01x02 - Dating Death 2

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music]

- The 13th and 14th
of July, 1977 was a,

literally a dark
period in New York.

That's when that great
blackout happened.

- It was really hot and humid,
and the power grid went down.

It was a blackout.

It was insane.

- That summer of '77,

it was definitely a
dark time in many ways.

- In the '70s, for
someone to disappear

and later be found m*rder*d
in New York was not unusual.

- The missing person
squad at that time

was inundated with these cases.

We had 2,000 murders
in the '70s every year.

- It was a time
that serial K*llers

had a much better opportunity

to do their dirty,
horrible deeds.

- Change your name,

go to New York where there's
millions of people living,

walking the streets every
day and just blend in.

- When you have 2,000
homicides taking place,

how do you know who is the
person and the perpetrator.

- Ellen Hover, she
was an heiress.

She grew up in Beverly Hills
and then went to New York.

On the 15th of July,

Ellen Hover wrote on her
calendar, John Berger,

and that was the last day
anybody had ever seen her alive.

[upbeat jazzy music]

♪ Like a sound you hear
that lingers in your ear ♪

♪ But you can't forget from
sundown to sunset, no no ♪

♪ It's all in the air,
you hear it everywhere ♪

♪ No matter what you do it's
gonna grab a hold on you ♪

♪ California soul ♪

♪ California soul ♪

[ominous music]

- Starting with his honorable
discharge from the military,

and then later, when he was
given parole in California

after just 34 months

for the Tali Shapiro
kidnapping and r*pe,

that allowed him to go
free out on the streets.

Then when he was arrested again

for providing marijuana to a
minor, went back to prison,

but then released again shortly

and allowed to just roam
about the country again

and to disappear.

- He was familiar with
New York at the time

from living here prior.

Dating capital of the world,
it's easy to make mix in here.

And you have another predator
coming back to New York,

living his life.

- The fact that this
guy was moving around

without any limitations
is disturbing,

knowing that he could
have been anywhere

at any time in
the United States.

- He's a confidence
man in that respect.

His ultimate body count will
be dependent upon his ability

to con children,
adults, mostly women,

but probably some males
somewhere along the line,

into believing that he is
whatever he's attempting

to make them believe
he is at the moment.

- His approach was always based
on his love of photography,

and that would strike
up the conversation.

At that time, he was
probably very charismatic.

He is reportedly, was
reportedly intelligent,

with an elevated IQ,

and probably very
self-confident in his abilities.

- He had the charm.

He had the personality
that people seemed to like.

He also was a good photographer.

He wouldn't be in NYU
taking film school, right?

He had to have had
some sort of a,

he knew what he
was talking about.

He had equipment,
and he had the word.

He could say it in the way
that people believed him.

- If you met him for the first
time, especially in the '70s,

he had that look.

He had the curly
hair, long curly hair.

He had nice bone structure,
a nice-looking guy.

And he could approach women
with, again, with that camera

as sort of that buffer
between the evil person he is

and the innocent victim
on the other side.

"Oh, you're beautiful.

"Would you like to be a model?"

Or, "I'm a professional
photographer.

"I would just love it if I
could take your picture."

And it was a way in.

It was just a way in.

- He looked for every
opportunity, day and night,

to fulfill that wish of his

to take the life
of these people.

[jazzy piano music]

- Ellen Hover was the daughter

of the owner of
Ciro's club in LA,

which was a really hot spot
for a lot of people to go.

She was also the goddaughter

of Dean Martin and
Sammy Davis Jr.

So she was in a well-to-do
family, fairly popular.

- Oh my goodness,
dancing at Ciro's,

it had every great band.

Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman,
Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin,

all these people appeared,
every Hollywood celebrity

from Tallulah Bankhead,
to Betty Davis,

Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart.

You name 'em, they all
went to dance at Ciro's.

- Ellen's father was my uncle,
who owned the nightclub.

And his wife, her mother,
was a very pretty,

beautiful ex-show
girl whom he married.

It was a glamorous place.

I used to go and do my
homework there after school.

My mother would pick me up
and she'd hang out there

and talk business
with her brother,

and I'd sit there as
the lights went down.

And Nat king Cole
warmed up and rehearsed,

I would sit there.

So it was a very
glamorous place.

My memory of her when
she was a little girl,

she was just lovely.

She was pretty.

