Original subtitles

♪♪

[ 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.