Updated 2 hours ago
AP
A 77-year-old inmate who spent time on California's death row for kidnapping and murdering a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl and killing four other people died Saturday of natural causes, state officials said.
Rodney James Alcala died of natural causes at 1:43 a.m. at a hospital in the community near Corcoran State Prison, according to the California Department of Corrections.
Our redesigned local news and weather app is live! Download it foriOS or Android
— and sign up for alerts.
Alcala, who appeared as a contestant on the television show “The Dating Game” in 1978. was sentenced to death in Orange County in 1980 for the 1979 kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. That judgment was reversed in 1984 by the California Supreme Court, and Alcala was granted a new trial.