01x03 - Dating Death 3

[bunniefuu]

[gentle music]

[water crashing]

[people chattering]

- Robin Samsoe was a precocious
little 12-year-old girl,

as most of them are at
that age, loved life.

Loved her family,
loved her friends.

And on June 20th of 1979,
she and her friend Bridget

came down to the city of
Huntington Beach to enjoy the day.

They were approached
by an individual

who started talking to them
about taking their photographs.

He was in a photo contest,
and there was prize money

to be won, and that he would
give them some if he won.

- It's creepy.

I mean, the guy was the
same age as my mother.

Approaching young girls
is just not normal.

- His MO is his camera,
let me take your picture.

Now the Pied Piper or the spider
just pulls you into the web

and you're never
gonna get out of it.

And if you do get out of it,

you're never the
same person again.

- He started taking pictures,
and a neighbor of Bridget's,

an adult neighbor, saw this
going on and approached

to find out what
was taking place.

As she approached, this
photographer turned around

and walked away quickly.

He circled, he circled
that area like a shark.

A sociopathic, sexual,
sadistic individual

that derived pleasure
from the sexual act,

as well as the physical
act of t*rture and k*lling.

[dramatic music]

- Nobody can replace that
person, and we were just robbed

of so many great
things with her.

[upbeat music]

♪ Like a sound you hear ♪

♪ The lingers in your ear ♪

♪ But you can't forget ♪

♪ From sundown to sunset ♪

♪ It's all in the air ♪

♪ You hear it everywhere ♪

♪ No matter what you do ♪

♪ It's gonna grab hold of you ♪

♪ California soul ♪

♪ California soul ♪

[upbeat music]

- Huntington Beach was
very unincorporated.

It was just really nice to
be, it wasn't overcrowded.

In fact, all the
things that you see

up and down the coast
now are all brand new.

Looking back, it
was a lot of fun.

You could walk to the beach.

We only lived like a half
a mile from the beach,

so you could walk to the beach.

Everybody knew everybody.

You could stay out after dark.

You could play in the streets.

And you know, it was just
a great area to live in.

We used to surf
and have bonfires,

and just hang out and suntan,
and eat, and whatever.

We knew if we went
home that my mom

was gonna put us to work so.

[Taranne laughing]

We found solace in the beach.

You know, this is a big
part of our history.

My sister Robin loved
being down at the beach.

That was her to-go
place, she loved it.

[gentle music]

Robin loved ballet.

She loved singing and
dancing and gymnastics.

She was very
young-minded for her age.

She was a 12-year-old
that was a 12-year-old.

She was a child who
got to be a child.

She had a few
responsibilities at home,

but she always got
babied, she was our baby.

So she didn't have to grow up.

She didn't have to be
older than her years.

But she wanted to
go to ballet so bad,

that my mom really wasn't able
to afford it at that time,

and Robin started working
at the ballet studio

to get her own lessons.

So actually that's
where she was going

the day that she was abducted.

- Robin and her friend Bridget
were playing on the beach

until it was time for Robin
to go to her ballet class.

Well she was running
late, so she asked Bridget

if she could borrow her bike.

And so Bridget let
her borrow her bike,

and she left on her bike
on her way to ballet class.

- Somewhere between
Bridget's house

and her final destination
of the ballet class,

she was abducted and
was never seen again.

- Ballet school called
the home and said,

well, she never showed up.

And that terrified,
of course the parents,

and of course they
called the police,

and the search began.

- Well originally in 1979,
I was a patrol officer,

and working day shift
when Robin was kidnapped.

We didn't know she was
kidnapped at the time,

but the next day when
they put the information

out to patrol, we
learned of it then,

and we knew that there
was a missing bicycle.

And so we began, most of us
anyway that I can remember,

started checking the alleys,

and behind shopping centers
and the trash areas,

all looking and hoping
to find that bicycle.

- It just, it was horrible.

You know, every
day you wondered,

is she warm enough at night?

Or you know, what
could have happened?

Because that was not Robin,
she just didn't do that.

She was not inconsiderate,
she wasn't selfish.

She just wouldn't
just not come or call,

or you know, have
somebody contact us.

So I think we knew
really early on

that something was
seriously wrong.

They kept in constant contact.

Then a few weeks later, there
was a knock at the door,

and when we seen
the police, we knew.

[gentle music]

[birds chirping]

- Robin was found 12 days
later in a park area,

many miles away from
where she had disappeared.

