All language subtitles for Very.Scary.People.S03E07.The.Dating.Game.Killer.Smooth.Talker.Part.1.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BurCyg_track3_[eng]

♪♪

[ Siren wailing ]

Stradford:
It was a feeding ground for him.

You see him walking
in your neighborhood,

you might think he's a nice guy.

Satriano: He probably used
the ruse of camera work.

He was a very charming
individual.

He was good-looking,
mild-mannered,

not the monster
that I know those victims saw.

Just dead eyes of evil.

♪♪

Welcome to "Very Scary People."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

On the outside, Rodney Alcala
seemed to have it all --

good looks, charisma,
intelligence.

But on the inside, he was,
in fact, a psychotic killer.

His tools of choice
to lure unsuspecting prey --

a camera and his charm.

It was his personality and good
looks that landed him

on one of the most popular
TV game shows in history --

"The Dating Game."

As he dazzled the audience
with his smile and easy quips,

no one could imagine the dark
and terrifying plans

he may have had.

This is part one of
"The Dating Game Killer."

Jacobs: From Hollywood,
the dating capital of the world,

it's "The Dating Game"!

[ Applause ]

Well, let's see.

Bachelor number 1
is a successful photographer.

Please welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Warren:
He had a terrible history,

yet they allowed him
on the game show.

Uhh. Uhh.
[ Laughter ]

Warren: You have to wonder
how this type of a character

was able to get on television.

We're gonna have a great time
together, Cheryl.

[ Laughter, applause ]

[ Radio tuning ]

♪ KHJ weather! ♪

Morgan:
Just ahead, much more music

and Robert W. Morgan.

Look for sunny and a bit cooler
with a high near 85,

moderate smog in the basin.

Here in Hollywood now,
it's 66 degrees.

This is KHJ News.

Elam: It's 1968.

Tali Shapiro,
an 8-year-old girl,

is making her way down
Sunset Boulevard

in West Hollywood to school.

♪♪

[ Vehicle approaching ]

Hodel:
As she was walking to school,

this young male, mid-20s,

basically pulled up in a car
and said,

"Hello. Can I give you a ride?"

And she said, "I don't take
a ride from strangers."

And he said,
"Well, I'm not a stranger.

I know your parents."

And she was kind of hesitant,
but he was smooth-talking,

charming, soft-spoken.

She decided, "Okay, I guess
if he knows my parents,

it must be okay."

♪♪

Warren: A good Samaritan
saw this happening.

He felt it was
kind of suspicious.

♪♪

So what he did was he watched
them and followed them.

♪♪

And when he saw them park at
the apartment and go up into it,

decided to call the police.

♪♪

Camacho:
As I approached the house,

I saw the car was a Plymouth.

I'll never forget that.
It had no license plates.

And I thought, "Okay,
that's cause for suspicion."

Satriano: When the police arrive
on the doorstep,

they knock on the door.

♪♪

Camacho: The suspect appeared,
moved the curtain back.

I looked him in the face.
I said, "I need to talk to you.

Please open the door."

He relayed to me,
"I just got out of the shower.

Give me a moment."

And I'm looking at him.

He's not wet, doesn't have
a towel, and he's nude.

There was a rage about him.

He wasn't calm.

His eyes were fixated and angry.

So, that's when I told him --

I said,
"You need to open the door.

I need to come in
and talk to you."

He was very, very agitated.

At that instant,
I heard some moaning.

That's when I finally
kicked the door in

and entered the residence.

♪♪

The first thing I saw as
I entered was this little girl,

blood all over the place,
with this bar across her neck.

Hodel: Here's the little
8-year-old, Tali,

laying on the floor
in a pool of blood.

Camacho:
We all thought she was dead.

She wasn't breathing.
There was no pulse.

Hodel:
They kick the door in.

He's out the back,
he's in the wind,

and they could go after him
and probably catch him,

but they look over
and see this little girl,

unconscious and profuse
bleeding around the head.

So, they make the choice to try
and save her life.

Camacho: I just couldn't leave
that little girl

with that bar across her neck.

And that was breaking all
protocol 'cause a crime scene --

you're supposed to contain it,
not touch anything.

But I grabbed a towel,
and I took the bar off her neck

and set it on the side.

♪♪

Hodel: She was breathing
but barely alive.

