Who Was Rodney Alcala? A Look at the “Unequivocal Carnage” of the Dating Game Killer

Rodney Alcala murdered no less than six women and one child, though possibly as many as 130, per The Washington Post. Between 1971 and 1979, the Texas-born arts student based near Los Angeles raped, beat, and tortured five females in California, often fashioning himself as a photographer to lure them in. Alcala typically strangled his victims and sometimes posed their bodies in crude positions after killing them.

Years later, Alcala would be convicted of two additional murders in New York and linked to another in Wyoming.

Alcala’s crimes were graphic in nature, prosecutors said. In one instance, Alcala raped one of his victims with a claw hammer, and in others, he would repeatedly strangle his victims to unconsciousness and resuscitate them, according to The Associated Press.

Alcala, a convicted child molester, would be free to kill until 1979 when he abducted his final known victim, Huntington Beach 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. On June 20, Alcala offered to photograph the preteen and her friend (the friend would later help authorities identify Alcala) before abducting Samsoe as she rode her bicycle to a ballet class, according to ABC Los Angeles affiliate KABC-TV.

Samsoe’s decomposed remains were found two weeks later in the Angeles National Forest, as prosecutor Gina Satriano described at Alcala’s third trial in 2010.

“Robin’s head was separated from the rest of her body, both her hands were missing, her front teeth were cracked,” she said.

For Samsoe’s murder, Alcala was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1980, though his conviction was overturned, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (C.D.C.R.). In 1986, Alcala was once again found guilty and sentenced to death.

Orange County officials investigating Samsoe’s murder found a storage locker belonging to Alcala in Seattle, Washington, which contained a mountain of physical evidence, including Samsoe’s earrings and other women’s jewelry. DNA testing on Alcala’s disturbing trophies in 2003 matched four cold cases in California, according to ABC News.

Upstate New York teen Jill Barcomb was once believed to be the victim of the Hillside Strangler when her body was found near the Hollywood sign in November 1977, according to The New Haven Register. The victim was raped, sodomized, and her face beaten with a rock before she was found with a belt wrapped around her neck, CNN reported.

About one month later, Alcala beat 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wixted with a hammer and strangled her with a nylon stocking inside her Malibu apartment. In June 1979, Alcala raped and strangled Charlotte Lamb, 33, and Jill Parenteau, 21, in separate incidents, according to CNN.

In 2010, following a bizarre trial in which Alcala represented himself in court — his defense often rambling and disorganized, as covered by The Orange County Register — Alcala was found guilty a third time for Samsoe’s murder, as well as for the murders of the four California women. Once again, he was sentenced to death.

Victims’ loved ones were grateful, including Parenteau’s sister, Deidreann Parenteau, who said Alcala “is truly a devil who does not belong on this earth,” according to the L.A. Times.

“There is murder and rape, and then there is the unequivocal carnage of a Rodney Alcala-style murder,” Barcomb’s brother, Bruce Barcomb, said at sentencing, according to The Associated Press.

One of Alcala’s first known victims was 8-year-old Tali Shapiro, whom Alcala abducted on Sunset Boulevard in L.A. in 1968. Alcala took the child back to his home and brutally raped and beat her. However, a Good Samaritan who witnessed Alcala luring the child into his car followed them back to Alcala’s residence and alerted authorities, according to People. Alcala escaped, and Shapiro spent more than a month in a coma.

Alcala was placed on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted list for Shapiro’s attack.

“I know it’s awful what happened to me, but I’ve never identified with it,” Shapiro told The New York Times in 2021. “I’ve moved on with my life, so this doesn’t really affect me. It’s a long time coming, but he’s got his karma.”

Following Shapiro’s attack, Alcala fled to New York, attended N.Y.U., and took on the identity of “John Berger,” according to ABC News. There, he killed at least two women.

On June 24, 1971, 23-year-old TWA flight attendant Cornelia Crilley was found raped and strangled with a nylon stocking in her Manhattan apartment, according to ABC News. The victim had bite marks on her breast, which later matched dental impressions belonging to Alcala — then already on death row for the California killings, according to The New York Times.

Following Crilley’s murder, Alcala — under the alias “John Berger” — went to New Hampshire and worked as a camp counselor, according to ABC News. He was captured for the Shapiro kidnapping and rape after campers recognized his wanted ad in a local post office.

Alcala was extradited to California and spent less than two years behind bars. He was released in 1977, only to return to New York City.

On July 15, 1977, 23-year-old Ellen Hover, an aspiring orchestra conductor whose father was well-known for owning Ciro’s nightclub in Hollywood, disappeared from her New York City home. Her skeletal remains were found 11 months later in Tarrytown, New York.

A note in Hover’s calendar stated she had a photoshoot scheduled with “John Berger,” according to ABC News.

On December 14, 2013, Alcala pleaded guilty to both New York murders, and he was sentenced to an additional 25 years to life.

Three years later, authorities in Wyoming connected Alcala to the 1977 death of San Antonian Christine Thornton, who was six months pregnant when she and her boyfriend went on a road trip, per ABC News. Relatives said the pair argued before going their separate ways when Thornton mysteriously disappeared.

A rancher discovered the skeletal remains of Thornton and her unborn child five years later in Granger, Wyoming, about 150 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, Utah. However, the remains weren’t identified until 2015, thanks to advancements in DNA testing.

Alcala was charged in 2016, but due to his ailing health, officials opted not to extradite him to Wyoming.

Evidence found in Alcala’s Seattle storage locker included thousands of photos of women and children, many of whom remain unidentified.

A photo of Thornton on a motorcycle was among the evidence.

Rodney Alcala died of natural causes on July 24, 2021, at 1:43 a.m., according to the C.D.C.R. He was then serving his sentence in Corcoran, California, and died at a Kings County hospital.

He was 77 years old.

Tali Shapiro, Alcala’s 8-year-old victim, spoke with The New York Times following Alcala’s death.

“The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure,” she said.

The sentiment was shared by Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jeff Sheaman, who’d worked on the Wyoming case of Christine Thornton.

“He’s where he needs to be, and I’m sure that’s in hell,” Mr. Sheaman told The New York Times. “When I interviewed him back in 2016, he was the most cold person. Everything about that guy just gives me the creeps.”

According to C.D.C.R., Alcala is also linked to murders in Los Angeles County and Marin County, California; Seattle, Washington; New York; New Hampshire; and Arizona.

Huntington Beach detectives are still appealing to identify anyone from the thousands of photos from Alcala’s Seattle storage locker. While not all have been publicized due to their graphic and often pornographic nature, some subjects were found alive and well, according to CBS News.