Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Killer. Part 2

Welcome to part two of Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Killer.

I'm Ben and I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and.

Gram, a true crime podcast. Warning. The following and material intended for a mature audience listener discretion. We're onn part two.

This is our first two part.

I are you excited to die back in and actually learn what this ship bag did to people?

I am, I am, and I'm not like he was a piece, but I need some closure here. I do, I do.

Oh, it's important, Like he's fuck. This dude is so bad, the ship that.

He's gotten, he's done, and like it's like the system allowed him to do this rightly.

Oh and multiple times. Yeah, because like Tally, right right off the get go, he freaking brutally raped, strangled, beat.

Her, And I honestly feel like even without her being at the trial, like the police officer and stuff like that should have been enough.

Yeah, definitely should have been. Because he saw his face in the window exactly, he knew it was him. He was basically caught red handed.

Yeah.

So yeah, there's there's that one. There's Robin Samso another one that he had basically witnesses right there and identified. And that's why he's he's in on trial right now in court because of that Robin Samsoe case. So yeah, he just he's all kind of.

Funny except to no good. Yeah, no good.

The camp counselor thing really got to you though, didn't it.

Actually? Yeah, because I in my day job higher camp counselors.

Oh that's right, So I never put that together.

What the ship. Yeah, but you know what, guess what what I do background checks on them?

What I know, maybe people should do that sort of thing when you're you're hiring for the LA Times or doing you know, maybe I don't know, hiring counselors for a camp, or I don't know, hiring people to come on your game show on public television.

Background checks are a good thing, and they.

Are background check everybody, background check your dog, your mommy, your dad, your neighbors, everybody. It's important. It's got to know what they what they've done. So I agree, I agree, and even still even that whole process, that fifteen year old mini quite who is left for dead, t shirt down or throat sort of thing. Yeah, you're still just walking the streets after that.

Yeah, that's really disturbing. Yeah, it's quite disturbing.

We're talking with about with We're talking about a real shit bag here, not with and God.

And he was sitting beside me, I'd be like.

I he would be six feet under our backyard right now. If he was sitting right beside.

Us, I would actually be running. So it's his flight or fight, and I'm a flight and you're a fight.

You wouldn't run from this guy like you look at him now. He's this sad, pathetic excuse for.

What we can Okay, so I could take him. Oh yeah, okay, I'm into that.

So we are going back into his trial though, because he's just got arrested for Robin Samso and on July twenty fourth, nineteen seventy seventy nine. He was arrested in His trial begins in nineteen eighty, so even in.

The time that he was supposed to have this trial with Robin, he ended up doing whatever he did with mindy.

Mindy, Oh did I.

Just make up a name?

You just made up an okay?

Sorry, who's the one with the T shirt stuffed in her face?

That was Monique?

Oh Monique? Okay, it'd started with an M. I was a little close, little close. Yeah, okay, so I'm just making sure I'm on the right page here.

I know that was uh hold on, he was out on bail from Anique when he did the Robin Samso thing.

Okay, okay, sorry, I'm getting.

Mixed up, So there you go.

Okay.

His trial wasn't a short trial though, no, no going to court. They had almost fifty witnesses who testified against him.

Holy that's a lot.

Yeah. Some of the witnesses were individuals who were on the beach the day that Robin disappeared and also had encounters encounters with with Rodney, to which before the trial, Rodney denied even ever being at the beach, which was Huntington Beach.

By the way, that's a busy beach.

Yeah, he denied ever even being there. He's like, uh no, it's been years since I've been there.

Meanwhile, there's like twenty people that were like, yeah, I saw you there, bro.

Yeah. Well not even that. There's there's evidence he was there because you know that locker, that storage locker with all the photos that he tried to oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Amongst all the photos, they identified areas and individuals Rodney had photographed to prove that he was lying. So they're like, this is Huntington Beach in your photographs we found in your storage locker, with the receipt we found in your possession, and these are girls who say they saw you there at the beach, and here's photographs you took of them at said beach.

We got you.

