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Rodney James Alcala (born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor; August 23, 1943 – July 24, 2021) was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, receiving an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two further homicides committed in New York State in 1971 and 1977. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – authorities believe the actual number is as high as 130. Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women, teenage girls and boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016 he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos. Alcala is known to have assaulted one other photographic subject, and police have speculated that others could be rape or murder victims as well. Prosecutors have said that Alcala "toyed" with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness, then waiting until they revived, sometimes repeating this process several times before finally killing them. One police detective described Alcala as "a killing machine," and others have compared him to Ted Bundy. Alcala is often referred to as the Dating Game Killer because of his 1978 appearance on the television show The Dating Game in the midst of his murder spree. He died of unspecified natural causes in 2021. Early life Rodney Alcala was born in San Antonio, Texas, the third of four children born to a Mexican-American couple, Raul Alcala Buquor (August 3, 1906 – January 8, 1962) and Anna Maria Gutierrez (January 10, 1909 – February 18, 1999). In 1951, Alcala's father moved the family to Mexico, then abandoned them three years later. In 1954, when Alcala was aged 11, his mother moved him and his two sisters to suburban Los Angeles. Alcala was an academically gifted student who was reasonably popular among his peers and was supported by his family. He attended various private schools during his youth before graduating from Montebello High School. He was on the yearbook planning committee and on the track and cross-country teams. In 1961, at the age of 17, Alcala joined the United States Army to become a paratrooper and served as a clerk. During his service, he was noted by his commanding officer as being manipulative, vindictive and insubordinate. Alcala was disciplined on several occasions for assaulting young women. In 1964, after what was described as a nervous breakdown—during which he went AWOL and hitchhiked from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to his mother's house in California—Alcala was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and estimated to have an IQ of 135 by a military psychiatrist. He was subsequently discharged from the army on medical grounds. Other diagnoses later proposed by various psychiatric experts at his trials included narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and malignant narcissism with psychopathy and sexual sadism comorbidities. After leaving the army, Alcala graduated from the UCLA School of Fine Arts and later studied film under Roman Polanski at New York University (NYU). Criminal history Shapiro assault On September 5, 1968, a passing motorist named Donald Hines called police after witnessing Alcala lure Tali Shapiro, aged 8, into his Hollywood apartment. Shapiro, who was residing at the Chateau Marmont with her family, was approached by Alcala on her way to school when he pulled up beside her in his car and asked if she needed a ride. Shapiro initially refused, but when she heard him say that he knew her parents she got into his car. Alcala then took her to his apartment, where he told Shapiro he wanted to show her a picture. When the police arrived, Shapiro was found alive, having been raped and beaten with a steel bar; Alcala had fled. Shapiro was in a coma for thirty-two days and spent months in recovery. Move to New York To evade the arrest warrant stemming from the Shapiro assault, Alcala left California and enrolled at NYU, using the name "John Berger." In 1971 he obtained a counselling job at a New Hampshire arts camp for children using a slightly different alias, "John Burger." During this time, Alcala began to work for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where he worked in an office with serial killer Richard Cottingham. Neither man has claimed to have been aware of the other, nor is there any evidence they were familiar with each other prior to their respective arrests. Crilley murder Cornelia Crilley, a 23-year-old Trans World Airlines flight attendant, was found raped and murdered in her Manhattan apartment on June 12, 1971. Alcala had strangled her with her own nylon stockings, leaving her dead in her apartment at 427 East 83rd Street. It is believed that Crilley met Alcala as she moved into her new apartment and that she might have accepted his help in moving some furniture. Her murder remained unsolved until 2011. Identification and arrest The FBI added Alcala to its list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in early 1971. A few months later, two children attending an arts camp noticed his photo on an FBI poster at the post office. Alcala was arrested and extradited to California. By then, Shapiro's parents had relocated their entire family to Mexico and refused to allow her to testify at the trial. Since the authorities were unwilling to charge him with rape and attempted murder without their primary witness, Alcala was convicted of child molestation and sentenced to three years. Alcala was paroled in 1974 after seventeen months. Less than two months after his release, he was re-arrested for assaulting a 13-year-old girl identified in court records as "Julie J.," who had accepted what she thought would be a ride to school. Alcala was again paroled in 1976 after serving two years. Hover disappearance After Alcala's second release in 1977, his Los Angeles parole officer took the unusual step of permitting a repeat offender—and known flight risk—to travel to New York City. NYPD cold case investigators now believe that a week after returning to Manhattan, Alcala killed Ellen Jane Hover, 23-year-old daughter of nightclub owner Herman Hover and goddaughter of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. Hover was last seen at her New York apartment on July 15, 1977. Her datebook showed that she had an appointment to meet with one "John Berger" that same day. Later in 1977, a tip to the FBI was made about how Alcala had been arrested by the police a few years previously for the Shapiro case in New Hampshire. Alcala admitted to knowing Hover under questioning, but investigators could not arrest him since they had not found her body. Her remains were eventually discovered buried under heavy rocks on a hillside overlooking the Hudson River, near a location on the John D. Rockefeller Estate where an aspiring model would later report that "Berger" had taken photos of her. Move to Los Angeles .... Discover the Rodney Fort popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Rodney Fort books.