48 Hours
Rodney Alcala: The Dating Game Killer
Thu, 14 Nov 2024 08:01:00 -0000
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A report on the criminal justice system’s 50-year pursuit of serial killer Rodney James Alcala. From his 1968 abduction, rape and attempted murder of 8-year old Tali Shapiro in Los Angeles; to his 2010 conviction -- with the help of advances in DNA technology -- for the kidnapping, rape and murder of five California women; and to the subsequent discovery of other murders attributed to Alcala in New York and Wyoming. “48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 11/9/2024. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened to Tali Shapiro in 1968?
Her intuition probably saved her life. Others would not be so fortunate. We'll never know how many women are lucky, because every woman that crossed that guy's path was a potential victim.
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There's got to be something at the heart of that evidence that they've got.
Yeah.
I'm Payne Lindsey.
And I'm Maggie Freeling.
This is Up and Vanished Weekly.
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Listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. It was 1977. Rodney Alcala was out of prison and living in New York. Bad news for the New York cops who already had their hands full. A homegrown serial killer known as Son of Sam was terrorizing the city. He struck again over the weekend, the killer's sixth victim. Police say they are nowhere near solving the case.
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Chapter 2: How did police find Rodney Alcala?
As was agreed upon, Alcala was returned to San Quentin's death row. I got a telephone call from Robin Samso's mother, and she said she was so grateful that we were doing this. It's such a comfort to know that regardless of what might happen to the California cases, if for some reason he should get out, he's coming back to New York and he's going to serve 25 to life.
Both the New York and California prosecutors are haunted by the question. Are there other victims out there?
He crisscrossed the country, West Coast, East Coast, East Coast, West Coast, crossed through a lot of states, and I'm sure there are victims in those states.
They just have to be found. How come she hasn't contacted us? That's not like her. Rodney Alcala had been convicted of seven murders and was facing five separate death penalties. Kathy Thornton, who had spent the last 39 years trying to track down her missing sister Christine, had never heard of Alcala. But her son did. It would change Kathy's quest forever.
The Killing Game. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery.
In 2013, Kathy's son had watched a 48-hour story on Alcala that led him to its website and a series of photos taken by Alcala of unidentified women. I got an email from my son that said, I saw these pictures. Take a look if you'd like. Kathy scrolled through the images. She kept stopping at one of them, a picture of a beautiful woman on the back of a motorcycle.
I said, yeah, that sure looks like Chris. And then I saw her little toe, her baby toe. And that's one thing I always remembered about Chris was her little baby toe was different. It hooked. I just saw that toe and I said, oh, yeah, that's Chris.
Googling the name Rodney Alcala, Kathy's heart almost stopped. Kathy now believed her sister had been traveling with a notorious serial killer. Fearing the worst, but still wanting answers, Kathy submitted her own DNA to a national database of missing persons. If her sister's DNA was ever submitted, they could be matched.
Hundreds of miles away, Jeff Sheeman, a Wyoming detective, was working on a very tough cold case. They referred to my case as Granger Greta because it was an unidentified female that was found in Granger, Wyoming back in 1982. There were a lot of aerial photos and photos from the scene when the body was found.
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