Serial Killer | My Crime Library

Michael Wayne McGray Serial Killer

Michael Wayne McGray is a serial killer from Canada and even when he was put in prison his killing ways did not stop. In this article on My Crime Library we are going to take a closer look at Michael Wayne McGray

Michael Wayne McGray Early Life

Michel Wayne McGray was born in Collingwood Ontario however he would grow up in Argyle Nova Scotia

Michael Wayne McGray Murders

When Michael Wayne McGray was twenty years old he would murder Elizabeth Gale Tucker who was hitchhiking in Nova Scotia. The seventeen year old female would be brought to a wooded location where she was murdered. Elizabeth body was not found until six months later

Two years later Michael Wayne McGray and two accomplices would rob a taxi cab driver in New Brunswick. One of the accomplices Mark Gibbons would be murdered following the robbery. McGray would be charged with the robbery but not the murder of Gibbons. McGray would be sentenced to five years in prison

In 19981 Michael Wayne McGray would be released on a day pass while serving his five year sentence. McGray would murder Joan Hicks and her eleven year old daughter, Michael would be seen by a witness and charged with the two murders. Michael would confess to two more murders that were committed in 1991

When he was arrested Michael Wayne McGray would confess to the murder of Kimberly Amero who disappeared in 1985 from the Atlantic National Exhibition in Saint John. However after Michael Wayne McGray told police where they could find her body they were unable to find her remains.

Michael Wayne McGray would plead guilty to the murders of Joan Hicks and her daughter in 2000. McGray would also confess to eleven more murders however many could not be proven. In 2001 Michael would be charged with the murder of Elizabeth Gale Tucker.

Michael Wayne McGray would be sentenced to twenty five years to life (the longest prison sentence in Canada at the time

Michael Wayne McGray Prison Murder

In 2010 Michael Wayne McGray was transferred to a prison in British Columbia and told prison officials that he wanted to be celled alone. This request was denied. Michael would then murder his cellmate Jeremy Phillips. This murder would lead to an inquest that recommended that serial killers be housed alone.

Michael Wayne McGray Aftermath

In 2019 Michael Wayne McGray would be named the prime suspect in the Brenda Way murder which took place in 1995. Brenda Way boyfriend was charged with the murder and spent 17 years in prison. He would be released

Michael Wayne McGray More News

ecently released documents reveal a convicted serial killer told a fellow inmate he was responsible for a killing with chilling similarities to a case that saw a wrongfully convicted man imprisoned for nearly 17 years.

Michael Wayne McGray was named as a potential suspect in the violent 1995 death of Brenda Way in Dartmouth, N.S., in court documents released publicly Friday.

Glen Assoun, 63, was convicted of second-degree murder in her death in 1999, but federal Justice Minister David Lametti ultimately overturned his conviction five months ago.

Here’s what we know about McGray and his crimes.

Born in Collingwood, Ont., Michael Wayne McGray, now 54, grew up in Argyle, N.S. He moved to Halifax in the mid-1980s, and McGray was in and out of institutions from 1985 to 1995.

After his arrest for the deaths of Moncton woman Joan Hicks and her 11-year old daughter in 1997, McGray began to speak to police and media about additional killings he committed, stretching back over a decade and spanning the country.

As confessions continued, he alternatively claimed to have killed anywhere between 12 and 16 people, though was only ever convicted of seven.

His convictions include the deaths of two men in Montreal in 1991, the 1987 stabbing death of Mark Gibbons in New Brunswick, and the 1985 killing of 17-year-old Elizabeth Gail Tucker in Nova Scotia.

During his time in prison, McGray attempted to strike a deal with RCMP, offering to aid their investigation into his alleged 16 killings if he was given mental-health treatment, and immunity for his crimes.

Police refused that request.

McGray often spoke of an “urge to kill,” in interviews, one that he said had existed since he was a child, and wouldn’t cease after imprisonment.

While in prison in 2010, McGray killed his 33-year old cellmate, Jeremy Phillips.

Originally housed in a super-maximum facility in Quebec, McGray had been transferred first to a high-security prison in B.C., then to medium-security Mountain Institution.

Soon after, he was paired with Phillips.

Phillips pleaded repeatedly with prison guards to change cells, The Globe and Mail reported at the time, as he feared for his safety when with McGray.

