Cold Case Files - I SURVIVED A SERIAL KILLER: The Dating Game Killer

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

Survivor Morgan Rowan describes for the first time on television how she was brutally attacked in 1968 by social gadfly Rodney Alcala, during a party at his Hollywood home. Just three weeks later, Alcala would abduct and attack 8-year-old Tali Shapiro, who describes her chilling assault in her own words. Morgan and Tali were the only survivors of soon to be serial killer Rodney Alcala, who was convicted of five Southern California murders in the 1970's. Alcala was so wickedly brazen that he actually appeared on an episode of "The Dating Game" during his murderous reign of terror.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Progressive - Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at Shopify.com/survived and take your retail business to the next level today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Listener discretion is advised. Please welcome Rodney Alkalaw. Rod, welcome. He goes on a dating game show, and he's murdering all these young women, and he's getting away with it. You really get a feel of how psychopathic he was. After walking through the front door, my head was cracked open. I hear moaning.

So that split second, I kicked the door in. We got to find this guy before the next child becomes a murder victim. He appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me. I was fighting pretty hard, but I could feel my ribs breaking. The killer loved getting his hands bloody. He was just standing there with my blood all over his shirt, and I just needed to run. Did you throw around?

No. To go down. Real people who faced death and lived to tell how, this is I survived, a serial killer. My name is Morgan Rowan, and I survived a serial killer. It was summer, late August, 1968. I was 16. I was going to be moving away to New York in four nights,

and we were in Hollywood on Sunset Strip. There were hundreds of people. walking around on the street, singing or dancing or whatever. You would just talk to anybody. That night, we drove down to a house. Steve Hodel is a retired LAPD homicide detective. To a party, it's a pot party. There's a bunch of people there.

It was loud, loud music, people talking, smoking pot. Then one of my friends said to me, hey, that's Rodo Cala. And it was his house, and everybody. Everybody knew him on Sunset Strip. He had a big presence. Matt Murphy is a former Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney. Rodney O'Cala is a handsome guy.

He's a student at UCLA getting his degree in film. He was socially successful. And if you're a predator like Rodney Alcala, opportunity abounds. At one point, I walked away from my friends just for a moment. And he just kind of appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me and threw me into his bedroom. I turned around kind of staggered to my feet, and he was holding a metal bar.

He dropped that into some brackets on the back of his door so that you couldn't open his door. He wrapped my hair around his wrist and took his belt off when he pushed it into my throat. and I couldn't breathe. I don't or can't remember much of the rape other than his face really close to mine and how animal he looked rather than human.

I was fighting pretty hard, but he just lifted me by my hair and punched me in the stomach, and I could feel my ribs breaking. He seemed to really enjoy punching me repeatedly against my broken ribs. You really get a feel of how sadistic and how psychopathic he was.

My friends realized that I was missing. Friends started pounding on the door, but they couldn't get past the metal bar. That really angered him, so he put his hands around my neck. Everything got kind of black. It felt like I was falling down a well. On November 10, 1977, 18-year-old Jill Barkham was found murdered on a fire road up in the Hollywood Hills.

She'd been beaten, strangled, raped, posed in a provocative position, and a bloody rock was found next to her head that had clearly been used to smash in her face. The killer loved getting his hands bloody. He was clearly getting off on the torture aspect and bringing as much pain to the victim as possible. Almost exactly a month later, 27-year-old pediatric nurse named Georgia Wickstead was found murdered in her apartment. She had been beaten, she had been strangled, she'd been raped. She was murdered with a hammer, an incredibly brutal, bloody crime scene. But just like Jill Barkham, there were no witnesses, there were no fingerprints, and the leads very quickly hit a dead end.

I was praying for it to be over. Praying because I knew that I was going to die. But suddenly there was a whole lot of commotion, glass breaking. My friends had broken his bedroom window, and I could feel air, cool air. Everybody ran into the room, and he was just standing there naked from the waist down with my blood all over his shirt. And he said, take her. And he says to her friends, I've had my way with her, I'm through with her,

as if she's a possession and object. I just needed to run. And I was wearing nothing but the pieces of a blood. and I ran down the street. And then my friends caught up with me and said, we have to keep running. My friend took me home with him, and his neighbor was a nurse,

and he helped me coughs of blood out of my lungs, and then they taped my ribs for me. A police officer appeared. I'm not sure who called. And I really didn't want to talk to him because I didn't want my parents to know. I wasn't cooperative at all, and he left. and he left.