- She's not recognizable.

There's been a lot
of animal damage,

and they have to ID
her from her teeth.

And when they go for the
death notification to her mom,

her mom says, you know,
I wanna see my baby.

I wanna see my girl.

And they have to tell her

that there's really
nothing to see,

there's nothing.

That's just so heartbreaking.

There's nothing to see, we
identified her from her teeth.

- I just remember my
mom breaking down.

- The hunt is definitely
on for for Robin's k*ller.

I mean, it's a horrible crime.

The Huntington Beach police

are conducting an investigation,

trying to find out,

who did this, who could
do this to a little girl?

- The detectives got
a police sketch artist

to sit down with
Robin's friend Bridget,

and get a description
of the suspect.

Through her conversation
with Bridget,

the sketch artist composed a uh,

drew a sketch of the suspect

as described by Bridget,

the male with the long
curly hair, and the likes.

That sketch was put
out to both electronic

and print media
for distribution.

A parole officer out
of Los Angeles County

was reading the newspaper and
saw the sketch in the paper,

and thought it looked like

one of his clients,
Rodney Alcala.

He called the police
department in Huntington Beach

and told them his suspicions.

That's when they put the
photograph in a lineup

with five similar-looking
individuals,

and they went down to
Bridget's house and said,

"I'd like you to look
at these photographs.

The person that took your
photographs at the beach that day

may or may not be in there.

Just because we're showing
you these photographs

doesn't mean you have
to identify anyone.

If you don't recognize anybody,
don't pick somebody out."

And she looked at
the photographs,

and pointed at the
photograph of Rodney Alcala.

Well, the detectives
don't know much about him

until they start really
getting into the investigation,

and then they're finding
out that he may be a suspect

in other murders, but there
is no biological evidence,

fingerprints, blood, DNA,
anything like that at the time

that they could make
a connection to.

- Detectives work around the
clock in a case like this,

but they've been up for hours.

One of the detectives goes home,

sits down on his
couch for a break,

pops a beer and turns on the TV.

And it's one of those moments,

you can't make this stuff
up, it's "The Dating Game".

- [Announcer] Please
welcome Rodney Alcala.

Rod, come up here.

[audience cheering]

- And it was like, no way
that this is happening.

And within 24 hours,
they had a search warrant

that they were serving
on Alcala's home.

[dramatic music]

- When they got to
his mother's house,

he was in bed with his
girlfriend at the time.

And they asked him
a lot of questions.

He denied everything of course.

But during that time, one
of the officers noticed

that there was a
storage locker receipt

sitting on the table.

Now they had a search warrant,

but only on Rodney
Alcala in his possession,

they couldn't search the house.

So they weren't allowed to
take that receipt with them.

- It was a receipt
for a storage locker

in King County,
Seattle, Washington.

One of the detective
sergeants, he took his notebook

and he wrote down the information
on the storage locker,

and they all left the scene
after the search was complete,

and they're interviewing Alcala
at the police department.

At one point during
the interview,

Alcala says that he'd like
to speak to his sister.

So they invite his sister into
the interview room with him,

and they step outside,
but he's a m*rder suspect,

so they're watching
on a video camera.

As they're watching
he said to his sister,

"At least they don't know

about the storage
locker in Seattle."

To which that Detective
Sergeant probably almost tore

his shirt pocket, trying
to get his notebook out,

and said, "I have that
information right here."

- And they're up there,
I think within 12 hours.

They get a warrant for
the storage locker,

and they get to Seattle before
anybody else can touch it.

And the storage locker
was a gold mine.

[gentle music]

- The storage unit contained,
as you might expect

for a photographer,
thousands of pictures.

However, these were
pictures of p*rn*graphy,

pictures of hundreds of
women and young boys,

nude photographs.

- There were dozens
upon dozens of women

in bathing suits,
women doing gymnastics,

women literally in a
gymnastics competition

down at the beach.

And he would zoom
in on, you know,

the buttocks area
of various women,

just about as creepy
as you can get.

And there was a whole slew
of self-portraits also.

And grandiosity is
one of the signs

of psychopathy, or the
psychopath, is somebody that is,

the only person
that Rodney Alcala

ever really loved
was Rodney Alcala.

- Most importantly, they find
this little red jewelry pouch.

And in that little red jewelry
pouch is multiple earrings.

- Now we are used to the idea

of a serial k*ller
taking trophies.