Phillips was later found in his cell, choked to death. McGray eventually admitted to the crime.

Phillips’ family later sued the Correctional Service of Canada over his death, and a prison guard who witnessed the aftermath later filed a trauma claim with WorkSafe BC.

He described the scene as like “a horror movie”.

“I don’t know why they made the mistake of putting me here. I’m not a ‘medium’ inmate,” McGray told investigators the day after the crime.

“We didn’t have a beef … This was all about me, it wasn’t about him.”

McGray was later moved to a maximum-security facility in Ste-Anne-Des-Plaines, Que., the National Post reported.

Despite receiving some treatment and medication, he never expressed remorse for his crimes.

“I wish I could say I felt bad for the victims because that’s what society wants to hear, but I don’t,” he told CBC News in 2000. “There’s no emotion at all.”

McGray is currently serving seven life sentences and will be 72 before he can apply for parole.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/michael-mcgray-serial-killer-brenda-way-glen-assoun-1.5209623

Harold Shipman Serial Killer

When it comes to serial killers the majority that people talk about are from the United States however one of the worst serial killers in recent history is Harold Shipman a former doctor whose victims may number over 250 . In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at Harold Shipman who is commonly referred to as Dr. Death.

Harold Shipman Early Life

Harold Shipman was born in January 1946 to working parents. Harold Shipman was a standout rugby player in his youth however his childhood was marred with the death of his mother. Harold mother who suffered from lung cancer would die in 1963 when she was given a heavy dose of morphine, ironically this is the same way that Harold Shipman victims would die. Harold Shipman would receive his doctorate in 1970.

Early on during his working career Harold Shipman would be suspended for forging prescriptions for Demerol for his own use. However after a brief stint in a drug rehab Shipman medical career would continue. Harold Shipman career would progress throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s and was known to be a competent doctor.

Harold Shipman Murders

Late in the 1990’s a coroner began to notice a high death rate connected to Harold Shipman however a brief investigation would lead to no criminal charges. The local police would be blasted following the Shipman Inquiry for missing the obvious signs.

Harold Shipman would murder at least three more patients before he was once again under investigation which would eventually lead to his downfall. Harold Shipman last victim was murdered in 1998 who he would sign the death certificate and forge her will. The police investigation would reveal a large amount of evidence that tied him to the murder, some believe Shipman was so careless because he wanted to be caught.

Eventually another inquiry was conducted that took police and authorities two years to complete and in the end tied Shipman to as many as 250 murder victims. Harold Shipman would be convicted of fifteen murders and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Harold Shipman Death

Harold Shipman would die behind bars at HM Prison Wakefield where he was found hanging in his cell using a bed sheet. Harold would commit suicide the night before his 58th birthday.

Harold Shipman Other News

The former GP, Harold Shipman, Britain’s most prolific serial killer, used massive doses of diamorphine to kill his victims, the public inquiry into his patients’ deaths was told as it got under way last week.

The inquiry, at Manchester town hall, chaired by High Court judge Dame Janet Smith, is expected to take two years to unravel how the GP was able to evade the authorities for 24 years while killing hundreds of his patients.

Shipman, serving life in Frankland prison, Durham, after being found guilty last year of murdering 15 women patients, has refused to cooperate with the inquiry. It will try to establish how 459 patients died, although this may not be the full toll.

Richard Lissack QC, representing victims’ families, said that the GP had “moved unchecked through families, streets, and bit by bit murdered the heart of a community.”

Shipman, practising in Hyde, Greater Manchester, was unmasked after he was named as the sole beneficiary of the will of Kathleen Grundy, an elderly patient who was fit and healthy but had died suddenly during a visit to her home by Shipman.

Warning bells had been sounded at various stages of his career, but he had managed to escape detection. In 1975, in his first year in general practice in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, police and Home Office inspectors first became suspicious about the amounts of pethidine that he was obtaining. After several denials, he eventually admitted taking it intravenously for depression.

He was convicted on drugs charges in 1976 and entered a clinic to overcome his addiction. He had given a written undertaking in 1975 that he had no intention to return to general practice. But two years later he was back in practice.

