"The murderer of the dating game": the sinister story of Rodney Alcalá

Had a ugly sensation.A strange feeling, of those who run a chill in the back."I started feeling bad.I was acting really creepy.I rejected your offer.I didn't want to see him again, ”said Cheryl Bradshaw years later.

It was September 1978.The young woman was 22 years old and had participated in The Dating Game, a famous ABC chain dating program.Among all the candidates chose the single number 1.Fortunately, his intuition saved her and the exit never specified.

Is that this handsome suitor was not the one who said to be.The pleasant young man who had tried to seduce her throughout the broadcast hid a dark secret: Rodney Alcalá was a serial murderer.

For decades his cruelty remained secret.The police were disoriented.Nothing seemed to link it to those shattered bodies that appeared in Los Angeles and New York.Finally, they condemned him for the death of 7 women.They calculate that there were actually 130.

Narcissist, psychopath and sadistic

Nothing in Rodney's life was entirely real.As in Yin and Yang, their days passed in that gray and diffuse border in which all truth has some lie.And every lie, a little really.

A summer day was born on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, United States.His real name was Rodrigo Jacques Alcalá Buquor.A few years later, the family moved to Mexico.But there, Raoul Alcala Buquor, the father, abandoned them.

Rodney was 11 years old and for him a new story began.Together with his mother and three brothers they moved to Los Angeles.

Little is known about him and his own until the change of decade.In 1960, when he had just completed the 17 he entered the Army.But far from the traditional image of the rude soldier training with intensity and discipline, he was given an administrative position.

Four years later, after suffering a nervous attack, he defected.They found him in his mother's house.The evaluations that carried out did not leave good results."Malignant narcissistic personality with psychopathy and sexual sadism," said the army psychiatrist.They discharge it.

What could a 21 -year -old, gifted, with an intellectual coefficient of 135, much higher than the average?The University of California, Los Angeles, the renowned UCLA, was the answer.There, Rodney graduated at the School of Fine Arts.

Criminal career

The girl survived.They had hit her with a steel bar.They had also raped her and was very hurt.Tali Shapiro, I was only eight years old.It was his first victim.It was the year 1968.

The little girl was on her way to her school when Alcalá kidnapped her and put her inside the trunk of her car.Fortunately, the street episode did not go unnoticed.Another driver saw him, followed and called the police.

He took her to her little and miserable Hollywood department.When the agents arrived, the girl was fainted on the kitchen floor.It was surrounded by a big pool of blood.I barely breathed.Rodney managed to escape.

But it was marked.He had to get away.The authorities were looking for him, they knew who he was.The path he took was long.He crossed the country and settled in New York.

Skyscrapers, polanski and a new identity

In the big apple was John Berger.With his art training in tow, he enrolled at the University of New York.He studied cinema with the TOP: Roman Polanski was one of his teachers.In fact, he stood out as one of the best students of the filmmaker.

Despite appearing on the list of the most sought after by the FBI, between 1968 and the early ‘70 it moved as a fish in the water through the city of skyscrapers.He was a brilliant university.

Decades later it was learned that at that time he committed his first murder.In his home in Manhattan, he raped, strangled and killed Cornelia Crilley, a Trans World Airways hostess.The young woman was 23 years old.

For the first time, the end of impunity came in the summer of 1971.He called John Burger and gave art classes at a summer camp for girls in New Hampshire.It was two of his students who saw the poster with his photo and denounced him.

Sex, photos and lies: kill compulsion

The authorities arrested him and sent him back to Los Angeles.As the Shapiro family did not want to declare, they simply accused him of a minor position.After almost three years he regained freedom.But it took only two months to be back behind bars.

Is that he tried to rape Julie J., -So figure in the files-, a 13 -year -old teenager.It was on probation in 1977.

Confined in his recovery, the authorities allowed him to travel to New York to “visit relatives” despite the risk of escape that implied.

Those who investigated their crimes believe that during that first week in the city he killed Ellen Hover, a beautiful university student who was the daughter of the owner of Ciro’s, the popular Hollywood nightclub club.And not only that.The young woman was the goddaughter fingers phenomena of the big screen: Sammy Davis Jr.and Dean Martin.

Ellen's body appeared near the Rockefeller farm in Westchester.It had been massacred.

At this point, Alcalá had already developed his modus operandis.That way of acting that characterizes every murderer;That brand that differentiates its victims.

First, he seduced them by ensuring that he was a renowned fashion photographer, who was rich and had portrayed the celebrities of the time.At a time when social networks were just a science fiction delirium, with a presentation card and a lovely speech was enough.

Then, I raped them, beat them, bit them.And, in general, he killed them.A completely macabre pleasure and sadism game.

And so much so, that the researchers did not manage to link the crimes with Rodney who, as registered as a sexual offender, used different names to get jobs.

One of them was being a typographer of Los Angeles Times.At the same time, he did not stop taking pictures of women, mainly teenagers, always sexual tone.His images had a high erotic content.Many were explicit sex scenes.He showed them, proud, his classmates.

