Episode 640: Rodney Alcala: The Dating Game Killer (Part 1)
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Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+. It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes. So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.

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It do be. Sorry, I had to swallow, like, spit before I said that. Cute. Apologetic I am. Okay. Okay, Dr. Seuss. Apologetic I am. Oh, yeah, yeah. Did you just hear that? I just said yada instead of yoda.

Oh, I gotta go. Yada. Baby yada. My boy yada. My boy yada yada yada. Yada yada yada. I like that. I feel delirious today. Yeah, we didn't get a lot of sleep last night in my house. I'm not really sure why. Like nothing happened.

That upset anyone to their degree of not being able to sleep. Just a restless night? A restless night for everyone. I hate that. Not for me. Yeah, it was like mass hysteria in my house. I don't know what happened. Damn. I mean, you have kids. That's just like life with children. That's just every day. I, last night, had a terrifying moment that like nothing became of it. But it's pretty underwhelming. But I'm trying to, let me talk about it. I'm trying to sleep with the TV off.

Because all my life. Because science. My entire life I have slept with the TV on. And it's like not great for you. And I do notice a better sleep with it off. So yeah, I've been trying to do that. But before I went to sleep, not last night, even the other night, I saw this TikTok from the Appalachian Mountains. And it's, I don't know, like who knows what's real and what's not anymore. This will do it.

This will fucking do it. Yeah, this will do it. As soon as you said the Appalachian TikTok, I said, uh-oh. Yeah. Have you ever seen, you guys out there, because I already talked to Elena about this. And I confirmed I have. Have you ever seen those videos where people are like, oh my God, just sitting in my bedroom and like, I see these creatures in my backyard staring at me. And it's like these like fucking terrifying things.

Almost like Dementor, but like scarier looking things with like long black hair and like white nightgown sort of, or like maybe just like white...

skin, like abyss skin sort of. Abyss skin. Abyss skin. Abyss skin. You know? I like that. Just floating and like staring at you. It's like a biscuit in a basket, but abyss skin. It's just like that. But like just staring at you like they're gonna pretty much kill you. Yeah. So I got one of like a couple of those TikToks and fucking drew. It's our it's our cute little thing at night. We lay in bed and we scroll TikTok, but that was a horrible one to end on. And then

In the middle of the night, I woke up and it was, of course, ready, ready? Say it with me. 3 a.m. Oh, 3 a.m., sorry. Yeah, that's fine. I was like pitch black. You were like, we didn't prepare this. Sorry, again, I'm tired. I'm not on point. It was 3 a.m., of course. And it was pitch black, so you were on the right thing there. And then I just was convinced that there was going to be those ladies in my room and I got so scared. And I woke Drew up and I was like, give me the clicker.

I don't blame you on that one. No, I'm just, I was on the treadmill this morning, fucking terrified that they were behind me. Oh, man. There's like two empty rooms behind me, which I don't love when I'm on my treadmill. Yeah. I need to like move it so there's a wall behind me. Yeah. You don't want empty space. I'm paranoid about Appalachia. You know, aren't we all? Yeah. I think that's valid. I think people in Appalachia would tell us we're doing the right thing by being paranoid about it. Let us know. Let us know.

Because you hear... Even if it's like, you know, folklore to me is like top notch horror. It's very interesting, but man, it'll getcha. It'll getcha. And Appalachia is like just lousy with folklore. Lousy. Like the whole, like, if you hear... They'll be like, if you hear, you know, a whistle outside, you better get inside. And it's like... And then you'll be like, why? And they're like... Can't tell ya. Can't tell ya. And you're like...

And then they're like, that's so much scarier. Johnny Boy here knows why. And then you're like, Johnny Boy, why? And he's like, I've been sworn to secrecy. He actually just shakes his head because he doesn't even talk anymore. Yeah, that's it. After his ordeal. You're like, why don't you talk? And he's like, I can't talk to tell you. He just shrugs at you. Yeah. And he zips his mouth and he throws away the key. And here's the thing. I

I respect it. I respect it so deeply. I respect it so hard. But you know where you're not going to find me? Appalachia. No, baby. No, baby. I'm even like freaked out now just that we talked about it and it's the middle of the day. Yeah. Anyway, I don't think I'll be sleeping with the TV off anymore. Yeah. I mean, you gave healthy sleeping habits a try and it didn't work.

Oh my God. Also, just another thing about me. Sorry, I'm really self-serving lately. Taking it back. You know, whatever. You know that? Did you talk about that alarm clock on here that we were talking about together? Or was that a private conversation? I know we had a private conversation about it. We have so many conversations and I'm like, which one was private and which one was on air? It's not private. It's just she found this really cool alarm clock. Yes. Can I tell you all about it? Do you mind if I encroach on you? No, no, I motioned at you. You did. It's your discovery. Okay.

So I'm telling you guys, I've been researching like sunrise alarm clocks for months and months and months. They just intrigued me, the idea. The idea is that

You are waking up not to like, wah, wah, wah, and like jolting you out of deep sleep. Instead, what sunrise alarm clocks do is they have a warm sunrise effect that happens, like a light. Yeah. And it slowly rises and gets brighter like a sunrise. And also you can set it to like birds chirping. Which is beautiful. Or like a bubbling brook or something. You know what I mean? Like something very, just very calm. Peaceful. And peaceful.

