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Thread: Rodney James Alcala - California

  1. #11
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    Wow! I hadn't realized Alcala had had a Roman Polanski connection. I wonder if they ever talked shop.

  2. #12
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    'Dating Game Killer' confesses to two more slays

    He killed the heiress. And he killed the flight attendant, too.

    Serial sex killer Rodney Alcala took a surprise guilty plea in Manhattan this afternoon to taking the life of two women, both age 23, from 1971 and 1977.

    The so-called "Dating Game" killer, 67, admitted to the 1971 murder of TWA flight attendant Corelia Crilley and the 1977 murder of Ellen Hover, daughter of a Hollywood nightclub owner.

    Under his plea, the pony-tailed monster will be sentenced next month to 25 years to life in prison — a legally irrelevant term given that he will now be returned directly to death row in San Quentin Prison in California.

    Alcala had been convicted in Feb., 2010, of a spree of LA-area sex slays, which left four women and a 12-year-old girl defiled, bludgeoned and strangled between 1977 and 1979.

    Speaking directly to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner, and with his legal aid lawyer Beth Unger at his side, Alcala said today that he was admitting the New York City murders so that he can return as quickly as possible to California, where he said he wants to continue fighting his death penalty conviction.

    Today's murder plea seemed to be unexpected even by Alcala himself, who was led shuffling into court in an orange jump suit, his Brillo-like mane held back in a ponytail.

    "No, I don't," Alcala had initially answered, when asked by the judge if he still wished, as he'd stated in a November letter to the court, to end the Manhattan case today.

    Then ensued a back and forth between the judge and Alcala, in which Alcala asked for access to materials and library privileges he needed to fight the California death sentence while he is incarcerated in New York.

    "I can't assure you can get unlimited use of your (jail) library or get your five cartons of (legal) materials," along with a laptop he requested access for, the judge said, adding that these access issues were an interstate correctional matter.

    Added Manhattan prosecutor Martha Bashford, "The California governor set the standards for how he is to be housed here." California had at first insisted that Alcala, as a death row inmate, be housed in a state prison upstate during the pendency of the Manattan murder case, she said, and it took much negotiation even to allow Alcala to remain in a city jail.

    That's when Alcala took a moment to whisper with his lawyer, then capitulated.

    "I'm just saying that since I can't have the use of the laptop .. I'll go ahead and enter the plea," he said.

    "A plea to what?" asked the judge.

    "Guilty," he answered.

    "I'm going to ask you to admit to the crime charged," the judge told him.

    Alcala pleaded separately to intentionally causing each woman's death.

    "How do you plead to count one in the indictment, murder, charging that on June 24, 1971, with intent to cause the death of Corelia Crilley, you in fact caused her death?

    "Guilty," Alcala said, his voice firm.

    "With respect to count 3 in the indictment, murder in the 2nd degree, charging that on July 15, 1977, you intended to cause the death of Ellen Hover and did in fact cause her death — how do you plea?

    "Guilty," Alcala repeated.

    He admitted that he was pleading of his own free will, and that he was waiving his right to a trial voluntarily, and then was led out, still cuffed and still shuffling despite not being shackled at the legs.

    The judge set Jan. 7 as his sentencing date.

    In announcing the cracking of the Hover and Crilley murders back in January, 2011, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. improvements in forensic science, and the pursuit of more than 100 witnesses interviewed in Manhattan and across the country -- including Alcala himself, who they visited in prison in California.

    Alcala earned the nickname "The Dating Game Killer" thanks to his mid-slay-spree appearance in 1978 as the winning Bachelor No. 1 in a now retroactively creepy episode of the once-popular TV game show.

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/d...qPc14sGU4WI5vN
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  3. #13
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    Sentencing day for serial killer in New York murders

    A serial killer who murdered five victims in California will be sentenced Monday for killing two women in New York.

    Rodney Alcala, a one-time contestant on "The Dating Game, will get two sentences of 25 years to life for the murders, which happened in 1971 and 1977.

