'The Dating Game' Killer: A Handsome Murderer Who Would Rape, Beat, Strangle Young Girls To Death

Rodney Alcala was known to the world as a handsome contestant after he appeared on 'The Dating Game', but things changed soon after he revealed the evil inside him.

It was like every other day for the viewers and the beautiful host of the TV matchmaking show, ‘The Dating Game’. Cheryl Bradshaw handled the show, and from a lineup of “eligible bachelors” she chose handsome bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala. Bradshaw was totally unaware that her decision will reveal one of the most dreadful serial killers in American history. Well, she was unaware that she had on her show a person who had murdered at least four people before appearing on the ‘The Dating Game’, as per ThoughtCo website.

Appearance On 'The Dating Game'

It was after Rodney Alcala appeared on the famous show and his crimes rattled the investigators that he was started to be called ‘The Dating Game’ killer. According to the website ATI (All That Interesting), Alcala appeared on the show on September 13, 1978.
Bradshaw remembered talking to him backstage and the details do raise a doubt. As per ATI, Alcala offered her a date, but Bradshaw got the feeling that her handsome potential suitor was a little off.

“I started to feel ill,” Bradshaw told the Sydney Telegraph in 2012, as per ATI. “He was acting really creepy. I turned down his offer. I didn’t want to see him again.”

A participant of the show recalled to LA Weekly, “Rodney was kind of quiet. I remember him because I told my brother about this one guy who was kind of good-looking but kind of creepy. He was always looking down and not making eye contact.”

Personal Life

Rodney Alcala was born on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas to Raoul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. His father left him, his mother and sisters alone. At around the age of 12, Anna Maria moved the family to Los Angeles, ThoughtCo reported.
At the age of 17, Alcala joined the Army as a clerk and remained there until 1964. He received a medical discharge after being diagnosed with a severe anti-social personality, ThoughtCo mentioned in its long report.

Then, the intelligent young man with an IQ of 135 went on to attend UCLA where he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1968.  Well, this is the same year that he committed his first crime, which eventually led to his fall.  

Rodney Alcala, His Murders And Victims

As per ATI, in total, before and after his television appearance, the sadistic “Dating Game Killer” claimed to have killed between 50 and 100 people, mostly young girls and women. Serial killers are believed to have a style of their own. Alcala’s signatures were beating, biting, raping, and strangling. He would often choke his victims until the point of unconsciousness, then once they came to, he’d start the process over again.

During his first crime, he was successful at only two of these things. The victim was an eight-year-old Tali Shapiro. He lured her into his Hollywood apartment in 1968.

Alcala raped, beat, and attempted to strangle her with a 10-pound metal bar, ThoughtCo reported. When police arrived and kicked the door, they found Tali lying on the kitchen floor in a large pool of blood. They thought she was dead as the brutality hinted at nothing else. However, a police officer saw Tali struggling to breathe. While attention shifted to keeping her alive, Alcala managed to slip out the back door. Police found photos of many young girls in his apartment.

New Name, New Place

Alcala fled to New York and got himself enrolled in NYU film school. He also changed his name to John Berger. By then, he was on the FBI’s most wanted list but kept roaming in full view. He later joined a girls' summer drama camp.
As per ATI, in 1971, two girls attending the camp recognised Alcala on a wanted poster at the post office. The police were notified, and Alcala was arrested, for the first time.

The Arrests And Indeterminate Sentences

Legal proceedings began, but the prosecutor's case had a major flaw - Tali Shapiro's family had returned to Mexico soon after Tali recovered from the attack. Without their main witness, the decision was made to offer Alcala a plea deal. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder, and accepted a deal to plead guilty to child molestation. The other charges were dropped, the report said.

He was sentenced to one year to life and was paroled after 34 months under the "indeterminate sentencing" program. Within eight weeks, he was back in prison for violating his parole for providing marijuana to a 13-year-old girl. She told police that Alcala kidnapped her, but he was not charged.

He later spent another two years behind bars and was released in 1977, again under the "indeterminate sentencing" program. He returned to Los Angeles and got a job as a typesetter for the Los Angeles Times and began his gruesome killings.

The Killings

It is believed that when Alcala was allowed to travel to New York to “visit relatives”, within seven days of his arrival there, he killed a college student named Elaine Hover. She was the daughter of a popular Hollywood nightclub owner and goddaughter of both Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, claimed the ATI report.

A month later, he raped, sodomised, and murdered 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wixted. AIT mentioned that Alcala used a hammer to sexually abuse Georgia, then used the claw end of the hammer to beat and smash her head. He then strangled her to death using a nylon stocking.

Similarly, he raped and killed many girls but the twist came after the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. She was kidnapped and murdered by him.

Bizarre Trial, Conviction And Death

Samsoe’s friends told the police that a stranger approached them on the beach and asked if they’d want to do a photoshoot. They declined and Samsoe left, borrowing a friend’s bike to hurriedly get to ballet. At some point between the beach and class, Samsoe disappeared. Almost 12 days later, her animal-ravaged bones were found in a forested area.

Samsoe’s friends helped police draw a sketch that was recognised by Alcala’s parole agent. Later police found Samsoe’s earrings in Alcala’s Seattle storage locker and arrested him.

On February 25, 2010, the jury found Alcala guilty of all five counts of capital murder, one count of kidnapping and four counts of rape, reported NBC News.

A total of three trials took place in the Samsoe case and Alcala represented himself in the third one.
Interestingly, during the penalty phase, Alcala played Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant", in which the narrator tries to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War by trying to persuade a psychiatrist that he's unfit for the military because of his supposed extreme desire to kill.

The lyrics include: "I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL."

A surprise witness at the sentencing was Tali Shapiro, the girl Alcala had raped and nearly killed some 40 years ago. As per NBC, after the verdict, authorities released more than 100 photos of young women and girls found in Alcala's possession in hopes of linking him to other unsolved murders around the country.

Rodney Alcala died of natural causes at age 77 on July 24, 2021 while he was still on death row in California.