She had long legs
like her mother.

She was trusting.

She was sweet.

She loved music.

Music ran in the family.

I didn't get the gene,
but other people did.

And she eventually wanted to
be, was interested in music,

but also wanted to be a doctor.

Just, she would've been
a lovely person to meet,

and she had a good
trusting heart.

When she moved to New York,
we didn't get in touch

because my father had
married her mother.

In an unusual turn of events,
both of the couples divorced.

My father had
married her mother,

and unfortunately, my loss
of Ellen was a part of that.

[siren blares]
- Ellen went missing

the day after this huge
blackout, just vanished.

- Those signs went up,
the posters went up

all over on the walls, on the
telephone poles, everywhere.

- The disappearance of Ellen
Hover got a lot of publicity.

It was in the tabloids.

It was on TV because her
parents offered this big reward,

$100,000 for information
for helping finding her.

- Her family hired private
detectives to try to locate her.

She's not the kind of girl
who would just wander off.

I mean, that just
wasn't gonna happen.

She was a sweet
girl, a nice girl.

Everyone liked her.

There was nothing not to like.

And for her to just
disappear was nothing,

no one could make that out.

Something bad had to
have happened to her.

They're trying to figure
out, who was she last with?

Is there anybody who
saw her, knew her?

But this blackout
complicated things.

- She had told a girlfriend
that she met this guy

who was a photographer at
the unemployment office,

so she wasn't
working at the time.

On the calendar, she had written
on that date, John Berger,

so she was going to
have a date with him.

- They really wanted to
find this John Berger guy

because he may have been the
last person to see her alive.

- There was a resident of
her building in Midtown

who let him into the building.

He had her name, said
he was looking for her,

and she pointed out the door.

There was a man she was dating

who saw him pick her
up or drop her off.

So there were bits and pieces

that led to suspicion
against somebody.

- NYPD find out
who John Berger is,

and they call Los Angeles.

Well, they get the detective
on the case and he says,

"Oh, whoa, okay, wait a minute.

"That's our guy."

- But he wasn't really
a New York resident.

He was essentially visiting.

He was living at home with his
mother in East Los Angeles.

- The FBI actually went
out and interviewed him

and he admitted having
met Ellen Hover.

First, he denied it,
but then he admitted it

and said they went out,

maybe he took her to a
drug store or to a bank.

But the best he could remember,

he dropped her back home
and he never saw her again.

- They questioned him.

They wanted to prosecute him.

But the prosecutor said just
having that name in her diary,

it wasn't enough.

- They asked if he would
take a lie detector.

He refused, and they
kind of let it go.

So the reward basically
led to nothing.

[laid back rock music]

- The '70s and the
'80s especially,

there was this rash
of serial K*llers

that doesn't seem to
have been so prominent

before or after to
the same degree.

- The '60s and '70s had
so many serial K*llers.

It was a regular thing going on.

A lot of the generation in
the '60s were brought up

by parents and fathers who
came back from the w*r,

and they didn't, they weren't
affectionate or emotional

with their kids, their boys.

That left an open ground.

So there was a lot of, a
big rise in serial K*llers.

Again, you had everything
from Charles Manson,

to the .44 Caliber
m*rder*r, the Son of Sam,

the Hillside
Strangler, the green,

I mean, it just, it's endless.

You could just go on and on,

and it was going on
all over the country.

[upbeat music]

- Well, the mood in
Los Angeles in the '70s

was if I can get away
with it, I'm gonna do it.

I can remember handling
a m*rder in an alley

at three a.m. one morning,
and as the sun came up,

the corner arrived in his wagon.

I hear the wagon backing in,
and then I hear the guy get out

and I hear, "Oh, sh*t!"

And I said, "What's the matter?"

And the guy says,
"I got no room."

Well, he'd already had
four bodies in there.

He's just jumping from
one scene to the next.

He had four bodies in the back
from four previous homicides.

So our guy, we had to,

he was doing this,
two top, two below.

We had to split the bottom two

and he shoved the body in
between the bottom two.

You go to the coroner's office

and there'd be two or
three bodies on a gurney.

I mean, you'd have four
or five murders a night.

- We saw this danger almost
every week in the headlines

on the television news
and in the LA Times,

another m*rder, another
headless corpse.

- When you can be snatched
off the street and m*rder*d,

it terrifies everybody.

