Who were the Dating Game Killer’s confirmed victims? Remembering the women brutally murdered by Rodney Alcala – and the ones that got away

Serial killer Rodney Alcala had been linked to more than 130 murders and assaults by the time he died in 2021.

Dubbed the Dating Game Killer, Alcala was known for biting the naked bodies of his dead victims before photographing them in sexually explicit poses.

He earned the nickname after appearing as Bachelor Number One on the hit TV show in 1978 and winning the affection of contestant Cheryl Bradshaw.

Alcala was convicted in the 1970s of murdering seven women, five in California and two in New York.

His youngest murder victim was just 12 years old and he kidnapped her on her way to ballet practice in Los Angeles in 1979.

In 1980, Alcala was tried and convicted of Robin’s kidnapping, rape and murder before being sentenced to death.

He appealed his case and won a new trial. He was later retried and convicted, receiving the death penalty for the second time.

Alcala launched a second successful appeal in 2001 and was tried a third time.

When prosecutor Matt Murphy took on the case in 2003, he reexamined evidence found in Alcala’s storage unit for DNA.

Some of the DNA recovered matched that of four other women found dead or disappeared in the 1970s, confirming Alcala was a serial killer.

One of the victims was 19-year-old Jill Barcomb, whose body was found on the side of a Los Angeles road in 1977, with her face mutilated and ligatures around her neck.

Alcala was also found to have murdered 27-year-old nurse Georgia Wixted, who was found naked and abused in Malibu in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, whose body was found strangled and raped in June 1978 in an apartment complex miles from her home; and Jill Parenteau, a 21-year-old college student found raped and murdered in her bedroom in June 1979.

As a result, in 2010, then 66, he was convicted of all five murders and sentenced to death.

He later pleaded guilty to two more murders in New York City in 1977 and 1978, and was later charged in 2016 with the murder of Christine Thornton in the summer of 1977. But he denied murdering Thornton.

In June 2021, Alcala died of natural causes in a California hospital at the age of 77. He was awaiting a death sentence in Corcoran State Prison.

Below are Alcala’s confirmed victims, while hundreds of possible others remain unidentified.

Morgan Rowan

Morgan Rowan was just 16 years old when she was brutally beaten and raped by Alcala during a party at his Hollywood home in 1968 – before he tried to strangle her.

She kept the horrific attack a secret from her family and talked about it in the upcoming documentary Surviving A Serial Killer.

‘It took me fifty years to finally tell this story. It was a difficult decision, but it is important to me,” she said of her traumatic ordeal.

Luckily, Morgan’s friends realized that she and Alcala were missing from the party and came to check on her.

“He sat on me and then there was a lot of commotion and my friends were banging on the door but it kept hitting the metal bar,” she explained.

‘Suddenly there was a feeling of cool air, breaking glass and sound, and my friend had broken through the window.

‘Alcala then got off me, he went to the door, grabbed the metal bar from the door and stood there – with my blood all over his shirt – and he just said, “Take her.”

‘My boyfriend took me to his apartment on the beach. I called my parents and told them I would be home in time to leave, but I didn’t come home. I didn’t tell them why.

‘My friend’s neighbor was a nurse. He helped me cough the blood out of my lungs, wrapped my ribs in tape and closed all the open wounds.’

Her boyfriend cared for her for four days as she declared, “He really saved my life.”

Tali Shapiro

Alcala’s first reported crime occurred in 1968, when a witness called police after seeing him lure an eight-year-old girl named Tali Shapiro to that same Hollywood apartment.

When authorities arrived, they found Talia alive, but she had been raped, brutally beaten with a steel bar, and lying in a pool of her own blood.

After his attack on Tali, Alcala fled and traveled to the east coast.

CornelI am Michel Crilley

In June 1971, 23-year-old TWA flight attendant Cornelia Michel Crilley was found raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment.

Her death would remain unsolved until 2011, when DNA evidence linked Alcala to the murder.

Ellen Jane Hover

On July 15, 1977, Alcala murdered Ellen Jane Hover.

She was a 23-year-old aspiring music conductor who disappeared after leaving her Manhattan apartment.

Jill Barcomb

Also in 1977, Alcala murdered 18-year-old aspiring actress Jill Barcomb in her Los Angeles bedroom.

Prosecutor Murphy said she was “brutally attacked with multiple ligatures” and “her face smashed with a rock.”

Georgia Wixted

Nearly a month after Jill’s murder, Alcala sexually assaulted, tortured and strangled Georgia Wixted.

She was a 27-year-old pediatric cancer nurse who had just moved into her own apartment in Los Angeles.

Christine Ruth Thornton

Christine was 28 years old and pregnant when she went missing from her ranch in 1977.

Her murder remained almost unsolved until her remains were discovered four years later. However, Alcala had denied killing Christine.

Charlotte Lam

Charlotte Lamb’s body was found strangled and raped in June 1978 in an apartment complex miles from her home.

Robin Samsoe

Robin Samsoe was only 12 years old when she was kidnapped by Alcala on the way to ballet class – and no one ever saw her alive again.

Just twelve days after she was kidnapped, her “animal infested” body was found in the foothills of the Sierra Madre, with a knife next to her.

In 1980, Alcala was tried and convicted of Robin’s kidnapping, rape and murder before being sentenced to death.

He appealed his case and won a new trial. He was later retried and convicted, receiving the death penalty for the second time.

Alcala launched a second successful appeal in 2001 and was tried a third time.