as a typesetter, even though he had secretly killed numerous

Speaker 3: women after serving two stints in jail. So naturally, he

Speaker 3: would have no problem persuading the mother of the twelve

Speaker 3: year old girl he just murdered to not only spare

Speaker 3: his life, but to forgive him he was the real victim. Here,

Speaker 3: it would be easy, just as easy as it was

Speaker 3: to persuade a major television network to allow him. Rodney Alcala,

Speaker 3: a sociopath, to participate as a contestant on a nationally

Speaker 3: syndicated show in the middle of a serial killing spring.

Speaker 3: For Jed Mills, it was easy money four hundred bucks

Speaker 3: to play the role of eligible bachelor, Bachelor number two.

Speaker 3: That is, it wasn't Happy Day as hell, it wasn't

Speaker 3: even the love Boat. But to an actor looking for

Speaker 3: an honest day's work, you could do a lot worse

Speaker 3: than the dating game. He was basically getting paid to flirt.

Speaker 3: The bachelorette on the other side of the partition would

Speaker 3: ask him a question. He just had to answer as

Speaker 3: provocatively as possible. This was nineteen seventy eight, after all.

Speaker 3: Provocative was practically a comedy genre in and of itself then,

Speaker 3: And if you could get the audience to laugh, then

Speaker 3: she would laugh too, and that was the way to

Speaker 3: the girl's heart, not any of this macho bullshit laughter.

Speaker 3: Jed might even get lucky. Maybe the bachelorette would pick

Speaker 3: him out of the lineup. He had a one in

Speaker 3: three chance, after all, and that would meet a date

Speaker 3: on ABC's dime on top of the four hundred dollars

Speaker 3: fee in. Then maybe he'd get lucky for real and

Speaker 3: get laid. So Jed nursed the soda in the green

Speaker 3: room and sized up his competition while they waited for

Speaker 3: their call time. Bachelor number three had a cube all

Speaker 3: for her head in a lime green suit that looked

Speaker 3: like the color of dog's puke after the dog ate

Speaker 3: a bunch of grass. The guy clearly wasn't much of

Speaker 3: a threat Bachelor number one, on the other hand, that

Speaker 3: guy was handsome. Jed had to admit brown polyester suit

Speaker 3: and white butterfly collar shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest,

Speaker 3: shoulderlinked brown hair throwing out some serious warm baby vibes.

Speaker 3: Chicks dug that shit, all of it, especially the hair.

Speaker 2: But there was.

Speaker 3: Something about that guy that didn't sit right with Jed.

Speaker 3: Like putting forth, his image of charisma and desire required

Speaker 3: a lot of energy and bad energy. He smiled a lot,

Speaker 3: like a lot, a lot too much, so much that

Speaker 3: it seemed fake, hollow, big, dumb, fucking grinned and hovered

Speaker 3: below equally dumb eyes. Not that Jed get to look

Speaker 3: into those eyes too much. Bachelor number one avoided eye contact,

Speaker 3: directed his gaze at the floor, and Jed wasn't buying

Speaker 3: it too much effort to appear suave. The guy was

Speaker 3: a standard issue creep. It was probably into the Kinki

Speaker 3: ship behind closed doors too la free say Boogi, Yogi Yuki.

Speaker 3: Jed tried to make small talk in order to cut

Speaker 3: when he perceived his tension in the green room, he

Speaker 3: wondered how each of them would fare out there on.

Speaker 2: Stage in a spotlight. Bachelor number One.