- It was the downtown
Los Angeles Library,

the main library in all of LA,

which is also the scene of
several homicides over the years.

Go back actually to 1964 when
there were two homicides.

One of 'em was right
here on the grounds,

another one was the
following night.

A fellow by the name
of Vaughn Greenwood,

the Skid Row Slasher,
attacked one victim here

and k*lled 'em, went
about three blocks north

and k*lled again
the very next day.

Again, that's way back in 1964.

Right here, December 1st, 1974,

leaning up against this
pillar nearly decapitated.

Four years almost to the
day on November 9th, 1978,

on this side of the pillar,

we had David Jones lying
right here, a Stabber victim.

So we got the one
Slasher victim here,

the Skid Row Slasher
serial k*ller.

Over here was the Skid
Row Stabber serial k*ller

four years later.

- Serial K*llers back then

didn't have to worry
about DNA evidence.

They didn't have to worry about

surveillance cameras everywhere.

Unlike today, it was
much more free wheeling.

You could get away
with a lot of things.

So it was very difficult
for investigators

and law enforcement
really to know

what was going on
in their own city.

- Rodney Alcala was
living with his mother

in East Los Angeles at the time.

And he got a new station wagon,

and he began to essentially
patrol Southern California.

He had binoculars, and
you see this thing,

the windows were tinted before
tinted windows was a thing.

So he would cruise
Southern California

with his photography
equipment, with his binoculars,

with his maps, and he was
essentially on the hunt.

He was a human predator.

[ominous music]

- Jill Barcomb was an


just graduated high school,

left a small town in upstate
New York with some friends,

kind of went on an adventure.

- She decided in the summer

that she would go
with her friends

and they were gonna
drive to California.

So they all go to California.

She phoned home, said,
"We're here, it's great,

"but I love it so
much, I'm gonna stay."

- She was experiencing

some of what Southern
California had to offer,

the ocean, Hollywood,
different scenery,

and a chance to take
a break from New York

and think about
where she was going.

November 10th,


I'm at at a high school
party with friends.

One of my friends, who was
a good friend with Jill,

asked about her at that party.

And I go, "Hey, I
just spoke with her

"and she's doing fantastic."

And in fact, I was
calling home to say

I'd be staying the
night at my friend's,

and that's when they said,
"You need to come home."

As I walked in the door of
my home, I could hear crying.

My mother came up to
me in tears, hugged me,

and then she said, "Your
sister, Jill, is dead,"

and that was the shock.

And I sat down in
the living room

and just trying to take it in.

The younger kids were
crying in the background,

and I was just trying to get
a sense of what I just heard

and process that raw emotion.

And it would take till
her body being flown out

with the detectives from Los
Angeles to meet with my parents

before we would know specifically
what had occurred to Jill.

- She was found on a fire road

up in the hills above
Hollywood, California,

near where Rodney
Alcala kidnapped

and almost m*rder*d
Tali Shapiro.

- Her body was found.

She was on her knees with
her face in the dirt.

Her, she had no pants on.

Her pant leg was one of three
ligatures around her neck,

nylon stockings, the
pant legs, and a belt,

three ligatures around her neck.

There were footsteps going
backwards from her buttocks area

as if somebody had stood
back and taken photographs

after she was m*rder*d,
brutally m*rder*d.

- Her injuries included
cuts and burns and bruises,

and she had also been bitten
and been tortured severely

throughout her whole body too.

It wasn't just like one place.

- The depraved heart of
someone to brutally k*ll

and sexually as*ault a
young 18-year-old girl,

and leave her so exposed,
and to take pleasure

out of what he had done,

I can't understand that,

and I can't ask anyone
to understand that.

- When the detectives
were looking at this case,

the first thought would be,
well, Hillside Strangler.

- She fit the description,

as in the type of
victim and the MO,

and so that was kind
of what they're,

the police were focused on,
and she ended up on that list.

So they didn't have the
Rodney Alcala initially

on their mind.

- At the time of the Hillside
Strangler investigations,

ironically, Rodney
Alcala was working

for the Los Angeles Times.

He was working as a typesetter.

- This entire block was
the LA Times complex,

and the LA Times has
been on this side

at least since the 1920s, '30s.

It's moved incrementally,

but the LA times has been a
presence in downtown since 1881.

