| Credit: Walt Disney Television via Getty Images Photo Archives/Walt Disney Television via Getty
Alcala was convicted in 1980 for the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, who vanished on her bicycle on her way to ballet class and whose remains were found in the foothills above Sierra Madre, a city in Los Angeles County.
But his conviction was overturned twice on different technicalities before he was finally sentenced to death in 2010 for her murder as well as the 1970s rapes and murders of Georgia Wixted, Jill Parenteau, Charlotte Lamb, and Jim Barcomb.
While on California s death row, Alcala pleaded guilty in 2012 to the rape and murder of TWA flight attendant Cornelia Crilley and Ciro s nightclub heiress Ellen Hover, whose remains were found on the Rockefeller Estate in Westchester County in New York.
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Alcala has been convicted of killing seven women in the 1970s.
• 12 min read
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A missing woman s cold case and a killer s appearance on The Dating Game : Part 1
Christine Thornton, described by her sister as a free spirit, went missing in the summer of 1977. Clues about her disappearance wouldn’t be uncovered until 40 years later.Bettmann Archive via Getty Images
When “The Dating Game” host Jim Lange introduced Rodney Alcala as Bachelor Number One, a successful photographer, he didn’t know that the man had already murdered at least five women and been charged with the attempted murder of a little girl.
REVEALED: The Dating Game producer tried to stop serial killer Rodney Alcala appearing on show in 1978 because he had a strange personality - but colleagues oblivious to his murder spree said the audience will love him
Serial killer Rodney Alcala infamously appeared on the The Dating Game in September 1978, when he was in the midst of a brutal killing spree
Then-executive producer Mike Metzger told ABC he didn t want Alcala on the show because he had a strange personality and unsettling mystique
He was convicted by contestant coordinator Ellen Metzger, whose now his wife, to allow him on the show because she said woman would love him