So he's straight out lying and there's like no doubt, like one hundred percent proof that he's lying about that. It took two months, but in nineteen eighty Rodney was found guilty and convicted to death.

Oh okay, for.

The murder of Robin Samsill.

Just the murder of Robin. Oh right, Well that was the only Sorry, I got a little distracted there.

Well I couldn't see the time there. So you're I was signaling.

You, I know what I was letting. I was taking the blame for that.

I got you. I got you.

That was the only trial he was for was just Robin or the only like shit that he'd done was just that one.

Okay, Well, everything else has been taken care of already, right, Tolla Shapiro. He's already gone through trial for that. Was only found a child, not.

In a satisfying way. So that's why I'm like, I.

Feel like, a, yeah, he's gone through the trials and tribulations of that, but are we satisfied with the results. Hell?

No? Okay, so he's sentenced to death.

He was sentenced to death. There's an interview with Robin's mother, which that the highlight I'm about to talk about here was actually also in that documentary, okay, And during the conviction she had this to say, it's a poor exchange for my daughter's life, but maybe it will save someone else's by him being gone. And actually I didn't write this in the notes, but I feel like now is

I don't blame her.

In that documentary, she talks about it, and she says the reason she didn't was Robin stopped her. She said she had her hand on the gun in her purse, and all of a sudden, she smelt Robin's shampoo and her hand got real warm.

Oh my goodness, Okay, that just like makes my eyes feel like they're just slaughtering up a little here. Yeah, So holy shit.

She brought a gun, fully intending on putting a bullet between his eyes, and she says her daughter stopped her from doing it.

Geez, you're making us all emotional up in here.

Well, this is an emotional case.

Holy moly.

I'm sorry. Should I should I give you a minute to breathe?

Well? No, I really, that's just nice. That is nice. It's nice.

You could.

I'm good.

Okay. So he sentenced to death. But however, four years later, in nineteen eighty four, there was an overturn and the Supreme Court decided in a five to one decision that he did not receive a fair trial as a judge had allowed the jury to hear about the Tali Shapiro case and I'll call his other rape and kidnapping convictions.

I'm glaring at you right now.

Yeah you are. I feel that death stare. I didn't do this. Why are you getting mad at me?

Well, because you're the presenter.

I'm sorry.

Okay, go on.

So it was back to the courtroom.

Oh that's oh.

And in nineteen eighty six, after his trial, he was again found guilty and sentenced to death.

Okay, thank you.

With another overturn.

Oh my gosh, what's the overturn.

I couldn't find a lot of information on this overturn.

These people are like screwed out their mind.

The only real, uh like things I could find about this and this is really not gonna make you happy. It was overturned because there was claims that a witness was hypnotized.

By who.

Yeah, I couldn't really find much information on.

This absurd Yeah, one witness who cares off. One witness was hypnotized.

But it was someone like the park ranger or something, someone who found Robin's body or something. So their testify, their their trial, their testification or whatever you want to say on the stand was kind of like null and void essentially, was it?

So?

Yeah? So now it's back to the courtroom for a third time.

Sweet love this love that.

Unfortunately, how I couldn't again. I'm learning so much through this podcast and through researching, but I'm still not too clear on exactly how evidence works in the court system. But I do know when things are overturned in a court there's a lot of evidence that can't be used a second time. I don't know what sort of stipulations there are within said evidence, but most of the evidence that they were using against him in their previous two

As you're speaking like you're preparing us for something.

Well I am, and I am not there. We turn around quickly again, do worry? Okay, so they can't use a lot of the evidence that they did have.

Baloney, Yeah, I don't like that.

However, in two thousand and three, and remember this trial started in nineteen eighty.

Oh okay, yeah, so he's like forgot about that.

Really fucking the system we are now twenty three years later. So in two thousand and three, during preparation for the third trial, some new evidence had surfaced that tied Rodney Alcala to two other murders. Okay, good, DNA identification technologies come a long way since the seventies. We were very well aware of that. Yeah, And semen samples collected in old cases had now linked Rodney to these cases.

Okay, don't love that.

