42. Rodney James ALCALA
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape
Number of victims: 5 - 100 +
Date of murders: 1977 - 1979
Date of arrest: July 27, 1979
Date of birth: August 23, 1943
Victims profile: Robin Samsoe, 12 /Jill Barcomb, 18 / Georgia Wixted, 27 / Charlotte Lamb, 32 / Jill Parenteau, 21
Method of murder: Beating / Strangulation
Location: California, USA
Status: Sentenced to death March 30, 2010
Characteristics: Rape
Number of victims: 5 - 100 +
Date of murders: 1977 - 1979
Date of arrest: July 27, 1979
Date of birth: August 23, 1943
Victims profile: Robin Samsoe, 12 /Jill Barcomb, 18 / Georgia Wixted, 27 / Charlotte Lamb, 32 / Jill Parenteau, 21
Method of murder: Beating / Strangulation
Location: California, USA
Status: Sentenced to death March 30, 2010
Rodney James Alcala (born August 23, 1943) is a convicted
rapist and serial killer who was sentenced to death in California in 2010 for
five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, and is thought to be responsible
for others.
He is sometimes labeled the "Dating Game
Killer" due to his 1978 appearance on the American television show The
Dating Game in the very midst of his murder spree.
Alcala is also notable for exceptional demonstrations of
cruelty: Prosecutors say he "toyed" with his victims, strangling them
until they lost consciousness, then waiting until they revived, sometimes
repeating this process several times before finally killing them.
Investigators have found a collection of hundreds of
photos of women and teenaged boys photographed by Alcala, and speculate that he
could be responsible for many more murders in California. He is also a suspect
in at least two unsolved murders in New York. Authorities have compared him to
Ted Bundy, and fear that, as evidence continues to mount, he may prove to be
one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.
Early life
Alcala was born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala-Buquor in San
Antonio, Texas to Raoul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. He and his
sisters were raised by his mother in suburban Los Angeles. His father abandoned
the family.
He joined the United States Army in 1960, where he served
as a clerk. In 1964, after what was described as a "nervous
breakdown", he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by a
military psychiatrist and discharged on medical grounds.
Education
Alcala, who claims to have a "genius-level" IQ,
graduated from the UCLA School of Fine Arts after his medical discharge from
the Army, and later attended New York University using the alias "John
Berger", where he studied film under Roman Polanski.
Early criminal history
Alcala committed his first known crime in 1968: A
motorist in Los Angeles witnessed him luring an eight-year-old girl named Tali
Shapiro into his Hollywood apartment and called police. The girl was found in
the apartment raped and beaten with a steel bar, but Alcala escaped. He fled to
the east coast and enrolled in the NYU film school using the name "John
Berger." During the summer months he also obtained a counseling job at a
New Hampshire arts camp for children, using a slightly different alias,
"John Burger."
In 1971, after two campers noticed Alcala's FBI wanted
poster at the post office and notified camp directors, he was arrested and
extradited back to California. By then, however, Tali Shapiro's parents had
relocated her family to Mexico, and refused to allow her to testify at Alcala's
trial. Unable to convict him of rape and attempted murder without their primary
witness, prosecutors were forced to permit Alcala to plead guilty to a lesser
charge.
He was paroled after 34 months, in 1974, under the
"indeterminate sentencing" program popular at the time, which allowed
parole boards to release offenders as soon as they demonstrated evidence of
"rehabilitation."
Less than two months later, Alcala was arrested for
violating parole and providing marijuana to a 13-year old girl who claimed she
had been kidnapped. Once again, he was paroled after serving two years of an
"indeterminate sentence."
In 1977, despite his criminal record and official registration
as a sex offender, he was hired as a typesetter by the Los Angeles Times in the
midst of their coverage of the Hillside Strangler murders.
During this period Alcala also convinced dozens of young
women that he was a professional fashion photographer, and photographed them
for his "portfolio." Most of those photos remain unidentified, and
police fear that some of the women may be additional victims (see below).
Samsoe murder and trials
Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl from Huntington Beach,
California disappeared somewhere between the beach and her ballet class on June
20, 1979. Her decomposing body was found 12 days later in the foothills of Los
Angeles. Police subsequently found her earrings in a Seattle locker rented by
Alcala.
In 1980 Alcala was tried, convicted, and sentenced to
death for Samsoe's murder, but his conviction was overturned by the California
Supreme Court because the Orange County Superior Court trial judge had allowed
the jury to hear about the Tali Shapiro case, and Alcala's other rape and
kidnapping convictions.
In 1986 he was convicted for a second time and again
sentenced to death, but a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel overthrew his
conviction once again, in part because a witness was not allowed to support
Alcala's contention that the park ranger who found Samsoe's body had been
"hypnotized by police investigators."
Third (joined) trial
While preparing their third prosecution in 2003, Orange
County investigators learned that Alcala's DNA, sampled under a new state law (over
his objections), matched semen left at the rape-murder scenes of two women in
Los Angeles. Another pair of earrings found in Alcala's storage locker matched
the DNA of one of the two victims.
Additional evidence, including another cold case DNA
match in 2004, led to Alcala's indictment for the murders of four additional
women: Jill Barcomb, 18, killed in 1977 and originally thought to have been a
victim of the Hillside Strangler; Georgia Wixted, 27, bludgeoned in her Malibu
apartment in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, 31, raped and strangled in El Segundo in
1978; and Jill Parenteau, 21, killed in her Burbank apartment in 1979.
