Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Evil Genius: 'Dating Game' killer Rodney Alcala

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

Even as Rodney Alcala was becoming one of California's most notorious serial killers, he was a winner of a 1978 episode of TV's "The Dating Game." Alcala posed as a professional fashion photographer in Los Angeles to lure his female victims to their deaths. He now sits on death row for 5 torture murders in California and he also admitted to killing another 2 women in New York. The actual number of his victims may never be known. Nancy Grace explores the Alcala's killings with criminal profiler Pat Brown, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan, Los Angeles psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, and Crime Stories contributing reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Did you know a recent law can leave your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If you've turned on the news lately, you know the internet has created a dangerous new world. It's time you take back the power by using a new website called Truthfinder. Have you been issued a speeding ticket? Received a lien from the IRS? Did you forget about an embarrassing social media profile? That info may already be online. Truthfinder can help you find it. Truthfinder searches millions of public records, assembling

the data together in one report. Members get unlimited searches, so you can also look up those close to you and make sure they're not hiding something. Visit truthfinder.com slash Nancy. Enter your own name. Get started. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, channel 132. A man possibly linked to the murders of 130 women. And so ironically called the dating game killer. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Why is he called the Dating Game Killer?

Listen. From Hollywood, the dating capital of the world, it's The Dating Game. Here's the star of our show and your host, Jim Black. Hey. Thank you. Thank you very much! Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And welcome to the dating game.

And we'll get right underway. It's time to meet our first three eligible bachelors for game number one. And here they are. Good luck, gentlemen. Well, let's see. Bachelor number one is a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13, fully developed.

Between takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling. Please welcome Rodney Alcala. Rod, welcome. And it's time to meet our young lady for game number one and here she is. Here is a young lady with a wealth of experience. She once earned a living massaging feet but she quit when her boss suggested that she work her way up. Then she taught school in Phoenix, Arizona. Now she's here

to educate our three bachelors in the art of amour. Welcome, if you will, sensational Cheryl Bradshaw. Bachelor number one that you were just hearing about on The Dating Game, whose father found him in the darkroom fully developed at age 12. Wow, how ironic. That very same bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala, is now suspected in the murders of 130 women. And I'll tell you why suspected, not yet proven. John Lindley with me, crime stories investigative reporter along with LA psychoanalyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, professor of forensics at Jacksonville State University, and renowned criminal profiler Pat Brown. First to you, John Limley. Let's start with what we know. Who is Rodney Alcala? I know now why he's called the dating game killer, because he was bachelor number one

and was actually selected by the bachelorette. She picked him, and I'd like to point out wisely, she laid her back down on the first date because she thought he was creepy. She knew something a lot of people didn't pick up on. This guy is creepy, but beyond anything she could imagine. John, take it from the beginning. What do we know about the dating game killer, Rodney Alcala? Well, we know that he was actually a Mexican-American, born in San Antonio in 1951.

His father moved the family to Mexico. After he abandoned them three years later, his mother moved Rodney and his siblings to suburban L.A. when he was about 11 years old. He joined the U.S. Army in 1960 at age 17, where was described as a nervous breakdown, a term that people used for pretty much any mental disorder back in the day, during this time, he went AWOL and hitchhiked from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to his mother's house. He was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder by a military psychiatrist, and he was discharged on medical grounds. We're talking about the so-called dating game killer Rodney Alcala.

We believe that he may be connected to up to 130 brutal murders. Now, we know this. He has already been found guilty of five murders. Now, we know this. He has already been found guilty of five murders. After that, he pled guilty to two more homicides. Interesting, interesting. Many of those murders were in California, others in New York. This guy has murdered women all across the country. So we know for sure of those seven. Prosecutors say that Alcala, quote, toyed with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness, wait until they revive, then rape them and kill them. That is what we know. This is where the 130 number comes from. He was a photographer, as you heard on the dating game. He had compiled a collection of over thousand photographs of women and teens, many of them in explicit poses, many of them in clearly

