Who were the confirmed victims of the Dating Game Killer? Remembering the women brutally murdered by Rodney Alcalá and those who escaped

Serial killer Rodney Alcalá had been linked to more than 130 murders and assaults when he died in 2021.

Alcalá, nicknamed the Dating Game Killer, was known for biting the naked bodies of his dead victims before photographing them in sexually explicit poses.

He was given the nickname after appearing as Number One Bachelor on the popular television show, winning the affection of contestant Cheryl Bradshaw in 1978.

Alcalá was convicted of killing seven women in the 1970s, five of them in California and two in New York.

His youngest murder victim was just 12 years old, whom he kidnapped while on her way to ballet practice in Los Angeles in 1979.

In 1980, Alcalá was tried and convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Robin, before being sentenced to death.

He appealed his case and won a new trial. He was subsequently tried and convicted again, receiving the death penalty for the second time.

Alcalá filed a second successful appeal in 2001 and went to trial a third time.

When prosecutor Matt Murphy took on the case in 2003, he reexamined evidence found in Alcala’s storage locker for DNA.

Some of the DNA unearthed matched that of four other women who were found dead or missing during the 1970s, confirming that Alcalá is a serial killer.

One of the victims was 19-year-old Jill Barcomb, whose body was found on the side of a road in Los Angeles in 1977, her face mutilated and ligatures around her neck.

Alcalá was also found to have murdered nurse Georgia Wixted, 27, who was found naked and brutalized in Malibu in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, whose body was found strangled and raped in an apartment complex miles from her home in June 1978; and Jill Parenteau, a 21-year-old college student who was found raped and murdered in her dorm room in June 1979.

As a result, he was convicted of all five murders in 2010, then aged 66, and sentenced to death.

He later pleaded guilty to two more murders in New York City in 1977 and 1978, and was then charged in 2016 with the murder of Christine Thornton in the summer of 1977. But he denied murdering Thornton.

In June 2021, Alcalá died of natural causes at age 77 in a California hospital. He was awaiting death sentence at Corcoran State Prison.

Below are Alcalá’s confirmed victims, and hundreds of possible others have yet to be identified.

Morgan Rowan

Morgan Rowan was just 16 when Alcalá brutally beat and raped her during a party at his Hollywood home in 1968, before attempting to strangle her to death.

He kept the horrific attack a secret from his family and spoke about it in the upcoming documentary Surviving A Serial Killer.

‘It took me 50 years to finally tell this story. It was a difficult decision, but it’s important to me,” she said of his traumatic experience.

Fortunately, Morgan’s friends realized that she and Alcala were not at the party and went to check on her.

“He was on top of me and then there was a lot of commotion and my friends were banging on the door, but it kept banging against the metal bar,” she explained.

‘Suddenly there was a feeling of fresh air and breaking glass and noise and my friend had gone through the window.

“Alcalá got off me then, went to the door, removed the metal bar from the door and stood there, with my blood all over his shirt, and simply said, ‘Take her.’

‘My friend took me to his apartment on the beach. I called my parents and told them I would be home in time to leave, but he wasn’t coming back. I didn’t tell them why.

‘My friend’s neighbor was a nurse. ‘He helped me cough the blood out of my lungs and wrapped duct tape around my ribs and closed all the open wounds.’

Her friend took care of her for four days and she declared: “She really saved my life.”

Tali Shapiro

Alcalá’s first reported crime occurred in 1968, when a witness called the police after seeing him lure an eight-year-old girl named Tali Shapiro to that same Hollywood apartment.

When authorities arrived, they found Talia alive, but she had been raped, brutally beaten with a steel bar, and was lying in a pool of her own blood.

After his attack on Tali, Alcalá fled and traveled to the east coast.

corneIby michel crilley

In June 1971, 23-year-old TWA flight attendant Cornelia Michel Crilley was found raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment.

His death remained unsolved until 2011, when DNA evidence linked Alcalá to the murder.

Ellen Jane Hover

On July 15, 1977, Alcalá killed Ellen Jane Hover.

She was a 23-year-old aspiring music director who disappeared after leaving her Manhattan apartment.

Jill Barcomb

Also in 1977, Alcalá murdered Jill Barcomb, an 18-year-old aspiring actress, in her Los Angeles bedroom.

Prosecutor Murphy said she had been found “brutally assaulted with multiple ligatures” and “her face had been smashed with a rock.”

Georgia Wixted

Nearly a month after murdering Jill, Alcalá sexually assaulted, tortured, and strangled Georgia Wixted to death.

She was a 27-year-old pediatric oncology nurse who had just moved into her own apartment in Los Angeles.

Christine Thornton

Christine was 28 years old and pregnant when she disappeared from her ranch in 1977.

Her murder almost went unsolved until her remains were discovered four years later. However, Alcalá had denied having murdered Christine.

Carlota Cordero

Charlotte Lamb’s body was found strangled and raped in an apartment complex miles from her home in June 1978.

Robin Samsoe

Robin Samsoe was only 12 years old when She was kidnapped by Alcalá when she was on her way to her ballet class. and no one saw her alive again.

Just 12 days after being kidnapped, her “animal-ravaged” body was found in the foothills of the Sierra Madre with a knife at her side.

In 1980, Alcalá was tried and convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering Robin, before being sentenced to death.

He appealed his case and won a new trial. He was subsequently tried and convicted again, receiving the death penalty for the second time.

Alcalá filed a second successful appeal in 2001 and went to trial a third time.