Speaker 3: Took it as a challenge. He raised his bowed head

Speaker 3: from the floor or looked directly at Jed, and that

Speaker 3: smile so strained it was now sinister. Those eyes they

Speaker 3: were now not dumb, not doe, not pretty, cold and calculated,

Speaker 3: the eyes of a winner, no matter the cost. Bachelor

Speaker 3: number One held his gaze on Jed, and then he

Speaker 3: broke his silence with five words delivered with confidence. I

Speaker 3: always get my girl. Hollywood wasn't all that far from

Speaker 3: Phoenix on a map, but to Ryl Bradshaw, it could

Speaker 3: have been a different universe altogether. The stars weren't just

Speaker 3: in the sky out here, they were everywhere. Vivian Lee,

Speaker 3: Jack Lemon, Barbara Streisan, Orson Wells, you name it. Their

Speaker 3: names were permanently etched into the sidewalk Hollywood Boulevard, the

Speaker 3: likeness molded in wax and Madame Tussaud's then the remains

Speaker 3: tucked away for an eternal slumber at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Speaker 3: The legacy of Hollywood endured in a way that was

Speaker 3: awe inspiring. Cheryl Bradshaw's time in Hollywood, however, wasn't so permanent,

Speaker 3: but it did hold his share of opportunity. Cheryl was

Speaker 3: a humble drama teacher from Arizona. She didn't have any

Speaker 3: delusions about her name winding up in a star on

Speaker 3: that fabled Walk of Fame. Perhaps one of her students

Speaker 3: would go on to a career in the limelight one

Speaker 3: of these days. For a brief moment, however, she would

Speaker 3: bask in her own fifteen minutes of fame. As the

Speaker 3: bachelorette on the Dating Game. Her face would be on

Speaker 3: millions of television screens all across the country. Crazy If

Speaker 3: she was lucky, she'd get a hot date as a

Speaker 3: cherry on top. It was September of nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 3: Was a popular game show on ABC for thirteen years running.

Speaker 3: It was the first show to be developed and sold

Speaker 3: by Chuck Barris. The game show grew behind The Gonk Show,

Speaker 3: whose dangerous mind led him to write a number of

Speaker 3: hit songs and may or may not have led him

Speaker 3: to becoming an assassin for the CIA, But that's another

Speaker 3: story for an entirely different episode. But back to what

Speaker 3: we were talking about. Unlike the life of its developer

Speaker 3: Chuck Barris, the premise of the dating game was simple.

Speaker 3: One female or male contestant posed questions to three members

Speaker 3: of the opposite sex site unseen. The questions were often suggested,

Speaker 3: especially in the swinging nineteen seventies, when the show's producers

Speaker 3: were encouraged to push the innuendo as close to the

Speaker 3: edge as possible. Based on the answers of the three

Speaker 3: eligible bachelors or bachelorettes, the contestant would choose a winner

Speaker 3: to take on a dream date to some exotic destination

Speaker 3: with an ABC chaperone. Of course, a pre fame Steve

Speaker 3: Martin appeared not once, but twice as one of the

Speaker 3: three bachelors. Three bachelors literally fought on set the chance

Speaker 3: to catch a day with the pre Charlie's angels. Farah

Speaker 3: Fawcett and Arnold Schwarzenegger famously appeared on the show looking

Speaker 3: for Love back when he was merely mister Olympia Tonight, However,

Speaker 3: there were no soon to be famous. Bachelors on the

Speaker 3: dating game set. Soon to be infamous. Now, that was

Speaker 3: another story. Cheryl bassed in the show.

Speaker 2: Business of it all.

Speaker 3: The groovy set, with its bubbly text and flowers, it

Speaker 3: looked more like squashed amibas on the partitions, the lights,

Speaker 3: the big cameras, the studio audience, Jim Lang, the host.

Speaker 2: With the voice of a DJ.

Speaker 3: They called the guys like him puckers because of the

Speaker 3: way they talked.

Speaker 2: The words just erupted.

Speaker 3: From their throats like shrapnel from a cannon. Hey, everybody,

Speaker 3: welcome back. It was different than what she taught back home.

Speaker 3: Projecting your voice on stage and all that. This was

Speaker 3: projecting Hollywood style, as was that puffy shirt and bow

Speaker 3: tie and oversized glasses he wore, and the kiss he

Speaker 3: gave Cheryl right on the lips when he introduced her

Speaker 3: to the crowd. Not everything about Hollywood was a fairy

Speaker 3: Some of it was just downright uncomfortable. Bachelor number one

Speaker 3: is a successful photographer who got his start when his

Speaker 3: father found him in the dark room at the age

Speaker 3: of thirteen.

