Prosecuting a Serial Killer: Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Contestant

turn is on the TV pops a beer his plan is to sleep for like 3 or 4 hours get some food and then go back to the station to keep working on the case and he turns on the TV and what does he see the dating game and that composite went out and about an hour before art left they gotten a call from a parole a parole officer working for the California Department of Corrections who saw the the sketch and said you got to check out a guy named Rodney Al call and Rodney Okala had been convicted of kidnapping an 8-year-old girl back in 1968 named tally Shapiro she was walking walking to school and he was a fugitive they found him four years later working at an all girl summer camp in Vermont imagine that they extradite him um after four years and and it was the the scene was dramatic because a Good Samaritan happened to see him pick up this little girl in his car and she was eight years old with Mary Jane those little white Mary Jane shoes and she said I'm not supposed to take rides from strangers and he said oh it's okay I know your parents I'm not a stranger so she got in the car he drove her to his house um it's a little Bungalow in Hollywood and a Good Samaritan saw this and the Good Samaritan followed this didn't look right and he found a pay phone because that's the days of payones he calls LAPD and LAPD officer officer kamacho showed up by himself his cacho's very first day back on the job he'd been shot in the Watts Riots and he'd been shot in Vietnam he's in the army of Vietnam guy's been shot twice and his first day back at work he gets that call and he he arrives by himself and he knocks on the door and the guy inside says well I I um I'm I'm in the shower uh let me just put some clothes on and about two seconds go by and I've talked to kamacho about this and I think I can swear in this right okay all right I won't offend anybody there's this word that maybe you haven't heard of and he goes [ __ ] that [ __ ] I'm kicking in the door so he does and you got naked running guy out the back and he looks down and he's got dying little girl on the kitchen floor so what does he do he does exactly the right thing um he pulls this barbell off of her neck that she'd also been raped with imagine that and heroically saves her life but the downside is bad guy got away in the house however they find thousands of photographs of people in rooms people in the woods people in the wilderness um all in the possession of Rodney James alala okay so alala goes to New York changes his name to John Berger he had graduated from UCA Film School okay he had a genius level IQ and this guy was a like a photographic Prodigy and for the time A very handsome man right so he's got charm um well he was at cwell high school he's on the yearbook committee got a varsity letter on cross country he had friends he had girlfriends genius level IQ and a mother who loved him not Buffalo Bill so um they exite him he comes in and the da um I'm obviously I'm a big supporter of law enforcement obviously and I'm a big supporter of um most prosecutors but this person looks at this case and this will bother me until my dying day gave him a simple child molest despite all of those facts and evidence rodne alala went to State Prison in California and was paroled get this after 34 months cautionary tale um when you hear people talk about Criminal Justice Reform keep that in mind uh okay so art drow sees this and he gets back to the station and the same Good Samaritan that called in the T Bureau case saw the composite and called it in too so now they've got two people saying look at Rodney alala so they get a search warrant they put it together they find this is his mother's house where he was living this is his doson B210 station wagon this car is still in the storage at the Huntington Beach Police Department right now buried with other stuff but it's still there and and there's something really cool about that that I'll tell you so they get in and they uh the carpet has been torn out and replaced with like shag carpeting the windows if you look are tinted long before it became fashionable to tint your windows and inside the car there are binoculars and all sorts of things that basically make it um there's Maps binoculars tinted windows I mean they're it's it's funny when we look at those old cars to see how small they were um that's Craig Craig Robison judge Robison now they're in the garage serving the search warrant now they get in there and the way it works with warrants is you're only allowed to to take what the judge gives you permission to take so that in the warrant it was they asked for um instrumentality of the crime things with blood on it anything that might relate back to Robin samso and they don't find a thing but what they do find what they see is they see a receipt a receipt for a storage locker from Seattle and Craig Robinson I mean I love this man and genius that he is he sees that and he's not allowed to take it but because it's in plain view he's allowed to write down the information on the storage locker so he writes down the address storage locker number all that kind of stuff they go back to the station and they they bring Rodney in um they arrest him and his sister came in and they catch this they they put him in a room together and there's a phone in between them that's wired for sound and they have this whole conversation in Spanish which in Huntington Beach may as well