In 2003, prosecutors entered a motion to join the Samsoe
charges with those of the four newly-discovered victims. Alcala contested the motion.
In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled in the prosecution's favor, and in
2009 Alcala stood trial once again. At the third trial Alcala, acting as his
own attorney, told jurors, often in a rambling monotone, that he was at Knott's
Berry Farm when Samsoe was kidnapped. (He offered no defense of any kind in the
other four cases.)
As part of his closing argument, he played the portion of
Arlo Guthrie's song "Alice's Restaurant" in which the protagonist
tells a psychiatrist he wants to "kill." He was convicted on all five
counts. A surprise witness during the penalty phase of the trial was Tali
Shapiro, Alcala's first known victim. In March 2010, Alcala was sentenced to
death for a third time.
Dating Game appearance
In 1978, Alcala — who had by then already killed at least
two women — was accepted as a contestant on The Dating Game, despite being a
convicted rapist and registered sex offender. Host Jim Lange introduced him as
"...a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him
in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find
him skydiving or motorcycling." He won a date with
"bachelorette" Cheryl Bradshaw, who subsequently refused to go out
with him, according to published reports, because she found him
"creepy." Jed Mills, an actor who sat next to Alcala onstage as
"Bachelor #2", later described him as a "very strange guy"
with "bizarre opinions." (The third contestant, Armand Chiami, has
not publicly commented.)
Criminal profiler Pat Brown, noting that Alcala killed
Robin Samsoe and at least two other women after his Dating Game appearance,
speculated that Bradshaw's rejection might have been an exacerbating factor.
"One wonders what that did in his mind," Brown said. "That is
something he would not take too well. [Serial killers] don't understand the
rejection. They think that something is wrong with that girl: 'She played me.
She played hard to get.'"
Current status
Alcala has been incarcerated since his 1979 arrest for
Samsoe's murder. While in prison he has written You, the Jury, a 1994 book in
which he asserts his innocence in the Samsoe case and points to a different
suspect. He has also filed two lawsuits against the California penal system for
a slip-and-fall claim, and for failing to provide him a low-fat diet.
New York officials have the option of filing additional
charges against Alcala, who is the main suspect in the case of Ciro's Nightclub
heiress Ellen Jane Hover, murdered in 1977 while Alcala was working in New York
as a security guard. He is also suspected in the murder of TWA flight attendant
Cornelia "Michael" Crilley, which occurred in 1971 while Alcala was
enrolled at NYU.
Alcala continues to maintain his innocence, and currently
remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
Unidentified photographs
In April 2010, the Huntington Beach Police Department
made public 120 of Alcala's photographs in an effort to identify some of the
women and determine if any could be additional victims. Anyone willing to
provide information about any of the photos was asked to call Det. Patrick
Ellis at (714) 536-5971.
In the first few weeks, approximately 20 women had come
forward to identify themselves.
Aliases
Rodney Alcala (legal name)
Rod Alcala
John Berger
John Burger
Rod Alcala
John Berger
John Burger
Serial killer Rodney Alcala sentenced to death
By Paloma Esquivel - Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2010
An Orange County judge on Tuesday sentenced serial killer
Rodney Alcala to death for five killings in the 1970s, marking yet another turn
in a three-decade-long legal drama.
Judge Francisco Briseno's decision came several weeks
after a jury recommended the death penalty for Alcala after convicting him on
charges of slaying four women and a teenage girl.
Briseno said photos of the women taken by Alcala show he
had "sadistic sexual motives" and that "some of the victims were
posed after death." The judge said Alcala had an "abnormal interest
in young girls."
It was the third time that 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 from 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.
Alcala: The long road to justice
By Kimi Yoshino
1972 — Alcala is convicted in the 1968 rape and beating
of an 8-year-old girl.
Nov. 10, 1977 — The body of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb is
found in the Hollywood Hills. She had been sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and
strangled with a pair of blue pants.
Dec. 16, 1977 — Georgia Wixted, 27, is found beaten to
death at her home in Malibu. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
1978 — Alcala appears in an episode of “The Dating Game”
as Bachelor No. 1
June 24, 1978 — Charlotte Lamb, a 32-year-old legal
secretary from Santa Monica, is found in the laundry room of an El Segundo
apartment complex. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a
shoelace.
June 14, 1979 — Jill Parenteau, 21, is found strangled on
the floor of her Burbank apartment.
June 20, 1979 – Robin Samsoe, 12, disappears near the
Huntington Beach Pier. Her body is found 12 days later in the Sierra Madre
foothills.
July 24, 1979 — Rodney James Alcala, an unemployed
photographer, is arrested at his parents’ Monterey Park home.
September 1980 – Alcala is convicted of the 1978 rape of
a 15-year-old Riverside girl and sentenced to nine years in state prison.
June 20, 1980 — Orange County Superior Court Judge Philip
E. Schwab sentences Alcala to death after he is convicted of Samsoe's murder.
July 11, 1980 — The Los Angeles County district
attorney’s office files murder, burglary and sexual assault charges against
Alcala in the slaying of Parenteau.
April 15, 1981 — The L.A. County district attorney’s
office tells a judge that prosecution of Alcala in the Parenteau case could not
proceed because a key witness admitted that he had committed perjury in another
case.
