RedHanded - Episode 377 - Rodney Alcala: The Dating Game Killer

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

​​One of the most prolific serial killers in America's so called 'golden era', Rodney Alcala is responsible for the deaths of at least eight people, although the true number is likely much higher. Yet few people have even heard of him. In fact his ability to narrowly avoid any real consequence for his multiple sexual assaults and violent murders, often on young girls, was so prolific that he even had the chance to appear on one of America’s biggest TV quiz shows... which he won.Hannah and Suruthi revisit their coverage of the Dating Game Killer – one of the most uncomfortable cases we’ve ever covered.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Sruti. And welcome to Red Handed. We're doing something completely different. We've never done this before. No. Whole new world. Katie Price is Eurovision entry over here. Under the eminent glow of Anna Kendrick's eternal wisdom,

we're going to flip the script for you today. Quite literally. The story we've got for you today as our full fat red-handed is one that we've done before, but it's not quite a normal episode. The Dating Game Killer was our live show for a couple of years and we never ever released the recording. The case is famous, it's creepy and it's dumbfounding. A true reminder that psychopaths walk among us and quite a lot of them end up on TV. I am now up to date with maths to be discussed. Everyone is talking about Rodney Alcala right now, so we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to fill you in on the bits that the Netflix drama Woman of the Hour left out.

So here we go. The Dating Game Killer, red-handed edition. This man terrorised California between 1971 and 1979, with 1979 being his deadliest year of all. And we don't need to tell you that the 70s in California was prime time serial killer season, a fact that the development department at Netflix have been cashing in on for a good few years now. Like many of his contemporaries, swathes of duvet detectives suspect that the man we are telling you about today is responsible for a load more murders

than he was ever pinned for. But pinned by the LAPD, he very, very eventually was, after years of flying under the radar. The man at the centre of our story first came into the crosshairs of the LAPD in 1968 on the 25th of September. That day, eight-year-old Tali Shapiro had no idea what was about to happen. All she knew was that her family home had burned down recently, so she and her parents were staying at the Chateau Marmont while they figured out their next move.

And you probably recognise that name. The hotel is famous for loads of stuff. John Belushi's fatal overdose, the set of The Seven Year Itch, and also Johnny Depp and Kate Moss claiming to have shagged in every single room. Probably. I believe them.

But put all the star-studded stories aside. For our story today, all the Chateau Marmont was, was a temporary home to the Shapiros. And that morning, Tally walked herself off to school down Sunset Boulevard. As Tally Shapiro wandered down one of the most famous roads in the world, a car pulled up beside her. The man in the driver's seat of this beige, unlicensed car asked little Tally if she wanted a lift to school. At first, Tally ignored the straggly-looking man, but when he told her that he had a picture he wanted to show her,

the eight-year-old girl changed her mind. She got into the car and the pair sped off. Not to Tally's school, though. They headed straight to the man's apartment. But thankfully, the exchange between the scruffy man driving the unmarked car and the eight-year-old on her way to school hadn't gone unnoticed. Tally, hopping into the beige car, had been witnessed by none other than Detective Steve Hodel.

Now that name might be ringing some distant Hollywood bells for you, but muffle those clangers, because we will deal with Steve's legacy later on. I'd totally forgotten that bit. Me too. When I was reading through this, I was like, oh yeah, Steve! Me too. For now, just pretend that Steve is a normal copper.

And he did what he should have done, because he sent an officer after the car and to the man's apartment. And when the officer knocked on the door, a man's voice called out, and he said that he'd just got out of the shower, and that he'd be with him in a few minutes. He wasn't, the man hightailed it out the back window of his apartment instead. After waiting for ten seconds, the officer kicked the apartment door in

and was met with the sight of eight-year-old Tally Shapiro lying in a pool of her own blood. Her head had been caved in and her white Mary Jane shoes were lying forlornly by her side. Tally was naked, she'd been raped and she wasn't breathing due to the iron bar that had been left on top of her throat. As the officer looked around the abandoned apartment, he noticed heaps of camera equipment, photographs, but notably no assailant. And just then, eight-year-old Tally Shapiro started to gag.

And then she started to breathe. And then she started to look like she was going to make it. Tally was rushed to hospital, where she did eventually make it. But the man was long gone. His back window escape plan had paid off. However, not being the brightest pixie in the forest, he had left a vital piece of evidence behind. The most identifying of all identifying pieces of evidence, an ID card. Doesn't get much better, does it? No. Apart from a passport, maybe.

No. But actually, your passport doesn't have to have your current address, does it? No, it doesn't. So there you go. ID card left behind. I don't know why I keep thinking of like monogrammed napkins. It's the modern day equivalent of the Victorian monogrammed napkin being left behind. I'm sure there was a monogrammed handkerchief and it is old and timey vampire Peter Curtin, I think.

Possibly. PK. The old PK with his monogram. But it wasn't actually his. It was someone else's. He was a PK. The double bluff. So yes, our man has left behind an ID card.

It was a student card, to be exact, from local university, UCLA. And the name on the card was Rodney Alcala. Now, Alcala isn't a particularly common name, so it was easy for the police to find him on the student register at UCLA. Turned out that Rodney was a fine art student. So armed with this information, Steve Hedell took himself down to UCLA and spoke to some of the lecturers. They all said that Rodney Alcala was a charming young man, and there was no way that such a nice boy could have committed such a heinous crime. But we know that he definitely, definitely did.

