Dating Game Serial Killer Rodney Alcala

'Dating Game Killer' Case Goes to Jury
Accused Serial Killer Rodney Alcala Shows Video of Himself on Game Show as Part of Defense

By MIKE von FREMD and BONNIE McLEAN
Feb. 24, 2010

The year is 1978, and the syndicated show "The Dating Game" is a household hit from coast to coast. A bachelor on one episode stands out for his looks and charm as he answers questions posed by a bachelorette in search of a date.

A former "Dating Game" contestant could be one of history's worst serial killers"Bachelor No. 1, what's your best time?" she asks.

"The best time is at night, nighttime," says the bachelor, whose name is Rodney Alcala.

"Why do you say that?" she asks.

"Because that's the only time there is."

What's wrong with morning or afternoon?"

"Well, they're OK, but nighttime is when it really gets good. Then you're really ready."

The bachelorette seems intrigued by 35-year-old Alcala. The audience also seems to think he's handsome and charming. In the end, Alcala wins the date.

But what the bachelorette doesn't know is that the man she just picked may turn out to be one of the most brutal and terrifying serial killers in history.

Watch the full story Thursday on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m. ET.

Related
Zodiac Murders Continue to HauntWATCH: Amateurs Chase the Zodiac KillerSuspected Killer Uses 'Dating Game' Defense"This could easily be another Ted Bundy," said Steve Hodel, a retired detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. "It could be 20, 30 victims." Now, 66-year-old Rodney Alcala is charged with murdering four California women and one girl in the late 1970s. Arguments in his multiple murder trial, in which he is representing himself, closed today. The case, at Orange County Criminal Courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., is now in the hands of the jury.

Some investigators believe the five killings are just the tip of the iceberg.

"He's right up somewhere just below Hitler and right around Ted Bundy," said Det. Cliff Shepard, an LAPD cold case investigator. "There is no rhyme or reason for what he is doing. I mean it is not humane, whatever he does to these victims. It is a torturous, terrible murder."

By many accounts, Alcala was a man with a bright future. He had a Fine Arts degree from the University of California-Los Angeles, studied film at New York University and had worked for director Roman Polanski.

"I talked to his professor at UCLA and his professor came out and said this guy is a top honor student," said Hodel. "He is really a nice guy. He wouldn't hurt a fly. You've got the wrong man. ... I got this very smart, very polished guy and ... the acts he committed, you've got this monster inside of him."

Investigators said the slayings happened between late 1977 and mid-1979.

One of the alleged victims, Jill Barcomb, was a free spirit. In 1977, when she was just 18, she traveled from her home in Oneida, N.Y., out to California with friends. She was in Hollywood for only a few weeks when she met Alcala.


'He Gets Off on the Infliction of Pain'
Shepard took ABC News to the site where Barcomb's body was found.

Rodney James Alcala, right, was twice previously convicted of the 1979 killing of a 12-year-old...
Rodney James Alcala, right, was twice previously convicted of the 1979 killing of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, Robin Samsoe, left, but the convictions were overturned on procedural grounds. He has been convicted once again of the killing and four others.
(newscom.com/AP Photo)"Jill's found right here," said Shepard, "around Franklin Canyon Drive, Nov. 10, 1977."

It isn't clear how Alcala allegedly picked up Barcomb, but police say the ending is certain.

"What he was doing was choking her out unconscious, bare-handed, and allowing her to regain consciousness because he enjoys that," said prosecutor Matt Murphy at Alcala's trial. "He gets off on the infliction of pain on other people."

Only one month later, prosecutors said, Alcala spotted beautiful 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, who had just recently moved into her first apartment.

"He followed her home. He crawled in her window and he absolutely brutalized her," said Murphy.

Wixted was found dead Dec. 16, 1977.

"He committed unspeakable acts of horror upon that beautiful young woman," said Murphy.

Police say Alcala likely spotted beautiful Charlotte Lamb in a local bar and tried to approach her.

"Before Rodney Alcala, just like the others, a beautiful young woman," said Murphy. "After Rodney Alcala she's a brutalized, ripped-up corpse."

Lamb was discovered in the laundry room of her building.

"He posed her dead body," said Murphy. "He propped her arms up under her back, probably to arch her up so that her breasts would be better exposed."

One year later, Alcala was spotted dancing at a bar with an attractive 21-year-old named Jill Parenteau. Just a few days later, Parenteau was found dead, her tortured body posed in almost the exact same fashion as Wixted and Lamb.

"Living alone, another independent person," said Shepard. "That was just another brutal, brutal murder."

Just six days after Parenteau's body was found, Alcala met his youngest victim, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. The girl was riding her bicycle to her very first ballet class when Alcala allegedly convinced her to get in his car. Her body was found 12 days later.

"Robin was in the innocent child stage of 12," said Murphy. "All she cared about was ballet. ... He turned this beautiful young girl into a rotting corpse, eaten by animals."



Alcala has been twice convicted for the murder of Robin Samsoe, but both times the verdicts were overturned.

"I wish I had a gun again today," the girl's mother, Marianne Connely, told ABC News.

Connely was in court, once again facing her daughter's accused killer. During the first trial, in the days before metal detectors, she says she carried a pistol in her pocketbook when she took the stand, with the intent of making her own justice.

