Serial killer Rodney Alcala dead at 77: ‘Dating Game Killer’ passes away in prison after murdering 5 including girl, 12
SERIAL killer Rodney James Alcala, who was on California’s death row, has died of natural causes at the age of 77.
The ‘Dating Game Killer‘ passed away at a hospital in San Joaquin Valley, California, after murdering more than five people – including a 12-year-old girl.
Alcala, who was on California’s death row from Orange County, died in a hospital at 1:43am on Saturday, July 24.
A July 24 news release from the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation said: “Alcala was sentenced to death in Orange County in 1980 for the 1979 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe.
“That judgment was reversed in 1984 by the California Supreme Court and Alcala was granted a new trial.
“In 1986, Alcala was sentenced to death a second time for Samsoe’s murder; however, a federal appeals court in 2003 overturned the sentence and Alcala was given a new trial. His DNA matched evidence in other murders and Orange County prosecutors indicted Alcala for the murders of four other women.”
It continued: “In 2010, an Orange County jury convicted Alcala of five counts of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to death for the killing of Samsoe as well as the 1977 deaths of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb and 27-year-old Georgia Wixted; the 1978 death of 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb, and the 1979 death of 21-year-old Jill Parenteau.”
The reason behind Alcala’s “Dating Game Killer” nickname was because he was previously a contestant on the 1978 TV show “The Dating Game.”
He was introduced on the show as a “successful photographer,” but despite bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw winning a date with him – she refused to go on a date with him because she thought he was “creepy.”
“In 2012, Alcala was extradited to New York after he was indicted for the 1971 murder of Cornelia Crilley and the 1977 murder of Ellen Jane Hover. He pleaded guilty and in 2013 was sentenced in New York to 25 years to life,” the July 24 news release added.
And in 2016, Alcala was charged with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton.
Thornton was six months pregnant at the time of her 1978 disappearance. Her body was eventually found four years later.
“Investigators have either suspected Alcala of or linked him to other murders in Los Angeles and Marin County in California; Seattle, Washington; New York; New Hampshire and Arizona,” the news release concluded.
Alcala was on death row in San Quentin State Prison, however, he had been placed in Corcoran State Prison for medical reasons, NBC New York reported.
In addition to getting sentenced to death for a handful of killings in the 1970s, police suspect Alcala possibly killed up to 130 people across the US.
His known victims are – Robin Samsoe, 12, Jill Barcom, 18, Georgia Wixted, 27, Charlotte Lamb, 32, Jill Parenteau, 21, Cornelia Crilley, Jane Hover, and Christine Ruth Thornton, 28.
Back in 2020, a six-part podcast – titled The Dating Game Killer – became a must-listen for true-crime fans.
Alcala – who sometimes took trophies as jewelry – repeatedly raped, strangled and revived his victims before finishing them off.
The bodies of the women he killed were carefully posed and photographed. Alcala also sometimes
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And a retired LAPD detective Bob Souza once called the killer “a psychopath of the first order.”
During Alcala’s trial, Matt Murphy, an Orange County, California, prosecutor, said: “You’re talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it.”
Before getting convicted of murder, Alcala spent nearly five years behind bars on other convictions of furnishing marijuana to a minor and kidnapping and trying to kill an 8-year-old girl.