Speaker 2: Fully developed.

Speaker 3: The crowd moaned in delight at the double entendre between

Speaker 3: takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling. Please welcome

Speaker 3: Rodney alcalou. If Alcala noticed that Jim Lang pronounced his

Speaker 3: name incorrectly on national television, he didn't make it known.

Speaker 3: As the audience applause died down, Cheryl cleared her throat

Speaker 3: and looked at the questions on the card in her hand.

Speaker 3: She knew how to perform. She could hold her own.

Speaker 3: The cameras didn't make her nervous, neither did the studio audience.

Speaker 3: She had to lay it on thick, nunciate every syllable,

Speaker 3: speak clearly but dramatically, make all three of the bachelor's

Speaker 3: yearn to be with her with every fiber of their being.

Speaker 3: She wanted to make her appearance truly memorable. Bachelor number one,

Speaker 3: she began, what's your best time? Rodney alco smiled that

Speaker 3: same smile Jed Mills had seen back in the green room,

Speaker 3: the one that gave him the heavy Gebi's, the one

Speaker 3: they looked forced so pleasant it was painful. The best

Speaker 3: time is that night, Alcala answered, That's the only time

Speaker 3: there is. Nighttime is when it really gets good. On

Speaker 3: July thirteenth and fourteenth, in nineteen seventy seven, nighttime wasn't

Speaker 3: the best time in New York City. It was the

Speaker 3: only time the now infamous blackout brought an already crippled

Speaker 3: city to its knees. It was hot, temperatures flirted with

Speaker 3: triple digits. The smell of curdled trash left abandoned on

Speaker 3: street corners due to a sanitation strike was a rank

Speaker 3: in the air. All the things that nighttime brings came

Speaker 3: out of the shadows. Thieves, muggers, pyros, looters that fucking

Speaker 3: creeps on a sand haunting the streets with this forty

Speaker 3: four caliber. When the power finally came back on, things

Speaker 3: were missing. Everything from small turntables to learn appliances had

Speaker 3: been stolen from stores all across the city. Fifty brand

Speaker 3: new Pawniacs disappeared from a dealership in the Bronx, and

Speaker 3: Ellen Hover, a twenty three year old socialite who lived

Speaker 3: in an apartment on Third Avenue, had vanished. Ellen Hover

Speaker 3: was a beautiful, aspiring orchestra conductor. Her father once some

Speaker 3: of the popular Hollywood nightclub Ciro's, and she counted both

Speaker 3: Sammy Davis Junior and Dean Martin as godfathers. Her family

Speaker 3: and friends panicked when she disappeared. Posters went up all

Speaker 3: over Midtown. They read missing after black up reward Ellen Hover,

Speaker 3: twenty three long, brown hair, one hundred and six pounds,

Speaker 3: pinstriped T shirt, blue jeans, with a phone number to

Speaker 3: call for tips. They received very few tips. Ellen's mother

Speaker 3: and stepfather hired a private detective. The only real lead

Speaker 3: was that Ellen that left her apartment that day to

Speaker 3: meet up with a photographer.

Speaker 2: Who was going to take pictures of her.

Speaker 3: The photographer's name, John Berger, was written on her calendar

Speaker 3: for the day she disappeared. At the time, no one

Speaker 3: knew that Rodney Alcala was using the alias John Berger.

Speaker 3: Eleven months later, when ellan Hoov's bones were finally discovered

Speaker 3: an hour outside the city in Westchester County, on the

Speaker 3: Rockefeller Estate, of all places, detectives were beginning to put

Speaker 3: the pieces together. They figured out that John Berger and

Speaker 3: Rodney Alcala were one and the same. They called al

Speaker 3: Kala down to the station for questioning. He told him

Speaker 3: that yes, he had spent the day with that one

Speaker 3: on July fifteenth, nineteen seventy seven, but that at the

Speaker 3: end of the day he dropped her off at the

Speaker 3: apartment and never saw her again. There were no cracks

Speaker 3: in his story. He was thoroughly convincing, persuasive. Plus, the

Speaker 3: cops didn't have any evidence to hold him any longer,

Speaker 3: and they let Alkala go. It would be more than

Speaker 3: thirty years later before Ellen Hoover's family got proper closure

Speaker 3: for her murder. The craziest thing is.

