Woman of the Hour: The haunting true story of the Seventies serial killer invited on primetime TV

In 1978, a serial killer appeared on American television. No disguise. No alias. No remorse, apparently. Rodney Alcala was one of three eligible bachelors to appear on The Dating Game – something like the UK’s Blind Date, in which female contestants quiz single men from behind a partition before choosing one to take them out. That night, the serial killer won.

Rodney Alcala was ultimately convicted of murdering seven women and girls in heinous and brutal ways that involved strangulation and rape – but not before he managed to woo contestant Cheryl Bradshaw on live TV. The story of Bradshaw, Alcala, and his victims is the focus of Netflix’s latest true crime endeavour Woman of the Hour, a mostly fictionalised account of the murders, starring Anna Kendrick (in her directorial debut) as Bradshaw and Daniel Zovatto as Alcala.

Telling Alcala’s story through the perspective of his victims, the film paints an infuriating and tragic picture of a society that turned a blind eye to a monster in its midst – a tragedy unfolding in slow motion that was preventable every step of the way. Really, it’s a small wonder that Netflix hadn’t adapted this story sooner, so grim and shocking are its details.

Alcala was a fine arts student at UCLA when he first appeared on the police radar, having sexually assaulted eight-year-old Tali Shapiro in September 1968. Shapiro had been walking to school on a sunny day in Hollywood when Alcala approached her in his car, tricking her into getting into the vehicle under the guise of knowing her parents. From there, he drove Shapiro to his apartment, where Alcala said he wanted to show her a “beautiful picture”. Hours later, the police found Shapiro in the kitchen, a puddle of blood around her “white Mary Janes” next to a metal bar the district attorney later said Alcala had used to try to strangle her.

It was a miracle that Shapiro was alive – or that she had been found at all. A good Samaritan had noticed Alcala’s beige-coloured car tailing the little girl and called it in to the police who arrived at his house. “I said, ‘Police officer. Open the door. I need to talk to you,’” remembered Chris Camacho, the former LAPD officer who responded to the call. “This male appeared at the door. I will always remember that face at that door: very evil face. And he says, ‘I’m in the shower. I got to get dressed.’ And I told him, ‘OK, you got 10 seconds.’ … Finally, I kicked the door in. The image will be with me forever. We could see in the kitchen that there was a body on the floor, a lot of blood.”

In that time, Alcala escaped out the back door, leaving the investigating officers scrambling to find him. They did, however, learn his identity through an ID card he left behind. At his apartment, they also found photographic equipment and several photos of young girls; they would later learn that Alcala lured women by offering to take their picture.

In 1969, Alcala – who by then had moved to New York – was put on the FBI’s most wanted list. There in the city, he got into the NYU film school – a stint that Woman of the Hour mentions in passing, together with the fact he once attended a class with filmmaker and child rapist Roman Polanski. He then moved to New Hampshire where he worked as a counsellor at an arts and drama camp for girls.

It was thanks to the most wanted list that he was finally apprehended. Two girls from the camp reported him, having recognised his photo from the list taped up at their local post office. From there, Alcala was turned over to the police back in LA – where, in good news for him, Shapiro’s family no longer lived. They did not wish to return to make their daughter testify. With no main witness for the case, prosecutors were forced to offer Alcala a deal. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of child molestation and registered as a sex offender, before being paroled after just 34 months in prison.

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It wasn’t long before Alcala resumed his life as normal. He got a job at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter and worked as a wedding photographer. Throughout all of this, he was indeed a registered sex offender – not that anyone bothered to check. The same went for the producers at The Dating Game; Alcala was selected because he was tall, handsome, and charming.

The footage of that 1978 episode is eerie to watch now. Alcala is introduced as Bachelor No 1: a beaming, boisterous young man grinning ear-to-ear in a brown bell bottom suit and a butterfly collar shirt. Host Jim Lange describes him to the audience as a “successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13 – fully developed”. The Dating Game was a show that trafficked heavily in sexual innuendo, and Alcala was happy to oblige.

While the Netflix film shows Cheryl going off-script to ask feminist questions of her suitors, the reality was more typical of the usual sexist fodder. Throughout the episode, Alcala likens himself to a banana (“peel me”), says his favourite time of the day is after dark (“Night time is really where it gets good”) and roleplays as a grunting, gurning “dirty old man” (in the film, he plays the part of a horny teacher). What does remain the same in the film and the real footage, though, is the palpable charm radiating off this man who by then had murdered and raped several women.

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“We’re going to have a great time together, Cheryl,” Alcala says at one point, a terrifying promise that almost comes to fruition when she selects him as the winner. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he kisses her on the cheek as the host reads aloud their prize. Thankfully, the date – of which a fictional version is shown in the Netflix film, tense and terrifying – never actually happened. Bradshaw backed out of the agreement reportedly because she found Alcala “creepy”.