    He will serve those sentences in California, where he's fighting to avoid the death penalty.

    Alcala, who spent the last 33 years tangling with authorities in a series of trials and overturned convictions, was convicted last yaer in the deaths of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover.

    A former photographer with an IQ said to top 160, Alcala was convicted in 2010 of killing four women and a 12-year-old girl in Southern California in the 1970s. He represented himself, offering a defense that involved showing a clip of his 1978 appearance on "The Dating Game" and playing Arlo Guthrie's classic 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant."

    While appealing his death sentence in California, Alcala was indicted in 2011 in New York, partly on evidence that emerged during his California trial, prosecutors said.

    Crilley was found strangled with a stocking in her Manhattan apartment in 1971. Hover, a comedy writer and former Hollywood nightclub owner's daughter who had a degree in biology and was seeking a job as a researcher, was living in Manhattan when she vanished in 1977. Her remains were found the next year in the woods on a suburban estate. Both women were 23.

    http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...ork&id=8944595
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  4. #14
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    'Dating Game' killer sentenced for 1970s murders

    Convicted California serial killer Rodney Alcala, known as the "Dating Game" killer thanks to his appearance on the television game show more than 30 years ago, was sentenced to at least 25 years in prison on Monday for murdering two New York women in the 1970s.

    Alcala, 69, already on death row in California for killing four women and a 12-year-old girl in that state, was extradited to New York in June to face charges in the slayings of flight attendant Cornelia Crilley, 23, and Ellen Hover, 23, the daughter of a nightclub owner.

    The cold case unit of the Manhattan district attorney's office brought charges against Alcala last year after conducting more than 100 new interviews with witnesses.

    A Manhattan judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison on Monday.

    A professional photographer, Alcala lured his victims by offering to take their pictures, according to authorities.

    Crilley was found strangled in her Manhattan apartment in 1971. Hover's body was found in Westchester County, north of New York City in 1977.

    http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/0...9060E820130107
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  5. #15
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    January 11, 2013

    A Cold Case of Cold-Blooded Murder

    By SHEILA WELLER
    The New York Times

    ON a hot July day in 1977, one of New York’s ugliest summers, my 23-year-old cousin, Ellen Hover, left her Third Avenue apartment. She had an appointment with a young photographer who had asked to take pictures of her. His name, he’d told her, was John Berger.

    She never returned. Posters of Ellen’s face went up all over Midtown Manhattan. Private detectives were hired. I was racked with guilt: because of a family argument, I hadn’t seen my cousin in years. Now I never would. Eleven months later, her bones were found on the grounds of the Rockefeller estate in Westchester County.

    It was around this time that the police knew for sure that John Berger’s real name was Rodney Alcala. By then, a confluence of factors — lack of communication between law enforcement agencies, the lowly budgets and low-tech forensics of the ’70s, and the killer’s aggressive wiliness — had combined to make him elusive. It was not until July of 1979 that he was arrested in California on charges of murdering a 12-year-old girl named Robin Samsoe. He was tried, convicted, sentenced to death and remanded to death row in San Quentin State Prison in California the following year.

    We didn’t know then that he had killed another New York woman — Cornelia Crilley, a beautiful flight attendant — six years before he killed Ellen. Before that, he had been in prison in California for molesting and beating an 8-year-old girl, but he’d been released on good behavior after just 34 months. Within two years of Ellen’s death, he murdered four other young women in California, in heinous and brutal ways including biting, strangulation and rape.

    When DNA science caught up with him, he was eventually charged with those four other killings. But there was little usable DNA evidence from Ellen’s murder, and besides, the last thing California wanted was for its cases to be muddied by investigators from another state having access to its prisoner. So while the California cases went forward, Ellen and Cornelia Crilley would have to wait. We understood that. What we didn’t understand was how long.

