Between November 1977 and June 1979, four Los Angeles County women and one Orange County girl were sexually assaulted and brutally murdered by Rodney James Alcala, a self-proclaimed freelance photographer and former contestant on the ABC prime-time show, The Dating Game.
In November 1977, 18-year-old Jill Barcomb was found face-down in the dirt of the foothills near Hollywood. She had been raped, sodomized and murdered. In December 1977, 27-year-old Georgia Wixted was found raped, sodomized and murdered with a nylon stocking tied around her neck in her Malibu apartment. In June 1979, 33-year-old Charlotte Lamb was found raped, beaten and murdered with her shoelace tied around her neck in an El Segundo apartment complex laundry facility. These three cases were investigated and evidence was collected, but went cold.
In June 1979, 21-year-old Jill Parenteau was found strangled, raped and murdered in her Burbank apartment. Blood collected at the scene was linked to Alcala, but he was not prosecuted at the time based on a subsequent murder of an Orange County girl.
In June 1979, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe was at the beach in Huntington Beach and was approached by Alcala to pose for a series of photographs. After posing in the photographs, Samsoe rode away to dance class on her bicycle. Alcala kidnapped, murdered, and dumped Samsoes body near Sierra Madre in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Samsoes skeletal remains were not discovered until July 2, 1979. Her body had been scavenged by animals. Alcala was identified by several people as the photographer from Huntington Beach the day Samsoe was kidnapped.
During the course of the investigation Alcala was secretly planning to move to Seattle, where he rented a storage locker to store his personal items, hundreds of photographs of unidentified women and children, and items that belonged to his victims, including earrings from Samsoe and Lamb.
Alcala was charged, tried, and convicted for Samsoes murder in 1980 and sentenced to receive the death penalty. This conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court. In 1986, Alcala was again tried and convicted for Samsoes murder and sentenced to the death penalty. This second conviction was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
While awaiting the third trial for the murder of Samsoe, DNA was tested and linked Alcala to the murders of Barcomb, Wixted, and Lamb. Alcala was charged for the additional four murders, including the three DNA cases and Parenteau.
On February 25, 2010, Alcala was found guilty by a jury of five felony counts of murder and one felony count of kidnapping. The jury found true the sentencing enhancements for committing multiple murders, murder with torture, murder during the commission of rape, murder during the commission of kidnapping, murder during the commission of a burglary of an inhabited dwelling, and murder during the commission of robbery. On March 30, 2010, Alcala, then-66, was sentenced to receive the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering Samsoe and raping and murdering the four Los Angeles County women.
Victim Impact Statements
Photographs taken by Rodney Alcala