Aug. 23, 1984 — The state Supreme Court reversed Alcala’s
murder conviction in connection with Samsoe, ruling that the jury was
improperly told about Alcala’s prior sex crimes.
June 20, 1986 — For the second time, Alcala is convicted
of Samsoe’s murder and sentenced to death in Orange County Superior Court.
Dec. 31, 1992 — The California Supreme Court unanimously
upholds Alcala’s death sentence.
April 2, 2001 — A federal appellate court overturns
Alcala’s death sentence in the Samsoe case, ruling that the Superior Court
judge precluded the defense from presenting evidence “material to significant
issues.”
June 5, 2003 — The Los Angeles County district attorney’s
office files murder charges against Alcala alleging that he killed Wixted
during a burglary and rape.
Sept. 19, 2005 — Additional murder charges are filed
against Alcala in connection to the deaths of Barcomb, Wixted and Lamb.
Jan. 11, 2010 — Alcala’s trial for the five murders
begins. He represents himself.
March 9, 2010 — Alcala is again sentenced to death.
The 'most prolific' serial killer in U.S. history is
sentenced to death as police fear he could be behind 130 murders
By David Gardner - DailyMail.co.uk
1st April 2010
Police have released more than 100 photographs of
unidentified women and girls amid fears they could be the victims of America's
worst ever serial killer.
The pictures were taken by Rodney Alcala, who was
sentenced to death by lethal injection for the savage murders of a 12-year-old
girl and four women.
However, the 66-year-old has admitted killing another 30
women in the 1970s and police believe there could be many more victims.
They have already linked him to the deaths of two Seattle
teenagers aged 13 and 17, and a 19-year-old who vanished from the same area, as
well as two women in New York and several more in Los Angeles.
The photos were discovered hidden in a storage locker in
Seattle, Washington, where Alcala, an amateur photographer, kept his
possessions before his arrest.
Although many of the 1,000 pictures were innocent poses
in a park or on the beach, some women had stripped off for the camera.
Police believe that Alcala - who is known in the U.S. as
the Dating Game Killer because he once appeared on America's version of Blind
Date - kept the photographs as sick souvenirs of his victims.
The women in the photos range in age from schoolgirls to
women in their 20s and 30s, and are believed to come from across the U.S. Two
of the pictures may have been taken after the women were murdered.
Prosecutor Matt Murphy said: 'We'd like to locate the
women in these pictures. Did they simply pose for a serial killer or did they
become victims of his sadistic, murderous pattern?
'He committed unspeakable acts of horror. He gets off on
the infliction of pain on other people. He's an evil monster who knows what he
is doing is wrong and doesn't care.'
Detective Claiff Shepard said: 'He's right up somewhere
below Hitler and right around Ted Bundy. It is not humane what he does to these
victims. It is tortuous.'
Alcala - who defended himself during his trial - preyed
on women and girls by offering to take their photographs.
He then raped his victims, strangled them until they were
unconscious before reviving them and killing them.
The photographer, who is said to have a genius IQ of 160,
often boasted of his winning an episode of the American version of Blind Date.
However, the woman who chose him later cancelled their
date because she found him 'too creepy'.
Alcala appeared unconcerned about his fate on Tuesday,
when he was given the death sentence for kidnapping and murdering 12-year-old
Robin Samsoe, who disappeared after leaving home for ballet class on her
bicycle in 1979.
He laughed and talked throughout the trial at Orange
County Superior Court, even after also being convicted of murdering four Los
Angeles women - Georgia Wixted, 27, Jill Barcomb, 18, Charlotte Lamb, 32, and
Jill Parenteau, 21 - between 1977 and 1979.
It took nearly 30 years for the law to catch up with him.
He was previously convicted twice of killing Robin, but the verdicts were
overturned. An earring that belonged to the little girl was also found with the
photo cache.
America's most prolific serial killer is often considered
to be Henry Lee Lucas, who was convicted of four murders in the late 1970s
although police believe he may have been responsible for more than 200.
After his imprisonment, Lucas confessed to 600 killings
although he later claimed he had lied to become famous.
Ted Bundy is believed to have raped and murdered 35 women
between 1973 and 1978, although police believe there are many more victims. He
was executed in 1989 by electric chair for his last murder in Florida.
Calif. Man Convicted of 5 Serial Slayings
Rodney Alcala Found Guilty of Murdering 4 Women, 12-Year-Old
Girl in Late 1970s
CBSNews.com
Feb. 25, 2010
A jury convicted a Southern California man Thursday of
murdering four women and a 12-year-old girl in the late 1970s.
Jurors took less than two days to reach guilty verdicts
against Rodney Alcala after six weeks of testimony. He could face a death
sentence when the penalty phase of the case begins Tuesday.
The 66-year-old Alcala, who acted as his own lawyer, had
previously been sentenced to death twice for the murder of 12-year-old Robin
Samsoe of Orange County, but both convictions were overturned.
Prosecutors added the murders of four women in 2006 after
investigators discovered DNA and other forensic evidence linking him to those
cases.
The jury heard grueling testimony that two of the four
adult victims were posed nude and possibly photographed after their deaths; one
was raped with a claw hammer; and all of them were repeatedly strangled and
resuscitated during their deaths to prolong their agony.
