‘Dating Game Killer’ Rodney Alcala Dies From Natural Causes in Prison at 77

• Rodney Alcala was tried and convicted on seven counts of homicide in his lifetime, though police suspect he killed many others.
• DNA proof linked Alcala to the murders of 4 ladies in Orange County.
• Alcala was referred to as the “Courting Sport Killer” as a result of he was a contestant on the tv present ‘The Courting Sport’ in 1978.
• Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.

Convicted serial killer Rodney James Alcala, 77, an Orange County man who was on California’s demise row, died of pure causes within the early hours of July 24 at a hospital in Kings County, in response to a news release from the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Alcala was referred to as the “Courting Sport Killer” as a result of he was a contestant on the television show “The Dating Game” in 1978. Host Jim Lange didn’t know that Alcala had already murdered a minimum of 5 ladies and been charged with the tried homicide of a younger woman when he launched him as an eligible bachelor on the present, in response to ABC News.

None of his victims have been linked to the present.

In 2010, an Orange County jury convicted Alcala of 5 counts of first-degree homicide, in response to the information launch.

He was sentenced to demise for the killing of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, in addition to the 1977 deaths of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb and 27-year-old Georgia Wixted; the 1978 demise of 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb, and the 1979 demise of 21-year-old Jill Parenteau, the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation mentioned.

Following Alcala’s conviction, authorities launched greater than 100 photographs of unidentified ladies and kids present in a storage unit that belonged to Alcala in an try to search out out if there have been additional victims, CNN reported. Alcala lured ladies by providing to take their image, in response to The New York Times.

NBC News reported that three years later, Alcala was moreover sentenced to 25 years to life in jail for the murders of two younger ladies in New York within the Seventies: Cornelia Crilley, in 1971, and Ellen Jane Hover, in 1977.

In 2016, prosecutors in Wyoming charged Alcala with the homicide of Christine Ruth Thornton, who was 28 years previous and 6 months pregnant when she disappeared in 1978, in response to the information launch from the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The division additionally mentioned that investigators have both suspected Alcala of or linked him to different murders in Los Angeles and Marin County in California; Seattle, Washington; New York; New Hampshire; and Arizona.