"He was blowing kisses at me across the courtroom, and I thought I was going to lose my mind," Connely said. "And I thought I was going to go crazy, you know. And I reached into my purse and I was going to grab it, you know, and I thought, 'I can't do this.'"

Police say Alcala has spent more than 30 years obsessing about the murder of Robin. He has even written a book proclaiming his innocence.

Robin's brother Tim Samsoe, 44, said the worst thing is watching Alcala perk up in court every time he get the chance to see old photographs of his alleged victims.

"You see the gleam in his eye," said Samsoe. "He's enjoying this again."



http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/dating-game-serial-killer-rodney-alcala-murder-trial/story?id=9924537&page=2

Robin Samsoe was murdered 23 years ago, allegedly, by Rodney James Alcala. He claims he never met her....

Man Stalked, Killed 5 Calif. Victims
Accused serial killer stalked Calif. women like prey, took earrings as trophies

By GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer
SANTA ANA, Calif. February 22, 2010 (AP)

A man accused of five serial slayings in the late 1970s stalked women like prey, kept binoculars in his car and took earrings as trophies from some of his victims after they died, a prosecutor said Monday.

"You're talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it," Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy said about Rodney James Alcala during closing arguments at his trial.

"I don't think in your lifetime you will ever see cases with more brutality, and there is ample evidence that all of these women put up some resistance and they were punished for it."

Alcala, 66, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of first-degree murder in the killings of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and four Los Angeles County women between 1977 and 1979. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9906179

I just happened to look at Nancy Grace tonight,for about 5/10 minutes, and saw this creep...I couldn't believe my eyes...It showed a bit from when he was on Dating Game, and another of the male contestants said he was odd to say the least...

I had no idea N Grace was covering this..

NG will cover anything that might make her numbers go up.

Here is the psycho's appearance on The Dating Game.

Thanks J4A, I was going "a hunting" for that!

Rodney Alcala Sentenced To Death

GILLIAN FLACCUS
3/9/10 9:45 PM

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Relatives of four women and a 12-year-old girl who were brutally slain in the late 1970s exploded in applause Tuesday as the jury recommended death for Rodney Alcala, a convicted serial killer whose bizarre defense strategy included lyrics from an Arlo Guthrie song and showing an episode of "The Dating Game."

Jurors took just an hour to return the death recommendation after a six-week trial in which the 66-year-old Alcala – who was representing himself – grilled the mother of one of his victims, cross-examined police investigators and answered his own questions while taking the stand in his own defense.

Alcala has been sentenced to death twice before in the 1979 murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, but those verdicts were overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors refiled charges in that case and added the four other murders in 2006 after investigators linked them to Alcala using DNA samples and other forensic evidence. Those cases, which had gone unsolved for decades, went on trial for the first time this year.

Alcala, an amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, focused his entire defense on the Samsoe case and ignored the murders of the four Los Angeles County women murdered between 1977 and 1979.

Samsoe's surviving siblings, now in their mid-40s, thanked the jury and said they were glad to see the other families get closure after years of not knowing who had killed their loved ones.

"Thirty-six people now have convicted him of death and that's a great feeling knowing that Robin did not die for nothing. We took a monster off the street, we've got closure for other families who didn't have it," said Robin's older brother, 44-year-old Robert Samsoe. "This is a joyous occasion."

Alcala gave his own closing arguments earlier Tuesday, telling jurors that a death recommendation would make them "de facto killers" and "wannabe killers in waiting."

He then played a piece of Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant," in which the narrator tries to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War by trying to convince a psychiatrist that he's unfit for the military because of his supposed extreme desire to kill.

"I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth," the song's narrator sings. "Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean: kill, kill, kill, kill."

Robert Samsoe stalked out of court as the song was played.

Juror Greg Lacey said the lyrics had a chilling effect on the panel – but not the one Alcala had hoped for.

"It didn't make sense to us. We're sitting there doing our duty, we're not out there stalking someone," Lacey said, adding that the gruesome evidence in the case gave him many sleepless nights.

Choosing the death penalty "was something we had to do as part of a civilized society," he said.

Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach was kidnapped while riding a bicycle to ballet class on June 20, 1979. Her body was found 12 days later in the Angeles National Forest, where it had been mutilated by wild animals.

Alcala was arrested a month after Samsoe's disappearance when his parole agent recognized him from a police sketch and called authorities. Alcala has been in custody ever since.

He was first tried in Samsoe's murder in 1980. Prosecutors added the murders of the four women in 2006 after investigators discovered forensic evidence linking him to those crimes, including DNA found on three of the women, a bloody handprint and marker testing done on blood Alcala left on a towel in the fourth victim's home.

The jury convicted Alcala of the murders on Feb. 25, and also found true special-circumstance allegations of rape, torture and kidnapping, making him eligible for the death penalty.

A defense psychiatrist testified during the trial penalty phase last week that Alcala suffers from a borderline personality disorder that could lead to psychotic episodes. Alcala has claimed he doesn't remember some of his actions.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy called the defense psychiatrist's diagnosis "garbage" and argued that Alcala was a remorseless predator who enjoyed killing and kept earrings and other trophies of his victims.

After the verdict Tuesday, Murphy said conceded that Alcala was smart but working with him professionally as his own defense attorney was emotionally taxing.

"It was interesting, but you feel like you've got to take a shower at the end of each day," Murphy said.