a helpless position. Then many of them have disappeared. That's how he's being connected to so many women. So John Limley, we know what you've told us about his early life. What more can you tell us? I know it all started in LA when a motorist called police after watching Alcala lure an eight-year-old girl into his Hollywood apartment. When police break in, they find the girl in a pool of blood. They assume that she's dead. She starts gurgling she's alive. What can you tell me about an eight-year-old girl named Tally Shapiro? So in L.A., this eight-year-old girl named Tally Shapiro. So in L.A., this eight year old girl named Tally Shapiro is walking

to school along her path this morning as as she was walking to school. A witness sees someone driving a beige color, beige colored car and following Tally just right behind her. This same witness sees Tally get into the car and thinks the whole scene looks very suspicious. This good Samaritan actually follows the car, then calls police with the location where Tally and the driver get out. It's an L.A. detective that drives to the location, knocks on the door.

A man answers the door but says that he's been in the shower, knocks on the door. A man answers the door, but says that he's been in the shower and needs to get dressed. The cop tells him, okay, you have 10 seconds. When the time's up and the man doesn't return to the door, the detective kicks in the door. What he sees immediately is something no one could ever shake. There on the kitchen floor is the body of this young girl. She and the floor all the way around her are covered in blood. It really seems, the officer says, like too much blood for such a small body. Over to the side, a pair of little white Mary Jane-style shoes and white socks. And there's a metal bar also beside the girl's body.

This is the weapon that the man used to strangle her. Tally had been raped. There was absolutely no breathing. The cop, as you say, thought she was dead. The residence was quickly searched. Wait, let me understand this. An 8-year-old girl raped and beaten with a steel bar and while they're trying to attend to the girl and save her life what happens to Alcala he slips out the back door

he gives them the slip he's completely gone but he leaves behind his ID. They see that it is a Rodney Alcala, a student at UCLA, an undergrad who lives in that apartment. So that's how it all started. But to evade arrest, he leaves the state. He goes to NYU, NYU Film School, under the name John Berger. Then he gets a counseling job at a New Hampshire art camp for children with another alias, John Berger, spelled like hamburger. Listen to what happened with the little eight-year-old girl's case. After the little eight-year-old girl Talia was raped and assaulted, nearly bled to death, beaten with a metal pipe by Alcala, the whole family, Talia's whole family left. They left the country and they refused to allow her to testify at Alcala's rape trial. They could not convict him without their primary witness,

so they let him plead to assault. He got paroled after just 17 months. At that time, there was something called Indeterminate Sentencing Program in California that allowed parole boards to release offenders as soon as they demonstrated any evidence of rehabilitation. Less than two months after that, he was re-arrested for assaulting a 13-year-old girl called Julie

J. She had accepted what she thought would be a ride to school. She had just turned 13. He goes back to jail. I mean, it's Pat Brown, criminal profiler, joining me. It's like literally a revolving door for him. Yeah, you know, it's really shocking because it seems like an awful lot of people did not understand what a psychopath was and what a sexual predator was and what a serial killer was. That would be the psychiatrist, the parole board.

I mean, when we look back at the at the military, they labeled him a psychopath. And then he is put in prison for essentially a serial killer crime, even though the girl didn't die. She should have. So he raped and essentially would have murdered an eight-year-old girl. So he's a sexual child predator and a serial killer because you don't just do one. You'll always have another one. And yet the psychiatrists on the parole board think that you can rehabilitate this guy or that you know, that's even the concept. You know, do you really believe that a person that's that awful, that commits that kind of horrific crime with a serial killer is even material for rehabilitation?

He should never have gotten out. Well, listen to this, guys. And I'm going to throw this to you, Dr. Bethany Marshall. We need a psychoanalyst on this one. Catch this. So he gets out. And then of course, he's caught for marijuana, nothing happens. During this time, Bethany, Alcala convinced hundreds of teens, men and women, he was a professional fashion photographer, and that he needed their photos for his portfolio.

