Survivor of 'The Dating Game' Killer Rodney Alcala Breaks Silence on How She Visited Monster in Jail In Search of Answers
A lucky survivor of The Dating Game Killer Rodney Alcala in Prison Visit reveals she visited him in prison in the search for answers about how she cheated death.
Nov. 4 2024, Published 6:59 a.m. ET
A woman who escaped the clutches of The Dating Game Killer Rodney Alcala has revealed how she visited him in prison to demand answers about why he spared her.
She made the pilgrimage of pain more than 40 years after she fled from his apartment in terror as a semi-naked Alcala — who may have murdered 130 women — lunged for her after showing her a portfolio of disturbing photos, RadarOnline can reveal.
The woman was just 14 when she was singled out by Alcala in a bookstore in 1969. It wasn't until 11 years ago that she mustered the courage to confront him at Rikers Island jail in her search for closure.
She revealed: "The second time I met Rodney Alcala was on March 23, 2013. We were inside one of the North Infirmary Command buildings on Rikers Island, two months after he’d been sentenced for raping and murdering Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Jane Hover, both women in their early 20s and living in New York City, in the 1970s.
A woman who escaped the clutches of the The Dating Game Killer Rodney Alcala has revealed how she visited him in prison to demand answers about why he spared her.
"He was trailed by a prison guard, his baggy dove-gray jumpsuit hung loosely around his bony frame. His once black hair had turned the color of steel wool, still in greasy ringlets streaming past his shoulders. He was so much shorter than I remembered. Glasses that had been round wires were now rectangular. As he stiffly shuffled toward me, I felt stage fright — then a surge of real fright when I realized he wasn’t handcuffed.
"The first time was in April 1969, on a wet day on St. Marks Place in the East Village. He introduced himself as Jon Burger; I was 14 years old and he was 25. Four-decades-plus later, I learned his real name when it flashed across a television screen beneath his familiar face and orange jumpsuit: 'Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Serial Killer, Sentenced to Death.'
"It couldn’t be the same man, I’d thought to myself. But after hours of Googling I had to accept the truth: Jon Burger was an alias; he was the winning bachelor on The Dating Game nine years after I met him; and he is believed to have been one of the most prolific of serial killers, officially responsible for at least seven murders with authorities estimating his real body count at about 130.
The survivor said, ‘The second time I met Rodney Alcala was on March 23, 2013.’
"I am not one of those people who are fascinated by serial killers. I don’t even like horror films. But I couldn’t stop searching, reading, asking. When Alcala died in 2021, I thought I was finally done. Then the new, inescapably popular Netflix film Woman of Hour, directed by and starring Anna Kendrick, showed me that there are some experiences that never really go away."
She said Detective Wendell Stradford, the NYPD officer largely responsible for extraditing Alcala from California to New York City, had arranged the jail visit.
The woman added: "We sat down in a partitioned-off side area on low plastic, primary-colored chairs, so close that my nose twitched with the stench of his alkaline prison soap. The guard said he’d be outside and walked away. Alcala smiled at me, thin lips concealing the same teeth that had bitten off nipples according to the FBI reports I had read. He seemed excited, thrilled even — I could have been a beautifully wrapped present he was about to dismantle."
The survivor said, ‘The new, inescapably popular Netflix film ‘Woman of Hour,’ directed by and starring Anna Kendrick, showed me that there are some experiences that never really go away.’
"We met at the East Side Bookstore. Alcala was killing and raping during those years," she said.
She said: "He approached me as I was pulling a copy of The Plague off the bookshelf. 'Camus?' He asked me and I turned around to see a tall man with a strong Adam’s apple. Handsome, though there was something chilling about the way his eyes didn’t reflect light. He scared me. I had wanted to spend time in the bookstore while I waited for my dad to get a haircut — but I ran downstairs to the register, paid, and left.
"He followed me out and wouldn’t stop talking about having just come from California, about NYU, about the baked apples at the restaurant we were passing. He then asked to photograph me."