Yeah me either. Additional evidence had also connected him to the murder of two other cases. And the four women that were murdered were Jill Barcombe, who was eighteen killed in nineteen seventy seven and originally thought to be a victim of the Hillside strangler, who was another prolific serial killer at the time in the same area. That's probably going to be another episode when they're just moving them.

To serial killers.

Okay, Yeah, Georgia Wixt who is twenty seven, she was bludgeoned in her Malibu apartment in nineteen seventy seven.

I feel like that's a bit older than he normally goes for.

Charlotte Lamb, who was thirty one, is raped and strangled in El Segundo in nineteen seventy eight. I'm not sure where that is. I'm assuming it's just like a little outlying area. And Jill Pirantu, who is twenty one, killed in her Burbank apartment in nineteen seventy nine. All of these women were found nude, beaten, strangled, and posed in sexually explicit ways, which by now had been known to be a pattern specific to Rodney Alcala.

Oh that's really gross.

Oh yeah, this dude's a fucking creep. Like he's he's done some shit, no kidding. But now we have a total of five cases.

Which I do like, like that's good, like this is good.

But the thing is here, we're crossing jurisdictions too. It a lot of things that people were talking about is that it looks almost like Rodney was going from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, Like it's different areas to try and commit these atrocities, and you.

Can get away with it more easily.

Yeah, because like they're not communicating with each other, right, and it makes things harder. Yeah, However, like they did start working with each other and it kind of like backfired on him because what he had planned didn't really work. So now he's got this total of five cases that he's being charged with, and prosecutors entered a motion to join the SAMSU charges with those four newly discovered victims,

Yeah, it paints like a way more depth picture.

Oh yeah, which really fucks him over, thankfully. Well, yes he does, Yes, he does, of course Rodney, I'll call it contested the motion in two thousand and six. In two thousand and six, but the California Supreme Court ruled in the proxecution's favor, allowing all five in the trial. At the same time, and in two thousand and nine, i'll call a stood trial once again. So here we are, now, twenty nine years later, he's on trial for all five of these murders. At the third trial, i'll call it,

Attorney for this whole thing or just this one.

I'm pretty sure it was the whole thing. Actually, it's that's interesting. It's definitely written in this third trial he did, but I don't I can't recall anywhere else saying it was. But I'm going to assume that if he did in this one, he probably did for the other one.

He's too pretty old at this point, Yes.

Yes he is. Yeah, well, we'll get into his age a little bit here, but he's probably he's definitely in his sixties.

Okay, not that that's super old if anyone that age listening, but like I mean, when he started this, he was like in his thirties, so it's or hose or something. So he's really he's just aged obviously.

At the trial, though, acting as his own attorney, he told jurors that he was at Knotsberry Farm when Samso was kidnapped, so Robin Samso was not someone he was even involved with. He claims. However, he's had no alibis over the last twenty something years. He can't prove anything. None of his accounts or claims. Nothing says it. Even his girlfriend at the time of Robin SAMSO's disappearance could count.

Girl.

He was very charming.

Okay, I know you said that, but I'm just like.

Eh, and I mean you look back in the seventies. I mean, he's definitely not my type. But he's not a bad looking dude.

It's good looking dude. Okay, I wanna have to do some research on this.

So not only was he acting as his own attorney, but even took the stand himself as a witness in an effort to try and prove his innocence. He did this mostly as a defense against the Robin Samson case. He knew everything about the case. He's had twenty something years to stew on this He's already gone through trial twice on it, so he knows what the defense has against him, what they want to talk about, what they want to target. He knows it inside and out. He's

Oh really, So he's not quite as smart as he thinks.

Yeah, And he kind of really fucked himself oward because while he was in prison, Rodney actually wrote and published a book about the Robin Samson case called You the Jury. Don't buy the book. Don't read it. I don't know. I'm assuming it might support him. Fuck him. If it doesn't support him, look into it, maybe read it. I don't know. I didn't want to look anything into it because I was like, fuck this.

Dude, don't buy the book. Yeah, I love that.