Regardless of whether she wanted to pursue it or not, the officer had plenty of information, and it should have been reported, and it wasn't. We moved to New York, and I started school pretty quickly after that. We were in New York for about a month, and I got a letter from the girl that had been with me that night, and a newspaper clipping fell out, and it said that Rod El Cala had.

Rod Alcala had raped and almost killed an eight-year-old girl. That was more painful than anything. I just fell to my knees and begged her to forgive me. It was my fault. I hadn't stopped him. But I had no name to track. I didn't even know if she lived. My name is Talley Shapiro, and I survived a serial killer.

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Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June, 24 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary. In 1968, we were living at the Chateau-Mermont off of sunset. And on September 25th, I woke up, I got myself out the door and proceeded to walk to school. She's walking down the street and a man pulls over and says, hey, do you want to ride to school? I'm trying to blow him off as best as eight-year-old little girl can. And she says, my parents told me never to accept rides from strangers. And he says, I'm not a stranger. I know your parents.

And he looked young like somebody my parents knew. So I did get in the car, even though I was hesitant. There's a good Samaritan who sees this and it doesn't look right. He follows this car. And as we were driving, this guy mentioned that he wanted to swing by his place and show me this beautiful poster. At which time, my hair is on my arm stood up and I wanted to jump out of the car. That citizen sees this little girl and this long-haired hippie-looking guy walking guy walking. into a house and he says, this looks a little strange to me.

So he goes to the payphone and calls it in. Pretty much after walking through the front door, I don't recollect anything. Chris Camacho is a retired LAPD patrol officer. I received a radio message about a possible kidnapping to a residence on DeLong Prey. So two officers came to assist me and I started knocking on the door. As I'm waiting, I hear moanings. So that split second, I kicked the door in. And as I entered the residence,

on the kitchen floor is this little girl, spread eagle. And there's more blood coming out of that little eight-year-old than should exist in an eight-year-old. She had a metal bar across her neck, which weighed about five pounds. She wasn't breathing, she wasn't moving. I thought she was dead. Thoughts went through my mind.

Who could do this to a little girl? What kind of a person is capable of that? Ten years after Tally Shapiro was kidnapped and raped, 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb was found in an apartment complex in El Segando, California. She was found naked. The only thing that existed from her clothing was a single shoe, and the lace had been used to strangle her.

She had been raped, she had been tortured, And just like Jill Barkham, just like George Wicksstead, she was found posed in a sexually provocative position. The fact that posing was done in almost all of the murders is a definite good linkage point. But even if this crime signatures were strong, we weren't thinking so much serial killer in those days. So these cases were treated as standalones.

And the leads quickly went cold. I thought she was dead, but I couldn't leave that little girl with that bar across her neck. And I removed the bar, set it to the side, and then Talley was gasping for her. Oh my God, she's alive. So everything then shifted into a different mode. At that moment, this man who apparently lives there, he flees out the back naked. Officer Camacho, he's got this horrible decision, chase the bad guy or save the little girl. I wanted to catch him.

I desperately wanted to catch him. But the decision was to save this little girl's life. Ambulance gets her to the hospital, and she was initially quite critical. She's in a coma for weeks. And when I did regain consciousness, I did recover enough to go back to school, but my parents didn't talk about it. And I never knew what had happened to me. Officer Camacho did see the assailant.

So the first thing the police wanted to do is figure out who this guy is. As we went into the living room, we noticed a wallet laying on one of the end tables. We pulled the ID out and I ID'd that person, Rodney James Akala. But once he had escaped out that back door, we had no luck in tracking him down. We couldn't find him anywhere. We tried everything. And we go down and meet with the FBI, and we got him on the most wanted list.

So it goes out to every podunk town across the nation. We've got to find this guy and get him off the streets before the next child becomes a murder victim. We've got to get this guy. But he managed to evade arrest for years. And what happened was he had moved to New York. He assumed an alias, John Berger, but he gets a job.

at a summer camp in New Hampshire. In August of 1971, I get a phone call from a FBI agent back east. And he says, a couple of teenage girls up in New Hampshire are in the post office. And they look up on the wall and they say, hey, there's our counselor, Mr. Berger. And that's how he got caught.