During the guilt phase of trial, Alcala's defense took a surreal turn when he played a seconds-long clip of himself on a 1978 episode of "The Dating Game."

He said the grainy clip proved that he was wearing a gold-ball earring almost a year before Samsoe was killed.

Prosecutors said the earring, found in a small pouch with other earrings in a storage locker Alcala had rented, belong to Samsoe and that Alcala had taken it as a trophy. They also found the DNA of another Alcala's victims on a rose-shaped earring in the same pouch.

In addition to Samsoe, Alcala is charged with killing Jill Barcomb, 18, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Oneida, N.Y.; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/09/rodney-alcala-sentenced-t_n_492500.html

Piper wrote:Thanks J4A, I was going "a hunting" for that!

You are welcome Piper. I found the video with one of the articles when I was searching for more info on this case.

Did NG mention this info?

He had already raped an 8 year old before he appeared on the show..


"He was creepy. Definitely creepy," fellow contestant Jed Mills, who sat next to Alcala on the show, told CNN.

Alcala already had been convicted for the 1968 rape of an 8-year-old girl, according to CNN, but that didn't stop him from making an impression on the female participant, Cheryl Bradshaw.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_serial_killer_rodney_alcala_won_the_dating_game_just_before_murder_spree.html

Are There More Rodney Alcala Victims? Police Reach Out to Public with Hundreds of Photos

March 11, 2010 5:29 PM

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CBS/AP) Investigators are asking for the public's help in identifying any potential victims among hundreds of pictures of young women and men. The photos were apparently snapped by Rodney Alcala, who was recently convicted in the serial murders of four women and a 12-year-old girl.

PICTURES: Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?



(Credit: Huntington Beach Police Dept.)

Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified, and officials worry that they might have uncovered a trophy case of additional victims of Alcala.

"We'd like to locate the women in these pictures," prosecutor Matt Murphy told the Orange County Register. "Did they simply pose for a serial killer, or did they become victims of his sadistic, murderous pattern?"

Hundreds of photos recovered during court-authorized searches of Alcala's Monterey Park home and a storage locker were released Wednesday.

Police say some of the photos show women and young girls in the nude and engaging in sex acts.

Prosecutors said Alcala, the 66-year-old amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, used his camera as a way to convince victims to trust him.

A jury on Tuesday recommended a death sentence for Alcala for five murders he committed in the seventies. Jurors took just an hour to return the death recommendation after a six-week trial in which Alcala represented himself and took the stand in his own defense.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20000317-504083.html

Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?

A few of Rodney Alcala's photos are of young men in sexually suggestive poses. Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified. In his final argument during Alcala's 2010 murder trial, Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, called Alcala a "hunter" and "a predatory monster." Murphy later said he can't help but wonder if the people in the photographs are still alive. All of the photos were taken before 1979. If you can identify these people, please contact Huntington Beach police detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066 or email at pellis@hbpd.org.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10002762.html?tag=page

Serial Killer's Secret Photos: New Victims?

On March 10, 2010, Huntington Beach police released hundreds of photos taken by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala. The images were taken before Alcala was arrested in 1979 for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. Most of the subjects in the photos have never been identified and police are asking for the public's help in figuring out who they are. If you can identify these people, please contact Huntington Beach police detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066 or email at pellis@hbpd.org.

It's unnerving to look at these photos, wondering if they are his victims...there are so many young women and girls...

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-504083_162-10002762-25.html?tag=page

I'm afraid to look at the pictures...

May they all rest in peace.

Families report 3 missing women in killer's Seattle photo stash

By Carlene Johnson and KOMO News Staff
Story Updated: Mar 13, 2010 at 10:43 AM PST



Three of the women whose photos were found in a convicted serial killer's Seattle-area storage locker have been linked so far to missing person cases by family members, a police detective said late Friday.

Now detectives are trying to confirm family members' initial identifications of the women, and trying to determine where and how they disappeared.

It's still unclear whether any of the three are from the Seattle area. All three disappeared long ago and haven't been seen since.

The three women's photos were among 2,000 images of young women, children and a few boys found in a Shoreline storage locker rented decades ago by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala, 66, of California.

Most of the dozens of subjects in the photos have never been identified and now police are asking for the public's help in figuring out who the women are.

Police say there may be more potential victims beyond the three tentatively identified so far by family members.

The photos were recovered in July 1979 by detectives during searches of a storage locker in Shoreline that had been rented by Alcala. Also found was jewelry linked to two murder victims in California.

But police didn't release the photos publicly until Wednesday - the day after a California jury recommended a death sentence for Alcala for the murders of a 12-year-old girl and four women dating back to the 1970s.

The photos were apparently taken before Alcala's first arrest in 1979. They feature women and girls in candid and posed shots. Some show them naked and engaging in sex acts.

Prosecutors said Alcala, an amateur photographer, UCLA graduate and one-time contestant on "The Dating Game," used his camera to put his victims at ease.

"We'd like to locate the women in these pictures," prosecutor Matt Murphy told the Orange County Register. "Did they simply pose for a serial killer, or did they become victims of his sadistic, murderous pattern?"

Some photos show women posing in remote settings similar to the locale where 12-year-old Robin Samsoe's body was found in 1979. A few are of young men in sexually suggestive poses.

Police Detective Patrick Ellis of Huntington Beach, Calif., told KOMO News that the photos weren't released earlier due to the investigation and court proceedings.