be English because most police actually can speak it and they listen in real time as he says hey you've got to get up to my storage locker and and empty it out for me okay so they hear this and it becomes this race between Rodney ala's sister and the police they get up there first they get into the storage locker and they find a little silk pouch filled with jewelry now you guys know what that is right okay so one of the fascinating things there's a bunch of fascinating things about serial killers one of the things is they they love to represent themselves okay and I I think it's it's about control they can't resist they think they're smarter than than everybody anyway right and they often don't have much faith in their legal council but the idea for those guys to be able to take control of the courtroom is like a siren song so they love to rep represent themselves but along the way they love to collect trophies and keepsakes of their victims it's almost like they go to school for it because you see that as a pattern over and over and over again so they find this Craig immediately knows what this is that this is um this is a trophy case and in addition to that Robin samso had been wearing little gold ball earrings at the time she went missing and sure enough in that pouch there are little gold ball earrings that her mother identifies as being hers but this is 1979 so this is long before DNA the the earrings get handled over and over again um and when we tested them years later there was no DNA found on those earrings um but in addition to that we find all of these f photos now the thousands of pictures that were taken from his Bungalow in Hollywood all disappeared they they were collecting an Evidence and somewhere along the way LAPD and Lada and all that somebody cleaned out the box room one day and they were lost okay so this is a brand new batch 10 years later and we found hundreds and hundreds of these photos and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds look at this so summer I mean summer that's 78 or 79 for sure that's Southern California and that little girl is all by herself with rodne call and there's a bunch more with they're inside various stages of nudity sometimes performing different sex acts look at this this this this photo is actually one of a sequence which is creepy as hell because it's far far away and then a little closer and a little closer it's like a scene from Jaws we have no idea who these people are um or if they're still alive okay so here are the gold ball earrings that were recovered and there were also a second set um that were more more manly Rodney alal insisted that that the gold ball earrings that he had belong to his to to him whatever they also find this photo this is a a young woman named Lori warts she 15 years old and she took a diary that summer she was keeping a diary and this photo was released because they were trying to find this girl and a a a friend of hers mom called police and said that's Lori works so she'd been keeping a diary that was the same day in Huntington Beach that Rodney Okala or that Robin samso disappeared and if you look at that behind her see those trees and the Sun sign and the Shadows okay um those become important okay so I'll come back to that so they're able to place Rod Okala at the beach that day and he gets prosecuted for uh the murder of Robin samso he's convicted he's sentenced to death and it goes up to the California Supreme Court and the presiding Justice back in those days was woman woman named Rose bird who was an avowed um ideological ideologically opposed to the death penalty and she took great pride in pronouncing to all of her friends that she had never affirmed a death penalty case in her time on the Supreme Court she was eventually recalled because it infuriated even my wacky State of California it was too much for the voters and they they recalled her and um so case gets prosecuted again this time by guy name Tom gothos was a prosecutor he's now an appet judge in Orange County um but all a lot of the evidence that was introduced in the first trial was not allowed in the second trial so it's kind of it's been really um streamlined a lot okay so the way it works is it's called law of the case and when a case gets reversed on the the pellet process you can't use any of the of the evidence that was disapproved of okay so Tom goes in tries the case in 1986 retries Rodney alala with half the evidence um it winds up uh going through the California Supreme Court no problem then it gets up to the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals they take it and there are panels on the ninth circuit just like rose bird who take great pride on never having affirmed a death penalty verdict so it gets reversed again and now it is 2002 I having been 12 years old then I've gone to college gone to law school gone through the DA's office and it lands on my desk okay and I go in and my boss at the time was a guy named Lou Rosenblum who is my mentor living legend in the prosecution world and Lou I'm like what do we do with this now I can't use any of the new evidence that has been disapproved of so the original case has now been gutted twice and I'm like what do I do with this I got a I got a composite that I think is very convincing and I got Lori WS but all of this other evidence including four suspected murders in New York shocking right and all this other evidence that was admitted in the first trial I can't touch any of it so and I love this