    Over the years Rodney Alcala’s lawyers managed to twice overturn, on technicalities, his conviction for the murder of Robin Samsoe. He aggressively fought the use of DNA evidence against him, but ultimately lost. Finally, in February 2010, a jury re-re-convicted him of the murder of Robin Samsoe, along with the other four California women. He has not stopped fighting his execution sentence and suing the state for things like failing to provide him with a low-fat diet.

    Since Ellen was killed, both of her parents have died; her brother has died; her aunt, my mother, has died. In all those years, Rodney Alcala was never charged with her murder. Many of Ellen’s friends and family members felt a measure of justice when he was convicted in California in 2010 — at least we felt it was the best we could ask for. We acted as if those acknowledged victims included Ellen: we wrote one another e-mails with exclamation points and thanked the Orange County prosecutor, Matt Murphy. But there was no trial for Ellen, and I don’t think anyone ever expected there would be. I certainly didn’t.

    Shortly after that, though, a detective let me see some of the New York Police Department’s files on Rodney Alcala. In a dank office in Brooklyn, I listened to a tape of investigators questioning the killer’s long-ago girlfriend; I saw detectives’ notes on ancient tollbooth receipts. I realized there were people in the N.Y.P.D. and the district attorney’s office — people who’d amassed that yellowed, flyspecked file — who had always wanted to open Ellen’s case. Cyrus Vance Jr., who had recently been sworn in as Manhattan district attorney, ending the 35-year term of Robert Morgenthau, had made the opening of cold cases a priority. Suddenly it seemed Ellen had not been forgotten.

    But it is not easy to open a case from the ’70s. Evidence lockers had been cleaned out; documents were moldering; investigators and prosecutors spent weeks and months tracking down witnesses, only to find out they were dead, whereupon they’d politely ask spouses and grown-up children if they could dig up old files. “Looking for something from 1971,” Melissa Mourges, the chief of the Cold Case Unit, told me about Cornelia Crilley’s case, “we might as well have been looking at something from 1871.”

    For two years investigators worked to turn Ellen’s cold case warm. Despite the fact that her killer was already sentenced to death and would never be released, despite the time and the resources and the terrible memories involved, they didn’t give up. Eventually, their painstakingly obtained evidence built a timeline of Rodney Alcala’s whereabouts, his route before and after murdering Ellen. It seemed to me like a devotional act.

    Every victim deserves her own day in court, no matter what else the culprit has been arrested for, no matter how long ago the crime: this is the pure integrity of opening a cold case. There are hundreds of thousands of cold cases in the United States. Approximately 14 percent of all unsolved homicide cases and 18 percent of unsolved sexual assault cases contain forensic evidence that has not been sent to a crime lab for analysis.

    One way to close more cold cases would be to enable more states to enter into national databases the DNA information of everyone they arrest, at least for violent crimes. Next month the Supreme Court will hear a case, Maryland v. King, that could open the door to this, by deeming such entries constitutional. Currently, in part because of concerns about civil liberties, about half the states, including New York, enter into national databases only the DNA of people convicted of certain crimes — a much smaller pool of potential matches. On the bright side, New York at least does appear to be investigating and solving more cold cases than ever before.

    LAST year, when I heard that Rodney Alcala was actually going to be extradited to New York to face a grand jury on Ellen’s case, I remembered something a clergyman had said at the first service after 9/11: it was too overwhelming, and unfair to the victims, to think of 3,000 people dead. The best way to honor them was to think that “one person died,” three thousand times. When justice is broken down to individual victims, humanity is restored.

    In a Manhattan courtroom last month, Rodney Alcala, now 69, pleaded guilty to Ellen’s and Cornelia Crilley’s murders. After 35 and 41 years — much longer than the young women lived — he pleaded out, just like that. It was the first time in his long criminal history that he had ever confessed to a killing. The collapse of his resistance seemed taunting to all of us: Sure I killed them. What took you guys so long?