Once Tally Shapiro was out of the woods, medically speaking, following the brutal assault and attempted murder, the whole Shapiro family moved to Mexico, and they didn't talk about the horrific ordeal for years. Classic pasto way of dealing with them. Rodney was put on the FBI's most wanted list but nothing

happened. Despite the LAPD's effort, they just couldn't find him. The nice and charming fine arts student had vanished into thin air. So who was this vanishing man? Where had he come from? And how had he ended up abducting little girls in white shoes on Sunset Boulevard?

I'm going to tell you. He was born in San Antonio, Texas, with the name Rodrigo Jack Zalcala Bocor. Overall, he was normal. He performed well in school, played piano, did running, was on the yearbook committee and had multiple girlfriends. His dad left when he was 11 to start a new family, but that happens to loads of kids and not all of them turn out to be homicidal maniacs. But Rodney did. After his dad left, little Rodders, his mum and his four siblings, moved to a residential neighbourhood in LA.

And after he finished school, Rodney Alcala, like so many serial killers in the making, joined the army. He wanted to be a paratrooper, but they stuck him behind a desk. And he did a few years as a clerk instead. Not quite the military hero parachute dream that Rodney Alcala had hoped for. You would be disappointed, wouldn't you? Yeah, like, it's not why people like Rodney Arcala want to join the army. Even so, thus far in his life, Rodney Arcala did a pretty good job at fitting in. But his time in the military did highlight some rather serious mental health concerns. His mental state became difficult to ignore in 1964 when his biological father died, and although Alcala didn't have a particularly

close relationship with him, his dad's passing sent Rodney into a tailspin. So much of a spin that he walked off the army base he was stationed at in North Carolina and hitchhiked, quite literally, across the country to his mum's house in Monterey Park, California. That's a 37-hour straight-shot drive. And he didn't have a car. No. After this enormous trek, Alcala showed up at his mum's house, understandably a bit worse for wear, and eventually handed himself back into the armed forces for going AWOL and abandoning his post.

Desertion is serious business, but due to his erratic state, apparent nervous breakdown and possible disconnect from reality, Rodney Alcala was sent to a hospital rather than a prison or court-martial. And during his time on a psych ward, he was found to have an IQ of 140, which is high, but not genius level, no matter what Piers Morgan wants you to think. And I put that in because when Piers Morgan interviews Paris Bennett, he's like, genius, and he's got like 138 or something. And I'm like, no, it's not. I mean, I have my problems with the IQ testing system anyway, but you can't just say

things and make them true peers. Yeah, I think it's just classic. The media is obsessed with this idea. We've seen it all the time about killers being geniuses. And it's definitely like this Hannibal Lecter effect and in so few cases is that reality if the id card didn't give it away we will go on to find out that Rodney Arcala is not a particularly smart man I mean come on and you could be saying this to be like well it's a past okays it happened years ago like police work wasn't where it was everybody wasn't watching CSI and obsessing about true crime on the internet. Everybody didn't know how to cover up a crime. Though I would argue the idea is pretty fucking basic stuff.

Look at Brian Koberger. The Idaho student murders case. The fucking media hair on fire reaction to it. Oh my god, he's a criminology PhD student. He's a fucking genius. I'm like, he left his fucking sheath, the knife sheath

at the bloody crime scene in the bed of one of his victims. Allegedly, allegedly, it was waiting for the trial. But look, come on. Yeah, we're working on a top secret project and we record near where I went to uni. So we were there the other day and I was like, oh, I'll walk through it because like the, it's not campus uni, but like where the university buildings are,

there's a public thoroughfare. So I was like, oh, I'll just walk through, have a look. It's all exactly the fucking same. Everyone looks the same. It's exactly the same. And I turned the corner and this girl just goes, oh my God, Hannah Maguire. And I was expecting it to be like someone I knew from uni.

I think her name was, as she told me what her name was, I was like, I'm never going to say that right. Hasmina or something like that. She was a huge fan. And I was like, oh, do you go to SOAS? And she was like, yeah, gonna say that right Hasmina or something like that she was like huge fan like and I was like oh do you go to sow ass and she's like yeah yeah I do law but I also do criminology at UCL and I do that because of you no no it's like well thank you but you do it because of you I always find like whenever we meet um listeners and they're like oh like I I'm a social worker because of you and I'm like no no no like you're it's you're doing that yeah

it's nothing to do with us don't don't give us the credit we deserve zero so hi Hasmina, Jasmina I'm sorry if I got your name wrong but it was nice to meet you and she was like I listened to you when I ran the marathon I was like I'm sorry you're a law student and you run the marathon you make me sick you make me sick anyway IQ aside much more disturbingly, while in hospital, Alcala was diagnosed with chronic and severe antisocial personality disorder, which is the umbrella term for personality disorders including narcissistic personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and of course, sociopathy and psychopathy. The army weren't keen on re-enlisting Alcala after his diagnosis, so he was discharged on medical grounds. And with the army well and truly done with him, Rodney Alcala went back to his mum's and eventually enrolled in UCLA, specialising in photography, like every single pervert in the world. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media.