Prosecutors also alleged Alcala, an amateur photographer,
took earrings from at least two of the victims as trophies and carried one
18-year-old to a remote canyon road where he raped and sodomized her before
bashing her head with a rock.
At trial, Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy told
jurors DNA found in the bodies of three of the women proved Alcala had
committed those murders. Witnesses said Alcala and the fourth woman were seen
in the same club on the night she was killed.
The Samsoe case, which was first tried in 1980, presented
more of a challenge for prosecutors because it was built largely on
circumstantial evidence.
The young girl's body was found in Angeles National
Forest 12 days after she disappeared.
No one saw the blond-haired girl being abducted on June
20, 1979 as she rode her friend's bike to ballet class. In addition,
investigators were unable to recover forensic evidence because of the condition
of her remains.
The current trial focused almost entirely on evidence in
the Samsoe case, with Alcala choosing not to testify about the murders of the
four adult women when he took the stand in his own defense.
Prosecutors relied on witnesses who testified about
seeing a curly haired photographer taking pictures of Samsoe, her friend and
other teenagers on the beach minutes before Samsoe disappeared. Photos of one
of the girls were later found in Alcala's 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 a storage
locker that Alcala had rented in Seattle, where he was arrested a month after
her murder.
Investigators found other earrings in the same pouch,
including a small rose-shaped stud that contained a trace of DNA from another
of Alcala's alleged victims, Charlotte Lamb.
Alcala maintained, however, that the gold ball earrings
were his and introduced as evidence a video of himself as the winning
contestant on a 1978 episode of "The Dating Game." He told jurors the
seconds-long, grainy clip from the video showed him wearing the gold earrings a
year before Samsoe was killed.
In his closing argument, Alcala accused prosecutors of
lumping the four Los Angeles women in with Samsoe to inflame the jury. He also
pointed out inconsistencies in the case and lapses in witnesses' recollections
of that day.
Alcala noted that one witness who saw him on the beach
said he was dark-skinned and 175 pounds when Alcala is light-skinned and weighs
150 pounds.
Two other witnesses disagreed on the clothing he was
wearing. An initial police bulletin said the suspect in the Samsoe case was
balding, but Alcala pointed out he has as full head of long, curly hair.
The other women murdered were Georgia Wixted, 27, of
Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica; Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank;
and Jill Barcomb, 18, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Oneida, N.Y.
State Supreme Court takes on notorious 1979 O.C. murder
case
High court to decide if prosecutors can try Rodney Alcala
for 4 old L.A. murders along with kidnapping and murder of H.B. girl.
By Larry Welborn - The Orange County Register
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
SANTA ANA – Former death row inmate Rodney James Alcala
has twice been put on trial for killing a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl in
one of Orange County's most notorious murder cases.
Twice he's been convicted. Twice he's been sentenced to
death. And twice his convictions and sentences for killing Robin Samsoe in 1979
were reversed on appeal.
He's back in the Orange County court system for round
three of People v. Alcala.
But his court-appointed defense attorneys are arguing
that the now-65-year-old defendant can not get a fair trial in Orange County
because prosecutors want to try Alcala for four additional murders at the same
time. They say that would overwhelm the defense with a mountain of evidence.
They claim in documents filed in Superior Court, the 4th
District Court of Appeal and most recently the California Supreme Court that
the Orange County District Attorney's Office is unfairly piling on Alcala.
Justices on the state's highest court – in a rare move –
will hear arguments this afternoon during a session in Los Angeles.
Defense attorney Richard Schwartzberg isn't arguing that
Alcala can't get a fair trial just because it is the third time around, but
because Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy wants want to try Alcala
for five murders instead of just one.
Murphy raised the stakes after an Orange County Grand
Jury returned an indictment in 2005 accusing Alcala of strangling or beating
four women in neighboring Los Angeles County nearly three decades ago.
Those cold cases allegedly link Alcala through DNA
evidence to murder scenes in the 1970s, investigators contend. DNA evidence was
not available during the 1970s.
Orange County can charge the Los Angeles County cases –
prosecutors claim – because a 1998 law allows serial killers who commit murders
in separate counties to be tried in one.
That law was prompted by the recognition that serial
killers who go on brutal killing rampages do so without consideration of county
lines, said Deputy District Attorney James Mulgrew, who is handling the motions
part of the Alcala case.
Mulgrew also insists there is a legitimate interest in
judicial economy and that there would be a reduction of inconvenience and
trauma for witnesses and victim family members by having one trial with
multiple murder counts rather that several trials on individual counts in
multiple courtrooms.
But Alcala's court-appointed defense attorneys,
Schwartzberg and George Peters are crying foul.
Schwartzberg contends that Alcala's first two trials in
Orange County in the Samsoe case were close decisions for the juries, and that
two separate appellate courts found sufficient errors in those trials to
justify reversing the verdicts.
"Our focus is to fight the Samsoe case, and it always
has been," Schwartzberg said Tuesday. "If a third jury hears he has
potentially killed four other women, any doubt he killed Robin Samsoe will
evaporate in a second."
Schwartzberg also disputes whether the evidence in the
four Los Angeles cases would be admissible if Alcala stood trial again for the
Samsoe murder alone.
In 2006, Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco
Briseno agreed with prosecutors, allowing all five slayings to be combined in
one trial to be heard in Orange County.