But he wrote about proclaiming his innocence in this book. He really fucked himself over. Because he didn't know about DNA. He wrote this book which really solidified a lot of his statements in writing prior to DNA.

Really yeap.

The defense used this book against him.

Oh my goodness's statements and everything. Wow.

Remember he had published this, he had wrote it. He can't claim that what's said in there is incorrect.

We can't deny that, noe.

In his book, he wrote that his sister had given him the earrings that were found in the locker, the storage locker. Remember there was a little bag of earrings. Robin's earrings were found in there. Yeah, and he said that the only person can that can match those ear rings to Robin was his mum. She's the only one who claims that there's no DNA that they could find attaching Robin to those earrings. However, new DNA evidence did show definitively that another pair of the earrings belonged to

Yeah, good old DNA.

Yeah. As for Charlotte. In the three other cases, he offered zero defense of any kind. He only defended himself against Robin Samso, so you think this is.

So interesting, Like I feel like defending yourself At points, I was like, oh, maybe that would benefit you, But I don't actually feel like that would benefit at you at all. You're way too close to the situation.

Oh yeah, and you're leaving yourself like so vulnerable exactly. So I don't know what he was thinking. He thought he could he was smart enough, but he definitely is.

Not quite a few issues.

Oh definitely, sorry, sip of water. So the only defense he did actually assert against the other four cases was that he couldn't remember killing any of those women. Wow, yeah, I don't remember that.

I just I just honestly can't remember.

No, that was what he said, I don't remember.

That's an awesome defense.

Yeah, cool story, Bra. What else you got, fucking moron?

Oh that's like hilarious.

Yeah, Richard report rapport. I think it is a psychiatrist paid by al Kala, and the only defense witness testified that borderline personality disorder we talked about earlier could explain I'll call his claims that he had no memory of committing murders.

Oh no, So is it like almost gonna be okay because he has this disorder? Sorry, okay, no, just keep going, keep going.

We're getting to the closing of this trial. Here you'll see. So that was his only defense that he had, and as a part of his closing argument, he played a portion of Arlo Guthrie song Alice's Restaurant, in which the protagonist tells a psychiatrist he wants to quote unquote kill what he was trying to obtain by that, I have no fucking clue, but that's what he did.

Huh. This guy seems like he's just a wild card.

Yeah, clearly, oh deaf. Can you imagine? Like I'm gonna stand on trial be my own attorney. I'm gonna take that stand. I'm not going to offer any sort of defense for seventy five percent of my case. I am going to completely ignore the fact that I wrote a book confessing a lot of things. Yeah, and then once I'm done, I just want to play a song for you. Guys will jam out for a little bit.

Yeah, it's like my favorite song. I just want you to hear it.

Oh and by the way, in the song, it's a it's a dude talking about how he wants to kill but I didn't kill.

Him, Mike drum right, Like, what the fuck?

What the fuck is going through this guy's head?

I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially.

For someone who, like twenty years prior to this is such a manipulative, charismatic fucking like I don't even know the word. I can't put it into words, but he's so manipulative and he has this way with people. For him to do this, it's like a out of character for him and be just fucking stupid.

Well, he might have lost his touch, really well, I think so. Yeah, it took.

The jury only one day to come back with the verdict.

Really, that surprises me.

In March of twenty ten, which is now third years after.

His trial, even that long ago.

Yeah, Alcala was found guilty on all five accounts of murder as a surprise witness, Tali Shapiro came to the stand in the penalty phase. So when they were talking about what he would receive for his guilt, so she took the stand. She was if you don't remember who she is, she was his first victim who was brutally beat and raped at the age of eight, She stepped forward took that stand, and since Rodney was acting as

Hell no. But that it's also like interesting that he like apologized to her. Oh yeah, this is where like he should not be.

He's just falling apart.

Yeah, he's spiraling out of control.

So the sentencing came in and Rodney el Caller was sentenced to death for a third time.

Okay, because that's where I was like, Oh, my goodness, is like the death penalty is still a thing, Like did they get rid of it? That's what I was worried about.

