Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Dating Game Killer - The Rodney Alcala story

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Rodney Alcala was a contestant on The Dating Game who also murdered a lot of women over the course of several years.

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Now, the contestant's name is Rodney, and Rodney's 25, he's an army vet, living in Los Angeles, and bro is an absolute psychopath, just for like no reason. Like one day in 1968, he sees this eight-year-old girl walking alone, and he pulls up and he's like, hey, want to ride to school? And she gets in his car, and instead of taking her to school, he takes her to his apartment and there he does horrible things to her that I won't get into. But after this police are looking for Rodney and the FBI ends up putting him on the most wanted list. And so Rodney has to go on the run and he goes from Los Angeles all the way to New York

and there he changes his identity and he changes his name and he ends up going to film school at NYU. But Rodney isn't about to change his ways. I mean he's still a psychopath because a few years later he meets a nice woman and she's moving into a new apartment and Rodney offers to help her move some furniture and once he's inside her apartment suddenly bam he attacks her and he strangles her with a pair of nylon stockings until she's unalived. Then he leaves New York City and he travels up to New Hampshire and there he somehow gets a job as a counselor at a kid's summer camp and he lays low there for a few months, but then a couple of his students are at the post office one day, and there just happens to be an FBI's most wanted poster there, and it happens to have Rodney's face on it. So the students are like,

yo, is that our counselor? And they freak out and they report him. And then, boom, Rodney gets arrested, and he takes a plea deal, and they throw his ass in prison. Less than two years later, he gets out. He's a free man. But only two months after he's out, he approaches a 13-year-old girl while he's in his car and he offers her a ride to school and he ends up doing terrible things to her and he gets caught and he gets thrown back in prison again. And then two years after that he gets out again. And he travels from California back to New York City. And there he meets another nice woman and he offers to take modeling photos of her like, hey, you look like a model. I want to take your picture. And she agrees. And once they get alone, he ends up attacking her and unaliving her. And after that,

I guess he travels to Wyoming. And there he meets another nice young woman and he's like, let me take modeling pictures of you. And she agrees and once they get alone, he attacks her and he unalives her too. And after that he ends up back in Los Angeles.

And while he's there, he really uses that whole, oh, you look like a model, let me take your picture bit to lure women in. And he offers to photograph this 19 year old woman and then he unalives her and he dumps her on the side of the road. And he does the same thing to a 27-year-old woman that he meets, he unalives her too. And it just keeps going. About six months later, he kidnaps and unalives a 31-year-old woman.

Now, at this point, the dude's got to feel unstoppable. I mean, he just keeps S-Aing and attacking all these random women, and it's so easy for him. He just, like, asks them if he can take modeling photos of them, and they agree. And then he gets them alone, and then, bam, he attacks. In fact, he's so confident that he'll never get caught, he decides to put himself out there more, and he auditions for a TV show, the dating game, which is apparently the first reality dating TV show ever. And so Rodney auditions for this show, and he's a handsome enough guy, and he makes a decent first impression, and so the producers cast him. I guess they just don't do background checks on these things.

Now, if Rodney wins this show, if he beats out all the other bachelors, the prize is he'll get to go on a date, with the Bachelorette, which means he'll get her alone with him. And we've seen what he does to women when he gets them alone. And so the day comes, and it's time to tape the show. And Rodney goes to the studio, and he's all ready, and they call him out on stage. The 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. He takes, he might find him skydiving or motorcycling. Please welcome Rodney Alcala.

And so then they introduced the Bachelorette. Her name is Cheryl. And then Rodney introduces himself to the Bachelorette. We're going to have a great time together, Cheryl. And then as part of the show, she asks him some spicy questions, and they seem to have a little bit of chemistry. A Bachelor number one, I am serving you for dinner. What are you called and what do you look like? I'm called the banana and I look really good. Can you be a little more descriptive? Peel me. Gross. So anyway, ultimately Rodney ends up winning the game as Cheryl chooses him for the date.

Well, I like bananas, so I'll take one. Number one, that's your number one. All right. Say hello to Rodney Alkalar. Rodney, come on and say hello. Congratulations, Rod, Rod. You did it with the one answer. And so the show ends, and then the contestants, they go backstage.

And Rodney is there, and Cheryl is there, and they're like chatting, and I guess he's trying to, like, ris her up or whatever. But for whatever reason, Cheryl starts getting really weird vibes from him. I imagine he comes across as creepy. And so later, she ends up telling the producers that, I don't want to go on a date with that guy. He seems weird. And so the producers, they end up canceling the date, and she doesn't end up going out with him.

Lucky her. Because not long after that, he goes wrong. right back to assaulting random women. He goes to the apartment of a 21-year-old college student, and bam, he assays her and he unalives her. And if you're wondering how long this guy's going to keep going, finally, Rodney ends up screwing up. Because one day, he meets two 12-year-old girls at the beach. And he's like, hey, let me take modeling photos of you. And I'm not sure if they end up taking the photos, but a bit later, he spots one of the girls alone. And she's riding her bike to class. The girl's name is Robin. And so Rodney pulls up on Robin and he offers

her a ride and she's like, sure. And once he gets her in his car, instead of taking her to class, he drives her out to a nearby canyon and he ends up unaliving her. Here's the thing, though, remember how I said there were two 12-year-old girls at the beach that day? Well, once everyone finds out that Robin's gone missing, police start investigating and they end up interviewing her friend, the other 12-year-old girl. This girl has a really good memory and she's able to give them a detailed description of what Rodney looks like. And from that description, they're able to make this police sketch. I guess this is supposed to be him.

It doesn't really look like him to me, but whatever. Because it does look like him to Rodney's parole officer. Rodney's parole officer sees it and he recognizes him immediately. And so, bam, Rodney gets arrested. Here's his mugshot. And from all that, police end up getting a lead and they go search a story. storage locker that Rodney had rented in Seattle, in Seattle for some reason. And so they searched this storage locker and they find hundreds of modeling photos that he had taken of women.

Some of them were women that he later ended up murdering. But most importantly, they find a bag of jewelry. And in that bag are the earrings that belong to Robin. Earrings she was wearing the day she disappeared. And this is evidence that they end up using against him. And so, Rodney goes through several different trials and appeals, but eventually he gets found guilty and he's sentenced to death. And by the way, they actually think he may have murdered as many as 130 women. 130. But they can't prove them all, so he was only convicted of a few. Anyway, before they can put Rodney to death, he ends up dying in prison of a heart attack. Good for him.