Since their release on Wednesday, police have received dozens of calls from people who recognize the subjects in the photos.

"The calls are basically along two lines," Ellis said. "No. 1 - yes, that's my photograph - I am alive and well, and giving us details of Mr. Alcala way back when, 30 years ago.

"Or, the calls saying, 'Hey, my sister, mother ... was reported missing back then, and I think her photograph is on the Web site,' and they're providing us with information as far as the person's name, where they were last seen alive," Ellis added. "Some people aren't positive, but they're pretty sure."

Ellis said more investigation is needed before it can be confirmed whether the three women identified so far are victims of foul play.

"Until we talk to the victims' families, get other photographs for comparison purposes and more details on where their bodies were recovered - if they were recovered at all - we can't really say at this point," he said. "We just don't know."

Alcala was sentenced to death twice before in the 1979 murder of Robin Samsoe, but those verdicts were overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors refiled charges in that case and added the four other murders in 2006 after investigators linked them to Alcala using DNA samples and other forensic evidence. Those cases, which had gone unsolved for decades, went on trial for the first time this year.

Alcala, who acted as his own attorney, focused his entire defense on the Samsoe case and ignored the murders of the four Los Angeles County women murdered between 1977 and 1979.

The jury convicted Alcala of the murders on Feb. 25, and also found true special-circumstance allegations of rape, torture and kidnapping, making him eligible for the death penalty.

On Tuesday, jurors recommended the death penalty for Alcala. It marked the third time he was sentenced to death in the Samsoe case.

Relatives broke out in applause in the courtroom and Samsoe's brother shouted out, "Yes!" when the jury's recommendation was read.

Prosecutors relied on witnesses who saw a curly-haired photographer taking pictures of Samsoe, her friend and other teenagers on the beach minutes before she disappeared. Photos of one of the girls were later found in his possession.

Also key to the trial was a pair of gold ball earrings that Samsoe's mother said belonged to her daughter.

The earrings were found in a jewelry pouch in the Shoreline storage locker rented by Alcala.

---

You can see all of the photos on the Orange County Register Web site

Anyone with information about the women in the pictures is asked to call Huntington Beach Police Detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066.

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/87586647.html

Oh no, I was so afraid of this............

Me too Piper. It's painful to think about how many more victims Alcala may have.

As I was going through the photo album, looking in their eyes...some of them seemed to have such a sorrowful look in their eyes, or maybe they were high/drugged? And it appeared many were not dressed, at least no shirt. I would go as far to say the pictures we are seeing are tame to what really may be on there, what do you think? I would assume if you have topless photos, he also went a little further.

I think the pictures we are seeing are tame. One of the articles above said "police say some of the photos show women and young girls in the nude and engaging in sex acts."

4 Alcala photos linked to missing women

By JON CASSIDY
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Updated: March 17, 2010 10:15 a.m.

HUNTINGTON BEACH – Convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala has been linked to as many as four unsolved cases of women who disappeared or were murdered in the 1970s since photos apparently taken by Alcala were released last week, Huntington Beach police said Tuesday.

Huntington Beach police are coordinating with law enforcement agencies from Alaska to Phoenix on the most recent leads. Even before the photos were released, the New York Police Department was investigating Alcala in three other cases, and law enforcement agencies in New England were taking a look at five other cases, Det. Sgt. Aaron Smith of the Huntington Beach police said Tuesday.

Police have received more than 50 calls from the public after releasing more than 100 photographs apparently taken by Alcala in the 1970s, Capt. Chuck Thomas of the Huntington Beach Police Department said.

Since their release on Wednesday, the photos have generated 11.6 million page views on ocregister.com, nearly 12 times as many as the second most popular photo gallery the Register has ever published.

Last week, a jury recommended Alcala be sentenced to death for the murders of five females in the 1970s. Alcala was convicted Feb. 25 in the late-1970s murders of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, and of four women from Los Angeles. Before this trial, Alcala had been twice tried and convicted of murdering Samsoe. Twice, he was sentenced to death by Orange County judges, but twice his convictions were overturned on appeal.

Family and friends of at least four women who disappeared or were killed in the 1970s have called to say they recognize one of the women in the photos, Smith said.

None of the connections have been confirmed yet, Smith said. Family members have sent other photos of the missing women to detectives, who are comparing them to the photos found in a storage locker Alcala rented near Seattle.

Complicating matters, a lot of the original detectives who investigated the women's deaths or disappearances have either died or retired, Smith said.

The 10 detectives who report to Smith are all working on aspects of the Alcala case, from putting together a timeline of Alcala's whereabouts in the decade, to organizing and following up on tips, to coordinating with other law enforcement agencies in reviewing old cases and comparing them to facts known about Alcala.

The calls that police have been receiving fall into three categories, Smith said. There are the random, unfounded reports, the positive identifications, and finally, the calls from dozens of "parents who lost a child during that era who didn't see them in the pictures but are hopeful that we found their kids," he said.

Police did not release all of the pictures for publication because some were sexually explicit.

The photos were found in Alcala's Seattle-area storage locker, but many of the women in the pictures were from elsewhere. One of the women, for example, disappeared from Alaska. Detectives are trying to determine whether Alcala visited Alaska at the time, Smith said.

Some of the women, now in their 40s and 50s, have called police to identify themselves.