Rodney Alcala was extradited back to California and immediately charged with kidnapping, rape, child molestation, and torture. A trial date was set, but the big problem was that the victim, Talley, was in Mexico. The parents said, we're not coming back, we don't want her testifying. So it put the district attorney's office in a tough spot, and rather than take a chance on losing it and him being released, completely, they took a plea agreement to child molestation.

In August of 1974, after only 34 months in state prison, the parole board released this man. Into the Wild, into society. Had I known it, I certainly would have contacted his parole officer and said, you know, you keep an eye on this guy because he's going to reoffend. He's going to do it again. In September of 1978, Rodney O'Colla is on parole.

He is a convicted sex offender, and he goes on a dating game show. From Hollywood, a dating game. It's chilling. Bachelor number one. Yes. What's your best time? The best time is at night, night time. Night time is when it really gets good.

The arrogance to actually go on television in front of the whole country looking for more women. Come on, over here. He didn't care what anybody thought. Approximately a year after this dating game appearance, 12-year-old Marvin Samso was on the beach with her friend, and she was approached by a young man who claimed to be a photographer. One of the moms in the neighborhood saw this because it looked creepy and approached this man who kind of scurried off down the beach.

A short time later, Robin borrowed a friend's bicycle and she was going to class. The operating theory is that this man came up and offered her a ride to the ballet lesson. She actually got into his car voluntarily so she wouldn't be late. And she was never seen alive again. On July 2nd, a forest worker found a tennis shoe that belonged to Robin Sand. Samso and human skull. Robin Samso's friend who actually saw this photographer approach and say, I want to take your picture.

He met with a forensic sketch artist. And they actually did a composite drawing of the suspect, and this composite drawing was circulated. A parole officer said, hey, you know, I got a parolee. His name is Rodney James Alcala. He fits this crime signature. You might want to check him out. And right after getting the tip, one of these hunting

to meet's detectives, turns on the TV, and that was the day that the dating game episode aired again. I'll take one. Number one. Salation, Rod, you did it with a one answer. And sure enough, it looks like the sketch. Rodney Alcala was arrested soon after that. After Alcala was arrested, they found some receipts

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There's been a growth miscarriage of justice for being found guilty as something that I didn't do. It was reversed and then tried again in 1986, but it got up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal and it was reversed again. So twice convicted, twice sentenced to death, and then twice reversed. He remained in prison, but it was a huge circus. All of these victims, parents and family, loved ones were put through. He gets all this consideration. What about my family? But in 2003, forensic science caught up to Rodney Alcala.

They obtained Alcala's DNA, which was something that was unheard of in my day. And they put it into the database. And that database is then compared to unsolved of its murders over the years. And when they did that, bingo Rodney Al Callas' DNA turns up in three of the four Los Angeles murders. Georgia Wicksford, Charlotte Lamb, and Jill Barkham originally, we were going to try him on Robin Sampso alone. So the case just got stronger and stronger as we went. So in January 2010, Rodney O'Colol's third trial is finally up. And of course the jury heard about all these other horrific crimes.

We, the jury, fix the degree thereof, murder in the first degree. Once he's convicted in California for death penalty cases, you go into what's called the penalty phase. And we really wanted to bring in Talley Shapiro. It sort of closed the loop. He should be put down. I don't think he should breathe another day, honestly. I just think my willingness to be there and to be present, said enough. As I watched on the news, they showed the brave eight-year-old survivor and, oh, my God, she had a name.

You know, and it was like Tali Shapiro. It was wonderful. It was just wonderful. The penalty to be imposed upon defendant Rodney James O'Culler to be death. Yeah. But Rodney O'Cola died on July 24th, 2021 in prison. All right. Here's a look at some other top stories this morning.

Convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala died in prison of natural causes at the age of 77. When Rod died, I cried. I cried for the evil. He's brought into this world. I cried for Talley's lost childhood. He didn't win. But unfortunately, a lot of people lost, so that's horrific. It took me a long time to realize that when evil touches you,

It changes you, but it doesn't own you. Eva will never own you. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light, and I was transported to another place. Pluto TV! Then I heard a voice. Come with me if you want to live.

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