Man Convicted in California Serial Killings From 1970s

(Feb. 25) -- A California jury today found accused serial killer Rodney Alcala guilty of murdering four Los Angeles County women and a girl from Huntington Beach between 1977 and 1979.

Alcala could receive a death sentence when the penalty phase of the trial begins Tuesday.

The guilty verdict comes as a relief to family members of the victims -- especially those of Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl slain 31 years ago. Alcala had stood trial twice before in the girl's death, but each time his conviction was overturned because of a different technicality.

Undeterred, prosecutors again filed charges in Robin's case in 2005, along with charges in the cases of four other women whose deaths were linked to Alcala using DNA evidence, prosecutors said.

"DNA is one of the major investigative tools of our time," Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said in a 2005 press release. "The Alcala case shows that DNA evidence can stretch back into time to help prosecute murders such as these that go back nearly a quarter of a century."

Alcala, 66, is a former U.S. Army clerk, Los Angeles Times typesetter, amateur photographer and UCLA fine-arts grad who reportedly has a near-genius IQ of 135. In 1978, Alcala appeared in an episode of the ABC prime-time show "The Dating Game." In it, Alcala beat out two other bachelors to win a date with "bachelorette" Cheryl Bradshaw. The couple appeared to get along well on the show, but police said Bradshaw later decided against the date.

Alcala's reign of terror is believed to have begun in 1968, when he abducted an 8-year-old girl in Hollywood. Alcala might have gotten away with the crime, but a witness spotted him luring the child into his vehicle and followed him to his apartment before alerting police. When police arrived on the scene, Alcala ran out a back door. Inside, police found the girl, identified only in court documents as "Tali," lying on the floor. She had been raped and nearly beaten to death with a steel pipe.

It took investigators nearly three years to track Alcala to New Hampshire. A tipster had recognized him from the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. He was living under the assumed name, John Berger, and working as a teen counselor.

On Aug. 12, 1971, Alcala was arrested and extradited to Los Angeles to face rape and attempted murder charges.

Alcala was convicted, but he did not stay behind bars long. He was released in 1974 after a state prison psychiatrist ruled that he was ready to be released.

In 1974, just two months after he was paroled, Alcala was arrested after a 13-year-old girl known only in court records as "Julie J." told police he had kidnapped her in Huntington Beach. When the case later went to trial, Alcala was found guilty of violating parole and providing drugs to a minor. He served roughly two years before earning his release, at which time he traveled to New York for a brief period before returning to California.

Upon his return to the West Coast, Alcala was again arrested in early 1979, when a teen hitchhiker called police and reported that she had just escaped from a man who had kidnapped and raped her. Police identified Alcala as the suspect and took him into custody. He was released after his mother posted his $10,000 bond.

As Alcala was awaiting trial on the most recent case, authorities received a report on June 20, 1979, that 12-year-old Robin Samsoe had disappeared en route to ballet class. Less than two weeks later, a park ranger found her body dumped in a wooded area near Sierra Madre. Witnesses told police they had seen Robin talking to a photographer at a beach the day the girl went missing. A composite sketch of the suspect was released to the media, at which time Alcala's parole officer recognized him and notified police.

When police questioned Alcala, he denied involvement and claimed he was working at the time of the incident. Unconvinced, authorities conducted a search of his home, during which they found a receipt for a storage locker in Seattle. When detectives later opened the locker, they found several photos of young girls, as well as earrings that allegedly belonged to Robin.

Alcala was arrested on July 24, 1979, and charged with her murder.

In 1980, a jury found Alcala guilty of murdering Robin and sentenced him to death. Alcala quickly filed an appeal and this conviction was later overturned by the California Supreme Court, because the original trial judge had allowed the jury to hear about Alcala's child-rape and kidnapping incidents.

Prosecutors retried the murder case against Alcala in 1986 and once more won a conviction, but in 2001 that decision was again overturned when a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that the second trial judge did not allow the testimony of a defense witness who claimed the park ranger who found Robin's body had been hypnotized by police.

Unwilling to give up on the case, Matt Murphy, an Orange County senior deputy district attorney, began putting together a new strategy when he learned that a recent DNA test conducted on Alcala allegedly matched DNA evidence in two unsolved homicides from the 1970s.

The victims, Georgia Wixted, 27, and Charlotte Lamb, 32, had been slain in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Both victims had been raped and killed and both had been posed by their killer. Semen was found at the scene, but detectives had been unable to match it to a possible suspect.