To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher

Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery+. You can join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Now, we already know that during his enrollment at UCLA, Rodney Arcala raped, attempted to murder Tali Shapiro, and narrowly escaped the police. But then he skipped town. And it was such a successful skip that the FBI actually lost track of him.

He's on the most wanted list and they just have no fucking clue where he is. Yeah. Although we should say that it doesn't seem like disappearing totally was that hard to pull off at the time. All Alcala had to do was head up to New York and change his name. God knows what he told his mum.

Yeah, really, he doesn't have to try that hard. He's not, like, getting plastic surgery and, like, it's not tough. Absolutely. And in New York, Rodney Alcala changed his name to John Berger. He enrolled in NYU, where he studied film, under none other than mega-pedo and all-round sack of shit, Roman Polanski. Yes. Who was actually set to face civil trial in LA next year, represented by the very same

scum-slug in human suit that defended Epstein and Cosby. Yes, that is an update since we did this as a live show. He is, I mean, he's not going to go to prison, but he's going to have to give someone a lot of money, which is something. But even though Alcala exceeded under his pedopedagogy, John Berger never graduated from NYU. He just vanished. Again.

He just so happened to vanish around the time that 23-year-old flight attendant Cornelia Crilly was found murdered in Manhattan in June 1971. Cornelia was discovered with her bra stuffed in her mouth and stockings tied around her neck. She'd been raped and there were deep bite marks on her breast. Her apartment showed no signs of forced entry. Berger, or should we say Alcala, was even questioned by the police about Cornelia's death before he disappeared. Rodney Alcala admitted that he was the last person to see Cornelia alive, but he just dropped her off at her door.

He never set foot inside her apartment. Whether the NYPD believed him or not is irrelevant because Rodney Alcala was well on the run again before they could even think about arresting him. After this run-in with the law, New York City was just too hot for Alcala slash Berger. So he got himself a job in New Hampshire as a councillor at a kids' performing arts summer camp, using his fake name, Mr John Berger. He clearly didn't feel like the heat was high enough in the land of live free or die to come up with another identity.

But this guitar-strumming campfire gig didn't last long. Alcala's camp councillor caper all came crashing down when two of the happy campers were in the local post office one day. They cast their dramatic young eyes over the FBI's most wanted list that was pinned to a notice board in the post office and instantly

recognised their councillor amongst the list of the most dangerous men in the country. It's like some sort of B-rated horror film. Yeah, it's like Goosebumps. So the next day the police showed up to arrest this Mr. Burger whose fingerprints were an exact match for the Tally Shapiro crime scene. Soon enough the police figured out who this Burger character really was

and he was taken to trial. Tally Shapiro's family refused to come to LA for the trial and due to an unfathomable quirk in the system, that meant that Alcala wasn't charged with attempted murder, only child molestation. And we say only not because child molestation is a trivial crime, but because the prison sentences at this stage in our earthly hellscape were usually very short. And this conviction was no different.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think what it must have been is because Tali Shapiro and her family wouldn't testify, maybe they didn't want to double jeopardy him. And they were like, we'll just go for child molestation and work on it. Perhaps. Anyway. and they were like, we'll just go for child molestation and work on it. Perhaps. Anyway, Rodney Alcala was sent to prison in 1971 and he was out in just 34 months. Just like that, he was back in Los Angeles County on parole and went right back to his mum and straight back to his old tricks. Almost immediately, Alcala hit up one of his favourite haunts, Huntington Beach.

And it was there, on an October morning in 1974, the very same year he was released, by the way, that Julie Johnson was waiting for her school bus. And exactly as he had done with Tally Shapiro a few years before Alcala told Julie Johnson that he had some photos that he wanted to show her and Julie got in his car when Julie realised that they were actually heading straight past her school she screamed and attempted to jump out of the car but Alcala held her inside and continued to drive

until they reached the bluffs on the Pacific Highway. There Alcala turned to Julie and asked her if she got passionate when she was loaded and then handed her a joint. Just then a park ranger gave the air a big old sniff and the smell of weed took him right up to Alcala and the captive Julie. Julie screamed at the ranger that she was there against her will and wanted to go home. Alcala said they were just hikers having an innocent little break

in a car. The ranger didn't know what to do, so he decided to arrest the pair of them. Alcala didn't even bother to give a fake name this time. So when the ranger ran his name through the system, he immediately found out that Alcala was not a hiker at all. He was a sex offender on parole for child molestation. Why does Alcala give him his real name at this point? I don't know. this is what i mean is he hot he's just like oh my god i can't think of a name rodney alcala

what well i was talking to producer alex about it the other day he went to um john ronson did a psychopath test event the other week and he had colin stack the one who was honey trapped over the rachel niquel murder oh yeah yeah he was a guest and then also like surprise louis theroux and he had Colin Stack, the one who was honey-trapped over the Rachel McHale murder. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was a guest, and then also, like, surprise, Louis Theroux. And apparently, obviously, we deal with psychopaths all the time, but Alex was like, it really reminded me that, A, it's one in 100 people, so you've definitely met one.

And also, not all of them are smart. Less than a quarter of them are this hyper intelligent thing we have. And, you know, his IQ may be high, but as I've said, ad nauseum, IQ only tests a very small part of what we perceive intelligence to be. So maybe he's really fucking good at verbal reasoning. I just think he's really fucking stupid. I don't even think it's what we often see, this false sense of grandioseness, that he's like, oh, I'm too good. They're never going to catch me.