And in the 1970s, when
Rodney Alcala worked here,

it was a thriving business.

There wasn't a lot of
competition for advertising

or much for news at that point.

[phone rings]

- He's a registered
sex offender.

They do no background
check on him at all.

And he's just happily
working away there,

still hunting, still
pursuing victims,

and they have no clue.

- A colleague of mine
at the Los Angeles Times

talks about him as a
handsome guy, a tall guy

who would come in wearing
his green fatigue jacket

and carrying a briefcase.

His hair was back in a ponytail.

This was very hip
looking at the time,

and the little
glasses that he wore,

almost like a John
Lennon glasses.

This was the look that
people were looking for.

This was style.

And this guy looks likable.

He's got a degree from UCLA.

Clearly, he's capable,

so maybe you don't ask
too many questions.

I don't know.

[serene music]

- Georgia Wixted was a
pediatric oncology nurse.

So you talk about
contributions to society,

she basically dealt with
kids who had cancer,

so she is a force of good.

And she just moved into
her first place by herself.

She had a little apartment in
Malibu, right on the beach.

And somebody actually asked
her, "What are you gonna do

"if the Hillside Strangler
shows up your house?"

And she goes, "Oh,
I have a whole plan.

"I'm gonna hit him
with my hammer."

- One morning, when she
failed to pick up a coworker

to go to work, the
friend called the police,

and they went into her
home and they found her.

She had been r*ped, bludgeoned,

strangled, brutally m*rder*d.

- They found her room in
complete disarray, her apartment,

and her body was laying on
the floor, completely naked.

She had been brutally
sexually assaulted,

and her legs were
spread wide open

facing the front door.

- She had not only the
normal t*rture marks

that that Rodney Alcala did,

like the burns and the
bites and the cuts,

she also had like a claw,
a scraping in her head

that would look like
she had been clawed.

So it was even more severe
than the previous murders.

- He beat her to death

with the hammer that
was found next to her.

So we've always wondered,

did she try to defend
herself with the hammer?

Did she hear something?

- Both Jill Barcomb and
Georgia Wixted's family

were unable to have an
open casket funerals

because of how extensive

the damage was done
to their skulls.

For Georgia Wixted, it was
both ends of the claw hammer,

the flat and the claw
end to her skull,

and it was ripped apart.

And for Jill Barcomb,
it was with a giant rock

just breaking into the skull
and the bones repeatedly

to the point where
she was unrecognizable

by her own brother.

- I had night terrors
and hence post trauma.

And in my sleep, I'm
waking up in tears

and Jill is coming to
me with a damaged face

telling me she's okay
and trying to, again,

console me and give me peace.

And that's who she was to me.

- Not all serial
K*llers t*rture,

but his biggest thrill
for him was the t*rture

because he spent time
with his victims.

It took a little
time to strangle them

and bring them back
to consciousness.

So that, in my book,
that ups the ante.

They're all evil, but if you
have to assign a degree to it,

I think he's with the
people at the very top.

- He preyed on women
and young girls.

Well, we had three or
four other serial K*llers

doing the same thing
at the same time.

So it was hard to
pick who's doing what,

and we really didn't
know for a while.

We didn't have DNA back then.

- Between Jill's death,

starting in October,


there were 20 sexual murders
in Los Angeles that occurred.

Los Angeles had
become hunting grounds

for these depraved K*llers
to spill their demon seed

on these, on our loved ones.

And it was such,
rising to the task,

the Hillside Strangler task
force was brought into place

to help stop the carnage
that was going on.

- They actually called
in Rodney Alcala

because of his background,

and they thought maybe
he was involved somehow

with the Hillside
Strangler cases.

But the downfall or
the problem with that

was there was too many
times when he wasn't there

when the Hillside Strangler
had committed the crimes.

So they knew that he couldn't
be the Hillside Strangler

so they let him go.

- He just was so convincing,
and he had alibis,

and he had explanations,

and it just didn't seem
that he was the guy.

Little did the police know he
was on his own k*lling spreed,

k*lling women who they
were not connecting

to the Hillside Strangler,
but yet were in their files.

- Rodney Alcala achieved sexual
gratification multiple times

with almost every one
of these women or girls.

So this is somebody
that is quite literally

getting off on what he's doing.

So when it's done, it's
not one of those things

where he's going back

and feeling any sort
of shame or remorse.