You watch "Silence
of the Lambs",

and you think serial
k*ller trophies.

But it was a very
unusual thing then,

that someone would want evidence

of having committed
such a horrific crime.

Any of us would want to
put that out of our minds,

but here's someone
who gloated over them

as if they were proof of
his mastery of the moment.

- Among those earrings
were two gold ball earrings

that ultimately were identified
by Robin Samsoe's mother

as the earrings
that she was wearing

the day she disappeared.

- And that really
helps to nail him.

- All I know is that I
got a call from the FBI.

So they came and they talked
to all of us and they,

Michael talked to them.

And I guess the whole
craziness of this

is that he used his real name.

- In retrospect,
yeah I feel terrible.

- Come on, over here, ah.

- I'm glad that I was
talked out of the fact

that I wasn't gonna
put him on the show,

because really having
put him on the show

was instrumental in
having him be apprehended

at one point in his vast career.

- The original trial in


So it goes to the penalty
phase after the guilt,

and the jury comes back
with the death penalty.

Once that happens, he's
transferred to San Quentin,

lives on death row.

In California a death penalty
is a automatic appeal,

whether you want to
appeal it or not,

it's an automatic appeal,

and they have attorneys
that will handle that.

It was determined that
during the penalty phase,

an incorrect fact was given.

When they talked
about the kidnapping,

they talked about Robin
being sexually assaulted,

and ultimately m*rder*d.

Well, because of the
condition of Robin's remains,

there was no evidence
of a sexual as*ault.

For that reason
it was overturned,

and came back for
retrial in 1984.

Went through that trial,
the jury again says guilty,

and the jury again
says death penalty,

which of course initiates
an automatic appeal.

- And it gets set
aside again on appeal,

and these appeals don't happen
in a month or two months.

It's a very long period of time.

- He avoids it twice,
the death penalty.

It's frustrating for
everyone, from the police

to the district attorney
to the families.

He's still not out
running around,

but he's not got
the death penalty,

which he so
righteously deserves.

Third time's the charm,
this time they get him.

[dramatic music]

- When Alcala did his killings,
the ones that we know about,

it was at a time where
the forensic technology

was much simpler.

You know, you had blood
types, fingerprints,

that kind of thing,
you didn't have DNA.

But by the time his actual big,

final trial happened in 2010,

we had developed DNA
forensic science,

that was so good by that time,

that the experts could go
back to those earrings,

remember the earrings
found in the storage shed?

And they could find
DNA from there.

- We did DNA testing and we
didn't get any DNA on them.

And that's common over
time for DNA to degrade,

except for one little rose
earring, and we came back

with 0.06 nanograms of
Charlotte Lamb's DNA.

So Charlotte Lamb,
all those years later,

essentially was in
that courtroom with us,

a tiny little
piece of her saying

that Rodney Alcala
takes trophies,

that Rodney Alcala
took these earrings,

and Rodney Alcala kept them
in that little silk pouch

that was recovered in
the storage locker.

- With that DNA evidence,
they were able to create

a much more detailed
map of his killings.

- Jill Barcom, that was
found in the Hollywood Hills,

that had been sexually
assaulted, strangled and posed.

Charlotte Lamb, that was
found in the washroom

of an apartment building,
strangled and posed.

Georgia Wixted m*rder*d in
Malibu, in Los Angeles County.

And then of course Jill
Parenteau, strangled and posed.

They were all
connected at that time.

- This is when they discover

that they've got
a serial k*ller.

They only knew for a while
that they had a child k*ller.

- Oh f*ck, a serial k*ller?

You knew he was creepy,

but you didn't think
he was that creepy.

- It was a whole different
trial than the first two,

because they can really,
really put the screws to him,

because they can prove that
with physical evidence,

that he was there.

His DNA is on things, the
victim's DNA is on things.

There's no way out of that.

- After 30 years in
prison, studying law books,

reading about cases,
somehow Alcala got the idea

that he would be
his own best lawyer,

even though he
didn't have any kind

of a formal legal education.

- The most difficult time of
that trial was number one,

looking through the autopsy
and crime scene photographs

with Rodney, to determine
what evidence would go in,

and just have to sit
with him and watch him

look at the destruction
of his work,

the brutality of what he
had done to these victims,

and know that he is gaining
pleasure a second time

outta looking at these photos
of, and probably reliving

the assaults, and
whatever maniacal pleasure

he got out of
assaulting those women,

was very difficult
to sit through.