They call for a rescue unit,

rush her to the hospital.

♪♪

Camacho: We continued searching
the residence.

We found a wallet.

♪♪

We found photographs.

Elam: And they found
one other thing --

the photo I.D. of a college
student at UCLA --

Rodney Alcala.

♪♪

Hodel: I went
to his professors at UCLA,

and right out of the bat,
they said,

"Hey, detective,
you got the wrong guy,

'cause this guy
wouldn't hurt a flea."

♪♪

Jordan: It's 1968,

and 8-year-old Tali Shapiro
has been rescued

after being abducted, raped,

and bludgeoned nearly to death.

As the police are coming in
the front door to rescue Tali,

the perpetrator has escaped out
the back door.

But the police find his I.D.
from UCLA,

and the name on the I.D. --
Rodney Alcala.

Camacho:
We were searching the apartment.

We found a lot
of photographic equipment...

professional type.

♪♪

There were hundreds and hundreds
of pictures

of young girls.

We set up a command post,

started going around
the neighborhood

to see
if we could apprehend him.

Unfortunately, he was gone.

Hodel: Basically,
it was a not whodunit.

We'd had him identified,
so it was basically the process

of trying to locate him.

♪♪

So I went to his professors
at UCLA,

and right out of the bat,
they said,

"Hey, detective,
you got the wrong guy.

This guy wouldn't hurt a flea."

They said, "He's super nice,
he's very charming,

a great attitude.

There's no way he could commit
an attempt murder

and rape of a child."

♪♪

We had APBs --
all-point bulletins --

out across throughout
California.

We had checked with his
parents' locations.

We had done a lot of follow-up,

and we were coming up
with nothing.

I spoke to the mother
and the sister.

They were adamant that
their son didn't do this.

But I saw his face.
I saw him.

I-I knew what he was capable of.

Hodel: There was speculation
that he had gone to Mexico,

other rumors
that he'd gone to Europe.

But, really, no clue.

I knew that we had not heard
the last of him.

I knew he would resurface

and it would not be good.

♪♪

Hodel: At that point,
my senior sergeant,

Audrey Fletcher, said,

"Look, this guy is gonna
wind up killing somebody.

There's no doubt about it.

So we've got to get him
into the FBI Most Wanted."

And, initially, they said,
"No, we're not gonna do it."

She was like a pit bull.

She just wouldn't quit,

and I think she just wore
the FBI agent

down to the point where he says,
"Okay, okay, we'll do it."

♪♪

Camacho: I wanted to go to the
hospital and check up on her.

The doctor said to me,

"Had you not taken that bar
off her neck,

she probably wouldn't be alive,

'cause you opened up
her airway."

And, uh, it -- it, uh...

struck me...

profoundly.

♪♪

Elam: It took months
for Tali Shapiro to recover,

but, eventually,
she did get to go home,

and while she didn't remember
most of what happened to her,

what she did remember
was chilling.

Shapiro: Rodney Alcala asked me
if I wanted a ride to school.

♪♪

He kept trying to engage me
in conversation,

and I kept trying to walk away
and go on my way.

[ Horn honking ]

I really didn't want
to talk to him.

♪♪

When he said he was friends
of my parents,

that he knew my parents...

♪♪

...I reluctantly got in.

I just took it like,
"Well, it could be," you know?

I mean, I wasn't gonna be rude
to the guy.

♪♪

But as soon as he suggested
we go see a poster at his house,

I really didn't feel
comfortable at that point.

♪♪

I don't even remember
getting out of the car

or going up to the apartment --
not at all.

Nothing.

I detached myself, you know?
It's just like --

Obviously, it's something
that happened to me,

but it's almost like
third person.

♪♪

Jordan:
It was not an impulsive act.

It's not like he just saw
an 8-year-old girl

walking down the street
and said,

"Oh, I think I'm gonna pull up

and see if I can get her
into the car and take her home."

He had been thinking about that

for years.

♪♪

Jordan: Rodney Alcala
is the main suspect

in the rape and abduction
of 8-year-old Tali Shapiro.

Rodney escaped,
and he's on the run,

so police are interviewing
family and friends,

trying to build a profile
of who this perpetrator is

and what may have triggered
such a monstrous act.

♪♪

Warren: Rodney Alcala was born
in San Antonio, Texas,

August 23, 1943.