After receiving the DNA test results, prosecutors in both Orange and Los Angeles counties began to examine other cold cases. The following year, they linked another case to Alcala when they allegedly matched his DNA to Jill Barcomb, an 18-year-old woman killed in 1977. Like Wixted and Lamb, Barcomb had also been posed and semen was found on her body.

Not long after identifying Barcomb's case, prosecutors began to look at the unsolved murder of Jill Parenteau. The 21-year-old victim's body had been found inside her apartment in 1979. She had been sexually assaulted, beaten and strangled. The killer had also posed her body.

In Barcomb's case, a rape test had been performed, but the evidence was not preserved. Her killer did, however, cut himself while crawling through a broken window. Analysis of that blood found it matched roughly 3 percent of the population. As a result, authorities could not rule out or confirm Alcala was the perpetrator. Nevertheless, they did find a witness who could place Alcala with Parenteau at a bar prior to her death.

As a result of the investigation into the cold cases, Alcala was indicted for the murders of Barcomb, Wixted, Lamb and Parenteau. Besides the murders, the indictment alleged special circumstances of torture, multiple murder, robbery, rape, burglary and oral copulation.

Los Angeles and Orange County district attorneys decided that the best place to try the cases was in Orange County, where Alcala was already facing retrial for Robin's murder. They also decided to try the five murders in a single case.

Alcala pleaded not guilty to all charges and elected to represent himself.

Meanwhile, authorities in New York announced their belief that Alcala could be responsible for at least two unsolved killings that occurred there during the 1970s.

In 1971, TWA flight attendant Cornelia "Michael" Crilley was raped and strangled. At the time, authorities initially suspected Crilley's boyfriend was responsible, but now claim to have saliva evidence that links Alcala to the scene.

In 1977, someone killed Manhattan socialite Ellen Hover, 23. Her body was found on the Rockefeller Estate in suburban Westchester County. Investigators found a datebook inside Hover's apartment that showed she had an appointment with a "John Berger" on the day she was killed. John Berger is the alias Alcala was using when he was arrested in New Hampshire in 1971. Alcala has allegedly admitted to knowing Hover but denies killing her.

It remains unclear if charges will be filed in either of the New York cases.

Alcala's trial in the California cases began on Jan. 11. During the six-week trial, DNA and other evidence was presented in each of the cases, but much of the trial centered on Robin's murder.

Murphy presented witnesses who testified that they had seen Alcala attempting to take photos of the girl on the beach before she disappeared. Murphy also called Marianne Connelly, Robin's mother, to the stand. She testified that the gold-ball earrings recovered from Alcala's rented storage locker belonged to her daughter.

In defending himself, Alcala also focused on Robin's death and did not offer testimony in regard to the other cases. Alcala did not deny photographing girls on the beach where Robin was last seen, but claimed he did not photograph her. He also claimed he was interviewing for a job at the time she went missing. As evidence of this, he called several witnesses who he claimed could place him at the interview; however, none of them was able to pinpoint the exact day he came in.

In regard to the earrings found in his storage locker, Alcala claimed they belonged to him. As evidence, he entered a video clip into evidence, taken during the 1978 episode of "The Dating Game" in which he appeared. Alcala instructed the jury to pay close attention to one particular shot, in which they would be able to see that he was wearing gold-ball earrings.

"You'll see a flash of my hair going up and a flash of gold," he testified. "Two little specks, you'll see that."

When Alcala played the video, he never paused it or attempted to point out the frame in question. Despite his intent, the evidence appeared to be lost on the jury.

Closing arguments in the trial began Monday, with Murphy telling the jury that Alcala was a "hunter" with "no soul or feeling," who killed because he "enjoyed it."

"You will never see cases with more brutality," Murphy said. "All of these victims put up resistance and he punished them for it. ... He tortured his victims because he enjoyed it."

When it came time to present his own closing arguments, Alcala told the jury that the evidence against him in Robin's case was based on "gimmicks" and "lies." He attacked Connelly's testimony and said she made up the story about her daughter's earrings in order to implicate him in the murder.

"I'm not trying to make Mrs. Connelly into a bad person," Alcala said. "She deserves your empathy and your sympathy because she lost her daughter, ... but it does not give her the right to make up a story."

The jury began deliberating late Tuesday and continued to do so until this afternoon, when they found Alcala guilty of five counts of murder.