I really just think he's dumb. Yeah, and it does seem like a lot of the stuff he's doing, he's just sort of stumbling around, getting away with it. Like it's not really clearly thought out. But it is shocking to me that he gives the police officer his real name because, yeah, like I said, he does a search, immediately finds out that this guy is who he is. And so Julie was allowed to go home

and Alcala went straight back to prison on kidnapping and sale of marijuana charges. He did two years inside before being released yet again. Unsurprising, but infuriating nonetheless. Living freely once more, Rodney Arcala wasted no time and got a job as a typesetter at the LA Times, who, in an astonishing display of journalistic integrity, didn't bother to check whether Rodney Arcala,

this man they had just hired, was a sex offender or not. I don't believe the sex offender register even existed back then. But it's very easy to find out. Just a background check. Quick little background check. I just feel like so much of this was just not on anybody's radar at the time. I mean, it was shockingly recently,

only after Holly and Jessica were murdered in this country, did we start doing DBS checks on people who work in schools. That is unbelievable. We were in school. Uh-huh. They were the same age as us. And, you know, DBS only show convictions. Yeah, of course.

But it was better than nothing. Something. Better than nothing. Something. Better than nothing. So Alcala also convinced his parole officer that he just absolutely had to be allowed to go to New York. And even though he had literally attempted to murder two children, for some reason, Alcala was allowed to go. That's bonkers to me, because it's not like they don't know what he's done. It's not like he's served prison time under two different identities and they haven't connected the dots.'t know what he's done. It's not like he's served prison time under two different identities

and they haven't connected the dots. They know what he's done. So in the summer of 1977, Rodney Arcala headed up north to his old Manhattan haunts and took up his old name, John Berger. That summer was the very same summer that the son of Sam was doing his Samming and also of the great New York City blackout that trapped 800,000 people on the subway for hours.

And during this summer of darkness and shootings, Alcala came across a young socialite called Ellen Hover. Ellen was not his usual victim type. She was an adult for a start. She was 23. And Ellen was famous. Her father owned the legendary Hollywood nightclub Ciro's, and she had two formidable godfathers, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin. So Ellen Hover was hardly a low-profile or low-risk victim. But that didn't stop him. On the night of the great blackout, Ellen was spotted talking to Rodney Alcala, and I think we can pretty safely assume he was offering to take photos of her.

Why someone as wealthy and well-connected as Ellen Hover would want pictures taken by a nobody with weird hair is anyone's guess. Still though, Ellen agreed to meet Alcala for lunch the day after the blackout. And we know that for a fact, because Ellen Hover disappeared. And when her apartment was searched by authorities, they found her diary. It had been left open, and on the day of the 15th of July, she had written the name John Berger. She also had dinner plans that same day, to which she had never shown up.

Just like Cornelia Crilly, there was no sign of forced entry into Ellen Hover's apartment. But unlike the case of Cornelia Crilly, there was no sign of forced entry into Ellen Hover's apartment. But unlike the case of Cornelia Crilly, there was no sign of Ellen. And despite her wealthy family hiring a PI and offering a hundred thousand dollar reward... In the fucking seventies? Yeah. No

one found any clues as to where she might have disappeared to. There was no leads anywhere at all. Ellen Hover's body was recovered a year later, buried under rocks on the banks of the Hudson River. She was identified via dental records and her jewellery. A cause of death has never been determined.

Rich and influential, Ellen Hover may have been. But in 1977, New York, there were 17,000 active missing person cases. And on top of that, the NYPD were quite busy trying to track down the son of Sam. And so, Ellen fell quite low down on their list of priorities. So, the metaphorical escape window was left open for Alcala yet again. So he dropped the burger persona and went back down to his old job at the LA Times, who, once again, didn't bother to look him up.

And there he built a reputation as a hard-working, charming, cool-as-a-cucumber, never-flustered-by-fame type of guy. How he managed these character reviews is a real mystery, considering he showed his photographic portfolio to his colleagues all the time, which is obnoxious enough in itself. But how no one at the LA Times was concerned that Alcala's body of work was almost entirely images of naked children, is staggering. Maybe they thought he was just an avant-garde kind of guy and had parental permission to capture sexually suggestive poses of children. But I don't really want to give them that credit.

I think they just didn't fucking care. Posing the bodies of his victims in a similar way would soon make it into Arcala's murder MO, as his next victim would soon reveal. In November 1977, the body of Jill Barker was discovered in the Hollywood Hills on Mulholland Drive. Does anyone know what that film is about? Nope. Nice, sure as fuck don't.

No, thank you. So like so many, Jill had moved to LA to become a star. But before she could make it, she was brutally tortured to death and posed just like the Black Dahlia, left out in the open for all to see. She had only been in LA for three weeks before her violent death. Jill was just 18. And those of you who have listened to us bang on about Root of Evil over the years will know that this is not our first Black Dahlia connection in this episode.

Earlier on we introduced you to the eagle-eyed LAPD detective Steve Hodel. Steve is the son of George Hodel, who many believe, Steve included, to have killed Elizabeth Short, a.k.a. the Black Dahlia, in 1947. If you still have not listened to Root of Evil, please return your podcast pass at the door because it truly cannot be topped.