I was intrigued by this idea because it tricks, it basically like makes your circadian rhythm go into like a lighter sleep for a bit.

And then it will wake you out of that lighter sleep. So when you wake up, you feel more rested. Because it's a more natural way to wake up. Exactly. And so I was intrigued by it. I was reading all this stuff about it. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to give one a try because I really fucking hate waking up to a jarring alarm. And I was waking up like pissed. So like I immediately like, fuck this. So I tried it and I got the Philips one.

And it was like a Christmas birthday present to myself. I was like, let's do this. Let's wake up with the goddamn sun. And so she's natural. I'm natural. Guys, it fucking works. Yeah. And I'm telling you, it is the like most refreshed and calm I have ever woken up in my life. And I've done it for like almost a week now.

It is lovely. Yeah. You just wake up and you don't know why you're waking up because you don't hear anything. Yeah. And then when you do hear something, it's just birds tweeting. You know what? That must be fucking great. I wouldn't know. Yeah. I wouldn't know. Why wouldn't you know? I got one. Yeah. And I set it all up last night. But my dumb ass didn't realize that I set it up in military time. Oh, I did that too at first. How do I change it? I can show you how to change it. I need you to tell me how to change it. Because I set it...

I said it. I said it. I don't know why I just said it like that.

Leave it in. I said it and I made it, you know, 9 p.m. because that's the time it was. Yeah. And then when I woke up at 3 a.m. and was like, oh, God, there's an Appalachian woman in my room. It was like 15 o'clock and I was like, what? I was so confused. You're like, wait, there's an Eldritch Horror in my world. And then you're like, and it's 15 o'clock. What? I was like, I'm in an alternate universe. Shit. Shit. But. But.

At 3 a.m. I wasn't going to, you know, I came to after I was like, I was like, oh, military time. Don't know how to do that. And I also was like, I'm not fixing this problem at 3 a.m. So I just set my regular stupid alarm on my phone and woke up to like, did it, did it, did it, did it. It was angry. I can teach you how to take it out of military time. But if you ever need to tell military time, you just subtract two.

So 15 o'clock would be like, you take it from the five. So 5-3-2. It's three o'clock. Oh. You know who's told me that? Or 5-4-3, sorry. 740 bajillion times. Drew. Yeah. And every time I come across military time, I don't remember that. The only reason I know how to use it is when I was taking criminal justice classes. Oh. And they made you do like fake police reports and they would make you do it in military time. Yeah. Here's the thing though. I don't want to do math. No, I just want to know what time it is.

That was my problem was I looked over and I realized it was military time before I went to bed. And I was like, oh, I'm not doing math in the middle of the night. I was like, no, no, I need to just set that. I figured out how I'll help you. Yeah, it's a little bit complicated. But, you know, I'm looking forward to waking up with the sun. It's worth it. In my own time. I'm telling you guys, it's very worth it. It has changed my wake up feelings. I'm excited. We'll talk, you know, we'll have a private conversation. And maybe we'll forget we had that. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll have it again.

Low key, we can get into it now. I was putting it off a little bit because we are covering, if you have clicked on this episode, you know that we're covering Rodney Alcala, the dating game killer. Yeah. I had a very surface knowledge of this case. Like, I

And when I tell you so surface, it was barely even, you know, I don't know. I think a lot of people do. Yeah. Myself included. Yeah. So I saw, you know, that movie and I was like, oh, cool. Like, that's an interesting case. I'd like to cover that. So I told Dave and Dave was like, are you sure? And I said, yeah. We should have known then. We should have known then. It's obviously a case that should be told because these people deserve to have their story told. Of course. But it is brutal. Yeah.

It is very gruesome. A lot of these women were unfortunately raped. So we're going to that that's something we're going to be talking about. So I am going to break this up, I think, into three parts. Yeah. Just, you know, it makes it a little easier to digest. And there's a lot. And there's a lot to cover. Yeah. So this is going to be part one. Part one, I think, is definitely going to be a little bit shorter than parts two and three. But it kind of sets the sets the scene.

So let's start even somewhat kind of in the middle, I would say. And a lot of people will know this as the dating game killer case. So that's where we're starting. Yeah. When Cheryl Bradshaw appeared on the popular game show The Dating Game in 1978, she was very charmed by Bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala. And by the end of the episode, she had actually chosen to pick him as her date.

But just minutes after the episode finished taping, she actually met him in person backstage and she was immediately uncomfortable and actually quickly contacted producers of the show to cancel the date immediately. This is the craziest part to me. It was just a gut instinct she had and it just, I don't know what happened during that conversation, but something struck her and she went with her gut, which...

you have to applaud thank goodness she did she called the contestant coordinator uh ellen metzger i believe is how you say her name the day after filming and she said ellen i can't go out with this guy there's weird vibes that are coming off of him he's very strange i'm not comfortable is that going to be a problem luckily ellen was like nope is not going to be an issue at all you don't have to do anything you don't want to she said trust your gut girl that's fine

Now, what Cheryl Bradshaw didn't know at that time was that in canceling the date, she had narrowly avoided spending an evening in the company of one of America's most notorious serial killers. At the time of his appearance on The Dating Game in 1978, Rodney Alcala was already a convicted sexual predator.