Lou leans back and again here's a swearing he goes you know some of these people and he'd done a whole tour in homicide he did 67 murders he won every single one of them so it's impossible he did it in 12 years leans back and he goes some of these guys are so evil I would rather they beat me than ever agree to them being released and and then he looks at me and he goes if I were you I would say [ __ ] that guy so I think um I'm going to take a run out it no matter what right so I find a guy in the Navy a Navy um expert on the sun and those things exist okay who is able to look at those shadows and give me an exact time that that photo was taken which made Rodell kala perfectly in Honey to beach exactly when he needed to be and the court of appeal reversed it because his previous lawyer didn't introduce a BS Alibi defense that he was supposed at not Berry Farm so I've got this I got my Navy guy I've got Lori warts and I've got that composite and I'm ready to roll and then DNA catches up to ronell col and we start getting DNA hits from people in Los Angeles County from old unsolved murders from the mid-70s um beginning with this woman Charlotte lamb who was um one of the many women that moved to LA to pursue a career in acting and modeling and this woman um based on all of meeting her family and and all of her neighbors she was more beautiful on the inside than she was on the outside and she had a neighbor who I put on to talk about when she left her um her apartment the night she was murdered and this man was in the in the in the days before computers he would have been a gamer today and I can say that because I embarrassingly play way too many video games myself um but he was this really sort of um not too social um just kind of a a nerdy guy and she was so nice to him she would always invite him out because she thought he seemed lonely and this man and 30 years later on the stand broke down in tears when he was talking about Charlotte lamb Jill barcom was 18 years old um and I'm going to show one graphic photo here and it's not too bad I think you guys can handle it uh she she came out from New York when she was 18 family who loved her again moved to Hollywood to pursue her dreams and she was found on a fire Road yep sorry sorry I think you guys can you can you can take the Rock on the right was used to smash in her face okay she had been raped repeatedly and uh spermatozoa technical word was found in every single orifice of her body Georgia wickstead um was a pediatric cancer nurse talk about contributing to the world she's 27 years old had just moved out of her home for the first time she'd been living with her parents um I I took that one I took the scene out but brutally murdered raped with a hammer um there's the hammer and Jill parento Jill parento was a computer programmer in Burbank um who was found in her apartment after going to a place called The Handlebar Saloon in Pasadena okay so we get these um her jewelry box was open as well which was significant okay this is a little graphic again no faces here but when these are our four victims their ligature marks and bite marks on their breasts were almost identical every single time okay so that we had because of the pass of time we had no DNA on Jill parento um not everything had been thrown away from the from Burbank but her screen was cut on the left side just like Georgia Wick did now here is um my guy in court um not supposed to take pictures in a courtroom this is my not so awesome photography skills because Rodney alala being a true trul hero killer decided he would represent himself so I would have to go into court and deal with this guy every single day for the better part of a year and my co-counsel from Los Angeles a woman I love to death Gina satri was her name we teamed up so the LA county prosecutions and the Orange County prosecution we would do it all all together and she was um she didn't want to deal with him of course of course she like what what do we do now he's fired his lawyer like I don't want to talk to this guy and being for some of you know me probably way too damaged by all this work and completely Twisted I couldn't wait so I've got this weird back and forth with this guy cuz he's a genius and it is like this Duel of I'm trying to get him to cooperate in his execution which is bizar and he's trying to manipulate and charm everybody in the courtroom into US basically making a mistake and letting them go um here he is taking the stand which was fantastic because he it was one of the most surreal things I've ever seen he would ask attorney client would ask client client Rodney alala questions Rodney ala what do you think blah blah blah well Rodney that's a great question and I'm watching this and it was amazing and the jury is watching they're looking at me and it's like is this actually happening and then one day they're leading him into the courtroom this is one of my favorite days and I I the the the deal I had with Gina was look what we'll do to make this process move along I will do my best I'll be his buddy and every time we've got tell him no let's just tap into his misogyny I'll blame you right so I'd go in and we had to tell him no all the time like Rod Buddy look uh I don't know why she won't allow it but she said no so I don't know what her problem is today okay Matt I understand you're doing your best so he's coming down the hallway one day and this is a famous serial killer one of the prisoners in the back hallway gets to him headbutts