    On Monday I attended his sentencing. At one point, the judge broke down, saying she had never had before her a case with such brutality and hoped she would never again. The sentence for the two murders was, of course, symbolic — a concurrent 25 years to life. The important punishment will take place in San Quentin when Rodney Alcala is finally executed — if he ever is.

    During the hearing he never once turned to face us, the family members. He simply clutched his orange Department of Corrections jacket, protection against the cold on the short trip from court to van and from van to Rikers. All I could think was: a coward to the end.

    Meanwhile, police in Washington State and New Hampshire have been calling the N.Y.P.D. — there seem to be two other murders. That would make nine dead women, as far as we know, and their cases are probably just as cold as Ellen’s was. I want to tell these women’s friends and families: push for the cases to be reopened. Get your loved ones’ names in the paper to prod — even shame — the authorities. No matter how many times a serial murderer has murdered, every victim deserves her singular justice, as late as it may be in coming, as much a formality as may be the punishment, and as hard as investigators must work to bring it to pass.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/op...murder.html?hp

  6. #16
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    Documentary available on CBS for online streaming about this case.

    The Killing Game

  7. #17
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    Related


    Photos of Robin Samsoe adorn a shelf at her family's home. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)


    35 years later, Huntington Beach may honor 12-year-old murder victim

    Thirty-five years after a 12-year-old girl was abducted off the streets of Huntington Beach and murdered in the foothills above Pasadena, leaders in the beach city are exploring building a memorial to the girl.

    Robin Samsoe was abducted in 1979 as she biked to a ballet class. Her decomposed body was later found in the brush in the Angeles National Forest.

    Rodney Alcala, a prolific serial killer and a onetime “Dating Game” contestant, was convicted three separate times for the child’s murder – the first two convictions were reversed on appeals. He was also convicted of killing four Los Angeles area women and two women in New York during the 1970s. Alcala is now on death row.

    Council members in Huntington Beach said it is past time to create a memorial honoring the girl, who was Alcala’s youngest victim.

    Meeting last week, council members voted unanimously to create an ad hoc committee to study creating the memorial. It is possible the memorial would take the form of a bench or a plaque at Pier Plaza, which faces the ocean and the city’s historic pier.

    Robert Samsoe, Robin's brother, told the council that a memorial could help heal the family's wounds.

    Councilwoman Jill Hardy said she was about the same age as Robin when the girl was killed and remembers the lecture she received from her family about what to do when approached by a stranger.

    "I really like the idea of a bench because I could see myself sitting with my daughter, who is now the same age I was in 1979, and using that as a spot to have that discussion that every parent needs to have," she said, tearing up as she spoke.

    Councilman Jim Katapodis, a retired LAPD officer, said he remembers every child abduction case during his 35 years of service and said the memorial could serve as an educational tool for parents.

    "This is the least the city could do in Robin's memory," Councilman Dave Sullivan said.

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/l...714-story.html
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  8. #18
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    Christine Ruth Thornton


    CONVICTED SERIAL KILLER RODNEY ALCALA CHARGED WITH MURDER IN WYOMING COLD CASE

    CASPER, Wyo. (KABC) -- Imprisoned serial killer Rodney Alcala has been charged with murder in connection to the 1977 killing of a 28-year-old woman whose remains were found in rural Wyoming.

    Alcala, now 73, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Christine Ruth Thornton, of San Antonio, Texas.

    Wyoming law enforcement officials believe Alcala murdered Thornton then disposed of her body in a remote area of Granger, a small rural community in Sweetwater County.

    Her remains were found later by a local rancher but were not immediately identified. Years later as the investigation continued, tissue samples from the remains were sent for inclusion in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS).

    Concurrently, Thornton's family was searching for her and came across a photo of Thornton that once belonged to Alcala. The photo was part of a collection of pictures that were publicly released by police during a previous investigation.

    Investigators were able to identify Thornton based on that photo, which appears to show her near the same area where her remains were later found.