The General Medical Council decided not to take action against him after receiving a psychiatrist’s report that said it would be “catastrophic” if he were not allowed to return to practice.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120619/

Harold Shipman More News

British GP Shipman – who practised in Hyde, Greater Manchester – was convicted of 15 murders, but a public inquiry that followed identified 215 confirmed victims and 45 more people who died in suspicious circumstances, potentially linked to Shipman.

Shipman’s earliest confirmed victim was 70-year-old Eva Lyons, who died on 17 March 1975 – more than two decades before he was caught in 1998 – but there has long been suspicion he started before then.

Filmmaker Chris Wilson, who made the BBC’s The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story, told LADbible: “One of the things we cover in the documentary is that he actually started killing while he was still a junior doctor.

“As part of the public inquiry, they [the authorities] subsequently looked into his time as a junior doctor and concluded that he probably killed another 15 and 20 – but that was so long ago that it’s difficult to be sure about specific cases.”

After Shipman died in 2004, a nurse who had worked with him came forward with suspicions about the numbers of deaths on the ward he had worked on. And the nurse isn’t the only former colleague who had concerns after working with the deadly doctor.

He added: “We spoke to Doctor Anthony Baboobal, who worked with him on the wards and he remembered the case of a four-year-old child who he is pretty convinced Shipman killed.”

“I always thought there was some ulterior motive, I thought there was something not quite right about this. As time went on he appeared to me to be lacking in the one thing a good doctor should have, which is compassion.

“He appeared to have a different relationship with patients and their families. The milk of human kindness did not appear to run in his veins.

“I thought he was a very odd and sinister person.”

Dr Baboobal, who has since retired, spoke about a time when Shipman, who was using his middle name Fred at the time, treated a young child for a chest infection, before the patient became seriously ill and died.

He said: “I could not understand. I was very perturbed because Fred had given me no indication at all that this was anything other than an ordinary chest infection. But this child died quickly.

“With hindsight, I had wondered if he had done something to this child.”

When asked outright, Dr Baboobal answered: “I can’t say that. What I think is, I think it’s likely that is what happened. And I think it is likely that this child had some opiate that hastened their death.”

All three parts of The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story are available on iPlayer now.

https://www.ladbible.com/news/doctor-accused-of-putting-semen-in-cup-of-tea-he-gave-to-woman-20220119

Harold Shipman Videos

Stephen Morin Texas Execution

Stephen Morin was a serial killer who was executed by the State of Texas for numerous murders of young girls and boys. According to court documents Stephen Morin was responsible for the murders of forty young women and seven men in the 1970s and 1980s. Stephen Morin would be convicted and sentenced to death. Stephen Morin would be executed by lethal injection on March 13 1985

Stephen Morin More News

Stephen Peter Morin, a Christian convert three times condemned for murdering young women, accepted his death sentence without resistance and was executed early Wednesday, ending his life with a prayer.

Morin, 34, was pronounced dead at 12:55 a.m. CST, after medics spent nearly an hour trying to find a vein to accept the tube carrying a lethal cocktail of drugs.

Morin was executed for the Dec. 11, 1981, shooting death of Carrie Marie Scott, 21, outside a San Antonio restaurant.

He was also under death sentences for the Dec. 3, 1981, slaying of Janna Bruce, 21, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and for the November 1981 killing of Denver waitress Sheila Ann Whalen, 23.

Morin was strapped to a gurney at 12:03 a.m. CST, offering no resistance. Medics, who said his veins were ‘shot’ by drug use, probed for a vein until 12:44 a.m. CST, when a saline solution was injected into his arm, said Texas Department of Corrections spokesman Charles Brown.

Morin’s final statement was a prayer for forgiveness.

‘Father forgive these people,’ he said, ‘for they know not what they do. Forgive them as you have forgiven me and I have forgiven them.’

His last words were: ‘Lord Jesus, I commit my soul to you.’

Morin then blew a kiss to a woman witness. As the poison flowed into his veins, Morin drew one deep breath, his last.

State District Judge David Berchelmann in San Antonio and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin had earlier denied motions by Gerald Goldstein, general counsel for the Texas Civil Liberties Union, to stay the execution.

Morin is the 40th convict executed in the United States and the sixth in Texas since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.

Morin, who began a fast out of religious motivation Tuesday, requested bread without yeast for his last meal.