And then to have Rodney
Alcala cross-examine

Robin Samsoe's mother,
after she had lived through

two other trials and 30 years

of watching him slip
through justice.

And then he, at this point
gets to ask her questions,

that he gets to ask
questions of Tally Shapiro,

who as an adult, who was,
he r*ped at eight years old.

Again, unconscionable.

These just, there are no words
to describe how disturbing

and uncomfortable and
unfair that all felt.

[gentle music]

- [Reporter] During a
two-hour, often rambling

closing argument
Monday afternoon,

accused serial
k*ller Rodney Alcala,

who is defending himself
in the death penalty trial,

sat at the counsel table and
spoke in a dull monotone.

Alcala could not make his
laptop computer project

on the large courtroom
screen, and he often scrambled

to find photos and
other exhibits.

- I was alone in the courtroom

with Rodney Alcala right there,
and the judge in his seat,

and an empty courtroom,
which was creepy as heck.

It's just like, why in the world

would somebody do
that to somebody?

I mean, that's
just unforgivable.

- I sat behind him
in the courtroom,

and it's amazing

what you think of when
you're sitting there.

I mean, you know
those little cartoons

with the bubble over their head?

And I had a bottle of
water and I kept thinking,

what if I just whipped
this at his head?

And you know, I knew
you'd get in trouble,

but these little
bubbles, you know,

kept like appearing, and just
kept thinking these things.

And then when my
mom had to testify

with him cross-examining her,

just like my heart
was ripped out.

'Cause no person
ever should have to

be subjected to that.

- [Reporter] Alcala spent
some of his argument

attacking the credibility
of Maryanne Connolly,


Samsoe's mother.

Alcala claimed Connolly,
who he refers to as Frazier,

Connolly's previous
name, made up a story

about her daughter's earrings
being the same earrings

that were found in the
Seattle storage locker,

rented in Alcala's name.

- No testimony from anyone
other than Mrs. Frazier,

that Robin's ears were pierced.

None of her friends
were aware of that.

They were unaware of
her wearing earrings.

And Mrs. Frazier

had plenty of opportunity
to provide you,

the jury, with a picture
of Robin wearing earrings.

- He never showed
any sign of remorse.

He's incapable of
feeling remorse.

If he tried to express
remorse, it would've been fake.

No, this is a guy who
did this on purpose,

over, and over again.

There's no remorse, there's
no human connection there,

because I don't
think Rodney Alcala

ever actually had a soul.

- Alcala actually cross-examined
himself as a witness,

and went so far as to
use different voices.

He would use one voice
as the defense lawyer,

and then he would use
another voice as himself

answering his own questions.

- He would first assume
the voice of an attorney,

and he was very stern,
and he was very correct.

And then, then he would
assume the personality

of Rodney Alcala, and
he would answer, "No."

And he was charming
and delightful.

He put on a show for five hours

that was absolutely astounding.

- For some reason, still
I don't think anyone

can really quite
grasp the why of it,

he plays a portion of

a song "Alice's Restaurant",

and he plays the portion where,

it's reflective of
the Vietnam w*r.

That's when the song came out,

it was a whole different context
than Rodney Alcala gave it.

But he plays a portion of it
where it says, I wanna k*ll.

I wanna feel dead bodies, I
wanna feel veins in my teeth.

You know, k*ll, k*ll, k*ll.

Now how that was supposed
to make the jury feel,

or the judge, or anyone
in the courtroom feel,

I don't know what he
was going for there.

- [Arlo] I wanna k*ll,
I wanna, I wanna k*ll.

I wanna see blood and gore and
guts, and veins in my teeth.

Eat dead, burnt bodies,

I mean k*ll, k*ll, k*ll, k*ll.

- That jury understood that
the pain and the suffering

that were wreaked upon
all of these families

and all of these people
by Rodney Alcala,

and he plays them
a frigging song?

I knew them, I knew they
would be outraged by it,

and I knew I had
him at that moment.

[upbeat music]

- [Reporter] The
families of the victims

had harsh words for
the serial k*ller.

- Most people who are
opposed to the death penalty

have never had a
reason to use it.

Rodney James Alcala is a reason
to use the death penalty.

- I wish he would
experience the terror

He put his victims through.

He is truly a devil, he does
not belong on this Earth.

- I think lethal injection
is far too humane

for anyone like him.