Which just goes to show you, you know, what work went into vetting people back then. Yeah, that's what's so horrifying. Yeah, he had already served time for sexual assault and also had avoided a charge of attempted murder on a small technicality. Wow. And was able to be a contestant on this show. That's unbelievable. Luckily, times have changed. Yeah.

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After his arrest, though, investigators would learn that by the time he did appear on the game show, he was also a killer. He had killed many women at that point. In the year that followed, Alcala would go on to murder several other women until he was finally caught and luckily, I'll tell you right at the top, convicted for his crimes. Thank goodness. Ultimately, he was found guilty of eight murders and various other crimes, but he is suspected of many other murders. Some people believe as many as a hundred or possibly even more.

Jesus. Yeah. He is vicious. Luckily, he's dead. Thank goodness. Sometimes you gotta give you that right at the top. Yeah, you gotta. Rest in distress. Rest in distress, you absolute piece of shit. Yep.

So let's go back to his, you know, roots, I guess. Yeah. Even though we don't want to. Rodrigo Rodney Alcala Bucor, I believe is how you say his last name. He was born August 23rd, 1943 in San Antonio, Texas. He was one of four children born to Ana Maria Gutierrez and Raul Alcala Bucor.

By all accounts, the family enjoyed a pretty normal middle-class life in San Antonio. All of the Alcala children attended Catholic school, and Rodney did really well in school. He worked really hard, he maintained really great grades, like,

No warning signs, really. None of Rodney's teachers would ever remember him being a problem student. Actually, on the contrary, they said that he was considered respectful and kind. And they all said that he was among the most intelligent children in the class. Wow. Crazy. Now, in 1951, Rodney's grandmother did sadly become terminally ill, and she wanted to return to Mexico to live out her final years. So the family packed up everything they owned, and they moved across the border.

Despite the obvious differences, you know, in culture and everything, it seems like life in Mexico was pretty happy for the Alcala family, at least for the first few years. In 1954, when Rodney was just 11, his grandmother, who he had always been really close to, ended up passing away. And of course, that left a giant hole in the family structure. Yeah, of course. Her passing was then soon followed by the very abrupt departure of Rodney's father, who

Who just left the family one day and decided to return to the U.S. Oh. Like, he left them with absolutely nothing. He was the provider of the family. What the hell? Left them with, like, nowhere to live, left Anna Maria to figure it all out, and all of those kids were just left without a father. Wow. And Rodney was 11. Holy shit. What is interesting, though...

Is that, obviously, I'm sure these experiences were disruptive to him to some degree, and especially all the kids. But for some reason, he seemed pretty unaffected by both of these things. His grandmother dying and his father just leaving the family. And that's, like, a little concerning in and of itself. Yeah, definitely. Not that you want somebody to be, like, traumatized by these things. No, but you want it to make... Being, like, wholly unaffected is, like, interesting. Yeah, I feel like you would be concerned. Yeah. Yeah.

But it was also a very different time. So it kind of went without notice. After graduating from high school in 1960, Rodney followed his older brother's footsteps and he decided to join the U.S. Army. So he relocated to boot camp in North Carolina, where he trained as a paratrooper and also took on additional clerical work.

In 1962, while he was training in North Carolina... I almost said that with an accent. North Carolina. I think that's what happened. And then I was like, don't do that. I feel like, damn. While he was training there, his father actually passed away unexpectedly. Even though...

Even though, you know, Raul just abandoned the entire family almost 10 years earlier at that point, his passing obviously affected his family pretty deeply. But just like with his grandmother's passing years earlier, Rodney seemed pretty unfazed. Yeah, something's off. Something's definitely off here.

About a year after his father's death is when he really started to exhibit actually unusual behavior. Like, obviously, that's pretty unusual, but it definitely picked up steam. Throughout his life, he had always been respectful. He followed rules and expectations that had been set for him. But that all changed one evening in 1963.

His mom was at her home in L.A. making dinner, and Rodney just showed up unexpectedly at her door, which was very strange because he had to have hitchhiked more than 3,000 miles from North Carolina. Whoa. Yeah.

which, you know, was strange in and of itself. But even more uncharacteristic was the fact that he just up and left the military base with no permission. So he was technically AWOL. Yeah, I was going to say that's a very bad thing. Yeah. So Anna Maria was able to convince her son to turn himself in at the nearest recruitment station. And there he was evaluated by an army psychiatrist who at that point determined that Rodney was actually in acute psychological distress.

and had him admitted to the nearest hospital for psychiatric treatment. Oh, boy. But this seemed to have come out of nowhere. Yeah. Initially, he was treated just at a regular hospital in San Francisco, but he was soon transferred to a military facility just outside of Irvine, California. And he was admitted for more long-term inpatient treatment at that point. Okay. Now...

The triggering event for all of this, like essentially his breakdown is remains unclear. But even at that time, there were allegations of sexual misconduct on his part. Okay. So I don't know if he did something and I don't know that he necessarily would have regretted it. Yeah. Maybe it was just overwhelming to have done something awful for the first time. Who knows? Yeah.

But after months of treatment, it became clear that he would no longer be able to keep up with his responsibilities in the military. So in February of 1964, he was given a medical discharge. And at that point, a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder listed as chronic slash severe occurred.