The former cocaine addict and drifter from Providence, R.I., said he was converted to Christianity by his last kidnap victim who played tapes by the Rev. Kenneth Copeland, a Texas evangelist.

Morin had asked that no appeals be made to stop his death but Goldstein questioned his mental competence.

‘I am not asking for a stay. If one is granted, I will take it,’ prison spokesman Phil Guthrie told Goldstein Tuesday night.

On a 36-minute trip Tuesday morning from death row to the downtown Huntsville prison where the execution chamber is located, Morin ‘appeared to be in good spirits,’ Guthrie said.

‘At one point he jokingly asked the group if they’d like to stop and go fishing,’ Guthrie said.

Prison Warden Jack Pursley quoted Morin as saying his fate was ‘in the hands of the Lord.’

Morin claimed he was converted to Christianity by kidnap victim Margaret Mayfield Palm. She testified that after Morin abducted her at gunpoint to escape police hunting him for Scott’s murder, they drove around for 10 hours reading from her handwritten journal of Bible verses and listening to tapes by Copeland.

Morin was arrested at bus station after he freed Palm and she told police he planned to take a bus to Fort Worth to surrender to Copeland, an evangelist the prisoner asked to witness the execution.

Morin was on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list when he was arrested. A federal fugitive warrant charged him with the 1976 kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old San Francisco girl. He also was a suspect in several rapes, abductions and murders of young women in Las Vegas, Utah, Indiana, California and New York.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/03/13/Stephen-Peter-Morin-a-Christian-convert-three-times-condemned/8207479538000/

Carroll Cole Preteen Killer To Serial Killer

Carroll Cole was a serial killer who would be executed by the State of Nevada for a series of murders however it is his earliest murder that most people remember. When Carroll Cole was just eight years old he would drown another eight year old while the two were swimming. The death would be ruled to be accidental however when Carroll Cole was writing his biography in prison he would confess to this murder.

Carroll Cole would be in and out of mental hospitals throughout his teens and for some reason they would let him out even though many of the staff were against it. Carroll Cole would soon get married to a prostitute and then burn down a motel as he believed his wife was having sex with other men there. Carroll Cole would be convicted of arson and sent to prison

Once out of prison Carroll Cole would be arrested again after attempting to strangle an eleven year old girl. Again Carroll Cole was sent to prison and this time for five years

Once free from prison Carroll Cole attempted to strangle two women however this time he ended up in another mental hospital. Again the staff would free Carroll after a few years. Carroll Cole would head to California

The first woman was killed in San Diego in 1971 and would murder another woman only a few weeks later. Carroll tried to explain the killings by saying the women were having affairs on their husbands so deserved to die as it reminded him of his mothers actions

Carroll Cole would get married yet again in 1973 and the marriage was as strained as his first one. Carroll Cole would frequently leave the home where he would murder more women.

Carroll would go to Las Vegas where he would murder yet another woman before fleeing the State and heading to Texas. While in Texas Cole would murder three more women by strangulation however he was caught at the murder scene during the third murder.

Carroll Cole would end up confessing to fifteen murders and would be sentenced to life without parole in Texas however the murder in Las Vegas would come back to haunt him as he was convicted in Nevada and sentenced to death. Carroll Cole would be executed by lethal injection in 1985.

Carroll Cole More News

Convicted killer Carroll Edward Cole, who insisted that prolonging his life would be a waste of tax dollars, died by lethal injection here early Friday, the first execution in the Far West since 1979.

Cole, convicted of killing five women, fulfilled his death wish shortly after 2 a.m., when officials at Nevada’s maximum-security prison sent powerful doses of three undisclosed drugs flowing though an intravenous needle in the condemned man’s arm.

Strapped to a padded table in a converted gas chamber, Cole, 47, blinked repeatedly but showed no emotion waiting for the lethal drugs to course through his veins. He had been sedated earlier to prevent any final resistance.

Seventeen reporters and eight designated witnesses–nearly all of them court or law enforcement officials–had gathered to watch the execution. But looking out from behind one of the chamber’s three large windows, Cole seemed to notice only two of the witnesses, Mike and Judy Newton, a Las Vegas couple writing his biography.

His last words were to them: “It’s all right,” he mouthed through the glass.

