March 30th, 2010
03:11 PM ET

Death for serial killer, former 'Dating Game' contestant

A onetime contestant on "The Dating Game" was sentenced to die Tuesday for murdering four women and a child, Orange County, California, officials said.

Rodney Alcala, 66, was convicted in February in the deaths of Robin Samsoe, Jill Barcomb, Georgia Wixted, Charlotte Lamb and Jill Parentau. The crimes took place between November 1977 and June 1979, and covered a wide swath of suburban Los Angeles from Burbank to El Segundo, authorities said.

A jury earlier this month recommended that Alcala receive the death penalty.

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Filed under: Death Penalty • Justice
soundoff (26 Responses)
  1. Keith from Wisconsin

    He will die of old age awaiting legal proceedure 496. At least he did not make the state pay for his defense like that lady in Florida who drugged her daughter to death (Casey). I say 31 days and charge his family for the bullet. The state can not afford to keep him. Liberals can take up a collection for keeping him longer.

    March 30, 2010 at 4:01 pm | Report abuse |
  2. Steve

    Like this is ever going to happen! Get ready for appeal after appeal and all the time this murderer will be allowed to live on tax payers dollars.

    March 30, 2010 at 4:10 pm | Report abuse |
  3. erinn boon

    I'm happy with his sentencing. If you're going to take someone's life, you should be prepared to give you own in return.

    March 30, 2010 at 4:40 pm | Report abuse |
  4. kaiser

    sorry that we have in Ukraine moratorium on the death penalty ...:( penalty such scoundrels must be done immediately and not kept in prison for 30 years!

    March 30, 2010 at 4:41 pm | Report abuse |
  5. Chris

    I'd be in favor of the death penalty if the police didn't have a history of occasionally deliberately fitting up innocent people who they 'liked' for the crimes. So many people being exonerated now on genetic evidence. Imagine being killed for something you know you didn't do. Maybe if we also bring back the ancient penalty for malicious prosecution, you get the penalty you sought.

    March 30, 2010 at 6:20 pm | Report abuse |
  6. Gary

    Oh here we go again.... those who would crawl up in the judgment seat for everyone to see their self righteous views that taking a life is not right regardless of the hideous crimes a person has committed yet they would be the first ones to sue you for spilling hot coffee on them at a McDonald's drive through window. Please... if the world listened to you we would all be driving a Voltzwagen with daises in the window and we would be sentencing serial killers to anger management meetings. I'm glad that life has a way of paying back those who dish it out to others.

    March 30, 2010 at 7:39 pm | Report abuse |
  7. engnrjim

    why did the arrest and convictim take 33 years ?

    March 30, 2010 at 10:16 pm | Report abuse |
  8. paul ortiz

    i am a taxpaying citizen of california.

    lock him up. it is cheaper to do that than to execute him. study and study gives that as a conclusion. so living on tax payers money is 'money wise', rather than money wasted.

    revenge is for the LORD, NOT for you or me. i don;t want him killed. simply to keep him incarcerated is fine with me. i do not want him killed. isn't there enough killing already? i say there is. do not waste my money on taking his life. so he grows old, perhaps he will someday know just how wrong he was to do what he did. i hope so.

    texas, iran, china all execute more than enough people and it doesn't seem to do much as far a deterance goes. so what does it do? obviously, not as much as you think it would.

    so stop it already. perhaps we could start to live like JC wanted us to? can we give it a try for while as see what happens? then we can compare results to see which system is better? paul n northern california

    March 30, 2010 at 10:29 pm | Report abuse |
  9. FlyingDutchy

    Death penalty works the wrong way; once you are afraid you will get the death penalty you might as well commit any crime as your punishment cannot get worse anyway. So who cares about killing a 4th or a 5th victim when death row is guaranteed after 3...

    Besides the above, the death penalty is irreversible; if you are found innocent after execution nothing much that can be done. If you are found innocent after 10 years behind bars at least you can enjoy the remainder of your life.

    And yes, the fact that you can be sued over everything nowadays in the US is really a shame and is having destructive effects on your beautiful country.

    March 31, 2010 at 1:35 am | Report abuse |
  10. Uwe

    Animal shelters put innocent unwanted animals down more quickly. This animal deserves no better. Can't we just have him euthanized there and save the hard-working taxpayers a lot of money? After all, he really isn't a human being.

    March 31, 2010 at 6:43 am | Report abuse |
  11. lou barretto

    Place him to work in solitary for the rest of his life and pay for the damage he has cause to the families...

    lou,

    April 9, 2010 at 1:22 pm | Report abuse |
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