Wow. So this is like well documented. Super well documented. The crazy thing about this case is that there are so many things that are well documented, but he just flies under the radar. And ends up on the dating game. Ends up on the dating game, is able to get off of things on like a weird technicality. Just very strange. Yeah, it's very odd.

After being released from the hospital, though, he returned to his mother's house in Los Angeles and he just started taking courses at California State University like nothing ever happened. Okay, pal. Given his past success in school and his IQ, which was reported to be around 140, which is actually right about where the genius category starts. Huh. So he was exceedingly intelligent. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he's...

He hasn't had any trouble in that area. No, not at all. He had no trouble with his coursework, and after that he transferred to UCLA, where he ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1968. Wow. Now free of academic obligations, he embarked on the next phase of his life, where he had a lot more free time. I think that's where things went really wrong. In between being released from the hospital and getting his degree, though, Rodney did attack one of his first documented victims, Morgan Rowan.

Fortunately, she was able to escape him not once, but twice. Really? Yes. In 1965, she was hanging out in the parking lot of a teen nightclub with some friends, and that's when she first saw Rodney.

Nothing seemed off about him in that moment. In fact, she actually thought he was pretty attractive, thought he was charismatic. So sorry, how old was he around this time? I think he's like early 20s, probably 22 at this point. And he's in a teen nightclub. Yeah, he's outside of a teen nightclub. Very Rodney. Just a grown ass man outside a teen nightclub. Nothing nefarious about that. Yep, I'm not worried at all at this point. No. Just kidding. I'm very worried. So worried you should be.

So he and Morgan kept making eye contact, and eventually they're two... It seems like maybe he was with a group and she was with a group, and then they kind of, like, became one group. Yeah. And they all started chatting. Eventually, the two of them split off from this big group, and they made their way into an alley near the club. Okay. Everything very quickly turned once Rodney got Morgan away from this group. He immediately got very rough with her. Ew. He hit her head against the wall, immediately knocking her unconscious. Oh.

luckily before anything could escalate any further she did come to and was able to scream which then alerted the owner of the nightclub and his wife who came running out to help her but in the shuffle of all that he was able to run away like get out of dodge before anybody even saw him what a piece of shit yeah so fucking crazy she morgan runs into rodney again three years later in the summer of 1968 i hate this

This was during her going away party. She and her family were actually going to be moving from California to New York. So her friends decided to take her out for one last celebration all together on the Sunset Strip. There was a big group of people. And while they were out, Rodney happened to join the group by chance because he's living around that area. And Morgan said she immediately felt creeped out. She was very nervous. Yeah.

She and her friend sat in a car waiting to head wherever they were going next. Rodney ended up slipping in behind the wheel and was like, oh, I'll give you guys a ride to wherever you're going next. Nope. I don't know if it was like a situation where maybe somebody was drinking, so he drove that car. He was being the designated. Mm-hmm. But...

he hopped behind the wheel and he was like, oh, why don't we all head to my house? Like, I've got some weed. We can all smoke together. And of course, nobody else knows what happened. So they're like, yeah, sure. Sounds good. Yeah. And it's the time period, remember? It's the time period. It's like, these are like kind of like hippie people, you know? Everybody's laid back. Everybody's laid back. Exactly. It was California, dude. Yeah. Hollywood. So once there with everybody smoking and kind of distracted, he took the opportunity to get Morgan alone and ended up bringing her into his bedroom. It sounds like

forcibly and i'm just gonna kind of do an overview of this just because the details of a lot of this is very intense like in most of these cases so i'm just kind of gonna give like an overview yeah he did physically and sexually assault her and actually pulled a knife on her during the attack

Her friends at a certain point probably heard something and also realized that she was gone for too long. So they started pounding on Rodney's closed and locked door to try to help her. But it actually took one of her friends breaking Rodney's bedroom window and entering that way for Morgan to escape a second time. Oh my god. So she escaped him twice. And it was like she had to go through a lot to escape him. Yeah, she was...

assaulted in a way like he's very very aggressive he's super aggressive oh that's awful now she didn't end up reporting this attack because her family was leaving for new york the next day she was overall just too scared and like we were saying these are like kind of like hippie people she was saying she didn't feel like she was going to be believed i was going to say and they'd probably just be like well you went to the house like especially in that time

I mean, they would do that now. But back then, even more so, they'd be like, well, you went to the house and you were smoking weed and you were like, you know what I mean? It would all be hurtful. It would be very much you put yourself in this situation. What do you want us to do? She didn't. And even like you should never, that should never be the case. No. Don't be. But sadly, she was terrified after this. She said she slept in bed with her parents after this. Oh, that breaks my heart. Once they moved to New York.

And then she later learned, you know, a lot of different crimes that he committed and carried a lot of guilt for not reporting him. Yeah. Which it's like, girl, that is not on you. No. He is the monster. No. Now, this next attack is on a young girl who's eight years old. So again... Oh, God.

It's brutal, and I'm just going to give you an overview of it. Thank you. So just three weeks later, a little past 8 a.m. on the morning of September 25th, 1968, eight-year-old Tali Shapiro left her family's temporary home at the Chateau Marmont and just started making her way to school. She's eight? Eight years old, like a tiny babe.