"'You wanted to photograph me,'" I told the 70-year-old Alcala sitting across from me. He’d said something about my red hair, the black of my rain slicker. The colors against the gray day."
The survivor shared, ‘Alcala had wanted to shoot in his apartment; I’d resisted, so he suggested his roof.’
She continued: "The color argument won me over. And so he led me to an apartment building on 6th Street between a shul and the drug-detox center Odyssey House. Alcala had wanted to shoot in his apartment; I’d resisted, so he suggested his roof.
"A storm was threatening and at the first dramatic jag of lightning up there, Alcala had turned demonic, yelling with violence to help him carry equipment down to the apartment. I still remember clearly the feeling of knowing something was wrong inside of that apartment. Terrifyingly wrong. It was a mess — women’s clothes everywhere. He pushed a packet of Polaroids into my hand and went to the bathroom. Women. Dead and posed. Alive and posed. Drugged and posed. Naked. Posed. The photos fell from my hands as I sprang for the door.
Describing her experience with Alcala, the survivor said, ‘I still remember clearly the feeling of knowing something was wrong inside of that apartment.’
"Why are you here?" Alcala asked her during the visit, seemingly unable to remember their previous meeting.
“I wanted to know if you remembered me," she replied.
He paused and said: "It was a long time ago."
But she told Alcala her story was unusual because she went back for her book.
She recalled: "By the time Alcala’s bathroom door opened, I recalled to him, I was still struggling with the door and turned around to see him heading in my direction, naked from the waist down.
When Alcala asked the survivor, ‘Why are you here?’ She answered, ‘I wanted to know if you remembered me.’
"I did not want to say what I said next, to titillate him in any way, but I couldn’t figure out how else to communicate that his penis was hard and pointed in my direction.
"Miraculously, I’d somehow gotten the door open and fled. But two flights down: My Camus. I sped back up. Furiously, I pounded on the door. 'Book, please!'
"I’m still stunned by this epic stupidity. At that age I knew pain but not evil. My despair over leaving the book behind, and the money spent on it, obliterated any fear. The man who opened the door was different, still naked, almost gentle. I thought pervert, not killer. He handed me the book. I snatched it from him and sped down the stairs as he pleaded, 'Just let me masturbate, I won’t hurt you'. I was so sheltered, from an Orthodox Jewish household, I had no idea what he meant.
By the time the survivor met Alcala, he was already wanted for the assault on 8-year-old Tali Shapiro in Los Angeles.
"By the time we’d met, Alcala was already wanted for the assault on 8-year-old Tali Shapiro in Los Angeles."
"When we met,” I told Alcala, "It was only six months after Tali Shapiro."
"I can still picture him flinching at her name. 'I didn’t hurt her as much as they said I did.'
"Come on,” she blurted out. "She was in a coma for 32 days and spent months in the hospital."
“They lied,” he flared.
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Alcala told his survivor, ‘They said I did things. I can’t remember.’
"I knew he could ignite. I had seen it in the past. Even though he looked frail, his anger and adrenaline could make him forget his surroundings. I softened my voice but still pushed back, 'They lied?'," she said.
“They said I did things. I can’t remember," Alcala told her.
He woman added: "Could it have been possible that he killed during fugue experiences? If that had been true, how grossly unjust that he should be spared the memory of what he did and the pain he caused.
Alcala was the winning bachelor on ‘The Dating Game’ nine years after he and the survivor met.
Alcala leaned into her and asked: "Did I hurt you?"
"No," I said. “You didn’t hurt me.”
Then the visit was interrupted by a guard and she was forced to leave to catch the prison bus.
And she concluded: "In the end, Alcala didn’t give me an answer. I was just one of the hundreds he went out fishing for, and one of the few he threw back into the river. Whether it was because I didn’t cry, because I was stupidly defiant, or because of something completely random, it came down to one thing I just got lucky."
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