Speaker 2: They weren't the only family. There were more, so many more.

Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this war where where.

Speaker 3: Helen Hover wasn't Rodney Alcala's only victim, there were others.

Speaker 3: Cornelia Curley, Jill Barcombe, Georgia Wickston, Charlotte Lamb, Jill Parento,

Speaker 3: Robin Samso. And even before all those others, there was

Speaker 3: Tali Shapiro. In September of nineteen sixty eight, Tali Shapiro

Speaker 3: and her family temporarily called the Chateau Arman, West Hollywood home,

Speaker 3: having recently lost their own house to a fire. At

Speaker 3: just eight years old, Tolly was an independent second grader.

Speaker 3: She walked herself down Sunset Bulevard to school each day.

Speaker 3: But September twenty fifth wasn't just another day. That was

Speaker 3: the day a car pulled up alongside the curb, and

Speaker 3: the window rode down. Rodney Alcala, then twenty five years old,

Speaker 3: sat on the driver's seat. Tali had never seen him before.

Speaker 3: Belcala asked her if she wanted to ride. Tolly knew

Speaker 3: stranger danger, her parents taught her well, she knew she

Speaker 3: shouldn't get in, but Alcala was persuasive. He said he

Speaker 3: wasn't actually a stranger, he knew her parents, It was

Speaker 3: all right. Tali opened the passenger door and stepped inside.

Speaker 3: A bystander watched the whole interaction from across the street

Speaker 3: and thought it looked strange. He tailed the car until

Speaker 3: it reached a nearby apartment. Alcala walked Tolly inside, and

Speaker 3: the man called the police. Alcala stalled when LAPD began

Speaker 3: banging on the door. At first, he didn't say anything.

Speaker 3: More banging. Alcala responded that he was he was in

Speaker 3: the shower. The cops told him to open up or

Speaker 3: they'd break down the door. More banging, more stalling. When

Speaker 3: the police finally kicked Alcala's door in, he was long

Speaker 3: gone out the back door. But they couldn't miss Tillie Shapiro.

Speaker 3: She was on the floor, naked in a pool of

Speaker 3: her own blood, sexually assaulted and viciously beaten with a

Speaker 3: steel bar, and just a years old. One of the

Speaker 3: LAPD officers on the scene said what he witnessed that

Speaker 3: day was just as brutal, if not more, than the

Speaker 3: horrors he'd seen during his tour in Vietnam. Incredibly, Rodney

Speaker 3: Alcala eluded capture for nearly three years, despite committing murder

Speaker 3: in despite landing a spot on the FBI's most wanted list.

Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy one, he strangled twa flight attendant, Cornelia Crilely,

Speaker 3: to death with her aunt stockings in her Upper East

Speaker 3: Side apartment. Perhaps more incredible, however, was that he wasn't

Speaker 3: eventually mad by federal agents or a good samartan adult.

Speaker 3: He was brought down by children. In the summer of

Speaker 3: nineteen seventy one, Alcala wiaseled his way to a job

Speaker 3: at a summer camp in New Hampshire. Some campers happened

Speaker 3: to walk into a nearby post office and noticed a

Speaker 3: familiar face pinned to the bulletin board there. On the

Speaker 3: FBI's most wanted list was a photo of one of

Speaker 3: their counselors John Berger. Only the guy's name was Saint

Speaker 3: John Berger. On the FBI's noticed it was Rodney Alcala.

Speaker 3: Score one for stranger danger. Alcala was extradited back to

Speaker 3: Los Angeles to face charges for what he'd done to

Speaker 3: Tali Shapiro. The Shapiros, however, has since moved out of

Speaker 3: the country and didn't want Tlly testifying at the trial

Speaker 3: for fear that it would be too traumatic, which meant

Speaker 3: the only thing Alcala was charged with was a plea

Speaker 3: deal for child molestation. The court gave him an indeterminate

Speaker 3: sentence of one year to life, and like always, Rodney

Speaker 3: Alcala was persuasive if only all inmates could be like Alcala.