He had thousands of photos, and they were of naked or semi-naked teens, very many of them sexually explicit. And he would convince the girls and young boys to get along with him, to take these photos. Many of them were never seen again. That's why the number is so high as to his potential victims. But we don't know the names of these people. We just have a photo. Dr. Bethany Marshall disguising himself as a professional photographer? Well, what this tells

me is that his entire life was organized around his perversion, his sexual compulsion, and that he put an enormous amount of energy into this. I mean, probably all of his waking hours were spent trolling for victims, perfecting his abilities as a photographer. And I'm thinking about sex addiction as a model. One of the things we see with sex addicts these days is that they will spend hours online looking at pornography, but they will delay ejaculation because they want to stay in a state of arousal. Okay, that's part of what they do. And so if we combine that with Alcala's perversion, his sadism, the pain he inflicted on his victims, I think what he would do is beat, strangle, torture in order to put himself into a state of arousal. But, and then instead of ejaculating, he would just wait until they barely, you know,

slipped into unconsciousness and then came back into consciousness. So he could keep his arousal pattern going. And so when you think of that, you know, as being the MO behind the sadism and the prolonged torture, and then hours and hours spent trolling for victims, this is really quite a compulsion. And I'm not surprised there are at least 130 victims because he put every little ounce of energy into this. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide. Have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody? Maybe suspected your partner's cheating? Maybe worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may need Truthfinder. Public records are only recently easily available online.

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It's not just used to bust bad people. Truthfinder helps Americans reunite with friends, family, even people who served with them in the military. It's never been so easy to find the truth. Go to truthfinder.com slash Nancy and enter any name to get started. that's the sound of a highly popular dating game that was on tv for years and years and years and now the dating game killer it's rodney alcala this case remains unsolved because he is connected to potentially 130 missing or murdered people based on photographs found in his possession there were over 900 photos that were considered too sexually explicit to release. 120 photos have been released to help ID these potential murder victims. With me, Pat Brown, criminal profiler, Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, Dr. Bethany Marshall, and John Limley, CrimeStories.com contributing reporter.

To you, Pat Brown, I want to talk about another victim. Her name, Robin Samso, a 12-year-old little girl. What do you know, Pat? Well, you know, this poor little girl, I mean, she was out with her friend and she was taking a walk and this, you know, creep, Alcala, came up and said, hey. Wasn't she on her way to ballet class? She was. And so, you know, we have a very innocent picture here. She had a wonderful future ahead of her family, you know, thought the world of her. So this wasn't a little girl who went, you know, a sketchy part, who was doing sketchy things. She wasn't doing anything like that. She was going to

ballet class. But Alcala, he was on that whole beach path looking for victims as he would normally do. And, you know, it's really interesting. People always say, well, you know, he specifically has that one in mind. And all they have to do is find one who has a weak moment where they trust the person who is beckoning them into the car. And she had her bicycle with her, and she disappeared with that bicycle, and the bicycle was never found. This is what I know about her. Robin was a 12-year-old little girl from Huntington Beach, California. Somewhere between the beach and her ballet class on a June afternoon, she goes missing. Her body, can you imagine her parents, a 12-year-old little girl walking to ballet class? Her body was found decomposing just 12 days later in the LA foothills. Her little friends told police a stranger approached them on the beach asking to take their pictures. Detectives circulated a sketch of that photographer

and Alcala's parole officer immediately recognized him. After that, they do a search on his mother's home in Monterey Park and find a rental receipt for a storage locker, they find Samsoe's, little Robin Samsoe's earring. Now, according to Alcala, that earring was in fact the one he was wearing on the dating game. And I've carefully looked at his appearance on the dating game, and he is wearing a stud earring. He is in his right ear. His hair is kind of long, like in a man's shag cut. I could never see the left ear, but I saw the right ear, and there is a stud earring in there.

Take a listen to what the prosecutor has to say about little Robin, along with her mother and brother. Robin was in the innocent child stage still. She was on the child side of 12. All she cared about was ballet. He turned this beautiful young girl into a rotting corpse eaten by animals. I wish I had a gun again today. He was blowing kisses at me across the courtroom, and I thought I was going to lose my mind. And I thought I was going to go crazy, you know.