Took Five Minutes

Moments later, as the lethal drugs began to flow, Cole closed his eyes, coughed and appeared to convulse, gasping for breath. Over the next several seconds, his chest heaved mechanically and his head slowly arched back. His lips parted; his eyelids opened slightly.

Then, he lay still. It had taken Cole five minutes to die.

“He was ready to go; he wanted to go,” said his attorney, Edward G. (Ted) Marshall, one of the official witnesses.

The last execution west of Texas occurred Oct. 22, 1979, on the very spot where Cole died. On that day, Jesse Walter Bishop of Garden Grove, Calif., went to the gas chamber for gunning down a honeymooner in a Las Vegas casino robbery.

Cole’s execution–the 50th since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976–marked the first time that execution by lethal injection was used in this state, where the gas chamber was born in 1924.

Nevada lawmakers authorized the use of lethal injections last year after George W. Sumner, director of state prisons, complained that the old chamber had leaks. Supporters of the switch declared it a more humane means of executing Cole and the other 28 men and two women on Nevada’s Death Row.

A one-time San Diego resident who was raised in Richmond, Calif., the stubby, tattooed Cole was convicted in Texas of strangling three Dallas women in 1980. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Confessed to 13 Murders

In February, 1984, Cole was extradited to Nevada, where seven months later he received the death sentence for strangling two Las Vegas women in 1977 and 1979.

Cole confessed to 13 murders and once told a psychiatrist that he killed 35 people, all but one of them women whom he usually picked up in bars.

To the end, Cole rejected all legal efforts to save him.

“I just messed up my life so bad that I just don’t care to go on,” he told one interviewer last week.

Given Cole’s insistence that he be put to death, not even the American Civil Liberties Union attempted to intervene in his behalf.

But there was one last-minute effort to save his life.

On Thursday night, Nevada’s five Supreme Court justices met briefly to review a petition filed earlier in the day by three Death Row inmates anxious to delay Cole’s date with death.

Fearing that his willingness could hasten their own scheduled executions, the inmates contended that Cole was mentally unbalanced and entitled to better psychiatric evaluation than was available at the prison.

The high court disagreed, deliberating about half an hour before denying a stay of execution.

Cole spent his last day under constant watch in a special, third-story cell less than 20 paces from the death chamber.

He wore new prison denims and his old white sneakers. The laces of the shoes had been removed to prevent any possibility of his hanging himself.

Dines on Shrimp and Chowder

At 5:30 p.m., Cole was served his last meal. He was given what he had requested: tossed salad with French dressing, jumbo shrimp, French fries and Boston clam chowder. He also finished off what remained of the 25 pounds of cookies and candy sent him last week by the Newtons.

Then Cole, a Catholic, wiled away his final hours playing cards with the prison priest.

At 12:20 a.m., he received the first of two shots of Valium intended to calm him. He hardly seemed to need it.

“He wasn’t nervous at all,” said Harol L. Whitley, the prison warden.

Outside, on the parking lot of the sober, gray granite prison, about a dozen people gathered under a crescent moon to light candles in protest of Cole’s execution.

“It’s a time to witness against the whole concept of vengeance,” said a spokesman for the group, Reno community organizer Bob Fulkerson.

At 1:43 a.m., wearing leg irons and a chain attached to his waist and wrists, Cole was escorted into the death chamber and lifted onto the table by four corrections officers who had volunteered for the job. When the medical equipment was in place 23 minutes later, the execution began.

Positioned behind a wall so that he could not be identified, a volunteer from the prison staff inserted a syringe filled with lethal liquid into the intravenous needle.

In all, Cole was injected with three drugs to stop his heart and disrupt his breathing.

There was no noise, except for the whirring of a nearby wall fan. The witnesses–one or two of them dabbing moist eyes–watched quietly as Cole convulsed.

Cole was declared dead at 2:10 a.m.

Family Didn’t Attend

His body was taken to a Carson City mortuary, where a prominent Las Vegas neurologist planned to examine Cole’s brain for any biological evidence that might explain his life of violence.

Cole is survived by a brother and three sisters. None attended his execution, and his body was not claimed.

After an autopsy, his remains were to be cremated.

The cell blocks, steaming in the cold night air, were silent as Cole’s body was wheeled to a waiting station wagon for the three-mile ride to the mortuary.

The temperature by 2:35 a.m. had dipped to 26 degrees as the vehicle made its way past the prison gate.

