Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
A photographer who was on “The Dating Game” became one of the nation’s deadliest serial killers
in los angeles in 1968 eight year old tali shapiro was walking to school when a car pulled up alongside her
the former los angeles police officer chris camacho reached the location and knocked on the door .
camacho began franticaly searching searching the house for her attacker, moments later he walked back into the kitchen and witnessed a miracle.
clinging to life tali was rushed to the hospital.
the suspect 25 year old rodney Akala had slipped through the officer’s fingers
with Alcala in the wind…
former detective steve hodel was grasping at thin air.
Rodney Alcala was born in San Antonio,Texas in 1943. his father abandoned the family when he was young
at 17 , Alcala enlisted in the army but there were problems,allegations of sexual misconduct,a nervous breakdown, the army discharged him .
in 1969 ,the FBI put Rodney Alcala on its most wanted list
but finding Alcala was going to be no simple matter…..
after raping and almost killing tali shapiro ,he fled to new york,he made friends,he charmed people ,he got into NYU film school .
none of his fellow students suspected that their popular classmate had a double life,which had the makings of a film itself….
a horror film.
three years after his attack on Tali Shapiro, Alcala’s dark side once again emerged….
June 1971
his next victim Cornelia crilley ,a 23 year old flight attendant for TWA.
Crilley had spent the day moving in when Borstein came home from work ,he was suprised to find her door locked and no one answered the phone.
when her boyfriend was trying reach her and was unable, the police came in the horrible scene .
she had been stripped naked , she was strangled with a nylon stocking and there was a bite mark on her breast.
the police focused on cornelia’s murder, but with almost 2000 killings in new york in 1971,investigators could not close the case.
they had no real leads, they didn’t have the forensic tools that we have today so they did what they could but it never went anyplace and the case just went cold and it stayed cold for 40 years.
Rodney Alcala, wasn’t even a suspect. after the murder ,he changed his name to John Berger and moved to New Hampshire.
he landed a job as a counselor at an arts and drama camp for girls,there he made a lasting impression on the campers.
two girls went to their post office and they looked and there was Rodney Alcala’s photo on the FBI 10 most wanted list .
they report it to the dean , he calls the authorities ,they arrest him , tak him into custody.
police in california were eager to charge him for tali shapiro’s brutal assault but her family had left the country
with no witness ,prosecutors had no choice but to offer Alcala a deal .
plead guilty to a lesser charge of child moestation and register as a sex offender,he took the deal
but the judges sentence stunned those working the case
he received one year to life and the parole board let him go after 34 months after what he did to tali shapiro.
so, less then three years later , rodney Alcala was a free man-again.
and Alcala had no trouble ,charming his way back into the swing of things.
he was hired by the Los Angeles Times to work as a typesetter, he took photos at weddings and he was a registered sex offender during all of that and nobody ever checked .
even worse ,he was chosen to be a contestant on the dating game
the bachelor of its day ,but what no one knew was that Rodney Alcala was already a serial killer.
the women who won a date with him ended backing out saying
she found him creepy
that probably saved her life, others would not be so fortunate …..
we’ll never know how many women are lucky , because every women that crossed that guy’s path was a potential victim.
it was 1977. Rodney Alcala was out of prison and living in new york bad news for the new york cops who already their hands full
a home -grown serial killer known as son of sam was terrorizing the city
by this time the cornelia crilley case had been cold for six years with no suspects.
Rodney Alcala was only in the city a week before adding to the new york crime wave…
his next victim , a 23 year old musician and artist named Ellen Hover.
Ellen hover came from a prominent show business family
her father owned the famed hollywood nightclub Ciro’s
her godfathers were sammy davis Jr and dean martin.
her family’s high profile made the story front page News, as the NYPD kept up the hunt for her.
detective thought they were on to something when they found an important clue in her apartment.
Ellen Hover had marked on her calendar that she was going to see someone named john berger on the date that she disappeared.
remember Alcala had been using the name john berger but at the time the conaction was never made.
her body wasn’t found until a year later buried on the grounds of phillips memorial hospital in westchester near the rockefeller estate.
Ellen’s body was so decomposed,police had to use dental records to identify her
based on the autopsy they declared it a homicide.
there was a suspect in the murder, a fellow that they believed was the last person that she was seen with.
could that fellow have been Alcala? Ellen had written his Alias john berger in her calender.