And I don't know what you're waiting for, in all honesty. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. And I hate to follow up something really good, as in the Root of Evil, with something really, really bad. But we do have to get back to Jill Barkham and more specifically how she was found. Jill's body was discovered on all fours. Her face had been tucked against her chest so far that her neck was broken. She was naked from the waist down. Her breasts had been bitten and one of her nipples had been severed off. It was clear to those on the scene that Jill had met her end after her head was caved in with a rock. Everyone who lived nearby, on or around the iconic Mulholland Drive,

was questioned by police. No one had seen anything, even mumbling Marvel Marlon Brando, whose house happened to be right next to the patch of land where Jill Barkham's remains were found. Back up north, the NYPD had wrapped up the Son of Sam situation and also connected Rodney Alcala to his John Berger alias. And then they'd realised that the last person to see Ellen Hover was a convicted child rapist.

It took them a while, but they did get there in the end. Down in the Golden State, however, Rodney Alcala wouldn't be connected to the tragic murder of Jill Barkham for years. And that's because, well, several reasons. The LAPD were barking up the wrong tree right out the gate, this being the 70s in California. They assumed that Jill Barkham had fallen victim to the Hillside Stranglers, who were running rampant in the same area at the same time. Interestingly enough, Jill Barkham actually knew one of the Hillside Stranglers' victims, someone called Judith Miller.

Judith had been killed by the Hillside Stranglers two weeks after Jill's own death. Judith Miller was just 15. The Hillside Stranglers weren't the only murderous bastards rampaging around California at this particular moment in time either. There was the freeway killer, who raped, tortured, murdered, and left

21 men and boys by the side of the road. Then you've got the machete murderer, who stabbed at least 25 migrant labourers to death, chopping them up and leaving them in easily discoverable shallow graves. Then, of course, there's Richard Chase, who was vampiring around Sacramento, and Patrick Wayne Kearney, who was raping dismembered bodies that he left on the freeway.

Then the Southern Californian Strangler, who was drugging and torturing his victims and also leaving them on the side of the road, and did this a massive 51 times. There was a lot going on. Alcala was briefly put in the frame for the Hillside Strangler case, but he had solid gold alibis for every confirmed kill. He was caught again, though, for weed possession and did six more months in prison, unsurprisingly just a month after his release., Rodney Arcala was at it again. And I'm not talking about the weed possession.

Not just that. That plus yes. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face-to-face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness. And inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada,

as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose,

it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up, and I hit rock bottom, but I made no excuses.

I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. In December 1977, the LAPD opened the door to 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wickstead's apartment in Malibu, and they were met with the stench of death. It was clear that Georgia had been dead for some time. Her body was found in her bedroom, posed like Jill Barkham's had been. Georgia's body was covered in injuries as well, a great majority of which had clearly been inflicted while she was alive.

She had also been forcibly penetrated by an object. There were tights tied around her neck, and blood was absolutely everywhere, and so was semen. Horrific, obviously, but these days that would have been quite good news. The killer's DNA was absolutelymen. Horrific, obviously, but these days that would have been quite good news. The killer's DNA was absolutely everywhere. But this was the 70s, so all of that semen was totally useless to investigators. Although you could quite reasonably argue that police should have paid a bit more attention to the fully intact palm print that was left at the scene.

But they didn't. After George's death, a new task force was assembled by the LAPD. Because that year alone, 11 women had disappeared in Hollywood. Hollywood is small. Yeah. That's terrifying. And it was decided that it was about time something was done, or at least look like it was being done.

Panic swept through the city, and the LAPD were nowhere near close to catching the killer. So it should come as no surprise that this new investigative team did nothing to slow Rodney Alcala down. Perhaps the widespread hysteria and press attention spurred him on, because he struck again in June 1978. I think maybe it's that, but I also don't think he's paying that much attention either. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think we can know, but the one thing is clear that it's not stopping him. No. So his next victim's name was Charlotte Lamb.

She was a 31-year-old legal secretary living in Santa Monica. One night, she had called her friend, asking him to come to a club with her for her birthday. Charlotte's friend declined her invitation because he was staying with his girlfriend that night. No one ever heard from Charlotte Lamb again. Quite difficult to live with that, wouldn't it? I mean, we don't know, but I feel like she rings her mate. She's like, it's my birthday. Can we go? There's this new club. And he goes, no, I'm staying with my girlfriend. And then she just goes on her own and now Carla's there. Yeah, that feels like it fits. Unlike Georgia Wickstead, Charlotte Lamb was not found in her own home.

Charlotte's body was discovered a 15-minute drive away from where she lived, in the laundry room of an apartment building, where she did not live. We don't even think she'd ever been there before. And like so many others before her, Charlotte Lamb was posed naked on the floor. She had been strangled so forcefully that her hyroid had been fractured. And in a weird theatrical twist, a sandal was tied around Charlotte's neck with a shoelace. Semen was, once again, everywhere, but still totally useless.

The landmark Colin Pitchfork case was still a decade and an ocean away. Without DNA science in their forensic arsenal, the LAPD were floundering and under astonishing pressure to crack the case. Now, you might think that Alcala would have tried to lay low, maybe taken another jaunt up to New York. But you would be very wrong. As we almost always see with serial killers, the gaps between Alcala's kills were getting smaller and smaller.