He lived with his parents
and his maternal grandmother.

He had three siblings --

an older brother and sister

and then a younger sister.

Elam:
Overall, he was a good student.

He seemed to be smarter
than average.

He went to Catholic school

and had a pretty standard
middle-class upbringing.

And his father eventually
abandoned the family.

When Alcala was about
11 years old,

his mother moved the family
to the Los Angeles area.

Rodney went to high school.

He graduated, very good marks,
popular student --

one of those popular students
amongst the girls --

and after that,

he decided he was going
to join the military,

and so he applied at Fort Bragg
in North Carolina,

and that's where he headed.

♪♪

Two years after Alcala
joins the Army, it's 1963,

and he goes AWOL.

He disappears.

And he shows up
at his mother's house.

Warren:
She was totally shocked.

And she talked him
into turning himself in.

Elam: An Army psychologist
evaluated Alcala

and decided that he needed
to be hospitalized,

that he was suffering from
some type of a nervous breakdown

before he left Fort Bragg

and is suffering from an
antisocial personality disorder.

♪♪

Because of that,
he's discharged from the Army.

♪♪

Warren:
After Rodney was discharged,

he returned back to his home

and lived with his mother.

He went back to school
at the behest of his mother.

He enrolled at the University
of California Los Angeles,

and he graduated from
the College of Fine Arts.

♪♪

Satriano:
Rodney Alcala's background

is fairly unremarkable.

He grew up
in a middle-class family.

There's no history
of any sexual abuse

or any physical abuse
that we're aware of.

He self-reported
some experimental

and periodic drug use.

He has a reported genius I.Q.,

so he has an unremarkable,
in that sense, background,

until you get to the point

where he started
his acts of violence,

and then, of course, it becomes
extraordinarily remarkable.

♪♪

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

Alcala, who's now on the run
after what he did

to little
8-year-old Tali Shapiro,

has made it to New York City,

where he's now going
by the name John Berger.

Stradford: He reinvented
himself, was able to get I.D.,

because you didn't need
a picture,

and once you got some
sort of government I.D.,

you were able to get photo I.D.

So he got I.D. with that name,
driver's license,

a work I.D.,
a library card,

and was able to get
an apartment,

lease an apartment, in that name
as John Berger, also.

Jordan: He's living
in Greenwich Village,

that kind of '60s hippie,
laid-back, Bohemian lifestyle.

He makes friends.

He charms people.

And he even enrolls
in NYU's film school.

♪♪

Elam: Alcala is believed
to go everywhere

with one of his cameras

and tell people
that he was a photographer.

He was enjoying the freedom

of the late '60s
in New York City.

Stradford:
That's what he did --

walking around and saying,
"Hey, I'm John Berger.

Want to take a picture?"

And once he fell into that
groove, then that's who he was.

♪♪

Bashford: Rodney Alcala was
a very talented photographer.

He had a camera every place,

and I think he used the camera
to get close to people.

♪♪

Stradford: Everything with him
was the camera

and his smooth talk.

He is a charmer.

With women, he probably
just kept cajoling them.

"I'm gonna take your pictures,"

you know, while they're saying,
"No, no, no.

No, I don't want to --
I don't want to do any."

And he just kept doing it.

Mack:
He had the confidence.

He could go up and talk
to these ladies.

He had a funny side to him
where he could get them to laugh

and relax
and be around them.

There was a connection he made
with people almost instantly.

Hodel: You could call him
the perfect predator

in the sense that he was
so far ahead of his prey.

In other words, an 8-year-old,

he would react as he needed to
to control an 8-year-old.

A 28-year-old, the same thing.

So, he was constantly balancing,

and that ability
to perceive his victim

and to control the victim
is what made him so dangerous.

♪♪

Jordan: Rodney Alcala
went to New York City

and was acting in a way
of complete supreme confidence

and fearlessness, which is
aligned with his psychopathy.

He's confident he's not
gonna get caught.

He's arrogant enough

to think that he's smarter
than law enforcement,

and it's very high-risk,

but he doesn't see it
as high-risk.

He sees it as just
"I'm starting my life here.

I'm gonna have a good time.

There are more potential victims
here in New York."

And life goes on.

♪♪

♪♪

Rodney Alcala
is on the run from police,

and he's fled Los Angeles
for New York City

and has a new identity.