Alcala meanwhile had left new york and was on his meandering roadtrip back to california .
at the same time Rodney Alcala was on the road , a 29 year old women from Texas ,christine ruth thornton was traveling through the west with her boyfriend,her sister kathy was 11 years younger.
in the spring of 1977 christine was heading to montana with her boyfriend to pan for gold and she had big news.
she was having a baby and then nothing more was heard.
kathy immediately feared the worst . christine and her boyfriend had a stormy relationship, kathy knew christine had been abused by him and kathy always thought that he had done something to her.
soon after chirstine disappeared, kathy began searching for answers , she undertook a systematic effort to track chirstine and her boyfriends whereabouts that would last almost 40 years through marriage, motherhood, divorce and a career.
kathy contacted police departements,federal agencies,hospitals and kept copies of every phone call and letter .
the message was clear ” we don”t know ,we have nothing “
kathy didn’t know the name Rodney Alcala ,but one day she would …..
it was the spring of 1979,rodney alcala had been back in californa for almost two years.
and a 12 year old Robin samsoe was enjoying the southern california beach life…..
on june 20th 1979 ,robin was going to start her first day of work , answering at the ballet studio in exchange for leassons.
but first she planned to play on the beach for a few hours with bridget.
i could definitely see a gentleman with dark hair, i mean he honed in on us like really ,like a chark in the water honing in on a seal and he goes ” can i take your girls pictures? ” and robin goes”sure” and all of the sudden out of nowhere pops up jackie young my neigbor you know she goes ” bridget is everything okay ,are you girls all right? and man he , he took that camera , turned his head down and you could almost see like smoke coming off his dress shoes,he just, he was gone “
-bridget
robin and bridget turned to go back home,and tobin had thrown her beach towing everything into her bag and she’s like
” i’ m gonna get going and i will take my bike and don’t stop”
that was the last time anyone saw robin alive ……
robin’s ballet teacher called when she did not arrive for her lesson later that day ,her family ,immediately called 911.
police continually questioned the one person they thought might know where Robin could have gone .her best friend Bridget.
it was the man that took our picture”
on july 2nd ,12 days after robin last goodbye to her friend and rode off on her bike ,detectives found the body of a child….
Robin mother questioned the dectetive” how many little girls with long blonde hair disappeared that it took you three days?”
detective shook the mother’s shoulders and tears coming down his face too and he says ” there was no hair”
a fire crew conducting routine fire prevention maintenance found robin’s remains in a remote location more then 40 miles from where she was last seen
there were 12 days of the animals to scavenge robin’s remains, by the time the fire crew actually found her , she was just bones.
the pressure was on to find the killer.Bridget’s description resulted in this composite sketch,which was released to the media all over southern california.
his parole officer saw that and called the detectives and said” look, there’s a guy that used to be on my caseload , you really need to take a look at him, his name is is rodney alcala.
it had been nearly 11 years since alcala had left eight year old tali shapiro for death.
but alcala was easy to find this time , he lived with his mother in monterey park a stone’s throw from the mountains where robins remains were located.
they learned that he had no alibi that nobody could account for his whereabouts at the time.
he was the perfect suspect,rodney alcala was arrested on july 24th and charged with the kidnap and murder of robin samsoe.
huntington beach police got an unexpected tip when alcala’s sister came to visit her brother in jail, the conversation was being recorded .
on when he mentions him having a store locker in seattle washington, the cops don’t know about ,”so do me a favor,get the stuff out of there ,get it cleared out”
but what alcala didn’t know was that police had found the receipt for the locker during a search of his home at the time of his arrest.
police learned alcala had rented the storage facility and moved his belongings there nine days after robin samsoe’s remains were discovered.
under all this stuff was this tiny little silk bag filled with earrings,but alcala claimed those were his earrings
but when police showed the jewelry to robin’s mother ,she recognized a pair of gold ball studs that she said robin often borrowed.
nearly one year after robin samsoe’s murder prosecutors were ready
it was february 1980, rodney alcala went on trial.
over the course of two and a half months ,there were almost 50 witnesses that testified .it was a very long ,very difficult case.
the jury convicted alcala and sentenced him to death.
but the relief would be short- lived…..
the jury had been improperly told about alcala’s prior sex crimes including the attack on tali.
the decision would devastate robin’s mother, but the ordeal was just beginning..
the samsoe’s family was steadfast in the face of a second trial for the murder of robin.they demanded justice.
six years after the first verdict a clean-cut rodney alcala was convicted a second time and again the sentence was death.
alcala had been on San Quentin’s death row since 1980, now with a second conviction and a second death sentence he was prepared to appeal all over again ….
in 2001 ,22 years after he killed robin samsoe a federal appeals court overturned rodney alcala’s sentence for a second time based on evidence he didn’t get to present.
there would be a new trial for alcala now in his 60s.