But the 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana later
over-ruled Briseno, finding that adding all four murder cases to the Samsoe
trial would be too much. The appellate court decided that Murphy can add two
Los Angeles cases to the Orange County prosecution, but not all four.
That decision prompted both Schwartzberg and Mulgrew to
appeal to the California Supreme Court: Schwartzberg wants the state's highest
court to strike all four Los Angeles slayings from the Orange County
prosecution, while Mulgrew wants the court to reinstate the two counts removed
by the appellate court.
Both lawyers said Tuesday that it is rare for the state's
high court to review any pre-conviction issue from a local county. Schwartzberg
said it probably happens out of Orange County Superior Court only once every
three or four years.
Accused Serial Killer Facing Third Trial Enters Plea
November 23, 2005
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A man facing a third trial for the
murder of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl in 1979 pleaded not guilty
Tuesday to charges of murdering four Los Angeles-area women in the 1970s.
Rodney James Alcala, 62, has spent much of the last 20
years on death row in connection with the slaying of Robin Samsoe. His two
previous convictions in the case were overturned, and a date for the third
trial has not yet been set.
Alcala was indicted Sept. 9 for the murders of Jill
Barcomb, 18; Georgia Wixted, 27; Charlotte Lamb, 32;, and Jill Parenteau, 21.
The slayings occurred between late-1977 and mid-1979.
The women were sexually assaulted, then beaten or
strangled.
The indictment also alleges the special circumstance
allegations of torture, multiple murder, robbery, rape, burglary and oral
copulation.
Los Angeles County prosecutors already have announced
they will seek the death penalty against Alcala on the four new cases if he is
convicted.
Alcala has been in Orange County since 2003 while
awaiting a new trial in the Samsoe case.
Los Angeles County prosecutors want to combine the Los
Angeles County cases with the Orange County case, using prosecutors from both
district attorney offices.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno set
a hearing on Jan. 13 to determine if the cases can be combined and tried in
Orange County.
Defense attorney Richard Schwartzberg told Briseno he will
oppose consolidation.
Mindful that the appeals court has twice tossed out
Alcala's convictions for the Samsoe killing, defense attorney George Peters
later told reporters that consolidation is an attempt to shore up a weak case
with new charges that could bias a jury.
Schwartzberg told Briseno that the statute allowing
consolidation is new and that there is no settled case law regarding it. If the
ruling goes against his client, Schwartzberg indicated he would appeal the
ruling while trial is still pending.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told
reporters earlier that "by consolidating the charges, we will be able to
pool our resources and give the public a clearer understanding of who Mr.
Alcala is and what he did."
Prosecutors also said it will allow for judicial economy
and for overlapping evidence to be presented.
Briseno also signed an order giving prosecutors access to
Alcala's dental records from San Quentin.
According to the motion submitted by Los Angeles Deputy
District Attorney Gina Satriano, evidence of a bite mark was recovered from the
body of Barcomb by the coroner in 1979 and prosecutors want to compare the
evidence collected from the victim's body to Alcala's teeth impressions.
According to Satriano, the bite mark severed the victim's
right breast nipple.
The records will be turned over to prosecutors on Dec.
16.
Samsoe disappeared near the Huntington Beach Pier in July
1979, and her remains were found 12 days later in the San Gabriel Mountain
foothills.
Alcala was convicted in 1980 of murdering Samsoe. He won
a second trial in 1984 when the California Supreme Court ruled that evidence of
prior attacks against young girls should not have been allowed at trial.
Alcala served time for attacking an 8-year-old girl with
a pipe in 1968, and completed another term for an attack on a 14-year-old girl.
In 1986, he was tried again and convicted in the Samsoe
case, although a key prosecution witness -- a Forest Service firefighter who
was among those who found the girl's body and later linked Alcala to the site
-- did not testify again because she said she had amnesia.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals unanimously upheld a trial judge's order that Alcala should be retried
or released.
The retrial had been delayed by the death of attorney
David A. Zimmerman, who had represented Alcala on his first appeal of the case.
After Peters was appointed, Alcala was set to go to trial
on Oct. 3 but that date was vacated with the addition of the new charges.
Satriano could not estimate when trial would begin on the
case, saying a lot has to do with the consolidation motion.
California man accused in serial killings
September 20, 2005
LOS ANGELES - A California man who twice has had death
sentences overturned for the 1979 murder of a 12-year-old girl has been
indicted for strangling four Los Angeles area women in a serial killing spree,
prosecutors said Monday.
Rodney James Alcala, who won new trials after both of his
death sentences for the slaying of Robin Samsoe, was linked to four other
unsolved murders from the 1970s through DNA and blood evidence, prosecutors
said.
“Clearly the only punishment appropriate for Mr. Alcala
is the death penalty, and we will pursue it again,” Orange County District
Attorney Tony Rackauckas said at a joint press conference with Los Angeles
prosecutors.
The indictment charges Alcala, a freelance photographer,
with killing Jill Barcomb, 18, and Georgia Wixted, 27, in 1977, Charlotte Lamb,
32, in 1978 and Jill Parenteau, 21, in 1979. All four were beaten, sexually
assaulted and strangled.
Prosecutors from both Los Angeles and Orange counties
will work on the case and will try Alcala, 62, for all five murders together.
He was in jail awaiting a retrial for Samsoe’s murder when the indictments came
down.