He had no intention of going anywhere or stopping. And instead of jumping on a greyhound or skulking into the shadows, in September 1978, Rodney Alcala, the child raping murderer, appeared on national television as a contestant on The Dating Game. The Dating Game is essentially American Blind Date. The host is certainly no Cilla Black, but the producer, Chuck Beres, is worth our attention for a moment. In his memoir, Chuck claimed to be a CIA operative who had killed 30 people in service of the US government. This claim turned out to be total bullshit, but did shift some books. What a mad thing to claim.

Isn't it? Like, my life is so boring. I've produced a couple of TV shows, but, to be fair, I don't know if I would read the autobiography of the producer of The Dating Game. Even if he had killed 30 people as a CIA operative. But The Dating Game show and this particular episode that Rodney Alcala was on is the key thing that we're interested in here. And we have got a few clips clips so let's have a little listen a bachelor number one i am serving you for dinner oh 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. And obviously when we first did this show, it was live, so we had the visuals. This is audio, so I'll just clear some things up for you. What you just heard is the contestant, who's called Cheryl, being a normal person, and then you heard extraordinarily not normal person,

Rodney Arcala, as Bachelor Number One. And it really doesn't take very long for things to get very weird and uncomfortable. Just like the LA Times, no-one on the the dating game production team bothered to background check any of the cast. And I'm sorry if your insides are on the outside, but we're not done. 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. Oh, honey, we had to go out and boogie. After that performance, it may surprise you to learn that Bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala, actually won this episode of The Dating Game. And he and Cheryl were supposed to ride off into the sunset

on a first date comprised of tennis lessons and a trip to Magic Mountain. But Cheryl refused to go. After spending just a few moments alone with Arcala, she said that he gave her the creeps and so the date was called off. Is Cheryl the one that Anna Kendrick is playing?

I don't know. I didn't get to that bit. Let's check. Yes. Got ya. So yeah, Cheryl makes absolutely the right decision here in not wanting to go out with Alcala. And Cheryl wasn't the only one on set who was unnerved by him. The other bachelors featured in that episode didn't love Mr. Rodney either. Bachelor number two can actually be seen leaning away from Alcala during the episode.

And everyone behind the scenes also said that Alcala was abrasive and arrogant, frequently interrupting them when they spoke and telling them over and over again that he always got the girl. And, you know, you can't... There is no checklist of how to spot a psychopath, but the only thing that

we've consistently found is that they can make you feel uneasy and you don't really know why and that's clearly what happens to Cheryl possibly the other bachelors but I think he was probably a bit more abrasive with the men than he was with Cheryl. So just pay attention to that feeling. And we deal with psychopaths so much that I think we sometimes skate over the basics. So let's recap some of the ways in which psychopathy presents itself in people. All of the traits that Saruti just described for you are pretty classic.

Rodney Alcala is never panicked. He's never neurotic. He repeatedly fooled police and medical staff as well. He had no problem killing high-profile targets or appearing on national television during a manhunt and a murder spree. And that actually makes sense. Producers of shows like The Dating Game

need people who will be actively flirty, a bit glib, charming, immune to nervousness and, of course, single. Do you remember what we did at this particular moment in the show? No. Really? No. It was your audition tape for First Dates. Oh, yeah. How far things have come.

I honestly forgot about that. I remember now. Not a real audition tape. We did a mock audition tape for First Dates. I can't even remember what I said in it. I can't remember a thing. Blank. So anyway, having said that, like all narcissists, Alcala did not take rejection well. And he decided that Cheryl not wanting to go on a date with him was nothing to do with his demeanor or even with him, you know, being a child rapist,

Alcala was convinced that Cheryl, like all women, was just playing hard to get. And fuelled by his inability to process rejection, soon after his television debut, Alcala was searching for his next victim. But it is finally time, at long last, for some good news. The next woman he chose to abduct, whose name was Monique Hoyt, survived Alcala's attack.

In February 1979, at just 15, Monique was hitchhiking down the Pacific coast. Alcala picked her up and told her that he needed a model to enter a photography competition. So Monique got in the car and Alcala drove her to his mum's house. Classic. Monique stayed the night at Alcala's mum's house without incident. And the next day, the pair drove 80 miles out to the middle of nowhere.

Once out of the car, Alcala started to take pictures of Monique. The shots started out normalish, but as time went on, Alcala asked Monique to take off more and more of her clothes. And then he told Monique that they should take some silly goofy photos, starting with one of her, with her t-shirt over her face. Monique went along with it and when her vision was obscured by her top Alcala hit her in the head with a rock and 15-year-old Monique blacked out. When Monique woke up

she realised that Alcala had bound her hands and her feet and strangely he was crying. Monique assured her capturer that they didn't have to tell anyone, they should just go back to his mum's house and talk about what happened. Astonishingly, this worked. Alcala untied Monique and they silently got back in the car. On the way, Rodney Alcala stopped at a shop to buy a soda and use the loo. As soon as he was in the bathroom, Monique leapt out of the car and started to scream for the police and managed to get away. Alcala took off as soon as he figured out that Monique was gone. Instead of going somewhere remote or even back to New York,

Rodney Alcala went back to his mum's house and he waited there for the police to come and arrest him, which they did. His mother posted his bail for him straight away, so once again he was back on the streets for a further six months before his rape charge against Monique Hoyt went to trial. Like the Shapiros, Monique Hoyt didn't appear at trial, so nothing really came of this one either. And this close call, just like all of the others before it, did not slow Alcala down. Less than a month later, Jill Parenteau went to a Dodgers game on a date. And then disappeared.