What Rodney Alcala is
doing after one of these

as soon as his
refractory period is done

is he can't wait to do it again.

[ominous music]

[upbeat music]

So Charlotte Lamb
was one of these

sort of legions of
beautiful young women

that migrate to Los Angeles
on a constant steady stream

probably since the 1920s.

She was strikingly beautiful,

and she came from
a very nice family.

A lot of kids from the Midwest,

but she has Midwest
sensibilities,

so she has, she's a
genuinely nice person.

So she moves to Los Angeles.

She's working as a,

what back then would have been
referred to as a secretary.

- She wanted to go out dancing.

She called up some friends.

This is the '70s.

She hit the discos, right?

She wanted to go out
dancing with some friends.

Her friends were like,

"No, eh, I don't
really feel like it."

So I think she probably
went out on her own,

and that's likely how she made
contact with Rodney Alcala.

- She was not seen alive again.

She was found in an
apartment complex

in a city named El Segundo,
which is just south of LAX

She's found in the laundry room.

She'd been strangled.

Her arms were placed
behind her back

to kind of arch her back
and accentuate her breasts.

Her legs were spread
facing the door,

and she had been strangled

with the lace of
one of her shoes.

- Posing a victim like that
is the k*ller just saying,

"Too bad for everyone.

"I'm omnipotent.

"I can do this," and
it degrades the victim.

It's very degrading
for the victim.

No one wants their loved
one to be found like that.

I mean, that's just a nightmare.

- He would quite
often point their arm

at a particular
part of their body.

So he wanted them
to see something.

There was something in his mind

that he wanted them to
look at or to notice

when they first spot the victim.

- [Matt] She'd been
r*ped repeatedly.

She'd been brutalized,

but she'd been strangled
multiple times.

- His drug of choice
is, was that power.

And he didn't want
to just k*ll them.

He wanted to bring them back
so that they could look at him

and he's looking at them and
life and death is in his hands.

- It's incredibly sadistic.

It's an incredibly
prolonged, brutal way

for somebody to die.

And he stayed with her for hours
and k*lled her very slowly.

- The coroner said that
he had hardly seen,

with thousands of autopsies,
only a handful of times

the extent of the damage
from the strangulation

that Charlotte Lamb suffered.

The damage that was done
broke through the bones

and caused severe
internal bleeding.

Those parts of the body
are very resilient,

very hard to break
through them that much.

It took so much force
to break through them,

and she suffered the
hands of the force.

- His lust was never satisfied,

and he kept looking for
that next higher thrill.

[ominous music]

- Jill Parenteau was a


She grew up in
Southern California,

and she had a family
who loved her to death.

And one day, she
didn't show up to work.

And just like so many
of these other women,

there was a welfare call.

Somebody called the police
and asked to check on her.

And when they went inside,

they found that
she had been posed,

legs spread, facing the door,

a pillow under her back
which was remarkably similar

to the way Charlotte Lamb and
Georgia Wixstead were found.

- The bedding from
her bed was at the,

all crumpled up at the end
with a lamp, light post in it

of a lamp that was focused on
her body that was left there.

- [Alan] That investigation,
like a lot of the others,

really went nowhere.

- I just can't imagine what
goes through someone's head

that can do the things
that he did repeatedly

and get away with a
lot of 'em for so long.

[suspenseful music]

- This is Bill McCreary
in North Tarrytown

with a story about the
discovery of the body

of a millionaire's daughter
missing for the past 11 months.

[suspenseful music]

- It was a wooded area,
very highly wooded area.

It was on the grounds of
the old Rockefeller estate,

behind the Phelps
Memorial Hospital.

- Some of the
friends of the girl

who had known the boy that
she had met or the suspect,

and that when they
went with him,

he brought him up to this area

to look at the
sunset in this area.

He loved to watch sunsets.

- [Matt] They went up 24 times

where they eventually found
Ellen Hover's remains.

- We're in a secluded area
up on the estate grounds.

And behind me was where
the old hospital was.

Ellen's body was found
somewhere in this area,

parts of her body spread about.

It was skeletal remains, an
arm or a leg at one point.

And then later on, months later,

other parts of her
body were found

but not the entire
skeletal remains.

Her underwear, bra, and pieces
of clothing were found also.

Alcala had been here before.

He knew the area.