And I reached in my purse, and I was going to grab it, and I thought, I can't do this. You see the gleam in his eye. You can see his eyebrows move. He's enjoying this again. I still look like little blonde girls when they walk past me to see if they'll turn around. I forget a lot of things. Except the most important thing I can't forget, and that's her and how she died. That was the prosecutor on Robin's case, her mother and her brother, as they watched him in court.

To Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert and professor of forensics, the earring that was in a Seattle locker, and he had the receipt for it all the way back home in California, that tells me that he was doing business in seattle and not only that joseph morgan um elsewhere we find another pair of earrings in his seattle storage locker that matched lamb another victim's DNA. What's with the earrings? They're, you know, they're trophies. They're things that he holds onto so that he can remember. You heard the prosecutor talking there about how he could see in this guy's eyes.

He was reliving these moments. And back to what Bethany had said earlier, I got to correct something here. That bar, when we talked about that little girl that was found alive as a miracle, that bar was not used to strangle her. He was compressing that on her neck, Nancy, down to the point where she would almost pass out and then release it. This guy is a sadist. He tortures people, and then he wants to go back and relive it. And the fact that he would stick that earring in his ear and then appear on national television is almost like him in that visceral moment reliving all of these events and the horror that's attached to each and every one of them back to charlotte lamb who was another one of the dating game killers victims

to pat brown criminal profiler that's two sets of earrings in that seattle storage locker Gatill Storage Locker matching up to victims. Why do serial killers keep mementos? Well, you know, it's interesting that actually most serial killers don't keep mementos. They don't bother. But there are those few, especially the sadistic types, who, as everybody has been pointing out, like to prolong the thrill. They don't just jump out of the bushes, nail somebody over the head, rape them in five minutes and run away, and they're done. These are the people that pay attention to every detail while they're doing it. They prolong the event as long as possible,

and then they relive the event as many times as possible. Keeping those souvenirs, they can keep going back just like we go back to a photo album or keep memories of our children, you know, a doll that they had, so that we can look at it again and remember those wonderful times. For him, that's everything to him. That's his hobby. That's his whole life. To us, it's hard to imagine how sick that is, but it's actually very similar to what we regular

folks do with our mementos, only what's attached to his memento are horrific crimes. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psychoanalyst, Dr. Bethany, I don't understand how inflicting pain on someone else gives you pleasure. What is that phenomena? So to put it simply on magnetic resonance imaging tests, what we see with sociopaths is that the part of the brain that's responsible for arousal is underactive. So they're very prone to boredom, feeling empty, feeling isolated, they cannot experience excitement just by like, say, watching a parade or a football game or holding someone's hand. The inner emptiness actually leads to thrill-seeking in some of them in order to feel excited. And then for the most perverse of sociopaths, they use the infliction of pain to enhance their sexual arousal. So the pain centers and sexual arousal are really processed through the same neural nets. So that's why, you know, they don't just

hide in the bushes and shoot somebody. That would be way too easy. They wouldn't get their sexual arousal that way. They actually want to be on top of the victim, strangling them, looking at the fear in the victim's eyes. That's really the MO. So you can tell a lot about a crime scene. Also, you see like the overkill, that there was the blood everywhere. You often don't even just see vaginal penetration, but you see anal penetration, anal mutilating. Anything that the perpetrator can do to inflict pain actually enhances and then, as we keep using the word, prolongs the sexual arousal. So that's why this is the MO. I want you to take a listen to what prosecutor Matt Murphy said regarding the murders of five women, just five of Alcala's many victims. What he was doing was he was choking her out, unconscious, barehanded, and allowing her

to regain consciousness because he enjoyed that. He gets off on the infliction of pain on other people. The conquest and the sneaking around and the rape and the killing and the torture and the sadistic infliction of pain, part of what he enjoys is getting away with it. We're talking about the so-called dating game killer, Rodney Alcala. Right now, so many of his victims, we believe, are missing, have never been seen again. Nearly 200 photos taken from his photo library are now circulating in the hopes that these people can be identified and found. Another thing we know, the extent of his crimes actually caused a task force to be formed by the LAPD and other agencies. They now are examining them as cold cases all across Southern California, but he's tied to so many jurisdictions. Joe Scott Morgan, I've got him in