Her body turned up in an apartment in Burbank. Like many young women to cross paths with Rodney Arcala before her, Jill Parenteau's body was found in her bedroom. She had been left naked, face up with her legs spread wide open on pillows. Her body displayed severe facial trauma, and knotted tights were found beside her. Blood covered her room, and a lamp had been positioned to shine a light on her genitals. The tip of her tongue and her epiglottis were bruised. The corners of her mouth were split from forced oral sex.

Her breasts were bitten, and most of these injuries were sustained while Jill was still breathing. After he was finished defiling her, Alcala had strangled Jill Parenteau to death. And I think we talked about this during the live show. The positioning of the body, the performative nature of it, definitely speaks to Rodney Alcala's escalation for sure but the light shining on her in a specific way the legs being spread open the brutality of the crime he wants whoever walks through that door to be immediately horrified by what they're looking at yeah or perhaps in another Black Dahlia reference, a bit impressed. Oh, because he's impressed with himself.

I'm sure. I mean, come on, so much of this is going on in Hollywood. He's playing on the Black Dahlia. And whether or not we're convinced about whether he's paying attention to what's going on in the media, maybe there is some element of Rodney Alcala that wants to be part of that Hollywood history. And that's why so much of this is performative for him towards the end. Why he goes on TV, why he inserts himself into the dating game.

That is such a huge risk to take. Maybe there is that hunger for infamy and notoriety that lies within Rodney Alcala or lay within Rodney Alcala. Maybe. He certainly kept at it. Just days later, Alcala attempted to abduct two girls from his favourite stretch of sand. On Huntington Beach, Bridget Wilvert and Robin Samsoe were practising their handstands. Alcala approached these two 12-year-olds and asked them if he could take pictures of them. The girls agreed, and when Alcala touched Robin's knee to reposition her, Bridget's neighbour popped

out of nowhere to ask the girls if they were alright. Alcala ran off as soon as this grown-up neighbour showed up. He slunk away towards the road, and presumably to his car. Bridget made it home. Robin Samsoe, though, was reported missing when she didn't turn up for her shift answering phones at a ballet studio. If you see anywhere that she didn't go to a lesson, it's wrong. She was answering the phones. Bridget told the police everything she knew, including an incredibly detailed description of Rodney Alcala himself, which, for a 12-year-old is very impressive.

Robin Samsoe's body was discovered in the San Gabriel Mountains on the 2nd of July 1979. Parts of her body were gone and others had been mummified by the California heat. Robin's left hand, front teeth and foot were missing, and so were three of her cervical vertebrae. Her body was so badly decomposed that no cause of death has ever been established. The 12-year-old Robin had been brutalised. How much by Rodney Alcala and how much by wild animals, to this day we don't know. Following the discovery of Robin's body, Alcala had a feeling that the jig might be up. So he told his girlfriend, and yes, you heard that right,

he had a girlfriend, he told her that he had to go to Dallas to open his own photography studio. But Rodney Alcala did not go to Dallas. He went in entirely the other direction, up to Seattle, where he had a very specific task that came with very specific receipts. Rodney Alcala rented a storage locker, which as I have mentioned before recently, I think we should not be allowed them. But Rodney filled it with his most precious possessions. And then he drove all the way back down to California, which is fucking far, I've done that drive myself, and predictably to

his mum's house, where on the 24th of July 1979, he was finally arrested, bollock naked in the middle of the night for the murder of Robin Samsoe. Alcala's childhood bedroom was searched and the police uncovered a pair of handcuffs, porn magazines with a specifically ropey theme, a leather bullwhip, pink knickers, a magazine called Young and Naked, 1,200 photograph negatives, lengths of actual rope, camera equipment, a set of keys, a knife, binoculars and a frizzy black wig. Authorities also searched Alcala's car. And they found the receipt for the storage locker up in Seattle. And it gets even better.

The receipt very conveniently had the phone number and address of the facility and the LAPD had one of their guys up in the Pacific Northwest in no time at all. Authorities also procured a recording of a phone call Alcala had made from jail to his sister, asking her, in Spanish, to go to Seattle and empty his storage locker. Why he thought that no one in the LAPD would be able to understand Spanish is yet another mystery. This is what I mean. I don't think he thinks he's deceiving anyone. Or maybe he does. I just don't think he's that smart. I really don't. So in the not-so-secret Seattle locker,

the LAPD found multiple pairs of earrings, some of which were matched to Alcala's known victims. There were also 700 photo negatives and two VHS tapes, one called An Ode to New York by John Berger, and the other tape was labelled Tally Rape.

Now we don't know what was on these tapes, but some of the photo negatives have been released. In some of the shots the women are happy and smiling. In others, they look like they know that they're in trouble. And worst of all, some families recognise their missing loved ones in these photographs.

