The True Story Behind Woman of the Hour: Inside Serial Killer Rodney Alcala’s Infamous TV Show Appearance — and How He Finally Got Caught

Rodney Alcala is one of America’s most notorious rapists and serial killers, but audiences and producers Dating game had no idea of ​​his crimes when he appeared on the hit show in 1978.

The serial killer, who died in prison in 2021, was confirmed to have killed at least seven women across California, New York and Wyoming, but authorities suspect his body count is even higher. In 1978, he appeared in a popular TV show Dating gamein which the bachelorette interviewed three bachelorettes (whom she couldn’t see) and eventually chose one to date at the end of the program. While his appearance on the hit series didn’t lead to his death, the chilling moment — and Alcala’s crimes — are the subject of Netflix Woman of the hourwhich is currently airing.

Anna Kendrick plays real life in the movie Dating game bachelor Cheryl Bradshaw, while Daniel Zovatto portrays the killer Alcala.

Here’s everything you need to know about the true story of Woman of the Hour and where Cheryl Bradshaw is today.

Is Woman of the hour based on a true story?

‘Woman of the hour’.

Leah Gallo/Netflix

That, Woman of the hour based on the true crimes of serial killer Alcala and his infamous appearance on the popular 60s and 70s TV show Dating game. In 1978, Alcala was one of three bachelors who appeared on an episode of the show featuring aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw as a contestant.

During the shoot, Bradshaw asked questions of Bachelor No. 1 (aka Alcala) “What’s your best time?” and “I’m serving you for dinner. What is your name and what do you look like?” According to 20/20, Alcala responded to the latter question: “They call me banana and I look good.” Bradshaw and Alcala continued to trade cheeky jokes back and forth before she eventually chose him as the lucky winner.

Have Rodney Alcala and Cheryl Bradshaw ever dated?

‘Woman of the hour’.

Leah Gallo/Netflix

Although Bradshaw chose Alcala as the lucky bachelor on Dating gamethe two did not date again after filming.

Dating game pageant coordinator Ellen Metzger recalled during the episode 20/20 2021 that Bradshaw told producers she couldn’t go on a date with him. “She said, ‘Ellen, I can’t go out with that guy. He’s giving off weird vibes. He’s very weird. I don’t feel comfortable. Is that going to be a problem?’ said Ellen. “And of course, I said, ‘No.'”

Ellen initially persuaded her husband, executive producer Mike Metzger, to cast Alcala in the series because he was tall, dark-skinned and handsome, but Mike said 20/20 that Alcala had a “strange personality,” noting, “He had a mystique about him that I found uncomfortable.”

Jed Mills, another contestant on the same episode, recalled Alcala telling him in the green room, “I always get my girl,” adding that he found Alcala “creepy.”

Who were Rodney Alcala’s victims?

‘Woman of the hour’.

Netflix

Alcala has been confirmed to have killed at least seven women and girls, but authorities suspect he may have killed as many as 130 victims across the country, according to the Associated Press. Tall, dark-skinned and handsome in his youth, Alcala often lured victims by offering to take their photographs.

A decade before appearing on Dating gameAlcala attacked 16-year-old Morgan Rowan. A week later, he lured a second-grader named Tali Shapiro into his van, then raped and brutally beat her with a metal bar in his Hollywood apartment. When a passerby saw Alcala wooing a girl, he called the police, who took nearly three years to find him after he fled California to New Hampshire. Alcala was placed on the FBI’s most wanted list for the rape and attempted murder of Shapiro in 1969, but his crimes did not end there.

In 1971, he killed flight attendant Cornelia Michael Crilley (23) in her apartment in New York, but he was not suspected of the murder. After Crilley’s murder, Alcala was arrested for the attack on Shapiro, but he served only 34 months behind bars for the crime. He also had to register as a sex offender.

Alcala returned to California after his release and worked as a typesetter for Los Angeles Times. In 1974, just two months after his first release from prison, he kidnapped a 13-year-old girl, but was charged only with furnishing marijuana to a minor and violating his probation. He served two years in prison.

After his second release from prison, Alcala’s parole officer in Los Angeles let him go to New York to visit relatives, LA Weekly reported. In July 1977, while in New York, Alcala murdered nightclub heiress Ellen Hover. Her bones were discovered a year later at the Rockefeller estate in Westchester, NY, where he often liked to photograph his subjects.

On June 20, 1979, Alcala approached Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old ballet student from Huntington Beach, California, and offered to take her photo. She was never seen alive again. Her remains were found 12 days later in a remote location 40 miles from where she was last seen.

Alcala was arrested for Samsoe’s murder in July 1979. By then he had killed at least seven women and girls, although many of his victims would not be discovered until later.

How was Rodney Alcala caught?

‘Woman of the hour’.

Leah Gallo/Netflix

Alcala was caught on a killing spree several times, but it took decades before he was finally brought to justice.

Shortly after Crilley’s murder in New York in 1971, Alcala was living in New Hampshire, where he went back to calling himself John Berger and worked as a counselor at a girls’ theater camp. Two campers recognized Alcala from a photo on the local post office’s most wanted list and reported it to their dean, who then called the police, CBS News reports. Alcala served less than three years for the assault on Shapiro.

After the kidnapping and murder of Samsoe, Alcala’s parole officer in Los Angeles recognized a police sketch matching Alcala and advised authorities to look for him as a suspect. He was arrested in July 1979 for Samsoe’s murder, after which investigators found earrings belonging to Samsoe’s mother in a storage locker Alcala was renting, according to CBS News. Authorities also found photo albums of dozens of young men, women and women in compromising and vulnerable positions.

In February 1980, Alcala went on trial for Samsoe’s murder and was convicted and sentenced to death. The case was overturned on appeal in 1984, and the California Supreme Court ruled that he was given an unfair trial because jurors were informed of his prior sex crimes and assaults. He received a new trial in 1986, in which he was once again convicted and sentenced to death, but that case was overturned in 2003.

By that time, DNA evidence and testing had advanced enough to link Alcala to four other murders from 1977 to 1979, including those of Jill Barcomb, 18; Jill Parenteau, 21; Georgia Wixted, 27, and Charlotte Lamb, 32. Orange County prosecutors charged Alcala with five counts of murder — four murders, plus the killing of Samsoe — and he was sentenced to death for each in 2010.

The DNA would lead to new convictions for Alcala in cases that have otherwise remained cold. In 2012, Alcala was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murders of Hover and Crilley, and in 2016, Alcala was charged with the first-degree murder of Christina Thornton in Wyoming. Because Alcala was already in prison and on death row, he was never extradited to Wyoming to stand trial for Thornton’s murder, CBS News reported.

What happened to Rodney Alcala?

Rodney Alcala while the penalty phase of the People vs. Alcala begins in a courtroom in Santa Ana, CA.

Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty

Alcala died at San Joaquin Valley Hospital in California on July 24, 2021, while awaiting execution. He was 77 years old and had previously been housed at San Quentin Prison near San Francisco.

Where is Cheryl Bradshaw now?

Following her Dating game apparently, Bradshaw left California and retreated from the limelight to start a family. Not much is known about Bradshaw’s life today.

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Source: HIS Education