for robin samsoe’s family it was unbearable
the path to justice for robin samsoe would take almost a decade more
New York , 2010
in new york city , 39 years since the murder of cornelia crilley and 33 years since Ellen hover was killed
cold case detectives were finally able to identify rodney alcala as the killer of both women.
the strongest link was the fingerprint, there was a letter that was lodged underneath cornelia’s body and there was a fingerprint developed from the outside of that envelope which was unmatched for many years and finally through the FBI ‘s databas there was a match.
it was a significant piece of evidence but not enough standing alone.
equally incriminating was the evidence left on her body
there was bite mark evidence where he had bitten her breast ,it’s his dental impression is the one that’s on her body.
prosecutors looked at all of his cases to see similarities in sexual murders committed . prosecutors decided they had enough evidence.
In ellen hover’s case investigators now knew john berger was rodney alcala and he had been seen near the rockefeller estates where her body was found .
detectives thinks that she was abducted in manthattan and ultimately killed up there.
they had a witness who saw somebody who looked like rodney alcala at that time period with a women who looked like ellen hover ,the man was carrying a camera bag just like alacala did.
but the manhattan prosecutors would wait for california’s third trial for robin samsoe’s murder.
in orange county , assistant D.A matt murphy was ready to go to court when there was a stunning development.
DNA linked alcala to three los angeles murders.
jill barcomb
Georgia wixted
and charlotte lamb
the killing of a fourth L.A women jill parentau was was also tied to him.
right at that moment , prosecutors realized that not only is rodney alcala a vicious murder in they ‘re case but in fact he is the serial killer that they always suspected him to be.
in a highly unusual manewuver the california prosecutors deside to try all five cases together.
a bizarre looking rodney alcala would serve as his own attorney.
there is no better forum than to be center stage in court as your own attorney and you cross -examine the witnesses, you’re like god in that courtroom.
–mary ellen O’toole ,former FBI profiler
alcala even called robin samsoe’s mother to the stand,desperate to impeach marianne’s character,alcala confronted her about how during the first trial she had reportedly brought a gun to court.she didn’t deny it.
i was going to shoot him right between the eyes if i could have gotten a shot at him
then she felt robin’s presence.
all of sudden i smelled her shampoo and i felt this warmth in my hand i couldn’t get my hand out of my purse.
for the third time robin samsoe’s family waited as the jury decided rodney alcala’s fate
this time there were four other families waiting with them .
when the jury reached a verdict it was a relief to the families who had been waiting for justice for so long.
the samsoe’s hoped that this would finally be the end.
again , rodney alcala was guilty of the crime of murder in first degree ,victim robin C samsoe.
in a separate penalty phase the prosecution called to the stand a ghost from his past….
tily shapiro .alcala’s first victims and one of the only living victims.
rodney alcala addressing the same jury that convicted him of murder makes an unusual plea for clemency .
he wanted to play arlo Guthrie’s song alice’s resturant and there’s a part in that song where he talks about wanting to kill people and he played that incredibly for the jury…..
alcala’s closing argument …. did not sway the jyry
we the jury determined that the penalty to be imposed upon defendant rodney james alcala to be death
Rodney alcala had been on death row for more than 30 years , now convicted of five murders, it was unlikely he could win another appeal.
New York , 2012
with the california cases settled ,the new york prosecutors were ready for him but they were not expecting what would happen next.
he came back to new york in june of 2012 and by december he pled guilty .
it was a suprise that he pled guilty because he had denied every crime he was ever accused of .
manhattan district attoney, cyrus vance junior , announced acala’ s sentence. two concurrent prison terms of 25 years to life .
for both families,who had lost all hope,that these cases would ever be solved ,the please by rodney alcala and today’s sentencing brings closure to painful chapters in their lives.
the judge cried,during the sentencing
as was agreed upon ,alcala was returned to san Quentin’s death row
regardless of what might happen to california cases,if for some reason he should get out he’s coming back to new york and he’ s going to serve 25 to life.
both the new york and california prosecutors are are haunted by the question .. are there other victims out there?
he crisscrossed the country west coast , east cost , east cost ,west coast, crossed trough a lot of states and prosecutors are sure there are victims in those states
they just have to be found ……
Rodney alcala had been convicted of seven murders and was facing five separate death penalties.
kathy thornton ,who had spent the last 39 years trying to track down her missing sister christine had never heard of Alcala but her son did.it would change kathy’s quest forever.
in 2013 ,kathy’s son had watched a 48 -hour story on Alcala that led him to its website and series of photos taken by alcala of unidentified women.
kathy scrolled thrugh the images,she kept stopping at one of them .
a picture of a beautiful woman on the back of a motorcycle.
kathy said that sure look like her sister and then she saw her little toe , her baby toe and that’s one thing kathy remembered about chris, was her little baby toe was different ,it hooked ,kathy said ” oh yeah , that’s chris
googling the name rodney alcala kathy’s heart almost stopped.
kathy now believed her sister had been traveling with a notorious serial killer,fearing the worst but still wanting answers, kathy submitted her own DNA to a national database of missing persons .
if her sister’s DNA was ever submitted they could be matched.