Well, he's he's sentenced to death. But after his trial, the Huntington Beach Police Department or sorry, the Huntington after the trial on Huntington Beach, I knew the Huntington Huntington Beach Department didn't police department. Why am I stumbling so bad? I knew the Huntington Beach Police Department wasn't a real thing. So I had to re read that line and try

Oh okay, which I mean is good, but also like.

Eeke, Yeah, approximately nine hundred additional photos could not be made public because they were too sexually explicit.

Okay, well that's says wondering what did they do with the ones that?

So those are just in police stands right now.

They couldn't just get the face cut the face but yeah.

In the first well that that how do you identify someone? Then?

Right, well, no, if they just like cropped the face out, but then maybe if they're whatever position is there, any might not even get a good view of the face.

Who knows? And where am I now here? All right? In the first week, police reported that cly twenty one women had come forward to identify themselves, and at least six families said that they believed they recognized loved ones who had disappeared years ago and were never found.

Oh No.

One family did identify at Christine Thornton as one of the individuals in the photographs. She had disappeared in nineteen seventy seven and her body was found in nineteen eighty two. Rodney Alcala has since been linked and was charged with her murder in twenty sixteen as well. She was strangled to death and dumped on a ranch in Wyoming. She was pregnant at the time.

Of her death, ah brutal.

In twenty ten, Seattle police named Alcola as a person of interest in an unsolved murder of Antoinette Whittaker, she was thirteen in July of nineteen seventy seven, and Joyce Gaunt, who was seventeen, and the case was in nineteen seventy eight.

Oh, that's just disgusting.

This dude fucking deserves to die and rot in hell.

Well, yeah, but all this other new cases coming up, does that just like prolong his death sentence?

Well, how can you prolong a death sentence? Like, what do you mean?

Is he alive right now?

He is? He is alive right now.

So I feel like that's being prolonged. He should have already just like he should have been like put on the desk penalty year like bajillion years ago.

Like no doubt, this dude should just be fucking removed from the planet as soon as possible.

The documentary that you had talked about, does he in it? Like, is there like recordings of him speaking and stuff?

There is a little bit in his court trial, the third trial.

Yes, Okay, yep. Interesting.

So while in California's death Row, i'll call it pleaded guilty in twenty twelve to the rape and murder of a flight attendant, Cornelia Crilly and a nightclub Harris ellen Hover, whose remains were found on the Rockefeller States in West Channer County, New York. So the list just keeps fucking.

Growing day by day. It's growing.

Yeah, and he's just getting trial after trial and murder charge after murder charge. Like, if this dude does not receive the death penalty, I can only imagine how fucking long his sentence would be, Like if you actually tally up the years and years of whatever he got, Yeah, I can only imagine how fucking many years he would have to serve.

Well, like, I mean, these cases or these new trials or whatever are so important for closure for like the families and stuff. But like at this point, god, it doesn't even fucking matter.

Yeah, well, exactly done, oh he is. But it's it's closure for the families. It's understanding these cases. It's making sure that we know what happened to these individuals. Yeah, and that's what it is. And it's making sure that he has this Like you fucking did this. We know you fucking did this.

And I bet you there's still even probably tons that are out there, like those all those photos you said that they couldn't even put out because they're are Like how many victims are in There.

Were a thousand photographs they have of different people and different explicit poses. Well, the average estimate for his murder count is above fifty individuals who have fallen victim to Rodney Alkalla, but police estimate Rodney could have murdered up to one hundred and thirty women in his lifetime.

That is so.

One one hundred and thirty women.

That is insane.

Yeah, Like, holy I can't I an't fuck this guy.

That is brutal. Like I'm like almost at a loss of words here. I just can't even believe. That makes me angry.

Yeah. Well, Rodney is now seventy seven years old and he's serving his time at the Kroken Court Krokowen Krokowan State Prison. Sorry if I pronounced that terribly wrong.

I can't even believe he was able to get to the age of seventy seven.

Yeah, thankfully most of that has been behind bars. His execution has been postponed indefinitely due to a temporary suspension on the death penalty instituted by California State in twenty nineteen.