Seattle with the locker. I have him in New York with the murder of the stewardess, the flight attendant, in New Hampshire where he was a camp counselor, all across California. And what about this? A family member recognized a photo of his as being Christine Thornton, whose body was found in Wyoming. So one of these photos that were released were identified by the victim's family. She had gone missing. They didn't know what happened to her. Her body was found in Wyoming.

So the 130 number is absolutely possible joseph scott morgan yeah apparently this guy has spent a lot of time crisscrossing about uh you know and i can think of one person that comes to mind that this really reminds me of there's actually a couple but primarily bundy uh moving about the country and and and just assaulting people violently and killing them. And it might be a similar pattern to that. And, you know, these guys, you never know if they're telling the truth or not. I've been involved in several serial homicide investigations over the course of my career, and you never know if they're lying or not.

Otis Toole comes to mind. He visited. They brought him down to New Orleans when I was working down there. And he said that he was responsible for all of these cases that we had just to get out of jail. So you don't know what's fact and what's fiction with these guys. But I do know this. He has visited multiple jurisdictions, so I hope that in retrospect that the police that are finding these bodies, they have handled this evidence very, very carefully, Nancy, because you never know scientifically what's going to be a

connection back, particularly as it applies to DNA. Right now, there are victims, I guarantee you, out there that have not been discovered yet. Take a listen to some of the known victims' families. Rodney, I hope you don't sleep at night. I hope you have dreams of us coming after you. Because if there is a heaven and a justice, that's what I'm going to do when I die, is haunt your dreams. And I hope and believe that he will rot in hell. I just pray that I live long enough to watch him be executed, and actually, I think lethal injection is far too humane for anyone like him.

Regardless, I'm waiting for the day for him to die. I only wish that I could be the one to administrate the injection. If there is a hell, I hope Rodney Alcala burns eternally. I wish he would experience the terror he put his victims through. He is truly a devil. He does not belong on this earth.

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 my sister died curled in a ball beaten breast brutally bitten raped head bashed with a rock strangled savagely sodomized with a while a few of her fingers touched her privates, bleeding from her anus and a few drops of blood dripping onto her hand. There's murder, there's rape, there's murder and rape, and there's the unequivocal carnage of a Rodney Kael style murder and rape. 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.

Bachelor number one. Yes. What's your best time? The best time is at night. Nighttime. Why do you say that? Because that's the only time there is. 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. Come on over here. You just heard the so-called dating game serial killer on the dating game giving his answers as bachelor number one. And guess what? He was picked. So he clearly has some type of a charismatic personality. Maybe that's why he's now suspected in luring up to 130 people to their deaths.

John Limley joining me, Crime Stories investigative reporter. You know, I mentioned that he's connected to a storage locker revealing trophies from some of his victims, their earrings in Seattle, a dead body in Wyoming, a dead body, at least one in New York, New Hampshire, where he was a camp counselor, multiple dead women in California. But now I know he's in Washington State, California, Wyoming. What do we know about his traveling? Why was he going from state to state? How did he support himself, John Limley? What do we know about Rodney Alcala? He was always trying to stay one, two, maybe three steps ahead of the law in the wake of his crimes, his murders and rapes. And he would work a little bit as a photographer along the way, but he didn't stay anywhere really long enough to, you know,

really set up a firm foundation as far as a career was going. As we've discussed, he seems to have had this lucky streak that would not end. The California Supreme Court overturned Alcala's first conviction. He was tried, convicted a second time. He was sentenced to death. But once again, that verdict was overturned. And then almost three decades after Robin Samsoe's murder, Rodney Alcala went on trial again. The Samsos, this time joined by four other families.

