The suspect who is known as the “Dating Game Killer” to the media has pleaded not guilty to murder in the case of two women in New York in the 1970’s. Rodney Alcala, who is now 68, was arraigned in New York after being extradited from California by U.S. Marshals, CNN reports.
He is already on death row in California after being convicted of the murders of four women and a 12-year-old-girl. Those crimes took place between November 1977 and June 1979 and covered nearly all of suburban Los Angeles from Burbank to El Segundo. It wasn’t until 2010 that he was sentenced to death for these murders.
The New York cases are of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover. Crilley was a 23 year old TWA flight attendent, who was found raped and strangled with her own stocking in her Upper East Side apartment. Not much is known about Hover, other than she was a 23-year-old researcher, who was found slain in Westchester County, New York.
The Dating Game killer actually won the contest but the girl on the show told the producers that she would not go on the date with him because he was “too creepy”. The date offered included tennis lessons, tennis clothes and a trip to an amusement park. On the show he was introduced as a “successful photographer” who might also be found skydiving or motorcycling.
The “successful photographer” part has been confirmed by police who have released 125 photos of different women that were found in Alcala’s Seattle storage locker (the 12-year-old victim’s earrings were found in the same locker). They are asking for help in identifying them, as some could also have been victims during his 1970s killing spree. The photos can be seen here and are featured in the embedded video below.
Here is the original September 13, 1978 recording of the Dating Game on which Alcala appeared. It is known that he had already killed at least one woman by the time the show was tapped.