Alcala, now 66, killed Samsoe after kidnapping her from Huntington Beach on June 20, 1979.

Witnesses testified that he asked her pose for photographs at the 14h Street beach in Huntington Beach a few minutes before he kidnapped her while she was riding a friend's bicycle to ballet practice. Her decomposing body was found near a remote turnout in the foothills of Los Angeles 12 days later.

Before he could be tried a third time in Samsoe's murder, Alcala was linked by DNA evidence to the torture slayings of Jill Barcomb, 18, of Oneida, NY, whose body was found on a dirt path near Mulholland Drive in November, 1977; Georgia Wixted, 27, a nurse who was found in her Malibu home, naked, battered and raped in December 1977; Charlotte Lamb, 32, a legal secretary whose body was found naked and dead in the laundry room of an apartment complex in El Segundo in June 1978, and Jill Parenteau, 21, a computer program keypunch operator, who was killed in her Burbank apartment in June 1979.

Anyone who knows who the women in the photographs are may contact Huntington Beach Police Detective Patrick Ellis at 714-375-5066, or email him at pellis@hbpd.org.

Register Staff writers Alejandra Molina and Larry Welborn contributed to this report.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/photos-239446-alcala-women.html

I wonder what kind of a life this low life had as a child....At the age he is now I doubt that his parents are alive...Did he have siblings??? He is one case for the books!!!!

DA: Calif. serial killer linked to more cases

Thursday, March 18, 2010 | 2:27 p.m.

The Orange County district attorney says serial killer Rodney Alcala may be linked to the disappearances of two more people, bringing the total to at least six possible unsolved cases.

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas made the comments Thursday on "Good Morning America."

Police said earlier that family or friends of four women missing since the 1970s had called to say they recognized loved ones in photos found in Alcala's storage locker when he was arrested.

Authorities released more than 100 photos last week after a jury recommended death for Alcala in the slayings of four women and a 12-year-old girl in the late 1970s.

Detectives have received hundreds of calls and are reviewing cold cases nationwide, from Alaska to Washington state to Arizona.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/18/da-calif-serial-killer-linked-to-more-cases/

Paul Lindsay, Ex FBI Agent, on Rodney Alcala Victim Search (Photos): What Investigators Are Looking For

March 25, 2010 1:18 PM

RYE, N.H. (CBS) The recent release of 100 of serial killer Rodney Alcala's decades-old photos is raising hopes -- and fears -- for those thinking the pictures may hold the answer to a loved one's fate. The photo release by Huntington Beach, Calif. police has prompted at least hundreds of calls, and so far, nine women have been identified through the pictures - thankfully, all of them are alive.

Read more:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20001108-504083.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody

Judge to decide if Alcala should die

By LARRY WELBORN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: March 29, 2010

SANTA ANA – Orange County's most senior Superior Court judge will decide Tuesday whether to affirm a jury's decision that convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala should be executed for five sexual assault and torture murders in the 1970s.

By law, Judge Francisco Briseno, a former prosecutor who has been on the Orange County bench for 33 years, must decide independent of the jury's verdict earlier this month that Alcala deserves the death penalty.

Briseno can on his own reduce the penalty to life in prison without the possibility of parole if he believes that the evidence presented during Alcala's eight-week trial does not support a death finding.

But no Orange County judge has reversed a jury's death verdict since capital punishment in California was re-established in 1978.

A seven-man, five-woman jury applied the death penalty for Alcala after an hour of deliberations earlier on March 9.

The same jury in February found Alcala guilty of five counts of first-degree murder for the bludgeoning and strangulation murders of four women in Los Angeles County and the kidnap and murder of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl between 1977 and 1979. The jury also found several special circumstances to be true, including that he committed multiple murders, and murders during sexual assaults and murders involving torture

Detectives across the country are now scrutinizing hundreds of photos of young women found in a locker rented Seattle by Alcala before his arrest in 1979 to determine if they match unsolved murders or missing person cases. The Register published those photos for the first time after Alcala's jury recommended the death sentence.

If Briseno concurs during Tuesday's sentencing hearing, it will be the third time in 30 years that Alcala will hear a judge condemn him to death.

He was tried twice, convicted twice and sentenced to death twice – in 1980 and 1986 – for the kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, a ballet student who was abducted off a Huntington Beach street while she was bicycling to ballet lessons. Her battered and decomposing body was found 12 days later in the hills above Los Angeles not far from Alcala's home in Monterey Park.

Both convictions were reversed on appeal.

The California Supreme Court reversed the 1980 decision on a ruling that Alcala's jury was improperly told of his prior convictions for sexual assault. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal reversed the 1986 conviction, finding that the trial judge improperly allowed the reading of testimony of a witness in the first trial after she was unavailable for the second trial.

Before Alcala could be tried a third time in the Samsoe case, he was linked by DNA and other forensic evidence to the sexual assault and torture murders of four women in Los Angeles County between October 1977 and June 1979.

Those cases were merged into one trial in Orange County before Briseno.

Alcala, now 66, insisted on representing himself in the trial, and did not contest the Los Angeles County cases. He argued only that he was innocent in the Samsoe case.

The jury disagreed, and also convicted him in the four Los Angeles County murders:

Nov. 10, 1977: The body of Jill Barcomb, 18, of Oneida, NY, was found on a dirt path on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. She was in a knee-to-chest position and naked from the waist down and there were signs of torture and sexual trauma to her body.