A year after his stint on The Dating Game, Alcala targeted 12-year-old Robin Christine Samsoe, who had been cycling from her ballet studio to the beach when he stopped her and her friend Bridget, asking to take their photo. A chance encounter with Bridget’s older neighbour temporarily scared him off, but he returned when Robin was alone. Twelve days later, her remains were found by a forest service worker. A kitchen knife was discovered nearby. She was unrecognisable.

Bridget’s description of Alcala allowed the police to draw up a composite sketch, which was recognised by Alcala’s parole officer who contacted the detectives in charge. At the time, Alcala was living with his mother in Monterey Park, walking distance from where Robin’s remains had been found. On 24 July, he was charged with her kidnap and murder.

During their investigation, the police uncovered a storage locker in Seattle. Inside they found the “mother lode”, as Detective Pat Ellis told CBS News. There were “hundreds if not thousands” of pictures of women in “positions of supreme vulnerability”. Many appeared to be very young. Also inside the locker was a tiny silk bag filled with earrings, including one pair of gold ball studs that Robin’s mother recognised as having been leant to her daughter. It was sufficient evidence to prosecute, though Alcala was uncooperative. During interviews with the police, as reported by The New York Times, Alcala would try to agitate investigators, pretending to be asleep and tracing his finger along photographs of the victims.

In 1980, he was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of Robin Samsoe. What followed was a legal back-and-forth driven by Alcala from behind bars. Four years after the sentencing, his conviction was reversed on the basis that the jury and the case had been tainted by the introduction of his previous crimes. A new trial was granted in 1986 but gave rise to the same result: he was sentenced to death. In 2003, a federal appeals court overturned the sentence once again, granting him a third and final trial.

It was while preparing for that third prosecution that investigators realised the full scale of Alcala’s terror. With new evidence and DNA science, he was linked to four other homicides, leading to murder charges of Jill Barcomb, an 18-year-old runaway who was found in 1977; Georgia Wixted, 27, a nurse bludgeoned to death in Malibu that same year; Charlotte Lamb, 31, found in the laundry room of her apartment complex in 1978 (the same year he went on The Dating Game); and Jill Parenteau, 21, killed in her Burbank apartment in 1979.

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In 2010, he stood trial on five joined charges of murder, including Samsoe. Bizarrely, Alcala chose to act as his own attorney and took the stand in his own defence – which included calling Samsoe’s mother to the stand. “That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life – having him ask me questions,” she told CBS News, confessing that she had brought a gun to court. “I was going to shoot him right between the eyes if I could’ve gotten a shot at him.”

Alcala also showed the jury a portion of his appearance on The Dating Game in an attempt to prove that the earrings found in his Seattle locker were his, not Samsoe’s. The footage was too blurry to know for certain. Bachelor No 2 on the same episode of The Dating Game – named Jed Mills – said that he did not recall as much. “I had never seen a man with an earring in his ear,” said Mills, who added that he was “surprised” that Alcala won: “I didn’t believe his smile. I didn’t believe his charm and I didn’t like him.”

Less than two days of deliberation later, the jury found Alcala guilty on all five counts of first-degree murder. Two years later, Alcala was extradited to New York where he pleaded guilty to the murders of flight attendant Cornelia M Crilley and musician Ellen Jane Hover in 1971 and 1977, respectively. It was the first time in his criminal history that he actually confessed to a killing. In 2013, he was sentenced to 25 years to life – mostly symbolic given he was already on death row in San Quentin. (The death penalty has not been an option in the state of New York since 2007). At the sentencing, Justice Bonnie G Wittner broke down in tears as Alcala’s heinous crimes were recalled. “This kind of case is something I’ve never experienced, hope to never again,” she said.

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In 2016, prosecutors in Wyoming charged Alcala with another murder, that of Christine Ruth Thornton. Thornton was 28 years old and six months pregnant when she disappeared in 1978. Her body wasn’t found until 1982. It’s Thornton who is seen at the beginning of Netflix’s film confiding in Alcala shortly before he assaults and murders her. In the end, Alcala, then 73 years old, was deemed too sick to be extradited to Wyoming to face the charge.

Alcala died aged 77 of natural causes while awaiting execution on 24 July 2021. “The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure,” said Shapiro at the time, adding that she is not defined by the attack. “I know it’s awful what happened to me, but I’ve never identified with it,” she told The New York Times. “I’ve moved on with my life, so this doesn’t really affect me. It’s a long time coming, but he’s got his karma.”

Ultimately, Alcala was convicted of the murders of seven women and girls – though the real number is likely much higher. Some authorities estimate as many as 130. Jeff Sheaman, an investigator who interviewed Alcala in 2016 while investigating Thornton’s disappearance, said of his death: “He’s where he needs to be, and I’m sure that’s in hell.”

‘Woman of the Hour’ is now on Netflix