Alcala, who has prior convictions for assault and served
two years in prison for the 1968 kidnapping and rape of an 8-year-old girl, was
in court briefly Monday for an arraignment but that hearing was postponed until
Oct. 6.
Authorities believe Alcala used his above-average
intelligence and charm in approaching girls to take their pictures. He once
appeared on television’s “The Dating Game.”
Samsoe, an aspiring gymnast from Huntington Beach,
Calif., vanished on June 20, 1979, while on her way to a ballet lesson. Her
skeletal remains were found in a national forest some two weeks later.
Alcala, who was seen with a girl matching Samsoe’s
description near the spot where her body was found, was convicted of her murder
in 1980 and sentenced to die. The California Supreme Court later overturned the
guilty verdict, saying jurors should not have been told about his prior
convictions.
Although the forestry worker who saw Alcala near the
scene of the crime developed amnesia and could not testify again, he was
convicted a second time of murdering Samsoe. A federal judge overturned that
conviction, citing concerns about his defense.
Defendant Is Now Called Serial Killer
Rodney Alcala, facing a second retrial in the abduction
and death of an O.C. girl, allegedly killed four L.A. County women in the late
1970s.
By Claire Luna and Seema Mehta - Los Angeles Times
September 20, 2005
A man behind bars for the last 25 years for allegedly
killing a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl is now accused of slaying four
women in Los Angeles County in the late 1970s during a serial-killing spree,
officials said Monday.
Rodney James Alcala, 62, who is in Orange County jail
awaiting his second retrial in the 1979 kidnapping and killing of Robin Samsoe,
made a court appearance Monday on charges of sexually assaulting and murdering
four women, who were strangled in or near their homes. His arraignment was
postponed until Oct. 6.
After uncovering the new cases through DNA and blood
evidence, detectives said they were trying to connect Alcala with other
unsolved missing-person and murder cases, including two killings in New York
state.
"He belongs right up there" in a list of serial
killers, said Los Angeles Police Det. Cliff Shepard, who is in the department's
cold-case unit. "Him being behind bars since 1979 probably saved a lot of
lives."
The killings occurred in an era when Southern California
was being terrorized by serial killers such as the Hillside Strangler and the
Freeway Killer. At the time, police suspected that at least one of the women
now linked to Alcala was a victim in the string of deaths attributed to the
Hillside Strangler.
The new charges against Alcala involve four slayings from
1977 to 1979. Authorities said the victims died under similar circumstances.
The body of Jill Barcomb, 18, was found in the Hollywood
Hills on Nov. 10, 1977, three weeks after she moved to California from Oneida,
N.Y. She was sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled with a pair of blue
pants. Coroner's officials found three bite marks on her right breast.
The nude body of Centinela Hospital nurse Georgia Wixted,
27, was found Dec. 16, 1977, in her Malibu apartment. Wixted had been beaten,
sexually assaulted and strangled. A hammer was found next to her body.
Legal secretary Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica was
found June 24, 1978, in the laundry room of an El Segundo apartment complex.
She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a shoelace.
On June 13, 1979 — a week before Robin Samsoe was
abducted and killed — Jill Parenteau was found sexually assaulted and strangled
in her Burbank apartment, pillows propping up her nude body. Law enforcement
sources said Alcala allegedly met the 21-year-old keypunch operator at a
restaurant.
Police in New York suspect Alcala killed at least two
women there, one of them Ellen Hover, 24, in 1977. She was last seen in her New
York apartment July 15, and her body was found 11 months later in a shallow
grave on the Rockefeller estate, about 100 feet from where another woman told
police she had posed for Alcala, an amateur photographer.
"Mr. Alcala left a trail of evil in multiple states
and multiple counties," said Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Alcala's
arrest in Robin Samsoe's death was "the only reason he stopped
killing."
Alcala refused a jailhouse interview and his attorney
declined to discuss the new charges.
Authorities said Alcala met the women in discos and other
public places, flirted with them and then followed them home when they spurned
his advances.
"The reality is he was running around Southern
California in the '70s looking for prey," said Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy, head of the homicide bureau. "He looked for
innocent victims who couldn't put up much of a fight and caught them when they
were home in bed and pretty much defenseless."
The Los Angeles County cases had stalled for decades
until they were cracked with the help of a statewide DNA database. In each of
the slayings, the killer left semen or other biological material on the objects
he used to strangle his victims.
After a recent state law required Alcala to provide a DNA
sample to be used in crime-solving efforts, the state Department of Justice
connected him a year ago to the unsolved killings.
"The DNA hits were like turning a light on in a
room," Peavy said. "Suddenly an unsolvable case is now solved."
Sheriff's Det. Cheryl Comstock has been investigating the
cases since the DNA links were found, Peavy said. She interviewed Alcala in
prison several times and was able to confirm that he was not behind bars at the
time of the killings.
Wixted's sister and brother-in-law, Anne and Al Michelena
of Irvine, said Alcala's coming arraignment was a relief.
"I just regret that most of my family didn't live
long enough to hear the news," particularly their mother, said Anne
Michelena, 50, an elementary school teacher.
"For the past 25 years, I've been constantly looking
over my shoulder, not knowing what I was looking for or who I was looking for.
It got to the point where I thought I would never know," she added, but
"I never stopped wondering."
She said the charges, coming after more than 25 years,
should give hope to families in similar situations.