Speaker 3: They all said he was a model prisoner, and he

Speaker 3: barely did three years. Only two months after his release,

Speaker 3: Alcala was caught smoking dope with a thirteen year old

Speaker 3: girl on the cliffs of Huntington Beach, the very same

Speaker 3: location he would later meet Robin Samso he went back

Speaker 3: to jail and, once again, bolstered by his charm and persuasiveness,

Speaker 3: was out in less than three years. It was the

Speaker 3: summer of nineteen seventy seven, Alcala was restless too much

Speaker 3: of a known quantity in California. He laid on the

Speaker 3: persuasive term real thick and got his parole officer to

Speaker 3: approve a vacation request to New York City. It was

Speaker 3: during that quote unquote vacation that he murdered Ellen Hover.

Speaker 3: It was also around the time that Christine Ruth Thornton,

Speaker 3: twenty eight years old and six months pregnant, encountered rodneyel

Speaker 3: Kala somewhere between Mississippi and Wyoming and then vanished. Her

Speaker 3: remains were found five years later. Ellen Hover and Christine

Speaker 3: Thornton weren't necessarily the start of rodneyel Kala's killing spree,

Speaker 3: but they were far from the end of it. November

Speaker 3: nineteen seventy seven, Los Angeles, the body of a nineteen

Speaker 3: year old Jill Barcom, a transplant from New York, was

Speaker 3: found off of Franklin Canyon Road. She'd been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned,

Speaker 3: and strangled. Her face was unrecognizable. December nineteen seventy seven,

Speaker 3: Malibu window open screen removed inside. Georgia Wigstad twenty seven,

Speaker 3: also sexually assaulted, strangled, and beaten to death, blood was everywhere.

Speaker 3: June nineteen seventy eight, El Segundo Charlotte Lamb thirty two

Speaker 3: found dead in a laundry room, raped and strangled with

Speaker 3: a shoelace. June nineteen seventy nine, Burbank Joe Parento twenty

Speaker 3: one returned to her apartment after a Dodger's.

Speaker 2: Game, where she was strangled to death.

Speaker 3: Also in June nineteen seventy nine, Huntington Beach, Robin Samso,

Speaker 3: just twelve years old, stolen by a convincing stranger in

Speaker 3: a car on the side of the road, Shades of

Speaker 3: Tali Shapiro from a decade earlier. It was during this

Speaker 3: three year killing sprey that, unbelievably Rodney Alcala appeared as

Speaker 3: an eligible bachelor on the dating Game. The network didn't

Speaker 3: perform background checks. Al Kala got onto the show with

Speaker 3: his killer churn for the record. One of the show's

Speaker 3: producers later admitted that Alcala made him uncomfortable in the audition,

Speaker 3: just as he did to Bachelor number two Jed Mills

Speaker 3: in the green room. Not everyone played the Dating Game

Speaker 3: just for a date. Some of them did it just

Speaker 3: to be on TV. Fed their ego It was the

Speaker 3: ultimate narcissistic power play, a serial killer so overwhelmingly arrogant

Speaker 3: to believe that not only could he continue to play

Speaker 3: a game of cat and mouse with the authorities, but

Speaker 3: he could do so while playing another game, and he

Speaker 3: could win it. This is your date, and I want

Speaker 3: to tell you something about him, Cheryl. He's a skydiverer,

Speaker 3: so he's got a lot of nerve. He's in a

Speaker 3: motorcycling and he's also a fine photographer. Say hello to

Speaker 3: Rodney Alcalou. Rodney Alcala won the dating game easily. He

Speaker 3: knew he would win. It was what he did, Just

Speaker 3: like he told Jed Mills in the green room, he

Speaker 3: always got his girl. One day it was Jill Barcom

Speaker 3: or Charlotte Lamb, and the next day was Cheryl Bradshaw.