I only wish that
I could be the one

to administrate the injection.

- There's m*rder and r*pe,

and there's the
unequivocal carnage

of a Rodney Alcala-style
m*rder and r*pe.

- Mr. Alcala, I
suspect it's a blessing

that your mother is not
here today to witness this.

I feel sure she died
with a broken heart.

[gentle music]

- We were already looking at
him in Manhattan at that point,

but we couldn't bring
him to Manhattan

until his California
case was concluded.

What we were mostly
concerned with was,

what similarities can we
find in the California cases

that could help bolster
our case by showing

that he is the one who has
this distinctive method,

and use that to help show that

that's what he did in our cases.

Cornelia Crilley was bound,
she was sexually assaulted.

She had blunt force
trauma to her head.

She was the victim of
ligature strangulation

with her pantyhose, and she
had a bite mark on her breast.

Many of the California
victims had the same thing.

- When I was looking at
the Ellen Hover m*rder,

I had gone to Tarrytown
to get their files,

and talked to the
prosecution office up there.

There's another woman
that I've interviewed.

Rodney Alcala took her
to the same exact area,

tried to sexually as*ault her,

and then he tried to k*ll
her, and she escaped.

The Crilley case was unique
because the big key is,

I knew Rodney Alcala
was in that apartment,

because he left his
fingerprints on her mail.

That puts him inside her
apartment on that day.

The other big piece
is that dental bite,

that I brought to
a forensic dentist

who is proficient
in comparisons.

And he says, if you can get
a mold of his full bite mark,

I can tell you if you
have, I can make a match,

or I can tell you if
you have the right guy.

So I go to California
and I get a court order,

and we were able to get a
dental mold of Rodney Alcala.

- The dental
impression was given

to a forensic dental expert,
so that he could match

the impressions
to the bite marks

that were left on the young
lady, they were a match.

[dramatic music]

- We presented our evidence
to the grand jury in 2011,

and he was indicted for
the m*rder of Ellen Hover,

and he was indicted for the
m*rder of Cornelia Crilley.

We then start the extradition
process, which he fought.

- That old children's nursing
rhyme, "Catch Me if You Can",

that's the person that he
is, a narcissistic scumbag.

We went out there to go
get him out of San Quentin.

When they brought him
into room with us,

he had on his prison jumpsuit,
and we will not take anyone

from someone else
without searching him.

I go, I need you to
take off that jumpsuit.

He said, "Why?"

I said, "Because you
can't get in our car

dressed like that
without being searched."

So when he takes
off the jumpsuit,

we're all standing there

but he's kinda being guarded
and he's shying from us.

And we're like, figuring
it's a little bit of modesty

or whatever, but then we're
like, yo, turn around.

When he turns around, we see,

it looks like he
has a catheter in,

and clearly it's a
catheter that wasn't done

by a doctor or a nurse.

It wasn't a medically
done catheter,

because it's duct taped.

We're like, what is that?

He goes, oh, oh, the doctor
prescribed this for me

because I'm in incontinent,
and when I'm on long trips,

I figure 'cause you guys are
flying me back to New York,

you won't let me use the
bathroom on the plane.

So if I gotta go
to the bathroom,

I can just go to the bathroom.

So we all kinda like,
looked at each other.

Like, what are you,
F-ing kidding me?

And they peeled
the duct tape off.

They pulled the tube that
he had stuck up him out,

and took the bag off and
they threw it the garbage,

and hey gave him
a paper jumpsuit

with just a pair
of boxer shorts.

And that's how we walked
him outta the jail.

- We got him back in 2012.

He made four court
appearances only,

and on the fourth time he
came to court in Manhattan,

he pleaded guilty
to both counts,

and was sentenced,
in January of 2013,

to 25 years to life.

- He just said yes.

He just, they asked if
he committed the murders

and he said yes,
and it was stunning.

After all those years of
denying it, he said yes.

- I think he pled guilty
to the New York cases

because he wanted to
come back to California

and focus on his
death sentence appeal.

And he knew that if
he pled guilty there,

that they would ship
him back to California,

where he was comfortable.

He was comfortable
living in San Quentin.

- Doing time in New
York is a lot harder

than doing time in California.

- It didn't matter to me
very much where he was.

I just wanted to make
sure he never set foot

as a free man again.

- We knew that he was prolific.

We knew that he had
many, many victims,

but that was the
first word we had

that he had actually
m*rder*d people in New York.