The death penalty protesters keeping vigil on the parking lot had already gone home.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-12-07-mn-14259-story.html

Rodney Alcala The Dating Game Serial Killer

Rodney Alcala was a serial killer who would torment California for two years in which he would be convicted of five murders however it is believed that Rodney Alcala was responsible for many more.. In this article on My Crime Library we will take a closer look at The Dating Game serial killer.

Rodney Alcala Early Years

Rodney Alcala was born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor in Texas to Mexican-American parents. When he was three years old his father moved the family to Mexico and proceeded to abandon them. When Rodney was eleven years old he would back to the United States but this time in California.

Rodney Alcala would join the US Military when he was seventeen years old however it was short lived as he would have a nervous breakdown and proceed to go AWOL. Rodney Alcala would later be diagnosed with anti social personality disorder.and discharged from the military on medical grounds

Rodney Alcala Early Crimes

It is believed the first time that Rodney Alcala would be suspected of murder was in 1969 when he would lure an eight year old girl into his Hollywood apartment. The eight year old girl, Tali Shapiro, would be sexually assaulted and murdered. Rodney would flee the State and end up in New York

In 1971 Cornelia Michel Crilley would be sexually assaulted and murdered inside of her apartment. Her murder would go unsolved until 2011.

Rodney Alcala was added to the FBI Most Wanted List and would be arrested in 1971 and extradited back to California to stand trial. However Tali parents refused to allow their daughter to testify at the trial and he would only be convicted of child molestation and sentenced to three years in prison.

Rodney Alcala would be paroled in 1974 however would be rearrested a few months later after assaulting a 13 year old girl.

In 1977 Rodney Alcala would get out of prison again and for some reason was given permission from his parole officer to travel to New York city. Soon after his arrival Rodney Alcala would murder Ellen Jane Hover. The case would go unsolved for decades

In 1978 Rodney Alcala would be back in California and started to take photographs of women and young boys and girls.

Rodney Alcala The Dating Game Appearance

Rodney Alcala appeared on The Dating Game in 1978 and though his fellow bachelors thought that his answers were shallow and narrow minded he was the bachelor chosen. However after the shot the woman who had picked him refused to go out with him as she found him to be creepy,

Rodney Alcala Murders

Rodney Alcala would be arrested for the 1979 murder of a twelve year old girl who was sexually assaulted after disappearing after a ballet class. Rodney Alcala would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. The Supreme Court would later overturn the conviction due to error however during the second trial he was again convicted and sentenced to death. Later his conviction would again be overturned

While Rodney Alcala was waiting for his third trial investigators would use his DNA to tie him to two more sexual assaults and murders. Later in 2004 DNA would tie Rodney to four more murders.

For his third trial for the original murder prosecutors also decided to try Rodney Alcala for the four additional murders . Rodney decided to act as his own attorney would be convicted of all five murders and sentenced to death.

The true number of victims that Rodney Alcala was responsible for is unknown with speculation being high as two dozen

Rodney Alcala Death

Rodney Alcala would die in prison in 2021 at the age of 77 from unspecified causes.

Rodney Alcala Videos

Rodney Alcala More News

Rodney Alcala, who was known as the “Dating Game Killer” and was convicted in the murders of six women and one girl in the 1970s, died on Saturday at a hospital in Kings County, Calif. He was 77.

Mr. Alcala, who was on California’s death row, died of natural causes, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

A longhaired photographer who lured women by offering to take their pictures, Mr. Alcala was convicted of killing a 12-year-old girl and four women in Orange County, Calif., and two women in New York, all between 1971 and 1979, the authorities said.

Investigators had also suspected him of, or had linked him to, other murders in Los Angeles, Seattle, Arizona, New Hampshire and Marin County, Calif., the department said

In 2016, prosecutors in Wyoming charged Mr. Alcala with the murder of Christine Ruth Thornton, 28, who disappeared in 1978 and whose body was found in 1982, the department said. She had been six months pregnant. Prosecutors ultimately decided that Mr. Alcala was too ill to be extradited to Wyoming to face the charge.

Many of Mr. Alcala’s victims were sexually assaulted and strangled or beaten to death.

“The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure,” said Tali Shapiro, 61, of Palm Springs, Calif., who was 8 years old in September 1968, when she was beaten and sexually assaulted by Mr. Alcala.

