07/24/2021 8:43 PM
Clarín.com
International
Updated 07/24/2021 8:43 PM
The man known as the
"dating game killer
," who tortured his victims before taking their lives, died Saturday while awaiting execution in California, authorities said. He was 77 years old.
Rodney James Alcalá
died of natural causes at a hospital in the San Joaquin Valley, jail officials said in a statement.
Alcalá was sentenced to death in 2010 for
five homicides
in California that occurred between 1977 and 1979, including that of a 12-year-old girl, although authorities say he
could have killed 130 people
in various parts of the country.
Alcalá was sentenced to death in 2010, although it was never carried out.
The man, known as the "Dating Game Killer" for appearing in a 1978 television game show of the same name, was also sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years in prison in 2013 after pleading guilty to two New York homicides.
He was charged again in 2016 after DNA tests linked him to the 1977 death of a 28-year-old woman whose remains were found in a remote area in southwestern Wyoming.
However, a prosecutor said Alcalá
was too ill to face trial
for the death of the woman, who was six months pregnant when she died.
The death row in California is located in the San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco, although for years Alcalá has been held more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) away, in a prison in Corcoran, where, he could receive Medical care 24 hours.
According to prosecutors, Alcalá stalked the women and removed the earrings from some of his victims to keep them as trophies.
"We are talking about a person who went hunting people in Southern California because he liked to do it," said Orange County, California, prosecutor Matt Murphy, during the defendant's trial.
The murderer earned the nickname for having participated in a television dating show.
Investigators say the true number of Alcalá's victims may never be known.
The earrings helped sentence him to death, although Governor Gavin Newsom stayed executions while he is in office.
An amateur photographer and former student at the University of California, Alcalá possessed a very high IQ and photographed hundreds of his victims.
In January of this year, the Huntington Beach (California) authorities published dozens of those photos in the hope that the public would help them identify the people portrayed, and determine if they could be Alcalá's victims.