He was coming up here,
using it as a place

to take pictures of young ladies

and then committing all
sorts of atrocities.

She was in a part where
unless you knew to go there,

you would not have gone there.

And if her body hadn't
been discovered,

her remains hadn't been
discovered when they were,

it probably would have
been another year or two

before she was found
because local animals

had gotten to her remains

and had scattered them
about on the estate.

- I remember an ankle bracelet,

like a little beaded ankle
bracelet on her foot,

what was left of a foot.

It was really bits and pieces.

And the clothing
was rotting away,

and there wasn't
a full skeleton.

- Something like that
completely affects your family

in an unforgettable way,
in an irreplaceable way.

- Police say they
do have the identity

of a possible
suspect in this case.

But right now, the
body of Miss Hover

is in the medical
examiner's office up here

where they're
trying to determine

if foul play was
involved in her death.

- They suspected
Alcala being involved.

But again, at that time,
there was no evidence.

- Back then, we didn't have
DNA, and there was nothing

that scientifically
could be done

unless there were
some kind of evidence,

physical evidence left behind
by a perpetrator of the crime.

- I think you have
to be very smart

to commit these many murders

and get away with it
for such a long time,

traveling around the
country, different names.

I think he was
intellectually smart,

and I think he was very smart

in the way he dealt with people,

and he was able to convince
little Tali to get into his car.

He was able to get close
to different people.

He was able to convince them

that he was not a threat at all.

- The camera was what he used,

and he was hiding
in plain sight.

He went on The Dating Game.

I mean, how brazen can you get?

- [Jim] Please
welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, welcome.
[audience cheers]

[upbeat music]

- [Announcer] From Hollywood,

the dating capital of the
world, it's The Dating Game!

[audience applauds]

Here's the star of our show,
and your host, Jim Lange!

- The Dating Game was an
iconic Hollywood show,

and it was part of this
cultural sexual revolution

that came out of Hollywood.

It was full of humor
and sexual innuendo.

- I started out as a
contestant coordinator.

So I was in charge of the
people that got contestants,

and so I spent a lot of my
day dealing with that stuff.

- It was a machine.

It really was.

It was a quick, intense ability

to tap into who
these people were,

and get, plunge into
their personalities

as quickly as we could.

- When the guys came, it was,

they either had to have a
spectacular sense of humor

and be, have a good
personality, of course,

or they had to be
like really cute.

- [Jim] Next, we welcome
to this very stage

a confirmed bachelor who
believes in life, liberty,

and the happiness of pursuit.

He is an actor, a snorkel buff,

and he's from New York,
New York, Jed Mills.

Jed, good luck to you.
[audience applauds]

- My brother and I are
hanging out one night,

and I hadn't worked
in a couple of weeks.

And we're at his house
and he turns the TV on

and The Dating Game is on.

And I said, "I will never
do that show." [chuckles]

And James said, "But you're SAG.

"You get paid for it."

Oh.

Oh, let me think about that.

Yeah, okay, I'll do
the show. [chuckles]

And then I get the appointment,

I go there and
they interview you.

They ask you a
bunch of questions.

And the casting person knows me.

So now, I'm cast, okay?

So then the next step is
to show up and do the show,

simple as that.

So I got to the green
room and there's,

it's just myself, Rodney
Alcala, and another gentleman,

a nice guy, a very
kind of a shy guy.

I basically was
talking to this guy

much more than I was Rodney
Alcala 'cause he was weird.

- To me, he was an
extremely attractive man.

He was like part
American Indian.

He had long hair.

He was like just sculpted,
and he was beautiful.

Michael was like,

"There's something wrong
with that guy." [laughs]

- I just didn't feel I wanted
to put this guy on the show,

and we did argue about it.

And I remember the girls were,

"Oh, you gotta put him on.

"Oh God, he's so gorgeous."

And it was like,
yeah, okay, fine.

I'll put him on the show, okay?

- And there, he was no trouble.

It wasn't any weird thing.

We just called him up and
gave him his appointment.

He came to the studio.

And then he had cut his hair,
and he looked different,

and he acted different, and
he was a little bit creepy

when he came to the studio.

- I basically was
talking to this guy.

He's saying,

"Well, I kind of have a
hard time getting dates.

"I'm not that outgoing."

And Rodney Alcala, this
piece of crap, jumps in,

puts his face right up
to my face and says,

"I always get my girl."

