the year is 1978 and on one particular
evening millions of people in the usa
have tuned in to watch their favorite tv
show
the dating game at the start of the show
after a partition moves to the side
three silhouetted bachelors are revealed
host jim lange introduces bachelor
number one
a man he says is a successful
photographer who got his start when his
father found him in the dark room at the
age of 13
fully developed as the audience laughs
at the gag he adds between takes you
might find him skydiving or motorcycling
lange announces his name as rodney
alcala just as the spotlight shines on a
long-haired handsome man with glistening
white teeth
what noah knows is this man is a
prolific killer
who murdered before the show and he'll
murder after he's a psychopath of the
highest degree who will one day be
called by police a killing machine
he also wins the heart of the
bachelorette in the show but the date
doesn't go down very well
we'll come back to that later first of
all to appear in one of the most popular
tv shows in us history while you're in
the process of becoming
one of the world's most vile serial
killers is about as brazen
and pathologically narcissistic as you
can get to understand this we must look
at alkalis past
he was born on august 23rd in 1943 in
san antonio texas
when he was kid his pop moved the family
back to mexico but a few years later his
old daddy just picked up and left
a few years after that the mother took
11 year old rodney back to la along with
his two sisters
it wasn't a happy childhood and he
certainly was never discovered in the
dark room by his father at the age of
13.
at that point in his life his pop was
well gone and he wanted nothing to do
with rodney
but abandonment by a parent is hardly
unusual it can be devastating for a
child but in the history of serial
killing
childhood traumas run deeper than being
brought up by a single-parent family
still something happened during his
formative years that may have led to
what he became
it was evident something was wrong with
him not long after he joined the army at
the age of 17.
three years later he went awol after
having what was described as a breakdown
when he returned to the army a military
psychiatrist diagnosed him with
antisocial personality disorder
that's when a person shows no regard to
how others feel about their actions
this lack of conscience can manifest as
aggression sometimes getting involved in
petty crimes
whatever alkala did was enough for the
army to discharge him on medical grounds
the army was right years later he'll be
diagnosed with malignant narcissism and
sexual sadism comorbidities
if you don't understand those terms you
soon will personality disorders aren't
always evident to other people
so alkalis seemed to have no problems
picking up a degree from the ucla school
of fine arts
it was 1968 when he graduated the year
after the summer of love
a time when being a budding artist was a
fashionable endeavor
nonetheless alkala was far from
embracing the hippie movement
and the endless love it promoted he'd
already decided to become a monster
that year he lured a young girl named
tally shapiro to his apartment in
hollywood
there he beat her with an iron bar until
she was unconscious
he'd been spotted though taking the girl
back and so that person called the cops
it was just a pity that when they got to
his apartment they found no sign of
alcohol
and only a girl lying in a pool of blood
what they didn't know
is that he was hiding somewhere nearby
but because the girl was still breathing
all efforts were focused on keeping her
alive
that's when alcohol somehow slipped away
the girl was in a coma for 32 days and
later had to learn to walk again
the good news is decades later she
testified against him with her loving
husband watching from the gallery
knowing he was now wanted he left
california and went to new york where he
enrolled at nyu film school
there he changed his name to john berger
in the meantime cops back in california
had found something worrying
photos he'd taken of young women and
girls it seemed like this man would
strike again
in new york though when frequenting the
trendy clubs in bars with his camera in
hand
he was the arty photographer guy who
people loved to pose for
they had no idea that when he looked at
them through the viewfinder he was
imagining what they'd look like
after he had killed them in 1961 the fbi
put him on its most wanted list
and that meant pictures of alkala being
circulated he'd already killed again by
this time
a young woman who worked as a flight
attendant she'd been strangled and the
killer had arranged her body in a
certain kind of pose
now we need to explain something serial
killers might have a modus operandi
which could be how they pick up their
victims
but they may also leave a personal mark
on their crimes called the signature
the mo often changes but signatures
nearly always stay the same
that's because they relate to the
psychological needs of the killer and
for alkala
he derived sexual gratification from
leaving his victims in certain poses
an act criminal profilers call staging
police didn't know it yet but in the
years to come they would find quite a
few bodies that had been staged
after getting a job at a new hampshire
arts camp for children one day
two of the kids alkala taught saw his
face on a wanted poster in the post
office
they called the cops an alkalo was
swiftly arrested and sent back to
california to face the music
okay crime solved surely that must have
been it but you know very well that one
day he'd win the dating game
what went wrong the main reason why he
didn't spend a long long time in prison
was that shapiro's parents had decided
to leave the crime infested usa and move
to mexico
they didn't want their daughter to
return to the u.s to testify and suffer
more trauma than she'd already gone
through
and so with no other witnesses alkala
did a short stint in prison for the
crime of assault
cops had no idea at this point he'd
killed a woman in new york
he was back out on the streets in 17
months after a parole board found that
the educated artist with a smooth tongue
to seem like a person who really
regretted what he'd done remember this
man was a psychopath
a monumental manipulator the parole
board was no match for his deceit
but then it should be known to the
authorities what alcoa was capable of
two months after his release when he was
arrested again for picking up a girl
when she was on the way to school
he pushed her into smoking some weed
after which he tried to kiss her
she reported him and for what he'd done
he ended up spending two more years in
prison
yet again he managed to convince the
parole board that he was mentally well
and not a danger to society
even persuaded his parole officer to
allow him to stay outside the state
he moved back to new york city where he
murdered 23 year old ellen jane hover
a wealthy socialite whose godparents
were dean martin and sammy davis jr
in her diary that police later found the
last entry stated that she was going to
meet with this photographer john burr
that looked a lot like john berger and
it was known that this very attractive
woman had been hanging around with some
strange looking dude
in fact her boyfriend asked her who was
the freaky guy she was with
she replied oh he's all right he's a
photographer it took years to join the
dots though and alkalo wasn't convicted
of that crime until 2013.