Single looking for a girlfriend ... on television

His charisma was unquestionable.And his boldness, infinite.This was demonstrated during his participation in The Dating Game, a dating program in which a woman elected her partner among three candidates after crossing opinions, answering questions and spending several tests together.

“Our single number one is a successful photographer whose beginnings date back to the day when his father found him in a dark room at the age of thirteen, completely revealed.Among shots can be found by making paratrooper or motorcycling.Please let's welcome Rodney Alcalá! ".This was presented by Jim Lange, the driver, at the beginning of the broadcast.An absolutely false biography that nobody took care of checking.

Cheryl Bradshaw, the single of the day, immediately rendered to her charms.All were beautified with the fun, creative and spicy responses of Bachelor Number 1.Every time he spoke, they applauded him.It was his night.

The young woman could not choose it.His brilliant smile crossed the screen.His sensuality warmed the audience.But while he tried to form a couple, when he left the Cheryl study he had a bad feeling.

Rodney's strange attitude generated doubts.“It began to be very unpleasant and rude and show an intimidating attitude.Not only did he like anything...I think he has been the most sinister man with whom I have been, ”he said later.

His instinct saved her from the worst.

More crimes

Neither Cheryl nor anyone could imagine that behind that sympathy mask hid a perverse murderer.

In November 1977, Alcalá killed Jill Barcomb, an 18 -year -old teenager they found in a mountainous area;In December, Georgia Wixted, 27, in his department of Malibu.

Charlotte Lamb, 32, was killed in June 1979.They found her in the laundry room of a building in the second, in Los Angeles;And that same month she murdered Jill Parenteau, 27, on her floor of Burbank.He also raped Monique Hoyt, 15, whom he died for dead after trying to kill her.Luckily, she survived.

The authorship of these murders could be seen just decades later.

But the case that finally managed to stop this raid of cruel murders of women was that of Robin Samsoe, a 12 -year -old girl.The girl disappeared from Huntington Beach, in California, while she was on her way to her ballet class.It was June 20, 1979.

Robin's friends told the police that a stranger had approached them on the beach and asked them if they wanted to take a photo shoot.

They refused and the girl immediately went on a friend's bicycle to quickly get to dances.Somewhere on the way between the beach and the class, it disappeared.

Twelve days later, a park ranger found his bones shattered by animals in a wooded area near the Sierra Madre.

To try to discover who had been responsible, the detectives made a spoken portrait of the suspect.Alcalá's Ex -Efficiency of Probation recognized him in the drawing.They had it.

They raided their mother's house and found the receipt of a locker that the murderer had rented in Seattle.There the police discovered hundreds of photos of women and girls.They also found a bag with personal objects that belonged to the victims.Robin's mother identified a couple of hoops.They had belonged to their daughter.

The condemnation that was waiting

From that moment on, there were three judgments to accuse Alcalá of the murder of little Samsoe.

The first jury condemned him to the death penalty.However, the Supreme Court of California considered that the defendant had not had a fair trial.They affirmed that one of the witnesses had lied.

The murderer was judged and convicted of this crime in 1986.Again he was sentenced to the death penalty.But this time a Court of Appeals revoked.His lawyers argued that the court prevented him from presenting relevant evidence.

Rodney spent the following years constantly appealing.In 1994 he published a book entitled "You, The Jury" in which he complained about the treatment received by Justice.

But fate wanted - or, why not, divine justice - that while lawyers and prosecutors fight and did not appear sufficient evidence to condemn it, science made a great contribution.The analysis of his DNA was overwhelming: the semen left no doubt and he was the murderer of Jill Barcomb, Georgia Wixted, Charlote Lamb and Jill Parenteau.

In the third trial Rodney Alcalá represented himself.Wondered and answered.Changed tone according to the role it fulfilled.I swore and perjurad that it had nothing to do with.He did his show.That one who was accustomed and for a long time had worked.

This time it was not like that.On February 25, 2010, the jury found him guilty of the five charges of capital murder, a kidnapping charge and four violation positions.Death condemned for the third time.

More victims?

"I killed between two and one hundred," said Alcalá.His joke, macabra by the way, did not make anyone funny.For the authorities, although it could not be verified, the number of victims was close to 130 women.

In 2010, the Huntington Beach and New York Police Departments published 120 photographs of the criminal to see if someone discovered missing women or girls between them.Since then several of the unknown faces have been identified.

Seattle detectives syndicated him as an alleged murderer of Antoniette Wittaker and Joyce Gaunt, 17 years.In his locker they found jewels of the two: they were their hoops.

In 2013 it was possible to demonstrate that Christine Thornton, whose body was found in Wyoming in 1982, was one of the models that appeared in Rodney portfolio.When she was killed, she was six months pregnant.

Three years later, DNA confirmed that Christine Ruth's murder was also his work.

Rodrigo Jacques Alcalá Buquor, the murderer of the dating game, did not go through the green mile.While waiting to be executed, he died of natural causes at 77 years.It was July 24, 2021.From that day, the world is a little better.