Ms. Shapiro said she had been walking to school on a sunny day in Los Angeles when Mr. Alcala lured her into his car and took her to his apartment, where the authorities would later find her nude and covered in blood.

“I know it’s awful what happened to me, but I’ve never identified with it,” Ms. Shapiro said in an interview on Saturday. “I’ve moved on with my life, so this doesn’t really affect me. It’s a long time coming, but he’s got his karma.”

Jeff Sheaman, an investigator with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office in Wyoming, interviewed Mr. Alcala while working on a cold case in 2013 regarding the disappearance of Ms. Thornton.

“He’s where he needs to be, and I’m sure that’s in hell,” Mr. Sheaman said in an interview on Saturday. “When I interviewed him back in 2016, he was the most cold person. Everything about that guy just gives me the creeps.”

During his interviews with the police, Mr. Alcala would pretend to be asleep and trace his index finger along photographs of the victims, trying to irritate investigators, Mr. Sheaman recalled.

He said it was difficult to know how many other murders Mr. Alcala might be linked to, adding: “Hell, there might be a ton of other victims out there. I have no idea.”

In 1978, six years after he was convicted of molesting Ms. Shapiro, Mr. Alcala appeared in a brown bell-bottom suit and a shirt with a butterfly collar as “Bachelor No. 1” on an episode of “The Dating Game.”

The host described him as “a successful photographer,” according to a YouTube video. “Between takes, you might find him sky-diving or motorcycling.”

Mr. Alcala won the contest, charming the bachelorette with sexual innuendo. The woman later decided not to go on a date with him because she found him disturbing, according to several news reports.

Mr. Alcala became a camp counselor in New Hampshire but was arrested after someone noticed his picture on a flyer at a post office, indicating that he was wanted by law enforcement officials. He was turned over to the police in Los Angeles, and was convicted of molesting Ms. Shapiro in 1972. He was paroled after 34 months

In 1980, Mr. Alcala was sentenced to death in Orange County, Calif., for kidnapping and murdering Robin Samsoe, a 12-year-old girl who had disappeared in 1979 while riding her bike to a ballet lesson. A forest service worker had found Robin’s body in a remote mountain ravine. A kitchen knife was found nearby.

Mr. Alcala’s conviction was reversed in 1984 by the California Supreme Court. The court said the case had been tainted by evidence of Mr. Alcala’s prior crimes, which had been introduced at trial. Mr. Alcala was granted a new trial.

In 1986, Mr. Alcala was sentenced to death again for Robin’s murder before a federal appeals court overturned the sentence in 2003, and granted Mr. Alcala another new trial, the department said.

Investigators eventually used DNA to link Mr. Alcala to four other homicides, which led to charges that he had murdered Jill Barcomb, 18, and Georgia Wixted, 27, in 1977; Charlotte Lamb, 32, in 1978; and Jill Parenteau, 21, in 1979.

In 2010, an Orange County jury convicted Mr. Alcala of murdering those four women, and Robin.

At some point, the cold-case squads from the New York Police Department and the Manhattan district attorney’s office began looking into connections between Mr. Alcala and the decades-old killings of two 23-year-old women.

Cornelia M. Crilley, a Trans World Airlines flight attendant, had been raped and strangled in her Upper East Side apartment in 1971. Ellen Jane Hover was an aspiring orchestra conductor whose remains were found in Westchester County nearly a year after she disappeared in 1977.

New York City investigators learned that Mr. Alcala had used the name John Berger as an alias when he was living in New York. They later found that name in the file folder for Ms. Hover’s case.

In 2010, the police released dozens of photographs of young women that had been found in a storage locker that Mr. Alcala kept in Seattle in 1979. Several women came forward, claiming that a photographer named John Berger had taken their picture in New York in the 1970s.

In 2012, Mr. Alcala was extradited to New York, where he pleaded guilty to murdering Ms. Hover and Ms. Crilley, and in 2013 was sentenced to 25 years to life.

At the sentencing in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Justice Bonnie G. Wittner sobbed as Mr. Alcala’s violent crimes were recounted.

“This kind of case is something I’ve never experienced, hope to never again,” she said

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/us/rodney-alcala-dead-dating-game.html