Her husband, who retired in August after 25 years of
investigating killings and supervising the Los Angeles Police Department's
robbery/homicide unit, had regularly checked the case's status with the
Sheriff's Department.
He never knew Wixted — he met his future wife shortly
after her sister's death. But seeing how the killing affected his wife, he
said, shaped his interactions with victims he met through work.
Prosecutors hope to try all five cases, including the
retrial in the Robin Samsoe killing, together in Orange County. Consolidating
the cases will allow the counties to pool resources and shorten the survivors'
already lengthy wait for justice, Rackauckas said.
Lawyers for Alcala said they would try to have the Orange
County case tried separately from the others.
"That way, the jury can see that case in isolation
and weigh it in isolation, without any information that would bias their
view," said attorney George Peters outside court.
While Peters declined to discuss the new charges, he said
his client has repeatedly insisted he did not kill the girl.
Robin, an aspiring gymnast, vanished June 20, 1979, as
she bicycled to a dance lesson. Her body was found July 2 in the Angeles
National Forest, in the foothills near Sierra Madre. Her body had decomposed to
the point that police could not determine how she was killed or whether she had
been sexually assaulted.
At the time, Alcala was an amateur photographer who had
recently been a typist at the Los Angeles Times. A UCLA graduate, he had also
worked for a time at a camp in New Hampshire, teaching filmmaking to children.
In 1979, while on parole for raping and beating an
8-year-old girl, Alcala appeared on "The Dating Game" television
show. "It's pretty chilling to watch the banter between him and these
contestants," Peavy said. "This is a serial killer, and here's a
woman flirting with him."
At the time of Robin's death, he was awaiting trial on
charges of raping and beating a 15-year-old girl in 1978.
At the first trial, a forestry worker testified to seeing
a curly-haired man with a blond girl on a hiking trail the day Robin was
abducted, near where the body was later found. Jurors deliberated only a few
hours before convicting Alcala on June 20, 1980. He was sentenced to die in the
gas chamber.
Alcala won his first new trial in August 1984 after the
state Supreme Court said evidence about his other crimes had been improperly
allowed.
In the second trial, the forestry worker testified that
she had suffered amnesia and no longer remembered the man or the girl. Still,
Alcala was again convicted, and sent to San Quentin State Prison to await
execution.
But in April 2001, the conviction was again overturned on
grounds that Alcala's lawyers should have been allowed to introduce a
psychologist's testimony casting doubt on the amnesia claim. Also, Alcala's
attorney was faulted for not calling a witness to support his alibi that he was
interviewing for a job photographing a disco contest at Knott's Berry Farm when
Robin disappeared.
Robin's mother, Marianne Connelly, said during a press
conference Monday that she now recognized that if Alcala had been executed soon
after his first death sentence, the other victims' families might never have
known who killed them.
She said the new charges might allow the families to
"get some closure."
"I'm saying that strictly to be noble, I'm
sure," she said. "I just wish he was gone."
Former death-row inmate indicted
Rodney Alcala, facing a possible death penalty for the
1979 slaying of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, has been indicted for
killing four women in Los Angeles County more than a quarter century ago.
By Larry Welborn - The Orange County Register
Monday, September 19, 2005
SANTA ANA – Rodney James Alcala, a former death row
inmate who was twice convicted of killing a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl
in 1979, has been indicted by the Orange County Grand Jury for the sex-slayings
of four Los Angeles County women more than a quarter of a century ago.
Alcala, who is being held without bail, was indicted in
Orange County Superior Court today. He is due back in court Oct. 6 to enter a
plea.
He is also being investigated for some unsolved murders
of women in New York in 1977.
Alcala, 62, has been in custody since July 1979 when he
was arrested for the abduction and murder of Robin Samsoe, a Huntington Beach
ballet student, who disappeared from her neighborhood on June 20, 1979.
Her decomposing remains were discovered 12 days later in
the San Gabriel Mountains.
Twice, Alcala was tried and convicted of the first-degree
murder of Samsoe. Twice, he was sentenced death. And twice his convictions were
reversed on appeal.
He is back in Orange County Jail now helping his
court-appointed attorney George Peters prepare for a third trial in the Samsoe
case.
But this time, he could be tried on five murder charges
instead of one, if an Orange County Superior Court judge merges the grand jury
indictment case with the Samsoe case.
Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said the
four Los Angeles cases are connected to Alcala through DNA testing.
"That's what these cases are about," Rackauckas
said. "I think that the ability of law enforcement to analyze DNA is the
greatest break through in law enforcement since the two-way radio.
"We knew Alcala was a vicious, merciless
killer," Rackauckas added, "But we didn't realize that he was a
serial killer to this extent."
The grand jury returned the four-count indictment on
Sept. 9, charging Alcala with the strangulation or beating deaths of four women
between Nov. 10, 1977 and June 14, 1979.
The indictment, returned after the grand jury heard from
17 witnesses, also alleges that he committed several special circumstances
which could lead to a death sentence, including multiple murder, murder by
torture, murder during a robbery, and murder during a rape.
The four Los Angeles County slayings are:
-- Nov. 10, 1977: Jill Barcomb, 18, of Oneida, NY, had
been in Southern California for about three weeks when her body 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. She had been strangled with a pair of
blue slacks and beaten. There were signs of sexual assault. She also had three
bite marks on her right breast, according to the Los Angeles County Coroner's
Office.