Oh oh, well, that kind of means that he might not. Then he's probably gonna just die in prison.

Very well, age, very well could.

It's actually surprising, and he isn't like I don't know, maybe well, I mean, like I feel like all the shit he's done is stressful, but it probably wasn't to him. Like, I'm like, how is he not at a heart attack or something?

I don't fucking know. I just want this man to fucking just fuck off. Just get the fuck out of stop breathing our oxygen. You're not worth it, I.

Know, Like, I just how can someone that brutally cruel be living to their seventy seven and then like people who are awesome, people like die young, Like I don't know, that's massed.

Yeah, and because of what he did to a lot of people, like Taly Shapiro's she's talking about how she has a lot of trust issues with people. Yeah, every right.

So, oh my gosh, she was a little girl.

Yeah, you know, I know your parents, It's okay, you know, come on, give you a ride hops in, brutally beaten and raped and left for fucking dead. Yeah, if it wasn't for that officer, and if it wasn't for that good Smaritan, she wouldn't be here.

Oh she would have been dead, for she would kill her. He just couldn't get to finish the job.

Exactly.

Wow, for some reason, I didn't think of that. Yeah, yeah, so that good Samaritan and that police officer, but then for it to have gone on that much longer is.

Crazy, exactly. And I don't know how I have never heard of this fucking dude, this case, like it's holy shit.

Well yeah, especially because like the one you kind of refer to a lot like Ted Bundy, like kind of similar characteristics or whatever, that one you hear so much about. But yeah, no, I haven't heard of this duty And.

I don't know, Like I'm willing to bet that Rodney al Koala has a bigger body count than Ted Bundy. I don't know Ted Bundy's murder list or how many people his numbers, Yeah, but up to one hundred and thirty people, that's fucking that's a lot of people.

You fucking Is there anyone out there that has more.

I really hope not.

I know. Okay, well, how did you come across this? Did just researching or did someone recommend it?

It was recommended? Okay, yeah, Kristen recommended it. And she's like, yeah, I have some friends who were like deep into like the true crime stuff, and they just ran across this guy. Didn't know anything about it. I've never heard anything about it. She recommended the case, and I was like, yeah, I'll take a look. I started looking into it, and I was like, holy fuck.

Well especially because okay, because he has a book and a lot of the new trial stuff is fairly recent, so it's actually quite surprising.

Yeah. I don't know how it's flown under our radar, but yeah, this dude deserves to fucking rot. That's all I know. No care, I wish I've never heard of this dude.

Yeah, just come.

Well that's the episode.

Yeah, good job, thank you.

First two parter, A little bit of a roller coaster.

I know, we gotta I was like, okay, we gotta finish this off on a high note here, because everyone's just like their hearts are probably heavy. But yeah, no, that was fun. It was fun to have a two parter and to dive into this case even though the guy's a little bit fucked up. Yeah, not even a little bit, just just a lot.

There are going to be some two parties that are going to happen in the future. We've had a lot of people telling us like, oh, you should do this case, this case, this case, and some of those cases like the picked in case.

Picked In I know, I knew you were going for that one. You couldn't do that in one that.

There's no way you could do that in one that's at least the two parter. Yeah, and trust us, it's on the list. It's one of those ones that I mean, I didn't intend to do this one this heavy. Yet if I knew this was this involved, I would have pushed it off a little bit because we're still getting our rhythm. The research is difficult, that sort of thing. So I want to give time. I want to make sure that we're ready for the picked in case.

Oh, the picked in case freaking terrifies me.

Yeah, it's fucked up, and I am a lot.

And like, I feel like I know a fair amount about it, but like when you dive in and Steff, you just learned so much more. And I don't even know, like, do I want to know that much about it?

Well, have you listened to any other like podcasts and picked in Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, so it's it's fucked.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that's that's a subtle way putting it. Yeah, definitely.

All right, Well, let's wind this down, let's try and get this off our minds, and we'll talk to you guys in our next episode.

Yeah, thanks for listening, and stay wicked.