Unbeknownst to her parents, since they moved to the hotel a few months earlier, Tali had been getting up early and actually walking to her elementary school instead of taking the bus like she was supposed to. It was probably just a fun adventure for her. She obviously didn't know any better. In a different time. In a very different time. ♪

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Actual savings may vary depending on state of residence, individual circumstances, coverage selections, and insurance provider. Savings results are not guaranteed. As she walked to school that morning, though, a car pulled up beside her and she heard the driver say, come on in, I'll give you a ride to school. No. But her parents had advised her many, many times that she was not supposed to talk to strangers. They instilled that in her. So she declined the offer and was like, I'm not supposed to talk to you. Like, leave me alone.

But Rodney, because it's Rodney, told her, I'm not a stranger. I know your parents. Oh my God, fuck this guy. Yeah. Obviously, he did not know Tali's parents, but he had seen her and her parents at the Chateau Marmont because he had also been living there recently. I hate this so much. To convince her even more to come with him, he was like, you know what? I actually have a beautiful photo to show you. Like, it won't take any time at all. No, no.

In 1968, Los Angeles, and California in general, had yet to undergo the very dark transformation brought about by the Manson family murders. So while she knew she wasn't supposed to talk to strangers, Tali Shapiro didn't really get why she wasn't supposed to. The man in the car seemed nice enough, and he knew her parents, and even lived in the same hotel as they did. Plus, he said he had a beautiful picture to show her. Hmm.

And she's eight years old. Yeah, of course. Like she's a baby. She's a literal baby. I mean, that's a baby. Yeah. So she didn't see anything wrong with getting in his car and going back to his apartment with him and then getting on her way to school. She was already early, remember, because she woke up early to walk.

As he was sitting at a red light across the street, hero of the fucking century Good Samaritan, Donald Haynes, watched the curious exchange between this man in the car and the little girl on the sidewalk. And even though he couldn't hear what was being said, he didn't know what the relationship was between them, something about this whole scene just made him very uncomfortable. Huh.

He said it was something about the way the girl tried to keep walking and the way the car seemed to follow along slowly trying to keep her attention. Oh, that makes me upset. It caught his eye and he was just like, I don't know, something's real off about this. But his focus was broken when the light turned green and the car behind him honked, which of course he has to go forward. But as he started to drive away, he watched as the little girl got into the car. And later he would describe feeling in that moment as a kind of sixth sense or he said going off one's rocker.

Whatever the case, this feeling prompted him to turn his car around and look for the man in that car to see where he was going. Oh, this is an amazing man. Like truly good Samaritan of the century. We need more people like him. It's like what we were saying last episode. Yes. See something. Say something. He saw something. He did something. Yeah.

So it took him a few minutes, but he soon spotted the vehicle again and actually started following Alcala's car a few paces behind and trailed him all the way back to the parking lot at Chateau Marmont. From his vehicle, he watched as Alcala and Tali got out of the car and started walking towards one of the apartments with the little girl following just a few steps behind.

I mean, well, her parents live in the Chateau Marmont right now. Yes, she is living there. He's bringing her back to where she lives. Yes. So that's why she's like, there's nothing wrong with this. He knows my parents. He's a neighbor. We're in the same area. And obviously the fact that they both lived in the same place added to the fact that she was, or added to the, you know, story of I know your parents. Yeah, of course.

So not wanting to wait any longer and fully aware that he could be very wrong about what he thought was happening, Haynes was like, I don't care. He drove to a nearby payphone and called the police. What a badass. Truly. He told the dispatcher, you might think I'm a little screwy, but I just witnessed something that doesn't look right. I think a man just lured a little girl into his car and now he and the girl went into his apartment together. And they sent a cruiser. Good. Which...

Is actually pretty bonkers for that time period because nobody believed anybody back then. But thank goodness. That's actually shocking. It is. So minutes later, a police cruiser pulled up alongside the payphone and Haynes pointed out the apartment that the man had walked into. And the officer, Chris Camacho, I believe it is, thanked Haynes, walked over to the apartment door and knocked on the door hard and fast.

Again, I'm not going to go into all the details here. They're available elsewhere if you want them. But when the officer was able to make his way in, it was a horrible scene. He ultimately found Tali laying in a large pool of blood coming from her head. It was clear that she had been sexually assaulted and there was a metal bar across her throat that was effectively suffocating her.

Oh my god, he is a fucking monster. He's a monster. She's eight. She is a baby. I can't even. Oh, I can't even. Like my... So Officer Camacho grabbed a towel from the kitchen counter so as not to disturb any of the evidence and carefully lifted the bar off of her throat and then checked for a pulse. She was pale, she was badly injured, but Tali was still alive. Holy shit.

Ugh.

Tali remained in a coma for over a month at a nearby hospital. Holy shit. But after months of rehabilitation, she was able to return to school and actually lived a pretty normal life.

I am so glad to hear that. Yeah. When she recovered from all of her physical injuries, the Shapiro family actually moved to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, hoping that a new environment would help her healing process. And the last thing she remembered was entering the apartment, but she said everything that happened after that was and always would be a blank. Oh. She doesn't remember any of it. I am so glad.