him and spits on him okay right so he shows up and he's like we can't do anything today and I like you know Rodney since you've been in prison we've got this thing called cell phones and we have cameras on the phones let me snap a photo of that because you're going to want to make sure this is part of the record so Rodney pulls his hair back I take that photo the mouse on his forehead which you which was a good one and I'm texting it to all the detectives in the back row shockingly I may have forgotten to actually put it on the record shucks but it was a there was a a a lot of media on the case for sure and Rodney went up giving his closing argument and he got up and he was um he played the song uh Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie and he and he said you know ladies and gentlemen if you convict me of death um you'll be just like the guy in the song for those of you who don't know it it's a it's a protest song from Vietnam um and you know it it was again one of the most surreal things I've ever seen and then I get up and finally I get to take my mask off and I blast him and I let the jury know exactly what I think of him and I'm pointing my finger on and he at one point sticks his bony finger at me when I'm done and says you played fast and loose with the fact and right at that moment I laughed at him I get a I hear the click of a camera in the courtroom I'm like oh no and orange candy register runs an article the next day Matt da Matt Murphy laughs at accused serial killer rodne kala and then the LA Times says da next day da Matt Murphy shares a laugh with serial killer I got hate mail from Ireland from a guy saying I was a disgrace to the entire Murphy name so here are here are my five victims um and with Jill parento the way it works is I've got to convince the DA's office in La like right when we got the DNA hits La is a different jurisdiction okay so it's a different County and up to that point in the state of California there was a jurisdictional defense you can only do one murder Per County so for a serial killer they could go if you did five murders you'd have to do five different trials so we we challenged that there was a brand new code section called 790 um and we took it all the way to the California Supreme Court to bring them all down together but the deal I had to make with Steve kolie who was the elected da who's a wonderful prosecutor um I had to go convince this guy I'd never met before to let me try their La cases in Orange County and Jill Jill barkham there was DNA all over the place Georgia wickstead um Charlotte lamb DNA all like replete but the DNA on on Joe parento had been thrown away so I'm like look give me that one and I'll win that one too and he agreed um so we when it came down to the guilt phas the real nitty-gritty before we went in I had all the the evidence retested and Robin's mother had been dragged through the the the fire with all the Appeals and all of the cross-examinations over all the different pre-ra hearings of the two previous convictions she'd been called a liar more times than anybody I've ever met about those being Robin's Robin's earrings right uh in the appet stage in the TR stage by good lawyers bad lawyers this woman had been through the rer and her her life was over she never recovered from the grief of what happened to her daughter and when we submitted all of those items nothing had any DNA on them except for one tiny little Rose earring we had 06 nanograms of Charlotte Lamb's DNA amazing and that that earring the uncontroversial earring sat on some evidence Locker for over three decades with that earring and I got to argue ladies and gentlemen I don't know if there's a heaven I don't know if there's a hell I've never been particularly religious I don't know but I do know that if there is an afterlife Charlotte lamb was waiting for Robin samso the day she died and I know that Charlotte lamb was with us in that courtroom that day and she was screaming to that jury Robin's mother was always right jury came back they convicted on everything but before that happened Rodney wanted his owner's manual from his car and remember parento which I love Jill parento um was at The Handlebar Saloon so my lead Detective from Huntington at the time Patrick Ellis awesome police officer he goes and he digs out riding Al Call's car literally like they've got to move all these boxes and he finds the contents of the glove box that's still there in a plastic bag and he's like okay comes back into court and he's like all right I got good news and bad news good news is I found his stupid freaking uh owner's manual for whatever reason that he wanted and he goes and the bad news is all bad for rock and Rodney because I also found this and he pulls out a matchbook in his from his glove box from The Handlebar Saloon in Pasadena so her family was there every single day all of them they had families there every single day and we got to deliver justice to all of them and Rodney alala went up to to um California death row and he eventually came down with um dementia and when we released all those photos found in his tourist Locker we started getting calls from detectives all across the United States including Wyoming um New York Marin bunch of other places and we were able to solve a ton of additional murders Rodney oala died by himself in a cold prison cell in the state of California being watched by CDC guards with his feet hanging over the edge of the bed and those families got Justice