Dec. 16, 1977: Georgia Wixted, 27, was found in her Malibu home, naked, battered, and raped. A hammer was found next to her body, which prosecutors contend was used to bludgeon and sexually assault her.

June 24, 1978: Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica, was found naked and dead in the laundry room of a large apartment complex in El Segundo. Lamb, a legal secretary, had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled with a shoelace.

June 14, 1979: Jill Parenteau, a 21-year-old computer program keypunch operator, was killed after an intruder broke into her Burbank apartment by jimmying window louvers. Her nude body was found on the floor propped up by pillows.

The sentencing hearing Tuesday is scheduled to get under way at 10 a.m.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/alcala-241570-jury-county.html

Families to address serial killer Alcala as judge decides on death penalty

March 30, 2010

The families of the women slain by serial killer Rodney Alcala are expected to offer testimony before a judge decides whether to sentence him to death.

A jury earlier this month recommended death for Alcala after the panel convicted him of slaying four women and a teenage girl.

It was the third time Alcala, 66, had been convicted for the murder of Robin Samsoe, 12, last seen riding her bike to ballet class in June 1979. He had been condemned to death both times, but the convictions were overturned. He has been in custody since his 1979 arrest.

Before the third trial began in January, he was linked through DNA, blood and fingerprint evidence to the deaths of Jill Barcomb, 18, whose body was found in the Hollywood Hills; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

During his closing arguments earlier this month, Alcala -- a onetime photographer and “Dating Game” contestant who acted as his own attorney in this trial -- asked jurors to spare him the death penalty, saying they would become killers themselves if they sent him to death row and arguing that the sentence would lead to decades of appeals.

A sentence of life in prison without parole "would end this matter now," he said.

It took an Orange County jury about one hour Tuesday to vote for the death penalty for Alcala.

-- Paloma Esquivel and Shelby Grad

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/03/families-to-address-serial-killer-alcala-as-judge-decides-on-death-penalty.html

Calif. judge sentences serial killer to death

Wednesday March 31 2010

Associated Press Writer= SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — Relatives of victims poured out their grief and anger Tuesday before convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala was sentenced to death in a packed courtroom in the 1970s strangling of four women and a 12-year-old girl.

Some distraught family members and friends addressed Alcala directly, telling him their lives had been torn apart by his crimes.

Choking back tears, some said they had night terrors. Others detailed their fear of strangers or their devastating depression and anxiety.

"For 25 years, I looked over my shoulder, never knowing who or what I was looking for. I never felt safe," said Anne Michelena, sister of victim Georgia Wixted. "I still feel anxious when I walk in a dark house."

Other relatives begged Alcala to admit to the murders to give family members a measure of peace.

"There's murder and rape, and then there's the unequivocal carnage of a Rodney Alcala-style murder and rape," said Bruce Barcomb, brother of victim Jill Barcomb. "Give up your dead, Rodney: all victims, all states, all occurrences. Own your truth."

Alcala, 66, showed no emotion and kept his head down as families took turns condemning the amateur photographer and UCLA film school graduate.

His death sentences will be automatically appealed.

Alcala was convicted last month of five counts of first-degree murder after a bizarre and sometimes surreal trial.

He acted as his own attorney and unveiled a rambling defense that included questioning the mother of one of his victims, playing an Arlo Guthrie ballad and showing a clip from the 1970s TV show "The Dating Game."

After the verdict, authorities released more than 100 photos of young women and girls found in Alcala's storage locker in hopes of linking him to other unsolved murders around the country.

Authorities are pursuing more than a half-dozen cases in New Hampshire, Washington, California, Arizona and New York, although those investigations are just beginning, prosecutor Matt Murphy said. None of the photos have been confirmed as missing or murdered women, but some are "looking interesting," Murphy said.

Alcala has been sentenced to death twice before in the 1979 murder of young Robin Samsoe, but those verdicts were overturned on appeal. Prosecutors refiled charges in that case and added the four other murder counts against Alcala in 2006 on the strength of DNA samples and other forensic evidence.

Those cases, which had gone unsolved for decades, went on trial for the first time this year.

During trial, prosecutors outlined Alcala's penchant for torturing his victims. One had been raped with a claw-toothed hammer, another had her skull smashed in with a 7-inch rock, and one was strangled so fiercely the pressure broke bones. Several of the victims were posed nude in sexual positions after their deaths.

The 12-year-old Samsoe disappeared on June 20, 1979, while riding a friend's bike to ballet class in Huntington Beach in Orange County. Her body was found 12 days later in Angeles National Forest, and a cause of death could not be determined because it had been mutilated by wild animals.

Alcala was arrested a month later, when his parole agent recognized him from a police sketch and called authorities. He has been in custody ever since.

During the guilt phase of trial, Alcala played a seconds-long clip of himself on a 1978 episode of "The Dating Game." He said the grainy clip proved that he was wearing a gold-ball earring almost a year before Samsoe was killed.

Prosecutors said the earring, found in a small pouch with other earrings in a storage locker Alcala had rented, belonged to Samsoe and that Alcala had taken it as a trophy. They also found the DNA of another victim on a rose-shaped earring in the same pouch.

During the penalty phase, the trial took another bizarre twist when 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.

"I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth," the song's narrator sings. "Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean: kill, kill, kill, kill."

