Rodney Alcala, an American serial killer known for his appearance on the TV show named ‘The Dating Game’, died from natural causes in California State Prison, Corcoran. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) made it official through a statement.
A jury in Orange County convicted Alcala of killing a teenager and four women in California as testing matched his DNA with evidence in the respective cases. The slayings happened in the late 1970’s, as per news records.
In 1977, Alcala sexually assaulted 18-year-old Jill Barcomb before strangling her to death and dumping her body in the Los Angeles’s Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Then, in the same year, he sexually assaulted 27-year-old Georgia Wixted before choking and beating her to a brutal death in Malibu. In 1978, 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb was brutally raped and then strangled to death inside her laundry. In 1979, Alcala strangled 21-year-old Jill Parenteau to death and left her body in her flat. The other victim of Alcala, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, disappeared around the Huntington Beach Pier and was discovered dead in the foothills of the Sierra Madre.
Alcala was sent to trial in NY in 2012 after the man was charged with the unlawful killings of Ellen Jane Hover and Cornelia Crilley. Alcala pleaded guilty in the 2012 trial, and New York gave him a 25-year life sentence the next year.
Judge Bonnie G. Wittner stated during Alcala’s sentencing that she has not experienced such a case before and that she expects not to again. At the same time, Wittner hoped that the families of the victims would get some solace and peace for the horrific deeds. The Wall Street Journal reported that the judge started to cry back then.
In 2016, Wyoming prosecutors accused Alcala of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton’s murder. Thornton disappeared in 1978, but her corpse was found only four years later. More remarkably, Thornton was pregnant for six months back then.
Investigators associated Alcala with other unlawful killings in California, New York, Seattle, Arizona, and New Hampshire. It still seems unbelievable that he was a Dating Game contestant amid his spree of murders. Dating Game host James John Lange once introduced Alcala as a photographer with interests in motorcycling and skydiving. Not many knew that Alcala also had other, darker interests, but some fellow contestants formed negative impressions of him.