-- Dec. 16, 1977: Georgia Wixted, 27, was found in her
Malibu home, naked, battered and sexually assaulted. A hammer was found next to
here body. Wixted was a nurse at Centinela Hospital, was born in New York. Two
types of blood were found in her apartment. Alcala was linked to her murder in
2003 when his DNA popped up when authorities tested a sample found at the
scene.
-- 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, according to the LA County coroner's office. Lamb, a legal secretary,
had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a shoelace. The apartment
manager found her body, but residents said they had never seen her before,
according to published reports.
-- 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.
Peters said he has been advised by Orange County
prosecutors about the indictment, but he said he has not received any
information about the four cases.
"I can't comment until I see what evidence the
government has collected," Peters said Thursday. "I can say that Mr.
Alcala insists on his innocence in the Robin Samsoe case.
Orange County prosecutors have jurisdiction to prosecute
murders that happened elsewhere because state law allows for death penalty
cases involving multiple murders to be consolidated in one county, said Los
Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Gina T. Satriano, who helped present
evidence to the grand jury.
Satriano said Thursday she could not comment on the
indictments until today. Orange County Deputy District Attorneys Matt Murphy,
the trial prosecutor, and Susan Schroeder, the office's spokesperson, also
declined to comment.
Alcala was previously charged with two of the Los Angeles
County killings. The other two cases are new.
However, charges against him in Los Angeles County in the
Parenteau murder were dismissed in 1981 after an informant's evidence became
questionable.
He still faces the murder charge in Los Angeles County in
the Wixted case. He was charged with her murder in 2003 after his DNA allegedly
matched a sample discovered at the crime scene in Malibu in 1977. DNA testing
was not available in the late 1970s.
Former Orange County Deputy District Attorney Richard
Farnell, who won a death sentence against Alcala in 1981, said that he
attempted to introduce evidence about the 1977 slaying in New York of Ellen
Hover, 24, during the death penalty phase of Alcala's case here.
Hover, 24, disappeared from her New York apartment on
July 15, 1977, and her body was discovered 11 months later in a shallow grave
in a rugged section of the Rockefeller Estate.
Alcala was interviewed about the slaying in 1977 after he
moved back to Los Angeles and admitted seeing the woman the day she
disappeared, but denied knowing what happened to her. Another woman told
authorities that she posed for Alcala's camera on the Rockefeller estate within
a 100 feet of where Hover's body was ultimately found.
But the trial judge in Orange County judge disallowed
evidence about the Hover killing in the penalty phase of Alcala's trial. He
ultimately received the death sentence but it was reversed by an appellate
court.
4 deaths added to case against Alcala
Prosecutors pile on charges from L.A. County for retrial
of suspect in 1979 kidnap-killing of Huntington child.
By LARRY WELBORN - The Orange County Register
Thursday, September 1, 2005
SANTA ANA – Prosecutors will seek an indictment in Orange
County charging Rodney James Alcala with the slayings of four Los Angeles
County women more than a quarter of a century ago.
Alcala, who is awaiting a retrial in the 1979 slaying of
a Huntington Beach girl, previously was charged with two of the Los Angeles
County killings. The charges in one case were dropped in 1981 after an
informant's evidence became questionable. Two of the cases are new.
Alcala, 62, has been in custody since July 1979, when he
was arrested in the kidnapping of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, whose skeletal
remains were found in the Sierra Madre foothills.
He was twice convicted of the Huntington Beach girl's
death, and twice his convictions were reversed on appeal. His third trial is
scheduled for next month in Orange County.
An indictment could allow prosecutors to consolidate all
five cases and try him in Orange County but would delay the Samsoe retrial.
His attorney, George Peters, said Wednesday that
prosecutors sent him a letter stating that they would present evidence to the
Orange County grand jury about the slayings of women in Los Angeles County from
November 1977 to June 1979.
The letter is on Orange County District Attorney's Office
stationery but signed by Gina Satriano, a deputy district attorney in Los
Angeles County, Peters said. Satriano and Orange County Deputy District
Attorney Matt Murphy, who is prosecuting the Samsoe case, declined to comment.
Peters said he couldn't comment further because he has
not been provided with any evidence about the Los Angeles County killings.
"I can say that Mr. Alcala insists on his innocence
in the Robin Samsoe case and has said so publicly many times," he said.
The Aug. 24 letter says the four slayings took place Nov.
10, 1977; Dec. 16, 1977; June 24, 1978; and June 14, 1979. The last one was a
week before Samsoe disappeared.
In 2003, Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Alcala
with the rape and bludgeoning of Georgia Wixted, 28, of Malibu on Dec. 16,
1977, after detectives matched his DNA to samples taken at the crime scene. The
charges are pending.
Los Angeles authorities filed and then dropped murder
charges against Alcala in the June 1979 slaying of Jill M. Parenteau, 21. Burbank
detectives said at the time that Parenteau, a computer programmer, was killed
after an intruder broke into her apartment by jimmying window louvers. Blood
matching Alcala's type was found at the crime scene, detectives said.
Alcala has never been charged with the killing that took
place June 24, 1978.
Los Angeles County coroner's office records show that the
nude body of Charlotte Lamb, 32, was found in the laundry room of a large
apartment house in El Segundo on that date. She had been strangled.
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