Is it true, John Limley, that he chose a trial to represent himself, including cross-examining himself over his hair? This complicated legal, the legal challenge for prosecutors greatly that he chose to serve as his own attorney, even though he stands accused of five vicious murders as Alcala addressed the court. addition to, you know, talking about his hair, he's very self-obsessed. It's clear to him throughout the trial that the Robbins-Samsung case really stands apart. Alcala even wrote a book about the Samso case. He was so eager to defend himself, he actually takes the stand. Rodney even calls Robbins' mother's mother Mary Ann as a defense witness. Well, wait a minute. There's more to it. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.A. psychoanalyst, he questioned himself in front of the jury on his hair. He takes a deeper kind of authoritative tone than he typically speaks in. He goes, Rodney, will you please tell us about your hair?

And he says this in front of the jury. And then he gives a very long answer trying to explain that the thick, wavy hair he had when the girls went missing was very different from the composite sketch police released the day after Robin went missing. Remember, she was at Huntington Beach with her little friends, and somebody came up about being a photographer, and she went with them, and she ended up dead. He also questions himself about what he did on that date, June 15. And there, it turns out, he studied photography under Roman Polanski. Now, that's quite the connection, Dr. Bethany. Oh, Nancy, there's so much to say about this, but I will be brief. Do you remember when you covered BTK killer, blind torture kill? He did the same exact thing. He was a serial killer.

He was sadistic. He got on the stand and he was talking in particular about one victim that he had strangled. And he said very, in a very grandiose, pompous way, you know, I'm not that bad because before I strangled her, I comforted her and I offered her a glass of water. And what these serial killers have is something called alexithymia. And what that means is that words that have deep meanings for you and me do not have deep meanings for them. So the word comfort, the word, my hair is great. Please come to the stand. Things that have a richness, tone, emotionality to you and me have absolutely no meaning for them. That's part of the emotional shallow life that they have. And also he's just pompous and arrogant. I mean,

they all are, Nancy. I mean, he probably, when you say having your day in court, this was his day in court to justify everything that he had done. He probably thought he was like enthralling the courtroom. We were talking about the dating game serial killer Rodney Alcala, and he could be very, very charming, but make no mistake, he is a cold-blooded killer. This could be another, easily be another Ted Bundy. You know. It could be 20, 30 victims. I went and talked to his professor at UCLA. And his professor came out and said, this guy is a top honors student. He's a really nice guy. He wouldn't hurt her to fly.

You've got the wrong man. So you've got this monster inside of him. You walk up to camera in hand, polished demeanor. You walk up and say, you want to be in pictures? I mean, basically, he was a skilled photographer. He's right up there. I mean, somewhere just below Hitler. There's no rhyme or reason for what he's doing.

I mean, it's not humane, whatever he does to these victims. It's a torturous, terrible murder. We believe there's more out there. It wouldn't surprise me if we ended up with 10 to 15 more. Okay, you're hearing from the LAPD, and they're talking about just within California. Now, according to testimony, Alcala knocked out and raped a teen girl, Monique Hoyt, while she was posing for photographs. She lived to tell the tale.

Unlike the eight-year-old, Talia, whose family left the country after that and she didn't testify, we now know, when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. Pat Brown, we have a live victim stating that that was his M.O. Lure them to take photographs, maybe get them undressed or not, and then knock them out and rape them. That's how the whole thing goes down, Pat. It does, but it doesn't go down that way all the time. That's why we can't say necessarily every photo he took turned into a victim.

This was his cover. He could be a photographer and some of those girls would come and get photographed and they'd go right back home again. This gives him something to do all the time. He's not necessarily killing everyone. And I want to point something out that I kind of disagree with Bethany about. Serial homicide isn't, even though sadistic, sexually sadistic serial homicide killers, serial killers are not necessarily about sex. This is not their motive is not to get good sex or to get better sex or to prolong sex. It's about power and control. This is using sex and torturing somebody sadistically is the biggest thrill for power and control they can think of.