And then the next
thought after that is,

oh my God, how many states
did he go to back then?

Your next thought is horror.

You know, how many women
did Rodney Alcala k*ll?

- The storage unit in Seattle

contained thousands of pictures.

- You're looking at
these photographs

and you're wondering,
are some of these people

also his victim?

- He traveled coast to
coast more than once,

would stop off in
between, and he drove.

You know, he had his little
motorcycle in his car.

So what did he do in
the five or six days,

and it probably took him more,

to get from New
York to California?

- After the trial in 2010,
the Orange County prosecutor

and the detectives
decided to make public

those photographs
of these women,

thinking that maybe somebody
would say, that's my sister,

and in fact that's
what happened.

[gentle music]

Christine Thornton had
disappeared in 1977,

while on a trip to
Montana and in Wyoming.

She was last seen in Wyoming,

but her sister had no idea
whatever happened to her.

The body had not,
at least no remains

had been connected to
Christine Thornton.

But because of a photograph
that was released

after the 2010 trial,

they noticed, that is Christine.

And they looked, and
investigators figured out,

oh, that background is Wyoming.

And then they
realized that in 1982,

skeletal remains of
a woman and an infant

had been found on
a ranch in Wyoming.

Well, Christine had
been six months pregnant

when she disappeared.

And then all of the forensic
evidence came together

and connected the
disappearance and the m*rder

of Christine Thornton
to Rodney Alcala.

[dramatic music]

- To figure out that that's
who we were dealing with,

or that's potentially
a suspect for our case,

it was kind of
overwhelming at the time.

'Cause I thought, this
is my first cold case,

first homicide case so,
how do you go about this?

So on top of the other
interviews we conducted,

and just doing all the
follow up work that we did

to find out who this guy was,
and what he was capable of

or what he had been capable of,

we decided to fly to California

in September of 2016
to interview him.

- Our initial
thought was that we

were gonna be going
to San Quentin.

And apparently he had had a
pacemaker, and so in order,

when they put the pacemaker
in, his health started

to deteriorate a little bit
more from my understanding,

and that's why they
moved to Corcoran.

So when we went to Corcoran,
it was a different type

of atmosphere than
I was expecting.

I was expecting that
we were gonna come in,

and we were gonna be in
an interrogation room.

We're gonna be in
an interview room,

where we'd be able to
sit and interview him,

and I'd be behind
a two-way mirror

watching Detective
Sheaman interview him.

- We walked in and there
he is laying on his bed.

It was a hospital bed.

It looked like a hospital room,

but it was just this old
rundown room, metal doors,

peach-colored paint, that's
peeling off the walls.

- There's one window.

Outside the window,
the view is of pipes,

and I think maybe even been
a furnace or something,

working into another building.

And he wasn't even facing the
window, he was facing a wall.

And while he was in there,
there was a fly that just,

it was almost like sent
from Hera to torment,

a gadfly sent to torment him.

And it would just land on his
face and he'd brush it away.

And it just land
again on his face.

And his feet, once
I walked in there

and I looked at his feet,

'cause they were sticking up
from underneath the sheets.

I knew he hadn't
been ambulatory.

I knew he hadn't
been walking around,

because as his foot was
sticking out, his big toe,

the nail on his
big toe is probably

about a good half
inch above the toe.

And so I'm thinking, he
hasn't been moving much.

- I guess I was
expecting Rodney Alcala,

all the pictures
that I'd seen of him,

everything I knew
about this guy.

And I walked in, when I saw him,

it actually made the
interview a lot easier,

because I just walked in
and I thought, this is him.

This is the guy that terrorized
California all those years

back in the '60s and '70s.

My name's Detective Sheaman,
my first name is Jeff.

We came from Rock Springs,
Wyoming, it's a long ways.

What do you know about Wyoming?

I did not expect
that he was going

to respond so readily
to the photographs.

What can you tell
me about that area?

- [Rodney] It's part of my area.

- It's what?

- [Rodney] Part of my area.

- It's part of your area?

Okay, and what do you
mean by part of your area?

- [Rodney] What I mean is
that, I've been to this area.

- Okay.

At first I didn't believe him.

I thought, well it's sagebrush,
that could be anywhere.

That could be Wyoming, it
could be Texas, you know?

So I didn't really
think, I thought maybe

he was just playing
a game with us.