he returned to la in 1978 and soon got a
job as a typesetter for the los angeles
times
after a while he began showing his
artwork to some of his colleagues
this art consisted of hundreds of
photographs he'd taken of girls and
young women
those who saw the photos could have had
no idea their colleague might have
killed the girls they were looking at
one of his co-workers at the times did
later say that it seemed rather weird
that alkalo was shooting snaps of young
girls
the colleague later said when i asked
why he took the photos he said their
moms asked him to
i remember the girls were naked boys
also appeared in some photographs and
they were told the same as all the other
people who sat to pose for alkala he was
a professional he saw something in them
they were his models and one day he'd
make them famous now we arrive at the
beginning again
when this killer had the audacity to
smile in front of the camera while
millions of americans sat glued to their
tvs
as you know he won the game but how did
it go down
he certainly came across as unnerving
unnatural but that's easy to say in
hindsight
to give you an example of why he won the
woman behind the screen asked him
i'm serving you for dinner what are you
called and what do you look like
alkalo responded i'm called the banana
and i look really good
she then asked him to be more
descriptive and he replied peel me
maybe that doesn't sound especially
crazy but his fake open mouth grin in
front of the camera did look kinda
maniacal
when it was announced she'd picked him
as the winner he smiled like a wolf
who'd just been told he won an all
expenses paid day out with the three
pigs
they won some free tennis lessons and a
trip to the magic mountain theme park
although they never ended up going
because the woman said he was just too
creepy
she called the show the next day and
said i can't go out with this guy
there's weird vibes that are coming off
him
he's very strange i'm not comfortable is
that going to be a problem
it wasn't a problem so the date never
happened it seems a few people including
other male contestants felt this guy was
a bit unhinged
the producer later admitted he had a
mystique about him that i found
uncomfortable
it was another rejection for alkala a
reminder of the abandonment by his
father
the narcissist was furious now and
someone had to pay
there could have been any number of
victims soon after he was jilted by the
bachelorette
but as far as future convictions go in
1979 he brutally murdered 18 year old
jill barkum who had run away from new
york and landed in california
he hit her in the face with a rock and
strangled her after which he positioned
her dead body so her knees were on the
ground
and her head was in the dirt police said
she looked like a rolled up ball
soon after he used a claw hammer to kill
a 27 year old nurse named georgia
wicksted
her body was found staged in her malibu
apartment other victims included a 33
year old legal secretary charlotte lamb
who was found in the laundry room at the
bottom of her apartment block
again the body had been staged 21 year
old jill parenteau was discovered in her
apartment not long after and she too
had been positioned in a certain way
that same month alkalo was walking down
a road in huntington beach a city
southeast of los angeles
known as the surf city there he met two
young girls robin samso and her buddy
bridget wilbert
he asked them to pose for him so he
could take photos but a resident soon
approached them after becoming
suspicious
wilfred got on her bicycle and headed to
her dance class but the next time samso
was seen was when police found her
beaten-up body at the foot of the san
gabriel mountains
her friends told police about the man
who'd taken their photograph after a
sketch of the guy had been passed around
alkalis parole officer told him he knew
the face
the game was almost up cops went to
alkala's mother's house and there they
found a receipt that led them to a
storage locker in seattle
in that locker they found samso's
earrings as well as hundreds of photos
of girls and young women
in 1980 he was convicted of samso's
murder and sentenced to death but that
was overturned when it was discovered
that there had been some prejudice
because the jury had been informed about
his previous crimes
years passed and with dna evidence he
was indicted for more murders in prison
he wrote a book that described his
wrongful arrest and the corruption of
those
who put him in prison he even sued the
prison after he slipped and fell blaming
the accident on the low-fat diet he'd
been refused
this was all in line with his malignant
narcissism diagnosis
he was in and out of court over the
years but what police wanted to know was
who were all the girls in the hundreds
of photos he'd taken
some of the photos were released to the
public but because of the sexual nature
of many of them the vast majority
remained behind closed doors
21 women who'd seen the photos told
police it was them in the image
with another six families coming forward
to tell the cops they thought their
loved one who was gone missing
and was never found was in some of the
images in 2013 police linked a cold case
to one photo
but still today there's a mystery about
those people in the photos
moreover 900 pictures have never even
been released to the public
that's why anyone involved with alkalis
case thinks he might have killed many
more people than the few he was
convicted of killing
he may have murdered as many as 130
women and girls
so he's still a person of interest in
various investigations it remains to be
seen if the full extent of his crimes
will ever be known
but when that cop called him a killing
machine he was likely right
as we write this alkala is a 77 year old
man residing in california state prison
maybe he'll come forward and admit to
more crimes but psychopaths aren't
generally known for their remorsefulness
we'll doubt he'll ever admit that he
never once went skydiving
as for if he'll ever have his date with
lethal injection it's doubtful seeing as
he's so old and in 2019 california
instituted a moratorium on the death
penalty
which means a reprieve for those
sentenced to death now you need to watch
serial killer with more victims than any
other killer in american history
or have a look at this