The song prompted Samsoe's brother to stalk out of the courtroom when it was played.

On Tuesday, Orange County Superior Court Judge F.P. Briseno said the song showed Alcala's callousness.

"The words, the tone, the violence contained in that song said to me, this is Alcala's national anthem," the judge said after delivering the sentence. "This is who he is."

Samsoe's mother, Marianne Connelly, said she had hoped her daughter died quickly, but hearing testimony about the other four cases shattered that illusion.

"What I am grateful for is the fact that my little 12-year-old Robin stopped him from taking any more lives," she told the court. "She helped make it possible for law enforcement to put him behind bars where he belongs."

Along with Samsoe, Alcala was convicted of killing Barcomb, 18, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Oneida, N.Y.; Wixted, 27, of Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9012109

I think this egotistical "B" has lived long enough...What???? Appeal again....Put those families through another ordeal...They have suffered long enough for Justice to reign triumphant...This crfeep has been behind bars since 1979...all right already...We all know he hasn't got one iota of a chance to be freed...Why can't he accept his fate...I'd want to get it over with...throw in the towel...OK you got me...I did it...set a date for the chair or injections...quit beating around the bush!!!!

The song "Alice's Restaurant" is about protesting war by proving that he is psychologically unfit. So it really has nothing to do with Alcala's desire to kill.

By playing this song was he trying to prove that he was insane, therefore would be unfit for the death penalty? Did he really believe it would help his defense? (Hmmm...'A fool for a client'?) Obviously all he gained by playing it was a more disgusted audience including the judge who rightfully sentenced him.

Surely this time the sentence will be carried out.

Pain still there for relatives of Alcala's victims

By LARRY WELBORN
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Published: April 2, 2010



SANTA ANA – Superior Court Judge Frank Briseno, a Marine who served in Vietnam and a former prosecutor, broke from his normal practice this week when he spoke from the heart to spectators after he sentenced convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala to death.

Normally Briseno, who handled the most serious of criminal cases during his 33-year career on the Orange County bench, refrains from commenting after sentencing.

But in this case, after he listened to poignant victim-impact statements from friends and relatives of four Los Angeles County women and a Huntington Beach girl tortured and murdered by Alcala during a 20-month killing spree in the 1970s, Briseno said he felt compelled to speak.

"I wanted to acknowledge the family members who are present," the judge began, his voice starting to choke with emotion. "I appreciate your courtesy and cooperation ... as you have voiced in very eloquent terms, we would like to think that our courts can ... make people whole. But as you can see, passage of time does not abate the loss."

If there was a theme to the words from the parade of relatives, it was that.

More than three decades after their losses, the grief and pain is still there and the nightmares are never far from the surface.

"When you see these heartbroken people come in to court and you see them suffering and crying 30 years after they lost a loved one, you can feel their pain," said Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy. "You have to be in that courtroom listening to their stories to completely understand; you never get over a murder.

"I think most people think that at some point, for lack of a better term, you can get over it and move on with your life," Murphy added. "But in reality, you never do."

Here is a sampling of what the relatives of Alcala's victims had to say:

* * *

Dedee Parenteau, whose sister Jill Parenteau was raped, beaten and strangled by Alcala after he sneaked into her Burbank apartment as she slept on June 14, 1979, simply said "you're never over it.

"Every night as I check and re-check my locked doors, I think how Jill must have felt safe in her apartment, in her own bed," Parenteau said. "Then this evil monster appeared. She fought for her life. The terror she must have felt. It sickens me, it breaks my heart, knowing the last face she saw in her life was that of this monster."

She added she will never forget how she saw her mother — who had always held her emotions in check — sobbing uncontrollably over the loss of her youngest daughter, or the time she saw her Dad, standing alone at a window on Father's Day, start to weep. "That was the first time I saw my father cry," she said.

"There is no closure," Dedee Parenteau told Briseno on sentencing day. "I can't have her back, can't erase what she had to endure in her final moments ... Nothing will end this nightmare."

* * *

Bruce Barcomb, whose 18-year-old sister Jill Barcomb was savagely raped, bludgeoned with a rock and strangled before she was dumped on a dirt path on Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles on Nov. 10, 1977, said his life was "changed forever in that moment."

Barcomb, who at 17 was a year younger than his sister, said he at one time toyed with the notion of traveling from the family home in Oneida, N.Y in 1977 to come out to California to find the killer on his own.

"My coping skills were non-existent ... with respect to how to deal with the trauma of her loss," he told the judge. "No one ever mentioned to me or my family grief therapy, traumatic loss groups, or homicide support groups to deal with Jill's loss ... We were just supposed to somehow go on with our lives."

* * *

Michael G. Wixted, whose sister Georgia Wixted was raped, bludgeoned with a hammer and sexually assaulted after Alcala broke into her Malibu apartment on Dec. 16, 1977, testified that he is still traumatized over her death 33 years ago.

He said he remains especially haunted these many years later over the memory of having to pack up his sister's belonging and clean up her blood in her apartment after the killer had done his worst.

"It was extremely painful, physically and emotionally, to relive the events of December 1977," Michael Wixted said in a letter read at Alcala's sentencing. "But I drew some measure of satisfaction to look at my sister's killer in the eye and state for the record what my feelings were as I cleared and cleaned up my sister's horrifically bloody apartment."