But then the more
pictures you showed him,

you could tell that
it clicked with him.

He remembered that area and he,

I think it woke him
up a little bit.

- As he started looking
at more pictures,

and especially after
Detective Sheaman

showed him the
picture of Christine,

you could really start to see

that he was going back in time.

- Okay, I'm gonna
tell you three things

I know about this photo, Rod.

That's your
motorcycle, that's one.

That is your car, that's two.

And this photo, you
took that photo.

That is your photograph.

For several minutes,
I don't know how long,

but we watched him
just take his finger

and just trace Christine
on the picture,

and focusing on her body.

And he never touched
the motorcycle,

it just was concentrating
on her body.

And he ran his finger
down several times,

and then he had the
picture on his lap,

and he would start
tapping on the photograph.

And we were just
waiting, we were waiting,

try to see if he'd
provide any information.

And I was pretty eager,
'cause I could tell

just his actions, just the way

he was acting at the
time, his eye movement.

I mean, he closed his eyes

and you could still
see his eyes moving.

And I could tell that
he was reliving that.

I think he relived that
whole moment at that point.

I'm not asking if you
took that picture,

'cause I know you did.

I'm asking if you remember
taking that picture.

Do you remember
taking that picture?

- [Rodney] Yes.

- Okay.

Now the question is, Mr. Alcala,
how did she end up dead?

- [Rodney] I'm not sure.

- You're not sure?

When we walked out of there,

and after admitting
that, that's my area,

his response with seeing
the picture of her,

statements of being there,

and admitting that
he took the picture,

eventually was
all that we needed

to finally place
him at the scene.

Combined with all
the information

that we gathered on
all the other murders,

all the other homicides
that he committed,

that we had enough to
charge first degree m*rder.

[gentle music]

A large part of me
wanted to extradite him.

But when it got down to
it, he's on his deathbed.

Why should he get a vacation?

Why should he get a
trip out to Wyoming?

He breathed our air once,

he doesn't need to
breathe it again.

Let him stay in that
room and let him,

with that fly and his toenails,

looking at the wall,
let him die there.

- It wasn't justice
because he died peacefully.

Justice would've
been if somebody

was choking him as he died.

And I think to this
day, I stand by that,

because he was very
sanitized in a hospital,

with doctors or
nurses, and he passed,

and that's not justice.

Hopefully he'll get
justice in the next world,

'cause he certainly
didn't get it here.

- The only one consolation
I really can say that I have

throughout all of this is

that my mom passed
away on July 24th.

My mom's birthday
was on July 25th,

and he died in between
those two days.

And I feel that my mother's
probably dancing around,

in heaven, doing cartwheels.

[person laughing]

- Though when I found out
that he died, I cried.

I couldn't stop crying, I
was like, why am I not happy?

I just could not stop crying.

I just cried for all the evil
he brought into the world.

I cried for Tali's
lost childhood,

cried for the mess
of my own life,

but mostly I cried
for all those women

that'll never be
found somewhere,

their parents that
still wait for them,

and it's just a horrible thing.

And every time I
thought about it,

all I could do was cry, because
he died with that secret.

- [Jeff] To me you know,

you could take that
dark thought of,

each one of these photographs
represents a possible victim

and how many more are out there?

Christine's photo stands
out out of all of those.

Here's this beautiful girl
in a bright yellow shirt

with this pretty smile,
looking like she's having

the best day, and
that stood out to me.

And then you look at
all these other pictures

and they're just a bunch of
other Christines out there.

I just wonder to this day,
how many of those photographs

represent somebody who's
not around anymore?

- It's still coming
out of other girls,

women have called my office,
at the time, my office,

to say, how did you
get that photo of me?

The man that took that
photo molested me.

- I did find two
murders in New York

That I believe
Rodney Alcala did.

The witnesses describe
Alcala to a T, it's him.

She's found with the
same type of Garrett knot

and she's strangled
with her own hoisery.

It's definitely him.

- There was certainly a
second batch of photos

that were never recovered.

Maybe they're in the wall
someplace in his mother's house,

were buried in a can someplace.

I can't believe
that Rodney Alcala

ever actually threw them away.

But in that group of photos,

there will be photographs of
Georgia Wixted, Charlotte Lamb,

Jill Parenteau and
probably 50 other people

that he m*rder*d and
took pictures of.

[dramatic music]

You know, if there's a hell,
I know where Rodney Alcala is.

[upbeat music]