He is now calling himself
John Berger.

He gets into NYU film school

and becomes
an aspiring photographer.

No one in New York knows
about his dark past,

but Alcala is about to act
on his evil urges again.

♪♪

O'Toole:
Rodney's a predator.

♪♪

And what that means
is he walks around

and, you know,
he meets people.

He meets far more people
than he ever kills.

♪♪

Warren: Cornelia Crilley
was a TWA flight attendant.

She was beautiful, smart, very
popular amongst her friends,

and she had just moved
into a brand-new apartment

on 83rd in Manhattan.

Elam: Neighbors in the building
reportedly saw Cornelia

moving furniture and boxes

into an apartment
on the second floor.

O'Toole:
She was moving in that day,

so chances are that Cornelia
was out on the sidewalk

and maybe had been
walking along, moving things.

He had spotted her

and just initiated
a conversation with her.

♪♪

Jordan: Something that we've
seen with other serial killers,

like Ted Bundy, where they say,

"Can I help you move that
mattress into your apartment?

Do you need someone to help you

with the other side
of the sofa?"

♪♪

Elam: Cornelia was excited
to show her boyfriend

her new apartment
later that day.

However, when he called her,
when he showed up...

[ Knock on door ]

...there was no answer.

Her boyfriend finally
called the police,

and when they came,
there was no forced entry

and no forced exit.

♪♪

Bashford:
A young officer

came in
through a bedroom window...

♪♪

...and found her gagged...

♪♪

...and she'd been
sexually assaulted.

O'Toole:
She was terribly brutalized,

and she was found on the floor,

and she had suffered from
severe blunt force trauma.

♪♪

One of the injuries on Cornelia
was a bite mark on her breast.

When we look for signature
behaviors in a homicide,

these are behaviors
offenders engage in

because that's what motivates
them to commit the crime,

and we look
for the continuation

of those same
signature behaviors

as they go forward
with more victims.

Bashford:
What they were able to do

on the bite mark on her breast

is they took a swab of that,

and back in 1971,

the only thing they could do
was ABO typing,

and they found that the person
who had left

that saliva on the bite mark
had type A blood.

♪♪

When she was found
by the patrolmen at the time,

she was found naked
on the floor.

And under her body is an
envelope with a fingerprint

that would prove crucial
down the line.

At the time, the fingerprint
system was different.

There was no DNA.

You know, whatever fingerprints
we recovered

had to be done
by hand and by eye.

There were no computers
to run it through.

And, unfortunately for them,

he had no criminal record
in New York

that we could compare to.

Warren: The investigation
was a big challenge

for the New York police.

In the '70s, there was
a lot of killings going on.

They didn't have the forensics
skills that we have today.

They didn't have
the investigation tools

that they do now.

The detectives did
a tremendous amount of work.

The case went cold.

♪♪

Elam:
In the summer of 1971, Alcala --

he's still going by John Berger
at this point, though --

leaves New York City

and heads up to Georges Mills,
New Hampshire,

on the shores of Lake Sunapee,

where he works as a camp
counselor teaching photography.

He had been spending his summers
working there

while still enrolled at NYU.

He was actually working
at a teenage girls' camp,

and I had some information
about he was dating

the owner of the camp's
teenage daughter.

Rodney purposely put himself
in an environment

where he could be
around young girls.

That was not an accident.

♪♪

Hodel:
A couple of teenage girls,

on a rainy New Hampshire day,

stop in the post office
near their summer camp.

Elam: While there,
they were looking at the board

and came across the FBI
Most Wanted list.

And as they looked
at the pictures,

one of them looked
strikingly like

one of their favorite
camp counselors --

Mr. Berger.

"But, no, it couldn't be him,"
they thought,

because he was just
the nicest guy.

Hodel: They report it.

FBI goes out, grabs him up,
snatches him up, arrests him,

makes him on fingerprints,
of course, as Alcala,

and I get that telephone call
from back East saying,

"Hey, we got your guy
in custody.

Come and get him."

We pick him up
from a detention facility.

We drive him to the airport.

My partner was sitting
in the window seat,

Alcala's in the middle,

and I'm on the aisle,
and we're flying back.

He seems charming, relaxed,

doesn't seem to have
many worries,

despite the fact
that he's looking

at 20, 30 years in prison.