    Also, Thornton's siblings submitted their DNA samples for inclusion in NamUS. In July 2015, Sweetwater County detectives were contacted by NamUS and alerted to the possible identification of Thornton, using the previous tissue sample and DNA from her siblings.

    Alcala is imprisoned in California's Corcoran State Prison and is sentenced to death.

    He has been connected to six murders in two states, though authorities estimate he may have killed up to 130 people across the country.

    Alcala is known as the "Dating Game Killer" because of his 1978 appearance on the TV show.

    http://abc7.com/news/convicted-seria...-case/1521055/

  9. #19
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    Convicted serial killer won't return to Wyoming to face murder charge from 1977 killing

    A convicted serial killer charged last month in the 1977 killing of a woman in Sweetwater County will not travel from California's death row to face his first-degree murder charge in Wyoming, Sweetwater County Attorney Daniel Erramouspe announced late Thursday.

    Rodney Alcala is too medically frail to travel to Wyoming to face trial for the 1977 death of Christine Thornton, whose body was found on the remote plains northeast of Granger, Erramouspe said in a statement.

    "The fact that this case will not be proven in court does nothing to dissuade me from knowing that Alcala murdered Ms. Thornton," Erramouspe said.

    Alcala, now 73, has been found guilty of killing seven people in two states, though authorities estimate he may have killed up to 130 victims across the U.S. He is known as the “Dating Game killer” for appearing on the popular television program in the late 1970s.

    Alcala was previously extradited to New York from a California prison in 2013 to face murder charges in the killings of two young women in the 1970s.

    Erramouspe charged Alcala with first-degree murder on Sept. 20 after decades of investigation by law enforcement and Thornton's family.

    A rancher discovered human remains near a two-track dirt road on public land outside of Granger in 1982, but it wasn't until 2015 and a twist of fortune that the remains were identified as those of Thornton, court documents show.

    For decades, Thornton's family searched for the missing woman without much luck. But in 2013, one of her sisters was looking through photos taken by Alcala that had been released by California investigators in hopes of finding more of his victims.

    There, among the dozens of photos of women, the sister happened upon one of Thornton. In the photo, a smiling Thornton is astride a blue and white Kawasaki motorcycle in a yellow top, blue jeans and red flip-flops. She was also wearing a gold ring and a watch with a thin brown band.

    After finding the photo, two of Thornton's sisters submitted DNA samples to a database maintained by the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. In July 2015, their DNA matched with a sample taken from the remains found in Sweetwater County.

    Deputies from the county sheriff's office began to investigate. The clothes in the photo of Thorntop atop a motorcycle were similar to those found near her remains. Investigators had found a blue and white Kawasaki motorcycle in Alcala's Seattle storage locker. A deputy went to the spot where her remains had been found and compared it to the plains featured in the photo. The location was virtually the same, the deputy found.

    Thornton's family told investigators they had last seen her in August 1977 and that she had been pregnant at the time.

    Alcala was on probation for an assault against an 8-year-old girl during the summer of 1977 when he was given permission by his parole officer to travel from Los Angeles to New York, Washington, D.C., Illinois and Mexico. Investigators believe he killed Thornton during these travels.

    Sweetwater County deputies and Erramouspe traveled to California last month to meet with Alcala at the Corcoran State Penitentiary, where he lives on death row.

    When presented with the photo, Alcala said that he had taken the photo but that Thornton "was alive before I left her," according to court documents.

    Alcala has been convicted of killed four women in California, for which he received the death penalty, and two women in New York, for which he was sentenced to a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

    Alcala was known to approach his victims pretending to be a photographer and ask them to pose for him, court documents show. He then killed them by strangulation or physical assault. All of his known victims were women.

    http://trib.com/news/local/crime-and...827bb32e9.html
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  10. #20
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    On January 30, 2017, Alcala filed his opening brief on direct appeal before the California Supreme Court.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...lSICAgCg%3D%3D

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