* * *

Anne Michelena, Georgia Wixted's younger sister, said she also has had a lifetime of nightmares over her sister's death. She said she learned of the murder with a phone call, adding that to this day she gets anxious every time her phone rings.

She said she never feels safe, always looks over her shoulder – never knowing who or what she was looking for – and dreads walking into an empty house.

"And then there is the emptiness," Michelena told the judge. "The empty chair at the dinner table; the empty bed in my room. The holidays that would come and go and feel empty."

But perhaps even worse for Michael Wixted and Anne Michelena was how their mother reacted to the loss of her eldest daughter: she just could not cope. Their mother was hospitalized for psychiatric care shortly after the murder, and suffered from psychiatric issues and depression for the rest of her life.

"No amount of justice can give my now dead mother back her sanity," Michael Wixted wrote.

* * *

Charlotte Lamb's mother had to be hospitalized, too, after she learned that her daughter had been beaten, bitten, raped and strangled inside a laundry room at an apartment complex in El Segundo on June 24, 1978, according to Carolyn Lamb Adkins, Charlotte's sister.

"The ripple effect of her loss has taken a toll on each family member," Adkins wrote in a letter read to the judge. "We've been robbed of hearing her cute laugh when she'd call every month and chat many time for over an hour.

"The giant hole created when (Charlotte) was taken from us will never be filled," Adkins added.

* * *

Marianne Connelly endured three trials for Alcala after he was arrested for kidnapping and murdering Robin Samsoe, her 12-year-old daughter, in Huntington Beach on June 20, 1979.

The first two trials resulted in convictions, but they were reversed on appeal. Before Alcala could be brought to trial for a third time in the Samsoe case, he was linked by DNA and other forensic evidence to the four other murders. The five murder cases were merged together in one trial before Briseno.

So Tuesday's appearance was the third time Connelly has had to deliver a victim-impact statement.

"I hate him for the pain he has caused me and so many people," she said with tears brimming in her eyes. "But I have prayed about this and I am giving this hatred to God because I've let this feeling consume me for 31 years and I'm not giving this kind of power over me anymore to the defendant who murdered my daughter.

"We're still picking up the pieces so we can move on," she added. "Robin would want that."

http://www.ocregister.com/news/sister-242290-time-alcala.html

Police want help identifying possible serial killer victims

April 21st, 2010
12:17 PM ET

Police investigating former "Dating Game" contestant Rodney Alcala are hoping to figure out whether photographs found in a storage unit of his are possibly additional victims.

Alcala, 66, was convicted in February of kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old girl and

raping and murdering four Los Angeles County women in the 1970s and later sentenced to die for the crimes.

Police discovered dozens of photographs of women and children in a storage unit he kept in Seattle, Washington. The locker also contained earrings belonging to one of his victims, according to the Orange Countydistrict attorney's office.

Now police are asking for the public's help in determining whether any of the people in the photographs are other victims of Alcala's.

See photos of the women and children (PDF)

Anyone with information about any of the photos should call the tips hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/21/police-want-help-identifying-possible-serial-killer-victims/?hpt=T2

These photos just give me chills, all of them. And the children....who were they, was their mother present? The little girl in the wedding outfit, the child on the beach.........I hope someone can identify all of these girls and the children, and that they did not become his victims. In some of the pictures the girls have a haunted look in their eyes. The others look like they are happy and just smiling for the camera. This man is insane.

More than one of the girls are wearing the same exact shirts I owned back in that time.

2 Women Confirm They Are in Serial Killer's Photos
http://www.aolnews.com


(April 22) -- Imagine seeing yourself through the eyes of a serial killer.

On Tuesday, police in New York released more than 200 photographs of women taken by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala, in a move to potentially help solve other cases. A day later, two of the women came forward and identified themselves.

Judy Cole, a North Carolina writer, told the New York Police Department she recognized an image of herself among the photos. She was 19 when she met Alcala on New York's Upper West Side and agreed to pose for him on a rooftop, she said.

"He was very charming," Cole said, according to the New York Daily News. "I should have known better."

In addition, a woman in California, whom police did not identify by name, told the NYPD that she thinks the trove of decades-old photographs contains an image of her.

Police in Huntington Beach, Calif., made hundreds of Alcala's photos available in March. Since then, 21 women in the pictures have been identified and are alive, police say.

More than 1,000 of Alcala's photos were discovered in a Seattle storage locker when police were investigating the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old girl Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach in 1979. Alcala was later convicted of Robin's murder, as well as the slayings of four other California women.

Now 66, Alcala was sentenced to death by an Orange County judge on March 30.

Police believe Alcala was likely involved in the deaths of even more women, which is why they made the trove of photographs public.

An NYPD spokesperson told AOL News that the release of the photos has resulted in eight credible tips.

In the 1970s Alcala divided his time between California and New York, where he is reported to have studied film under director Roman Polanski. In 1978, he was the winning contestant on the television show "The Dating Game."

For those who may have lived or had relatives who lived in California during the 1970s, the photos can be viewed here, and the Huntington Beach Police Department can be reached at 714-375-5066.

The NYPD photos can be viewed here, and anyone with information or tips on the women in the pictures is encouraged to call 800-577-8477 (TIPS).

Serial Killer Rodney Alcala may be Tied to More Killings
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/serial-killer-rodney-alcala-may-be-tied-more-killings-0