One of the things
that I did sense in him

was that he was
quite intelligent,

and I could almost see him

thinking almost like
a chess game,

thinking two or three moves
ahead of us in anticipation.

You could see it in his eyes.

You could see him thinking,

"How should I react
to these guys?"

What did he say?
Did he admit to the crime?

His response is basically,

"Well, he doesn't want
to talk about it."

And I said, "He?
Who are you talking about?"

He says, "Well, Alcala,"
as if he's John Berger

and Rodney Alcala's
somebody else.

♪♪

Jordan: Rodney Alcala
has now been caught

and charged
with the abduction, rape,

and attempted murder
of 8-year-old Tali Shapiro.

I wasn't concerned about
the prosecution on this.

It's what you call a slam dunk.

You got the witness
identification,

you've got his personal property

and stuff all there,
his identification,

you've got the good Samaritan
citizen who can identify him.

So, really, it was a slam dunk.

There was no question about it.

But things don't go as planned,
and that's mainly

because Tali Shapiro's family
had moved to Mexico,

and they were not about
to bring her back to Los Angeles

to re-traumatize her
and have her testify in a trial.

Jordan: So prosecutors decide
to offer him a plea deal

for child molestation.

He took the deal,
but the judge's sentence

stunned those who were
working the case.

Elam: He gave Alcala
one year to life in prison.

At the time,
the sentencing scheme

was an indeterminate sentence
of one year to life.

That meant that he could be kept
in prison for life,

or he could be released any time

after serving the first year
in prison.

It was up to the parole board

to decide how long Alcala
would actually serve in prison.

Hodel:
We got him off the streets,

and there'll be
no more problems.

That was kind of
how I was looking at it.

I would be proved wrong.

♪♪

Hodel: Alcala is sentenced
to indeterminate sentence

of 1 to 99 years.

So, basically, the sentence
is actually determined

on the severity
of the crime.

Satriano: That meant that he
could be kept in prison

for life,

or he could be released any time

after serving the first year
in prison.

It left it up
to the parole board

to decide how long Alcala would
eventually serve in this case.

♪♪

O'Toole: My impression
of what is going on with Rodney

once he was in prison

is that he became
a model prisoner by design,

purposefully, so he could
get out as soon as possible,

and by being a model prisoner,
you go to counseling,

and you can pretend like
you're doing really well

and you're really benefiting
from the counseling

that takes place in prison.

You're manipulating everybody
that you have contact with

and doing it
quite effectively.

Satriano: He was evaluated
by a psychologist in prison

who determined that he no longer
presented a risk

to women or children

and thus was released
in less than three years.

Hodel: There was an emphasis in
those years on rehabilitation,

and I think that because he was
as smooth and slick as he was,

I think he worked his mental
magic on the psychologist,

and that recommendation
came out.

He's all well now.

He's cured.

He can go back into society.

♪♪

How come, just because I wasn't
there to be in the court

when Alcala
was finally captured,

why did he only get
such little time?

Because I wasn't
physically there?

He did what he did to me.

There's no question about it.

Why did I have to be dragged
into it

for him
to get a longer sentence?

Camacho: He should have been
put away for life.

Kidnapping,
crimes against a child,

attempted murder,
fleeing the jurisdiction.

I was just stunned.

Hodel: I'm absolutely sure
that he went to school

off the Tali Shapiro crime.

In other words,
"Well, the next time,

I ain't leaving
my victim alive."

♪♪

Two months after Alcala
has been paroled,

he's arrested again.

Mack:
He picked up a 13-year-old girl

in Huntington Beach,
on Beach Boulevard,

and offered her
a ride to school,

convinced her, "No, I'll just
give you a ride to school.

Get in the car."

And, of course,
when they passed her school,

she knew something was wrong.

♪♪

Elam:
He ends up holding on to her

and taking into the bluffs
above Huntington Beach.

Jordan: He's trying to ply her
with marijuana.

She's very afraid.
She does not want to be there

when the two are discovered
by the park ranger.

Warren:
He ended up getting charged

with supplying a minor
with drugs -- the marijuana --

and, of course,
breaching his parole,

so he was put back in prison.

And somehow, even though he is
a convicted child molester,

they just pin him
with a parole violation,

and that's the end of it.