Speaker 3: He didn't give a shit about the tennis lessons they won,

Speaker 3: even though he pretended like he did. When Jim Lang

Speaker 3: was sit out the prizes, al Kala stood there with

Speaker 3: his hand around Cheryl's waist, that sociopathic grin on his face.

Speaker 3: Oh boy, tennis lessons, what a fucking gas. He cared

Speaker 3: even less about the trip to Magic Mountain they wouldn't

Speaker 3: even make it that far. Al Khala had it all

Speaker 3: planned out. He'd say, sweet, nothing's to her, Tell her

Speaker 3: how great she looked in that dress. Tell her that

Speaker 3: her feathered hair reminded him of Fara Fawcet. But she

Speaker 3: was sexier than Fara Fawcet, of course she was by

Speaker 3: a mile. He'd ask her to pose just like that,

Speaker 3: ask her to angle her head a little more, smile wider.

Speaker 3: Could he take her photograph? And that goud, I'm excited,

Speaker 3: even more excited when he could touch her well, he

Speaker 3: could put his hands around her, not in our arm

Speaker 3: innocently'd draped across her midrift. More than that, his hands

Speaker 3: around her throat. He liked to clasp his fingers together

Speaker 3: behind her neck, his teeth sunk into her tender flesh,

Speaker 3: to watch the life just oohs.

Speaker 2: Out of her wide eyes.

Speaker 3: She would try to scream, and it would sun goose

Speaker 3: bumps up his arms, and he'd squeeze tighter, and maybe

Speaker 3: something would snap, a bone or a tendant. Maybe she'd bleed.

Speaker 3: They're all different. If she passed out, he'd wait until

Speaker 3: she came to, and he'd start.

Speaker 2: It all over again.

Speaker 3: And then when she was gone when the struggling and

Speaker 3: the screaming, It's stopped and she was lifeless, an empty

Speaker 3: shell at drained vessel. He'd prop her up, pos her faint,

Speaker 3: snapped more photos, but Rodney al Kala didn't get to

Speaker 3: take Cheryl Bradshaw's photo. He didn't even get a date.

Speaker 3: Cheryl Bradshaw picked up on the same bad vibes that

Speaker 3: both Jed Mills and the show's producer had caught. Shortly

Speaker 3: after the taping of her dating Game episode, Cheryl Bradshaw

Speaker 3: called the show's producers and politely apologized she could not

Speaker 3: go through the date, not now, not ever. She had

Speaker 3: no way of knowing that, But by trusting her gut

Speaker 3: and making that phone call, Cheryl Bradshaw saved her own life.

Speaker 3: Mary Anne Conley let the twenty five cal pistol dropped

Speaker 3: back into the straw handbag on her lap. Her twelve

Speaker 3: year old daughter, Robin Samso was dead, but Marianne cold sense.

Speaker 3: She was in the courtroom with her. She couldn't explain it.

Speaker 3: It's just a feeling. She had a mother's intuition. She

Speaker 3: even heard Robin's voice, and Robin told her not to

Speaker 3: do it.

Speaker 2: Don't kill him.

Speaker 3: It wouldn't bring Robin back, It would just destroy mary

Speaker 3: Anne's life. Marianne's life, though, had pretty much already been

Speaker 3: destroyed back in June nineteen seventy nine when Robin was

Speaker 3: brutally murdered by Rodney Alcala. But mary Anne listened to

Speaker 3: her daughter's voice and the pistol never emerged from her handbag.

Speaker 3: She locked the clasp and fought back tears and pain.

Speaker 3: She would let justice take its course. During the investigation

Speaker 3: into Robin SAMSO's murder, detectives discovered that Alcohala rented a

