The serial killer convicted of raping and killing both children and women in the 1970s and 1980s has died while on California's death row.
The infamous serial killer with a trail of victims spanning the 1970s-1980s has died at 77.
Rodney Alcala, a serial killer known for luring young women by taking photos of them, had been convicted of five murders in California, two in New York, and suspected of others.
Alcala received his nickname after appearing on the show “The Dating Game” in 1978, six years after being convicted of molesting the then 8-year-old Tali Shapiro. Described as a successful photographer, Alcala won the dating show as “Bachelor #1”.
The bachelorette later declined to go out with him because she found him “disturbing,” according to The New York Times.
In addition to the molestation of Shapiro, who survived, Alcala was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Robin Samsoe — a 12-year-old who had gone missing in 1979 on her way to ballet.
DNA evidence was used to link Alcala to the murders of four other women: Jill Barcomb, 18, and Georgia Wixted, 27, in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, 32, in 1978; and Jill Parenteau, 21, in 1979, according to the Times.
Cornelia M. Crilley and Ellen Jane Hover were later added to the list of homicides the photographer committed by cold-case squads in the New York Police Department, according to the outlet.
Alcala, who was on death row, died of natural causes, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
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