♪♪

♪♪

Shepard:
He told his parole agent

he wanted to visit
his brother in New York.

His brother was a colonel
at West Point and an instructor.

So...he gave her an itinerary.

He said, "This is my plan.
This is where I expect to be."

The parole agent agreed --
said, "Okay."

♪♪

Elam: So, despite being
a violent sex offender,

despite being
a known flight risk,

Alcala's parole officer agrees

to allow him to travel
to New York City.

♪♪

1977 was just really a terrible,
terrible year in New York City.

Son of Sam's
year-and-a-half reign of terror

put fear in the hearts
of New Yorkers.

Nobody, not even police,
knew anything about him.

Stradford:
Son of Sam was running around

causing all kinds of chaos
and fear in lovers' lanes,

and the police department
was just stretched thin,

and they had the blackout.

It was a night of terror
that lasted for 25 hours.

What happened to this
blinded city?

How did it happen?

And, most important,
what can be done

to prevent it
from happening again?

♪♪

Elam: 23-year-old Ellen Hover
was living in Manhattan.

She was living near
the Empire State Building.

Weller: Ellen was just
the sweetest girl.

I kind of appointed myself
as her big sister,

even though I was her cousin.

Just so wonderful and loving
and giving and talented.

She wanted to become a doctor.

She was a biology major,
moved to New York.

She was very musical.

There was a great sweetness
and generosity to her.

Ellen Hover's father

was the owner of the popular
Hollywood club Ciro's.

Her godfathers
were Sammy Davis Jr.

and Dean Martin.

♪♪

Bashford: Ellen Hover
ran across Rodney Alcala

sometime in July of 1977.

She had a date with him the day
after the big blackout.

Rodney Alcala
came to her building.

A neighbor saw him and directed
him to Miss Hover's apartment.

Elam: When her parents
didn't get her nightly call,

they began to get suspicious,
and the next day,

they called the police
to do a welfare check.

Nothing seemed out of sort.

She wasn't there.
Nothing was missing.

However, her calendar was open,

and on July 15th,
written right there --

"John Berger --
photographer".

Six years earlier,
Alcala had been arrested

using that exact same alias --
John Berger.

The NYPD investigated the name

but didn't make the connection
to Alcala at the time.

♪♪

My mother called me and said,
"She did not come home,"

and then it was
all over the papers.

♪♪

♪♪

It's now the summer of 1977,
and in New York City,

23-year-old
Ellen Hover is missing.

When Ellen Hover went missing,
there were so many police

that were assigned
to Son of Sam --

over 200 officers --

so her missing report
was not really on the top

of their priority list.

Stradford: Remember, 1977,

missing-persons cases
weren't done

the way they are done now,
and especially for an adult.

Being an adult, we're not going
to start blowing whistles

and ringing bells

for someone who could just
walk away any time they want.

Elam: As the New York
Police Department

worked to try to figure out

what had happened
to Ellen Hover,

her family's high-profile status

made it front-page news.

They called her "heiress",
you know, was missing.

It was right after
the Son of Sam.

It was right after the blackout.
It was a very dark summer --

darkness in the city.

Stradford: You do what you do
as a detective.

You hit the ground.

You reach out to as many people
that you can reach out to.

Warren:
Her father decided to put up

a $100,000 reward to find her,

and, at the same time,
he hired a private investigator.

There was a concerted effort
to get her disappearance

on the minds of everyone who may
have known anything about it.

There were posters
put up throughout the city.

Stradford:
The reward was offered,

and so then you have to deal
with the tips that come in.

It's just a tough thing,
a missing person,

especially when you don't see

any crime having been committed.

There were a lot of people
connected to her,

and they hired private
detectives, to no avail.

She just vanished.

♪♪

Elam:
After his trip to New York City,

Alcala took a meandering road
trip back to Los Angeles.

O'Toole: Rodney Alcala
is a dangerous predator,

and he was purposefully
moving around

Los Angeles, New York,
and places in between,

looking for people to target,

specifically looking for women
that he can approach,

he can talk to,
he can take pictures of them,

and then maybe decide that
that one will become his victim.

♪♪

Satriano: Jill Barcomb was
a young 18-year-old girl

who left on an adventure
from New York

to come to the West Coast

and just to be able
to explore California.

Barcomb: My sister Jill was
a very beautiful person.