Speaker 3: self storage unit at a facility in Seattle. What they

Speaker 3: found inside broke the case wide open. Thousands of photographs

Speaker 3: of women and girls, jewelry keeps saying trophies, and a

Speaker 3: pair of earrings that mary Anne Connolly said belonged to

Speaker 3: her daughter. In May of nineteen eighty, Rodney Alcala was

Speaker 3: convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Robin Samso,

Speaker 3: and they sent him to San Quentin. But Rodney al

Speaker 3: Kala didn't sweat it too much. He knew that even

Speaker 3: with his days numbered on death row, he had the

Speaker 3: upper hand. He could see around the next corner. He

Speaker 3: always got his girl, and he was always one step

Speaker 3: ahead of the rest. Four years later, in nineteen eighty four,

Speaker 3: the first in a series of extraordinary twists happened. Rodney

Speaker 3: Alcala appealed a sentence on the grounds that jurors had

Speaker 3: been improperly informed of his prior sex crimes. His death

Speaker 3: sentence was overturned. In nineteen eighty six, seven years to

Speaker 3: the day of Robin SAMSO's disappearance, al Kala was tried

Speaker 3: for a second time, and once again he was found guilty,

Speaker 3: and once again he was given the death penalty.

Speaker 2: And then in.

Speaker 3: Two thousand and one, Alcala appealed his sentence yet again,

Speaker 3: this time on the grounds at his attorney had not

Speaker 3: put forth the strong enough effort. Incredibly, his death penalty

Speaker 3: was overturned for a second time. As the prosecution began

Speaker 3: to assemble its case for Alcala's third trial, they were

Speaker 3: able to utilize something that was not available to them

Speaker 3: twenty years earlier, DNA evidence. They analyzed the bounty from

Speaker 3: that self storage unit in Seattle, and what they found

Speaker 3: went far beyond the murder of Robin Samso. Among all

Speaker 3: those photographs jewelry and keepsakes where a DNA mashes for

Speaker 3: Jill Barcombe, Georgia Wickstad, Charlotte Lamb, and Jill Parento. In

Speaker 3: twenty ten, Rodney Alcala's third trial began in Orange County.

Speaker 2: Only this time he wasn't being tried for one murder.

Speaker 3: He was being tried for five, and Marianne Connolly was

Speaker 3: there for every minute of it. Only this time she

Speaker 3: wasn't sitting in the audience dibidding whether or not to

Speaker 3: pull a pistol from her handbag and blow her daughter's

Speaker 3: killer away. She was sitting on the witness stand, and

Speaker 3: Rodney Alcala was the one asking her the questions. Al

Speaker 3: Khala had fired his court appointed attorneys so that he

Speaker 3: could represent himself. He had persuaded a stranger to pick

Speaker 3: him as her blind date on a nationally syndicated TV

Speaker 3: show while he was in the midst of a prolific

Speaker 3: killing spree. Surely he could convince a jury that he

Speaker 3: didn't deserve the death penalty. Alcala was older now too,

Speaker 3: sixty six, the same age as Marianne. His long, curly

Speaker 3: hair had grown longer in prison, gray hair too. He

Speaker 3: wore a pair of glasses. Maybe he thought the glasses

Speaker 3: and made him look smarter than he really was. They

Speaker 3: said his IQ was off the charts, and mary Anne didn't.

Speaker 2: Give a shit about IQ.

Speaker 3: She just wanted the cross examination to stop. And what

Speaker 3: world was it okay for a greeting mother to be

Speaker 3: forced to answer the questions of the man who took

Speaker 3: her daughter's life. She wished she had that pistol now

Speaker 3: man to use it for real this time. She should

Speaker 3: have just finished the goddamn job back in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 3: Maybe she'd be in prisoned at Alicia, wouldn't be sitting on

Speaker 3: the witness stand talking to one person in the world

Speaker 3: she never.

Speaker 4: Wanted to talk to. And he just kept on talking,

Speaker 4: kept asking her questions like he was enjoying it, enjoying

Speaker 4: watching your squirm, watching her get upset. He dragged the

Speaker 4: whole thing out. Rodney Alcala was getting off on the

Speaker 4: entire interaction, and Marianne Connolly simply couldn't.

Speaker 2: Take it anymore.

Speaker 3: Please stop, I've answered all your questions, she shouted at him. Please,

Speaker 3: I've been living this torture for thirty years. Rodney al

Speaker 3: Kala eventually stopped asking questions. He was so sure that

Speaker 3: he had argued his case persuasively. He was charming, conniving, intelligent,

Speaker 3: but just like Jed Mills and Cheryl Bradshaw on the

Speaker 3: Dating Game all those years ago. The judge and jury

Speaker 3: saw through Alcala's facade. They knew he had killed those women.

