How scary is this that a guy who on the "Dating Game" was a serial killer. He killed a 12 year old girl and took her earrings as trophies.
[FONT="]SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A prolific serial torture-slayer dubbed “The Dating Game Killer” died Saturday while awaiting execution in California, authorities said. Rodney James Alcala was 77.[/FONT]
[FONT="]He died of natural causes at a hospital in San Joaquin Valley, California, prison officials said in a statement.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Alcala was sentenced to death in 2010 for five slayings in California between 1977 and 1979, including that of a 12-year-old girl, though authorities estimate he may have killed up to 130 people across the country.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Alcala received an additional 25 years to life in 2013 after pleading guilty to two homicides in New York.[/FONT]
[FONT="]California’s death row is in San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco, but for years Alcala had been housed more than 200 miles away at a prison in Corcoran where he could receive medical care around the clock.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Prosecutors said Alcala stalked women like prey and took earrings as trophies from some of his victims.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“You’re talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it,” Orange County, California, prosecutor Matt Murphy said during his trial.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Investigators say his true victim count may never be known.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Earrings helped put him on death row, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions so long as he is governor.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The mother of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe testified at his murder trial that a pair of gold ball earrings found in a jewelry pouch in Alcala’s storage locker belonged to her daughter.[/FONT]
[FONT="]But Alcala claimed that the earrings were his and that a video clip from his 1978 appearance on “The Dating Game” shows him wearing the studs nearly a year before Samsoe died. He denied the slayings and cited inconsistencies in witness’ accounts and descriptions.[/FONT]
[FONT="]California prosecutors said Alcala also took earrings from at least two of his adult victims as trophies.
Below is a clip which features Jim Lange introducing him. Bachelor #1 at about 30 seconds.
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[FONT="]SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A prolific serial torture-slayer dubbed “The Dating Game Killer” died Saturday while awaiting execution in California, authorities said. Rodney James Alcala was 77.[/FONT]
[FONT="]He died of natural causes at a hospital in San Joaquin Valley, California, prison officials said in a statement.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Alcala was sentenced to death in 2010 for five slayings in California between 1977 and 1979, including that of a 12-year-old girl, though authorities estimate he may have killed up to 130 people across the country.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Alcala received an additional 25 years to life in 2013 after pleading guilty to two homicides in New York.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]He was charged again in 2016 after DNA evidence connected him to the 1977 death of a 28-year-old woman whose remains were found in a remote area of southwest Wyoming. But a prosecutor said Alcala was too ill to face trial in the death of the woman, who was six months pregnant when she died.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT="]California’s death row is in San Quentin State Prison near San Francisco, but for years Alcala had been housed more than 200 miles away at a prison in Corcoran where he could receive medical care around the clock.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Prosecutors said Alcala stalked women like prey and took earrings as trophies from some of his victims.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“You’re talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it,” Orange County, California, prosecutor Matt Murphy said during his trial.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Investigators say his true victim count may never be known.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Earrings helped put him on death row, though Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions so long as he is governor.[/FONT]
[FONT="]The mother of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe testified at his murder trial that a pair of gold ball earrings found in a jewelry pouch in Alcala’s storage locker belonged to her daughter.[/FONT]
[FONT="]But Alcala claimed that the earrings were his and that a video clip from his 1978 appearance on “The Dating Game” shows him wearing the studs nearly a year before Samsoe died. He denied the slayings and cited inconsistencies in witness’ accounts and descriptions.[/FONT]
[FONT="]California prosecutors said Alcala also took earrings from at least two of his adult victims as trophies.
Below is a clip which features Jim Lange introducing him. Bachelor #1 at about 30 seconds.
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