And I put my hand up, and I
push his face away from me,

and I said, "If you come
near me again with that face

"I'll beat the f*ck out of
you," something like that.

And he, now he went
to his little corner

and he was mumbling. [mumbles]

That's what he was doing.

- If a man sitting
in a green room

in a television show
studio in Hollywood

is creeped out by this guy,
imagine being alone with him

and him completely in charge
of your life and your fate.

- You didn't like him.

I didn't like him at all.

- Everything he said
to me was creepy.

I mean, I really, from what I
first described to the taping,

I couldn't even look at the guy.

- Now, when he got out on
stage, he became alive.

[audience applauds]

- Well, let's see.

Back to number one who's
a successful photographer

who got his start when
his father found him

in the dark room at the
age of 13 fully developed.

[audience laughs]

Between takes, he might find
him skydiving or motorcycling.

Please welcome Rodney Alcala.

[audience applauds]
Rod, Welcome.

- He goes on the show
under his own name.

He's on the, he's wanted.

- He had k*lled
five people by then.

- Background checks,

no.

Nobody even thought of it.

- It's shocking
that you could k*ll,

brutally r*pe, m*rder,
t*rture these women

and then show up and be all
smiley face on this show.

It just like, there's
a total disconnect

between the reality
of the actions

and no remorse for
the actions taken,

no accountability,
nothing internal.

- The Dating Game was, in a way,

like an audition for Hollywood.

You were auditioning to
be the cool bachelor guy.

So many of these
shows were like this,

that you put yourself
forward to become a star

even for that one half
hour on weekly television.

And I can imagine
the gratification

that must have given
him to be selected.

- He just felt invincible.

I mean, and why wouldn't you?

Look at his past.

He'd gotten away
with this stuff.

Why would he not
feel invincible?

- Bachelor number one...

- [Rodney] Yes.

- What's your best time?

- The best time is
at night, nighttime.

[audience laughs]

- [Contestant] Why
do you say that?

- Because that's the
only time there is.

- The only time?

What's wrong with
morning, afternoon?

- Well, they're okay,

but nighttime is when
it really gets good.

Then you're really ready.

- In light of what we know,
how chilling was that?

- I think it shows
enormous hubris

and probably was enjoying it.

He was probably enjoying
himself quite a bit.

And he was laughing,
I'm sure, at everybody.

- I'm a drama teacher, and I'm
going to audition each of you

for my private class.

Bachelor number one,
you're a dirty old man.

Take it.

- Oh, come on,
over here. [growls]

[audience laughs and applauds]

- [Contestant]
Bachelor number two.

- What the f*ck am I
doing here? [laughs]

What am I doing here?

- His humor was inappropriate
in a certain sense.

And his delivery, his
delivery of whatever lines

he felt were humorous or gonna
win the girl's heart were,

to me, they were
strangely inappropriate

and weird.

- I'm called the banana,
and I look really good.

[audience laughs]

- Can you be a little
more descriptive?

- Peel me.

[audience laughs and applauds]

- He was so charming.

He was a nice-looking boy.

And he was selected as the
date, the winner of the contest.

- [Jim] Number one,
bachelor number one.

All right.

- He must have thought this
was the absolute pinnacle

of his success of
fooling the world.

He could k*ll, he could
r*pe, he could mutilate,

and he could fool
everybody while he did it.

- [Jim] Say hello
to Rodney Alcala.

Rodney, come on and say hello.

[upbeat music]
[audience applauds]

Congratulations Rod.

- The girl that picked
him, after the show,

she had a little time
with him or whatever.

And when we got back to
the office the next week,

she called me and she said,
"I'm not going on the date."

And I said, "Okay, tell me
why," as if I didn't know.

She said, "He's really
creepy and I'm not going."

And I said, "Absolutely, no
problem, you're not going."

So it was like, there's
definitely a vibe from that guy,

and some people are
just blinded by beauty.

- I think her rejection of him

was probably devastating
to him inside.

Inside, he was probably crushed

by her not going on
an all paid date,

'cause you must be pretty bad

when won't even go on
a date with someone

and it's like that,
televised and all paid for.

It would be embarrassing.

- And again, he's not
gonna stop k*lling.

Some serial K*llers stop.

He just, he's not, he
wasn't one of those.

He didn't stop.

[dramatic music]