The thirteenth of September 1978 was an ordinary Wednesday for the majority of people. That day, on the other hand, was a watershed moment for Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette on the reality dating show The Dating Game. She picked Rodney Alcala, aka “The Dating Game Killer,” from a list of “eligible bachelors.”
The only thing he was hiding was his identity as an unrepentant serial killer at the time.
Bradshaw would almost certainly be remembered today as one of Alcala’s victims if it weren’t for a healthy jolt of female intuition. Instead, after the show was over, she talked to Alcala in the dressing room. Bradshaw had the distinct impression her handsome potential suitor was off his game when he offered her a date she’d never forget.
According to Bradshaw, “I started to get sick” in 2012. “He was behaving in a strange way. I said no to his offer of help. Seeing him again was the last thing I wanted to do.”
In the words of fellow bachelor actor Jed Mills, “Rodney was kind of quiet,” he recalled to LA Weekly. To this day, he stands out in my mind because I told my brother about a guy who was both attractive and creepy. He never made eye contact and was always looking down.”
This “kind of good-looking but kind of creepy” guy had already spent three years in prison for raping and beating an eight-year-old girl (he’d done the same to a 13-year-old too), landing him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List, had the popular dating show performed background checks on their bachelors.
In some cases, even a thorough background check isn’t enough to uncover the truth. As it turned out, Rodney Alcala had been implicated in at least four other killings before his arrest.
Alcala’s rejection of Cheryl Bradshaw is likely to have only fueled his rage. He claimed to have killed 50-100 people in total, both before and after his television appearance.
In some cases, even a thorough background check isn’t enough to uncover the truth. As it turned out, Rodney Alcala had been implicated in at least four other killings before his arrest.
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The Disturbing Murders Of Rodney Alcala
He was born on this day in 1943 in San Antonio, Texas as Rodney Alcala. He was eight years old when his father moved the family to Mexico, only to abandon them there three years later. A suburb of Los Angeles became home for Alcala and his sister after his mother made the decision to uproot the family.
A nervous breakdown led to Alcala being medically discharged from the Army at the age of 17 due to mental health issues. The bright young man went on to study at UCLA with an IQ of 135 points. It was only a matter of time before he went off the rails again.
Rodney Alcala, like many other serial killers, had a signature look.
Strangling victims until they were unconscious and then starting the process all over again were some of his trademark techniques. During his first known attempt at killing, he was only able to accomplish two of these goals. When he lured an eight-year-old girl into his Hollywood apartment in 1968, he became the victim of Tali Shapiro’s captivity.
Shapiro’s life was saved by a passerby who had reported a possible abduction to the police. When the police arrived, Alcala fled his apartment and remained a fugitive for years. He enrolled at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts under the guise of John Berger and studied under Roman Polanski.
The best time is at night, Alcala tells Bradshaw, the bachelorette. Totally spine-tingling material.
How The Dating Game Killer Was Finally Caught
Following her appearance on the Dating Game, Liane Leedom, then 17, was fortunate enough to escape unscathed from her first photoshoot with Rodney Alcala. He “showed her his portfolio, which in addition to shots of women included spreads of [naked] teenage boys,” Leedom said.
Since then, police have released portions of Alcala’s “portfolio” so that victims can be identified (the photos are still available to view). A few brave souls have come forward over the years to share their harrowing encounters with this predator.
Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl, was the case that would finally bring an end to Rodney Alcala’s killing spree. On the morning of June 20, 1979, she vanished while en route to ballet class in Huntington Beach, California.
Friends of Samsoe have reported that a stranger approached them on the beach and asked if they’d like to do a photo shoot for a project. They declined, and Samsoe rode away on the back of a friend’s bicycle to make it in time for ballet class that night. Samsoe vanished somewhere between the beach and class. Near the foothills of the Sierra Madre in Pasadena, a park ranger discovered her animal-ravaged remains nearly a month later.
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A police sketch artist drew up a composite after interviewing Samsoe’s friends, and Alcala’s former parole officer recognised the face in it. Because of their investigation into Samsoe’s earrings and Alcala’s criminal history, police were confident that they had Alcala on the case.
Samsoe’s family would, however, face a long and winding road to justice beginning in 1980.
He was sentenced to death by a jury that found him guilty of first-degree murder. The California Supreme Court, on the other hand, reversed this decision because they felt that the jury had been biassed by learning of Alcala’s previous sex crimes. Six years passed before he was brought back to trial.
In 1986, a new jury found him guilty of capital murder and sentenced him to death. It was overturned in 2001 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals “in part because the second trial judge did not allow a witness to back up the defense’s claim that the park ranger who found Robin Samsoe’s animal-ravaged body in the mountains had been hypnotised by police investigators,” according to an article published by LA Weekly.
After 31 years, a third trial was finally held in 2010. A senior deputy district attorney in Orange County, California, told LA Weekly that “the ’70s in California was insane as far as treatment of sexual predators. An example of this is Rodney Alcala. “It’s a complete and utter satire of absurdity.”
Rodney Alcala’s Long Road Toward Facing Justice
At some point during Alcala’s time behind bars, the author self-published a book titled “You, the Jury” where he declared his innocence in the Samsoe murder trial.
For the police department’s evidence bank, the DNA swabs were a hot topic of debate. Both Alcala’s slip-and-fall accident and his prison’s refusal to serve him a low-fat meal were part of his lawsuits against the California penal system.
Alcala announced that he would be representing himself in his third trial, to much surprise. After 31 years, investigators still had solid evidence against him for four other homicides — thanks to the DNA swabs from the prison — even though Samsoe had been murdered.
When Robin Samsoe was tried in 2010, the prosecution was able to include the new murder charges against him.
Rather than admitting responsibility, Rodney Alcala simply stated that he had no recollection of killing the other women.
Another witness for the defence offered an explanation for Alcala’s “memory lapse,” psychologist Richard Rappaport, who suggested that the condition could be linked to the man’s borderline personality disorder. It’s no surprise that the jury found Alcala guilty of the DNA-based charges and of the murder of Samsoe as well.
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It was a surprise witness at Alcala’s sentencing that Tali Shapiro, the girl Alcala raped and beaten to within an inch of her life 40 years earlier appeared.
Robin Samsoe, 12, Jill Barcomb, 18, Georgia Wixted, 27, Charlotte Lamb, 31, and Jill Parenteau, 21, had finally received justice, and Shapiro was there to witness it. Alcala was sentenced to death for the third time by the court.
The “Dating Game Killer” has been linked to a number of cold case murders since that trial, including two that he pleaded guilty to in New York in 2013. His crimes may never be known in full.
The Death Of The Dating Game Killer
Rodney Alcala, who was on death row in California, died of natural causes on July 24, 2021, at the age of 77.
“Dating Game Killer” was finally dead, and some of his victims expressed their relief. Tali Shapiro said, “The planet is a better place without him, for sure.” A long time has passed, but his karma has finally caught up with him.
An investigator in Wyoming who had been working on a cold case involving Alcala in recent years, Jeff Sheaman, was even more blunt in saying, “He’s where he needs to be, and I’m sure that’s in hell,”
According to Sheaman’s memory, during police interviews, Alcala would draw fingerprints on photos of his victims to irritate and enrage detectives. She speculated that Alcala did this in an attempt to provoke them. He came to believe that Alcala may have taken untold numbers of victims that we will never know about as a result of his investigation into the coldness of Alcala.
After Alcala died, Sheaman said, “Hell, there might be a tonne of other victims out there.” “I don’t know.”
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