And this is why once they get arrested, that they often would then extend that power and control into the courtroom. And now they start torturing everybody in the courtroom. They start torturing the families. They start torturing the jury with all the other things. And they get this big thrill out of the power and control they get there. And Alcala even went on to write a book to get more of a thrill. And he's still out there. So, you know, it's not about sex. It's about power and control in the worst way you can control all the human beings. Response, Bethany? Absolutely. It's not sex in the normal sense. You know, one of the descriptions we read about sociopaths is that they relate to others on the basis of power rather than affection. So having power and control is really a dominating force. And another thing to look at is that power and sex are fused. You know, to have sex in a warm, loving way, they would be incapable of that. It's really a part of the act of power.

And then you were talking about, you know, everyone was saying that he was so charming, including his USC professor. One of the other things we know is that they always have a thin veneer of sophistication, like a superficial polish, and that sophistication breaks the minute they are challenged or disagreed with in any way. So some of these victims or possible victims may have been quite kind, sucked up to him, made him feel important. And that was just enough for that day. And then he let them go. Others might have resisted him. And then the power dynamics set in. So, you know, it's hard to know exactly how the crimes went down, but Pat's absolutely correct about the power dynamics set in. So, you know, it's hard to know exactly how the crimes went down, but Pat's absolutely correct about the power dynamics.

100 victims of serial killer Rodney Alcala under investigation. More than 100 photos now released of young women and girls he may have murdered. Listen to this. Before Rodney Alc alcala just like the others a beautiful young woman beautiful after ronnie alcala she's a brutalized ripped up corpse he posed her dead body you're hearing what is going on in a court of law. To Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Joe Scott, explain to me how there is any way we can connect him to some of these 100 pictures. Yeah, you know, when you take a look at these images, so many of them are so innocent. Some of them are so unsuspecting.

And that's what has to be done, I think, moving forward. If there is, I think that as hard as it is, I think that people that have missing loved ones that are out there should be allowed to take a look at some of these photos to see if any of their loved ones are contained therein. Well, some of them, we don't even know who they are. Right. We can't show them to their family because we don't know who they are to find their family. But they are available out there. And I think that if people are in fact missing, missing loved ones from years back, they should be able to look through these photos and see if there is a matching image there. But then again, even if they do recognize maybe a potential family

member, will this fellow even be willing to give them any information? Because as was stated just a few moments ago, he loves power and control. And, you know, I think that they play these dead bodies and these broken hearts like it's a card game to try to bluff people with. And that's what's so hollow about it. You know, and I think that moving forward, you have to be able to, the connectivity is going to be based in the mode in which individuals are killed, how they're disposed of. And also, even after all these years, is there any kind of fiber or DNA evidence left behind to connect these people to? Well, another thing to Dr. Bethany Marshall and also to Pat Brown, first to you, Bethany, he went on the run, that's true, to New York, but under a false name. But he wasn't really hiding, which gives me a clue about his personality. That's when he enrolled in NYU film school and went under the name John Berger.

He was playing the role of a, quote, groovy film student, an amateur photographer, and he moved freely in the New York single clubs, which tells me there are victims there as well. And in the summer months, catch this, he worked at an all-girls summer drama camp in New Hampshire. Oh, my stars. I mean, it's like a hunting ground for him. Well, his perversions drove all of his choices, didn't they? I mean, in the DSM, we have five perversions. We have exhibitionism, sadism, frauderism, which is rubbing up against an unsuspecting person in public. We have voyeurism and then we have pedophilia. And I bet he was just sort of a mix of all those perversions mixed in with sociopathy and being a

serial killer. So, you know, you could take a look at every single move in his life and see that it was motivated by all these complex, you know, perversions and urges and impulses. Alcala under investigation now. 120 of Alcala's photos have been released to the public. You can see them on CrimeOnline.com. How many of Alcala's murder victims still remain out there? Are the cases unsolved? We don't know.

But the investigation goes on. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. There's a brand new website causing a lot of trouble for people with something to hide. Have you ever had a bad feeling about somebody? Maybe suspected your partner's cheating? Maybe worried about your online reputation? If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may need Truthfinder.

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