I hope that never comes back to her. Never, ever, ever. I hope she never, that never resurfaces. Ever. When we say he's a monster, he's worse. Oh, he's worse than that. I have no words. And the fact that she, I mean, she's one of his, what we believe to be one of his first victims, but it's like, that's where you start your criminal journey.

What a disgusting piece of shit. Like a pig. He's awful. I can't. I can't even linger on it too long. Years later, though, Morgan and Tali connected over their shared experiences through letters. Oh, wow. And they actually even appeared on the show I Survived a Serial Killer. Oh, shit. I think in either 2021 or 2022. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

And Morgan said she like felt this like protectiveness over Tali and that's what connected them. And she even said like she was sorry to Tali that she didn't report what happened to her. She was like, if I had done that, maybe it wouldn't have happened to you. But Tali was like, no, it's not you. It's him that did this. Yeah. They became friends. Oh, I love that. I know. I'm so glad something good came out of that. I know. I wanted to tell you guys that. Because I'm like, oh. Because again, it's going to get rough. Yeah. So we got to have those little glimmers there.

Los Angeles police detective Steve Hodel, whose name you might recognize. I sure do. He's George Hodel, one of the prime suspects in the Black Dahlia's case's son. He was assigned to this case and immediately set out learning everything he could about the suspect, Rodney Alcala. Because remember, they know his name. This is his apartment. He's renting this apartment. That's blowing my mind. Yeah. Yeah.

Like that's blowing my mind. Like how this went any further. It was like 8.30 in the morning too. And this girl's just, it's a weekday. This girl's on her way to school. On her way to school.

Like, you would never expect something that horrible to happen right then. On her way to school. Mm-hmm. Like, Jesus. Now, to his surprise, no one at Chateau Marmont seemed to know anything about Alcala personally, but they all described him as a quiet person and not a troublemaker. I wouldn't go that far. Yeah, I know. That impression was echoed by his former classmates and professors at UCLA when Steve Hodel talked to them. One faculty member told Hodel that Alcala, quote, wouldn't harm a fly.

Again, I wouldn't go that far. It's like, yeah, we have evidence that he did hurt much more than a fly, actually, an eight-year-old little girl. Yeah, he sexually assaulted an eight-year-old. So do you want to suck that one back into your mouth? Essentially tried to kill her. I hate that shit. Yeah. I do hate that shit. Don't say that. Don't say that. When you just heard that this man might be a child rapist, don't say he wouldn't hurt a fly. Exactly. Because that's not true. We can only hope that whoever said that didn't know what he was being accused of. Well, I know it's like the impression of somebody. Like, I...

how many times you hear about something happening and you hear the people be like, holy shit, I had no fucking clue. But it's like, just, you know, be careful of the words that come out of your mouth during those times. Agreed. More important than what his peers and neighbors thought of him, though, was the fact that none of them had seen him recently. In fact, Hodel could have searched all over California and he never would have found Rodney Alcala because by then, Rodney Alcala was thousands of miles away.

As Steve Hodel was making the rounds of the UCLA campus to learn about his suspect, Rodney Alcala, now calling himself John Berger, walked into the admissions office at New York University and applied for a spot in the undergraduate film program at the School of Fine Arts.

Wow. What a weird next move. You know what I think I'll do? I think I'll take a film class after, you know, terrorizing people in California and a small child. So that sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. Despite the highly competitive nature of the program, actually at the time, one of the instructors was the then acclaimed Roman Polanski. And the fact that the semester had already started, Alcala was admitted.

Wow. Like he's a charmer. Wow. He's a charmer. Yeah. That just goes to show you. That right there. That's a competitive school. At the time, Roman Polanski was like a very. Prominent name. Prominent name. Exactly. And they're like, yeah, you can take this class. Wow. What?

Damn. Once again, though, he impressed his professors, his peers, who found him to be charismatic, like I just said, and a highly motivated student. He's like John Wayne Gacy. Yes. Like, you know, he's got that kind of like... He can turn it on, but when it's off, it's all the way off. Yeah, he's got that smarmy charm. Smarmy charm. Yep. Admissions chairperson Arlie Mock said of Alcala, there was a quiet determinism that seemed to pervade everything he did.

Outside of class, it appeared that he was similarly successful. He dated casually. Oh, can you fucking imagine? Can you imagine looking back? Absolutely not. Because you'd have no way of knowing. No, you'd never know. That's the thing. Again, he's so charismatic. I mean, somebody just said he wouldn't hurt a fly. He obviously is not showcasing his aggression outside of these things. I mean, again, going back to the beginning of the episode, he was the bachelor who won the dating game, won the date.

The amount of women who must be like, holy shit. Yeah. I can't even imagine. I cannot even imagine. He made friends with fellow students. He was working on group projects with people. Wow. He even managed to make some money as a commercial photographer at that time. In every sense, he seemed an ordinary but particularly driven student and nobody suspected there was anything dark about him at all. That's so scary. It's horrifying. That is so scary. Yeah. Yeah.

On the evening of June 12, 1971, on the other side of Manhattan, though, friends had been trying unsuccessfully to reach Cornelia Michelle Crilly all afternoon. 23-year-old, she went by Michael Crilly, as she was known to friends, had recently moved out of her parents' home in Bayside, Queens, and found her own apartment in an Upper East Side neighborhood that is sometimes called, and it's a quote, girl ghetto or mecca for maidens. Okay.