Two days after his arrest, Alcala was charged with kidnapping, a lewd or lascivious act upon a child under 14, robbery, and finally, murder. And the reason that Rodney Alcala, despite his super high body count, isn't as famous as Ed Kemper or Bundy or Chase or even the Hillside Stranglers, is that he never ever confessed. And because of this, he gave the legal system the runaround for three whole decades, proclaiming his innocence the whole time. His first trial for the murder of Robin Sanso happened in 1979 and he was found guilty and he was sentenced to death.

But that was overturned in 1984 and his second trial began in 1986 and yet again he was found guilty and yet again he was sentenced to death. But then the conviction was overturned once more. While he was making a mockery of the justice system, Rodney Alcala also found time to write a book. He wrote and self-published this book, which is widely reported to be entitled You, the Jury. But that's not true. It's actually called You, the Jury, who are about to hear the evidence, and you have two duties,

to determine the facts of the case from the evidence revealed in this trial, and not from any other source, and to apply the rule of law to the facts as you determine them, and in this way arrive at your verdict. Cool. In this book, Alcala included a 71-question test that readers were encouraged to return to him in San Quentin.

And that takes us all the way up to 2010, when Rodney Alcala stood trial for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samso for the third time. But don't lose hope just yet. The evidence the prosecution had been waiting for was about to arrive. In 2002, a law was passed in California which allowed law enforcement to collect DNA samples from prisoners

and cross-reference them with any samples they had stored as evidence for historical crimes. Surprise, surprise, Alcala's DNA was found on Jill Barkham's body and on a robe belonging to Julie Parenteau. Alcala's semen and palm print were identified at the scene of Georgia Wickstead's murder and Charlotte Lamb's DNA was found in the Seattle storage locker. So, for his third capital trial, Rodney Alcala was charged with five murders in total. Although, someone probably should have told him that. Because in this trial, his last shot, Alcala played the final card of the psychopath.

He represented himself. I know. Why? I don't know. Again, I'm thinking about it from the point of view of a rational person. Yes. I understand that. I don't know why he doesn't confess.

I feel like that in the psychopath playbook, it's the only thing he doesn't do. And I've never understood why. How do you think? I feel like somebody with that personality makeup is only going to do things that are going to benefit them. That's the key thing. And I think if we go back to this idea that Rodney Alcala is enjoying his moment in the spotlight, he's enjoying this infamy, this notoriety, this attention, then if he confesses

there's no trial, he just disappears into prison, disappears into obscurity. And I guess the representing himself is like, I'm not going to have some fucking lawyer, some attorney, some guy taking all this attention away from me. I shall represent myself. And everyone is looking at me. Yes, and they certainly were looking at him. It's hard to miss. Whilst defending himself, Rodney Alcala made absolutely no reference

to any of the murders, except that of Robin Samso. His defence was mainly obsessive stories about earrings. The prosecution's witnesses were less earring-focused and more let's-get-this-bastard-once-and-for-all-focused. The coroner for Jill Parenteau took the stand and detailed all of the horrific injuries Jill had sustained before and after her death. Now, you might remember that Jill had tears at the side of her mouth from forced oral copulation. Rodney Alcala claimed that these injuries could just as easily have been caused by Jill having eaten a large sandwich.

He also asked the coroner that if the injuries had been inflicted by a penis and not a very large sandwich, that it must have been a very large penis. The coroner disagreed. The circus continued as Alcala questioned himself on the stand for a full five hours. I really want to know if he did voices. Oh, but I don't have that information. I'm going to go with yes, he did. During this multi-voiced farce, Alcala gave extremely detailed accounts of every single day of June 1979,

apart from the day that Robin Samsoe was murdered. Back in the real world, Tali Shapiro took the stand this time and told the court how she remembered literally everything up until her eight-year-old self set foot in Alcala's house. Monique Hoyt testified as well, and she told the court about her brush with death and heroic escape. Alcala saved his most deranged tactic, however, for his closing statement. He played a clip of the 1967 song Alice's Restaurant

by blues artist Arlo Guthrie. Now, if you don't know Alice's Restaurant, it's a song about the irony of telling a psychiatrist that you want to kill in order to get out of being sent to Vietnam. To, well, kill. The song is a whopping 18 minutes and 34 seconds long, which, incidentally, is exactly the same length as the gap in the Nixon Watergate tapes.

Hilariously, Arlo Guthrie reckons that his song may explain that mysterious silence. And who knows, maybe he's right. It's a specific timestamp. Very. But even the Blues couldn't save Rodney Alcala

at his final trial, and he was found guilty and sentenced to death for the third and final time in 2010. He lived out the rest of his life on death row in San Quentin and died of natural causes in July 2021, the age of 77. And you can go and watch the drama about him if you want. I'm not the boss of you, I'm just your dad. But just remember what you've learned with us as you watch it. So there you go. That is the flip script of Rodney Alcala, the dating game killer, not sponsored by that new Netflix show.

Definitely not, because neither of us have watched it. So yeah, hopefully you guys enjoyed that. I know this is obviously audio format, so we've played you the clips, but I would highly, highly recommend that people go watch the video clips of Rodney Alcala on The Dating Game. We will leave links to it or whatever, like the YouTube links in the episode description. It's well worth your time.

He's fucking nuts. Yep. Yep. But TV producers love it. They do. They do indeed. And I'm sad slash glad we never got to see him on an episode of Mavs. Oh my God.

That's it, guys. We'll see you next week with something else. Yes. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart.

But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime,

The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted

to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.