Sweetwater County .WY
hundreds of miles away , jeff sheeman a wyoming detective,was working on a very tough cold case.
they referred to my case as granger greta because it was an unidentified female that was found in granger wyoming back in 1982
there were a lot of aerial photos and photos from, the scene when the body was found,it was a desolate area county.
prosecutor daniel A . recalled his predecessors had tried everything to help identify the victim .
the skull was intact and so the wyoming state crime lab was able to have an artist come in and use the scull as a form of recreating what what this victim look like.
more than 30 years had past without a lead , all jeff could do was to study the old files with a new set of eyes.
the bones had been pulled apart,presumably by scavengers animals, she’d been out there about five to six years.
it was the body of a 25 to 35 year old female,they also told investigators at that time that she was also approximately six months pregnant.
jeff ,was blow away , when he found that wyoming crime lab had save skin tissue and bone fragments
and all they got to do is get the ball rolling with send it to the proper authorities to start processing it for any DNA, specifically mitochondrial DNA.
that’s DNA from the mother’s side of the family , siblings would be revealed as a match.
less then a year later jeff got the miraculous news, there was a match between kathy thornton and the unidentified bones.
after 39 years of searching , kathy found christine ,her hunt was finally over and the story of what happened to he sister began to unravel .
during the summer of 1977,christine split with her boyfriend and had the tragic misfortune of meeting rodney alcala.
there trip through the lonely granger prairie would be christine’s last ride.
the location where the photo was taken to the location where christine’s remains were found where within a few yards of each other.
jeff believes that rodney alcala killed christine thorton shortly after that photograph was taken.
but before he would indict alcala for christine thornton’s murder , prosecutor Daniel A ,wanted to interview him.
in september 2016 ,he flew with the two detectives to californua.
frail and in ill health ,rodney alcala had been moved from San Quentin to the medical unit of Corcoran State Prison outside of fresno.
jeff and the two detectives were told by some of the security staff they said that he was bordeline dementia.
whatever , his condition,he was still being treated like the dangerous serial killer that he was.
jeff and the detectives went through numerous doors , numerous gates ….
to a peach colored prison cell, that look like something off of a horror movie, paints ,coming off the walls , flies, buzzing around , alcala is on the bed facing a wall ,his feet were sticking out underneath the sheets, long toenails
and they started pulling out photographs of the crime scene, he took two seconds to look at the photo and said ” i know that area , that’s my area”
alcala reacted to christine’s photo photograph was something the detectives will never forget.
it almost clicked like that with him and you could almost tell that he was reliving that day.
eventually he took the photo , set it on his lap and he uses index finger and just started tracing her body , tracing her body for probably five minutes and eventually he sat the paper down flat and he started tapping, tapping on the photograph of christine ,right over christine’s body, just tap the photograph and eventually the tapping got louder and louder, he eventually looked at me as he kept tapping on the photo and at that point i honestly thought he would provide us more information about christine.
–jeff
but it was a game,despite his age, his infirmaty, his close to 40 years behind bars , alcala was still the master manipulator he’d always been.
the only time he would show any type of fervor in his voice would be when we would point blank ask him ” did you kill her”and he would say ” no, no, you’re crazy , you’re stupid” and then when i asked him” was she alive when you left her?” and he said “yeas ,she was alive when i left”
–daniel
that’s all the prosecutor really needed to hear.
the fact that he admitted he was there just cinched it for me, he could deny killing her all he wants but the fact that he admitted as far as i’m concerned is a confession , i decided to charge him with first degree murder.
there would be no extradition to wyoming
he’s been in prison since 1979 why should we give him a trip? a good place for mr alcala is in the bed we left him in
–daniel
so, alcala was never tried for christine’s murder, but kathy thornton has finally learned what happened to her sister,
along with other seven families ,she has the answer to the question none of them ever wanted to ask ….
how many others are there,that did the same thing chis did
-kathy
with his execution suspended by california’s death penalty moratorium
Rodney Alcala died of natural causes in 2021, at age 77.