Speaker 3: The jury convicted al Khala on five counts of murder,

Speaker 3: one and the judge sentenced him to death. Two years later,

Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, al Khala was extradited to New York

Speaker 3: to face charges for the nineteen seventy one murder of

Speaker 3: TWA flight attendant Cornelia Crilly and the nineteen seventy seven

Speaker 3: murder of socialite Ellen Hover. He pled guilty, and New

Speaker 3: York gave him twenty five years to life on top

Speaker 3: of his California conviction. And then in twenty sixteen, prosecutors

Speaker 3: in Wyoming charged Alkhala with the murder of Christine Ruth Thornton,

Speaker 3: the pregnant woman who had encountered him in nineteen seventy

Speaker 3: eight and then disappeared. And those they are just the

Speaker 3: cases with enough hard evidence.

Speaker 2: To warrant convictions.

Speaker 3: Police believe that al Calla murdered not eight, but dozens

Speaker 3: of women over the years. Some said the body count

Speaker 3: as as high as one hundred and thirty victims. The

Speaker 3: number of photographs of unidentified women found in his self

Speaker 3: storage unit are in excess of one hundred, and that

Speaker 3: number was initially higher, but after the photos were made

Speaker 3: public in twenty ten, at least twenty women came forward

Speaker 3: to identify themselves and mercifully crossed themselves off that list.

Speaker 3: The photos are chilling, even if the same dreadful fate

Speaker 3: didn't await all of the subjects. There's a weird, playful

Speaker 3: quality to many of them, not unlike the first ten

Speaker 3: minutes of any campy horror film, you know, the forced,

Speaker 3: cheesy dialogue before the blood splatters. Some are topless, others

Speaker 3: appear to be rocking out in front of the stereo

Speaker 3: or whatever Rodney is playing for them. The subjects range

Speaker 3: in ethnicity and to a revolting extent in age.

Speaker 2: Many of the women and.

Speaker 3: Girls are smiling, some self consciously, some genuinely. Some don't

Speaker 3: seem to know they're being photographed, not in the while,

Speaker 3: and others have a look in their eyes as they

Speaker 3: sit in al Khala's home studio that you just can't

Speaker 3: help but interpret us.

Speaker 2: What are you going to do to me?

Speaker 3: It is simply impossible to know just how many others

Speaker 3: died at this fucking creep's hands. It'll never have to

Speaker 3: answer for any of those murders either. In twenty twenty one,

Speaker 3: Rodney Alcala died of natural causes at a California hospital

Speaker 3: while awaiting execution. The families of his victims didn't get

Speaker 3: the satisfaction of watching the life slip from his eyes

Speaker 3: as the lethal injection was administered, just like he had

Speaker 3: watched the life drained from the eyes of every woman

Speaker 3: he killed. Perhaps he thought, in some sick and twisted

Speaker 3: way that despite those handful of convictions he had won,

Speaker 3: he had stayed one step ahead of everyone else and

Speaker 3: taken dozens, if not hundreds, of secrets to his grave.

Speaker 3: For mourners like Mary Anne Conley, though there were no

Speaker 3: winners and there was no peace. There was only a

Speaker 3: horrible story in which her daughter played a tragic role.

Speaker 3: A story that shouldn't be real, a story that ought

Speaker 3: to be in pictures. I'm Jake Brennan in this This

Speaker 3: Hollywood Land. Hollywood Land was created by years truly, and

Speaker 3: is produced in partnership.

Speaker 2: With double Elvis.

Speaker 3: Follow, like, rate, and review hollywood Land wherever you get

Speaker 3: your podcasts, and get in touch with us on social

Speaker 3: media at double Elvis. If you like Hollywoodland, check out

Speaker 3: my other show, the award winning Disgraceland, which looks at

Speaker 3: the world of music through the lens of true crime.

Speaker 3: Just search for Disgraceland or wherever you get your podcasts

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