#THE DATING GAME SERIAL KILLER TRIAL#

In 2010, the Huntington Beach Police Department released the photos taken by Alcala confiscated decades earlier to determine whether they may have been victimized by him. A bachelor looking for love on ‘The Dating Game’ in the 1970s, who wound up sitting next to a serial killer during the show, remains haunted by the encounter nearly 40 years later. While investigating the murder of Samsoe in 1979, investigators found hundreds of photographs in a Seattle storage locker belonging to Alcala of unidentified women, girls and boys, as well as jewelry believed to be trophies of some of his victims.

#THE DATING GAME SERIAL KILLER TRIAL#

In 2016, he was charged by Wyoming prosecutors with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton, who disappeared in 1978 when she was six months pregnant and whose body was found four years later, though authorities ultimately decided not to extradite him to Wyoming for trial due to his failing health.Īlcala’s execution in California had been postponed indefinitely due to a moratorium on the death penalty instituted by the state in 2019.Ī successful photographer, Alcala often would lure women and girls by approaching them on the street and offering to take their picture before attacking them, investigators said. He has been linked to or suspected of murders in other states. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in 2013. He was previously sentenced to death twice for the murder of Samsoe - in 1980 and then again in 1986 - though those sentences were later overturned in appeals and he was granted new trials.Īlcala also pleaded guilty to the murders of two other women in New York - Cornelia Crilley in 1971 and Ellen Jane Hover in 1977. Saturday at a hospital in the community near Corcoran State Prison, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.Īlcala was known as “The Dating Game” killer for his appearance as a winning contestant on the television game show in 1978.Īfter representing himself in Orange County court, he was sentenced to death in 2010 for the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and the murders of four other women - 18-year-old Jill Barcomb and 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, both in 1977 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb in 1978 and 21-year-old Jill Parenteau in 1979. (LOS ANGELES) - Rodney Alcala, a convicted serial killer who was on California’s death row, has died, authorities said Saturday.Īlcala, 77, died of natural causes at 1:43 a.m.

16, 1977.Michael Goulding/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images One month later, 27-year-old Georgia Wixted was also assaulted and murdered by Alcala, who left her body in her apartment to be discovered on Dec. In November 1977, 18-year-old Jill Barcomb was assaulted and murdered by Alcala, and her body was discovered in the foothills near Hollywood on Nov. reports that he promptly resumed his murder spree as well.

In July 1977, she was declared a missing person, and it was said that the last person she was seen with was a photographer named 'John Berger.' However, her body wasn't found for a year and, although Alcala was brought in for questioning regarding Hoover's disappearance, 'without a body or any evidence directly linking Alcala and Hover, he was released from custody.' According to The New York Times, Alcala wasn't indicted for her murder until 2011.Īfter returning to California, Alcala got a job at the Los Angeles Times working as a typesetter. During his trip to Manhattan, Alcala murdered 23-year-old Ellen Jane Hover, although it's likely that she wasn't his only victim during this trip.

The dating game serial killer