Growing up, she was
always there for me.

She was a middle child
of 11 kids.

I'm number 6.
She's number 5.

She was very loving
and nurturing for everybody.

She was a candy striper
and was considering nursing.

Shepard: Los Angeles
was the place to go to.

If you were young,

it was just a wild and crazy
time for young people.

♪♪

[ Ringing ]

Barcomb: I called home,

and I could hear crying
in the background on the phone.

One of my younger siblings
had answered the phone and said,

"Bruce, you need to come home.

You need to come home."

Jill Barcomb was discovered
on Franklin Canyon Drive,

south of Mulholland.

Her body had been posed
in the middle of a dirt road.

Barcomb: I came through
the house that Friday night,

and my mother
came out to me crying

and put her arms around me
and told me,

"Your sister's dead",
and I was in shock.

I go, "What sister? Who?"

She had been strangled
and bludgeoned to death

and then posed in a kneeling
position semi-nude,

with some of the clothing
draped over her

and blood all over.

There was also a bloody rock --

a large, pointed, bloody rock.

Satriano: We believe,
how brutally she was beaten,

that she must have fought back
terribly against him,

and she had had
her breast bitten, as well.

I had no idea
who had murdered Jill.

I just knew that the carnage
visited upon her was brutal.

Satriano: Rodney Alcala
liked to strangle people

to the point
of unconsciousness,

then allow them
to come back to life

to watch life
go out of the person

and then to strangle them
again over and over,

and that level
of strangulation,

in and out of consciousness,

is the monster in Rodney Alcala,
of showing those victims,

demeaning them to the point of
"I hold your life in my hand,

and I can give it
and I can take it away."

Barcomb: Her body
was flown from Los Angeles

and landed in Syracuse,
New York,

and I had my first
night terror that night.

I woke up in hot sweats,
tears streaming down my face,

and my sister Jill, in dreams,

very damaged brutally,

telling me,
"It's okay. I'm okay."

♪♪

Elam: Originally, investigators
thought that Jill Barcomb

could have been killed
by the Hillside Strangler

because there were
some similarities

to how they found her body
and that of other victims,

mainly the fact
that she was dumped

in the hills of Los Angeles.

Warren: There was no jewelry
found on her at all.

Detectives thought
there could be a possibility

that whoever was doing
the killing

maybe took her jewelry
as some sort of trophy

or memorial of his killings.

Shepard:
Back in the '70s,

we weren't as technologically
advanced as we are today.

DNA wasn't even considered.

Best we could do
was ABO blood typing.

They did,
at the coroner's office,

collect the sexual-assault kit.

Somebody with some foresight

believed
that we were going to be able

to do something in the future.

Satriano: Her murder
was pretty quickly dismissed

after investigation
that she was likely not

one of the
Hillside Strangler's victims,

but at that point, they had
no idea who was responsible.

♪♪

Jill's funeral was attended

by all my family members,
relatives,

central New York,
northern New York,

friends.

I remember my Boy Scout troop
coming to visit.

She was loved.

♪♪

Mack:
Alcala was a predator.

He went out in search
of victims.

Stradford:
Guys like him -- they elevate.

It keeps getting worse
and worse and worse,

and killing
becomes a necessity.

His cooling-off period
has now become six days --

not months, not weeks, but days.

Warren: He had a record.
He had been on parole.

He had a terrible history,

but yet they allowed him
on the game show.

The best time is at night.

Nighttime is when
it really gets good.

O'Toole: I think he thought
it was an opportunity,

thinking like a predator, that
he could meet another woman.

Jordan:
And the more the applause goes,

the more everyone
just "Oohs" and "Ahs,"

like, "Oh, isn't he clever?
Isn't he just amazing?

She'd better pick him."
Uhh.

This feeds his psychopathy.

Lange: Will that date be
bachelor number 1,

bachelor number 2,
or bachelor number 3?

Who gets the date?

♪♪

Psychotic serial killer
Rodney Alcala

has been released from jail

on the promise
that he is reformed.

He is back on the West Coast,
where the killing continues.

Then, in a stunning twist,

he is booked
as an eligible bachelor

on "The Dating Game."

Will his charm work
to win him a date

with the unsuspecting
bachelorette?

In part two of
"The Dating Game Killer."

I'm Donnie Wahlberg.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.