It was very affordable at the time, and young people were all moving over there. It's kind of like if you're from Boston, like the Brookline, Somerville area. Yeah, that makes sense. Crilly had spent that spring at the Transworld Airlines campus in Kansas training to be a flight attendant, and she had just come back to New York. She was super excited to start her career, so excited to have an apartment of her own, was just setting out in the world. Yeah.

According to her boyfriend, Leon Bornstein, Michael was funny, vivacious, had a jaunt in her step, and she had a real joie de vivre. She was also gorgeous, he said. The night before, he was trying to get a hold of Michael by the phone, and after several unsuccessful attempts, he finally went over to her apartment and tried the door, but it was locked. So concerned for her safety, he called the police, and an officer was able to access the apartment through a window just off the fire escape.

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Jesus.

To the investigators, her apartment had all the hallmarks of a targeted murder. Nothing was missing. There was a small amount of cash and other valuables right in plain sight. There was no sign of a break-in and no sign of a struggle elsewhere in the apartment. And it was obvious that she had been the victim of a violent sexual assault. This is very brutal. I just want to give you a heads up. Her shirt had been stuffed into her mouth and there was saliva and bite marks on both of her breasts.

There were also signs of serious trauma to the rest of her body, and it was very clear that she had been raped. I can't imagine what she went through. One of the officers asked, and this is horrible, one of the officers asked Leon, her boyfriend, to come into the bedroom to identify her, which is fucking insane.

That is beyond. Like we were talking, the Blackout Ripper, I forget the time period, but it was way, it was during World War II, wasn't it? Yeah. It was like during the 1930s, 40s. It was literally, and they were being sensitive to make sure family members didn't see these scenes. They did everything they could and made sure that nobody saw the scenes. These officers pulled him in and was like, can you tell us, is this her? Yeah.

What the fuck? Who would ever bring, especially like their boyfriend or their significant other, any loved one of any kind, to see them in that position? That will ruin you for the rest of your life. I don't know how you ever recover from seeing someone you love in that position. I would never recover. You don't. We even take great... That doesn't make any fucking sense to me because...

I've done plenty of viewings when I worked at the morgue. We went to great lengths to make sure there was nothing upsetting about, like, nothing beyond seeing your loved one dead. But, like, we would go to great lengths to make sure there was nothing seen that was beyond what they were already going to see. Exactly. So, like, I just can't, like, my brain doesn't.

wrap around that. Sometimes, especially back then, the NYPD is very similar to the LAPD. I was going to say that's some... And you just sit here like question mark, question mark, question mark. That's a state of dumb that I didn't know people existed in. You have to assume that that was like a... And you have to almost hope even that that was a rookie who was just...

real fucking dumb in that moment. I mean, lose your fucking job at that point. You've just ruined someone for the rest of their lives. Years later, he said it was a terrible scene. Michael's mouth was wide open because rigor mortis had set in and the killer had put something in her mouth to prevent her from screaming. I couldn't even tell it was Michael. She was so disfigured.

Yeah, I can't. The fact that they had that guy do that is beyond. So messed up. Wow. But detectives learned from Leon that earlier that day, Michael had been looking for somebody who could help her move two heavy beds and other furniture up to her apartment. And since some of the furniture appeared to have been moved in by the time she was killed, they theorized that whoever helped her move was probably the same person who killed her.

But Leon rejected that theory. He said Michael would have had to have recognized him or known him before she would have let anybody inside. But the coroner took swabs of the saliva and a bite mark impression. But otherwise, the body was absent of any other physical evidence that could help identify their killer.

Meanwhile, executives at TWA authorized a $5,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest. And a few days later, the Professional Airlines Stewardess Association upped that reward by $1,000. And despite the offer of the reward, though, the case quickly went cold. Wow. A few days later, Michael Curley's funeral was held in Queens and was attended by nearly 1,500 people. Holy shit. This girl was so beloved. Wow. Yeah.

After the murder of Michael Curley, Rodney Alcala needed to get out of the city, obviously. So in early July, he applied for a position as an arts camp counselor at a children's summer camp in New Hampshire. No. No. What the fuck? Stop. What the fuck? But he was using an alias. He was using the name John Berger, so they wouldn't have known any better.

But at the same time, investigators in California still had not given up the search for Tally Shapiro's attacker. And by then, Alcala had actually been added to the FBI's list of most wanted fugitives. And here he is just on the East Coast. Yep. His face and description appearing on wanted posters in federal buildings pretty much everywhere in the U.S. Wow. Now, and this is crazy. The amount of times he just like, just by chance, somebody sees something in these cases, there's, it's wild. Yeah.

In August, two girls from the camp, they walked a short distance to the post office just to mail some letters back home. It was meant to be a pretty quick trip, actually. But by the time they reached the post office, it started to rain heavily. So they were like, let's just wait inside until the rain lets up because we don't want to get soaked on the way back to camp. Yeah. So they just wandered around the post office. It was a pretty small building. They were looking at the governmental notices on the wall. And eventually their eyes settled on the bulletin board of all the wanted criminals. Yeah.

and one of the faces looked very familiar. According to the notice, the man's name was Rodney Alcala, and he was wanted for assault of a child in California. But he looked remarkably similar to their very popular camp counselor, John. Oh my god. Yeah. Can you imagine? No. I cannot.

