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Rodney Alcala
Rodney James Alcala (born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala; August 23, 1943 – July 24, 2021), also known as John Berger and John Burger, was an American serial killer and convicted sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He pled guilty and received a sentence of twenty-five years to life for two further murders committed in New York State. He was also indicted for one murder in Wyoming, although the charges filed there were dropped. While Alcala has been conclusively linked to nine murders, the true number of victims remains unknown and could be as high as 130.
Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women, teenage girls and boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016 he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos. Alcala is known to have assaulted one other photo subject and police have speculated that others could be rape or murder victims as well.
Prosecutors have said that Alcala "toyed" with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness then waiting until they revived, sometimes repeating this process several times before finally killing them. One police detective described Alcala as "a killing machine," and others have compared him to Ted Bundy. He is often referred to as the Dating Game Killer, as he appeared as a contestant on the television show The Dating Game in 1978, during his murder spree.
Rodney Alcala was born on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas, the third of four children born to a Mexican American couple, Raul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. Alcala's father moved the family to Mexico in 1951, then abandoned them three years later.
In 1954, when he was aged 11, Alcala's mother moved him and his two sisters to suburban Los Angeles. Alcala was an academically gifted student who was reasonably popular among his peers and was supported by his family. He attended various private schools in the Los Angeles area during his youth and graduated from Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary High School, where he was on the yearbook planning committee and on the track and cross-country teams.[citation needed]
In 1961, at the age of 17, Alcala joined the United States Army to become a paratrooper and served as a clerk. During his service, Alcala was noted for being manipulative, vindictive and insubordinate, and he was disciplined on several occasions for assaulting young women. In 1964, after what was described as a nervous breakdown—during which he went AWOL and hitchhiked from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to his mother's house in California—Alcala was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and estimated to have an IQ of 135 by a military psychiatrist. He was subsequently discharged from the Army on medical grounds. Other diagnoses later proposed by various psychiatric experts at his trials included: narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and malignant narcissism with psychopathy and sexual sadism comorbidities.
After being discharged from the Army, Alcala graduated from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. It was later claimed that he studied film under Roman Polanski at New York University (NYU). but this is not true and he never met Polanski during his time at NYU.[citation needed]
On September 25, 1968, a passing motorist named Donald Haines called police after witnessing Alcala lure Tali Shapiro, aged eight, into his Hollywood apartment. Shapiro, who was residing at the Chateau Marmont with her family, was approached by Alcala on her way to school when he pulled up beside her in his car and asked if she needed a ride. Shapiro initially refused, but when she heard him say that he knew her parents, she got into his car. Alcala then took her to his apartment, where he told Shapiro he wanted to show her a picture. When the police arrived, Shapiro was found alive in a pool of her own blood, having been raped and beaten with a steel bar; Alcala had fled. Shapiro was in a coma for 32 days, and spent months in recovery.
Rodney Alcala
Rodney James Alcala (born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala; August 23, 1943 – July 24, 2021), also known as John Berger and John Burger, was an American serial killer and convicted sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He pled guilty and received a sentence of twenty-five years to life for two further murders committed in New York State. He was also indicted for one murder in Wyoming, although the charges filed there were dropped. While Alcala has been conclusively linked to nine murders, the true number of victims remains unknown and could be as high as 130.
Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women, teenage girls and boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016 he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos. Alcala is known to have assaulted one other photo subject and police have speculated that others could be rape or murder victims as well.
Prosecutors have said that Alcala "toyed" with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness then waiting until they revived, sometimes repeating this process several times before finally killing them. One police detective described Alcala as "a killing machine," and others have compared him to Ted Bundy. He is often referred to as the Dating Game Killer, as he appeared as a contestant on the television show The Dating Game in 1978, during his murder spree.
Rodney Alcala was born on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas, the third of four children born to a Mexican American couple, Raul Alcala Buquor and Anna Maria Gutierrez. Alcala's father moved the family to Mexico in 1951, then abandoned them three years later.
In 1954, when he was aged 11, Alcala's mother moved him and his two sisters to suburban Los Angeles. Alcala was an academically gifted student who was reasonably popular among his peers and was supported by his family. He attended various private schools in the Los Angeles area during his youth and graduated from Cantwell-Sacred Heart of Mary High School, where he was on the yearbook planning committee and on the track and cross-country teams.[citation needed]
In 1961, at the age of 17, Alcala joined the United States Army to become a paratrooper and served as a clerk. During his service, Alcala was noted for being manipulative, vindictive and insubordinate, and he was disciplined on several occasions for assaulting young women. In 1964, after what was described as a nervous breakdown—during which he went AWOL and hitchhiked from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to his mother's house in California—Alcala was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and estimated to have an IQ of 135 by a military psychiatrist. He was subsequently discharged from the Army on medical grounds. Other diagnoses later proposed by various psychiatric experts at his trials included: narcissistic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and malignant narcissism with psychopathy and sexual sadism comorbidities.
After being discharged from the Army, Alcala graduated from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. It was later claimed that he studied film under Roman Polanski at New York University (NYU). but this is not true and he never met Polanski during his time at NYU.[citation needed]
On September 25, 1968, a passing motorist named Donald Haines called police after witnessing Alcala lure Tali Shapiro, aged eight, into his Hollywood apartment. Shapiro, who was residing at the Chateau Marmont with her family, was approached by Alcala on her way to school when he pulled up beside her in his car and asked if she needed a ride. Shapiro initially refused, but when she heard him say that he knew her parents, she got into his car. Alcala then took her to his apartment, where he told Shapiro he wanted to show her a picture. When the police arrived, Shapiro was found alive in a pool of her own blood, having been raped and beaten with a steel bar; Alcala had fled. Shapiro was in a coma for 32 days, and spent months in recovery.
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