To be a parent and to later learn that Rodney Alcala was your child's camp counselor. I'd never let my kids do anything again. Never. I'd be like, we actually live in the house and we never leave. Yeah, we actually have like a bomb shelter now. A bunker, yeah. And we're going to live there. Sound good? Never leaving. Bye. So the girls dismissed the notice as merely a coincidence. After all, John Berger said he'd come from New York where he'd lived his entire life. And he definitely didn't seem like somebody who would hurt a child. He was good to them at that camp. Oh.

but still the resemblance was uncanny. So when they got back to camp, they did mention the poster to the camp director. Good. Who was like, you know what? I'm going to go check that out just to be sure. Because I actually give a shit about the safety of children. I love that. At the post office, the camp director stared at the wanted poster for several minutes, just sat there in awe, reading and rereading the information on Rodney Alcala.

None of the details matched what he had been told about John Berger, but he simply could not ignore the fact that that man in the photo was pretty much identical to the counselor he'd hired just one month earlier. And he has a very, like, um...

He's got a distinct face. Yeah, it's not like he's... I'm trying to think of how to describe it because it's not like he's somebody that you're like, oh, how could you ever... They look like everybody else. He's just got something. He's got very... It's very... Cheekbones are very... He's very reminiscent of Richard Ramirez in that sense. He is very reminiscent. Where he has very pronounced cheekbones. He's got...

His eyes are like a certain way. So I understand because like a lot of guys around that time, like same haircut, same kind of thing going on. Yeah. So you'd be like, yeah, I don't know. So the fact that they are so. So sure. Like this has got to be that, you know, he's got to have some something. Something. About him. I think it's his eyes. His eyes are very. They're dead. Dead.

And they're scary. They're, yeah. Like there's something evil in those eyes, it feels like. Something is like brimming in those eyes. And I think it's because a lot of the pictures obviously you see are after his arrest. So he just let his facade go completely. But you can also see how somebody would be like, oh, that guy's harmless. You see him on the dating game. Have you ever seen the clips? I actually, I can't even watch them because it freaks me out. The clips are horrifying. I've seen a couple, but it freaks me out. Because you get why people are...

didn't think twice about him. Again, he is super charismatic. He's very much like in the vein of Ted Bundy that way. I was literally just thinking that. And I think it's the intelligence level. They know and they study other people and they see what makes people tick when they talk to others. And what makes people a people. They literally just try to kind of duplicate and imitate what they see. And it works because they're highly intelligent. Yeah.

So the director asked the woman at the counter in the post office if he could use the phone after standing there for several minutes, just going back and forth in his head. He was like, I got to report this just in case. Good for him. So he dialed the number on the poster and he was immediately connected with the regional branch of the FBI. Oh, shit. Can you imagine just a camp counselor from fucking New Hampshire? And he's just like, oh, hey. He's like, hi, I'm terrified. Yeah, hi.

The agent on the phone took all the details that the director could remember about John off the top of his head. You know, John Berger, the camp counselor. Yeah. And then instructed the man to return to the camp and act as normal as he could. He was like, you just have to go back to the camp and act like nothing is wrong. But he emphasized, do not leave him alone with any of the young female campers or any female campers at all. Oh, shit. Act as normal as you can, but you got to make sure he's not alone with anybody. That would be...

Hearing that, how do you act normal after knowing that he is possibly wanted in California for the assault of a child? But thank goodness this guy went this far because I'm glad people intervened here. Yeah, it's wild. It seems like this is a case that's very different from a lot of cases we see. That's the thing, exactly. Now, he didn't have to keep up the facade too long because the next morning, a group of FBI agents arrived at the camp and took Alcala into custody without incident.

Oh, wow. After comparing his fingerprints with those on file, they knew that they had the right person and they called Steve Hodel in Los Angeles, who immediately booked a flight to Boston so he could personally bring Alcala back to California to stand trial. He's like, fuck this guy. I'm bringing you in.

hodell arrived at the local police precinct uh early on the morning of august 12th where he was introduced to alcala and as they waited for the extradition paperwork to be completed hodell asked alcala why why did you attack a little child and in response alcala looked expressionless at hodell and said i don't want to talk about rod alcala and what he did oh please that's it please and that is where we're going to end for part one god yeah

We're going to talk about, you know, his arrest, a conviction, and his eventual release in part two. So get ready for that. And then so there's going to be a little break between part one and part two because we have, you know, listener tales, which you'll need as a little palate cleanser. You are going to need that. Yeah. So part two will be coming out next Monday. We'll do a little listener tales video in between then. So definitely tune in for that. It will be kind of like a

pre-palette cleanser, I guess. Yeah. Also kind of a post. And again, you'll, you have a lot more after that coming, so. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, stay tuned. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird as any of this. And guys, I know I don't have to tell you that. No. Certainly not. Yeah. Do keep it as weird as all these good Samaritans, though, who actually called people. Keep it that fucking weird. Keep it real weird like that. Alright, bye. Bye. Bye.

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A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City. At approximately 9 o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper.

This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance. The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down. Love and fellowship. It was probably the happiest I've ever been in my life. And the lengths we'll go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.