About Rodney Alcala
Rodney James Alcala (; born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor; August 23, 1943 – July 24, 2021), also known as John Berger and John Burger, was an American serial killer and convicted sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He pleaded guilty and received two sentences, both twenty-five years to life, for two further murders committed in New York State. He was also indicted for one murder in Wyoming, although the charges filed there were dropped. While Alcala has been conclusively linked to nine murders, the true number of victims remains unknown and could be as high as 130. Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women, teenage girls and boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016 he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos. Alcala is known to have assaulted one other photo subject and police have speculated that others could be rape or murder victims as well. Prosecutors have said that Alcala "toyed" with his victims, strangling them until they lost consciousness then waiting until they revived, sometimes repeating this process several times before finally killing them. One police detective described Alcala as "a killing machine," and others have compared him to Ted Bundy. He is often referred to as the Dating Game Killer, as he appeared as a contestant on the television show The Dating Game in 1978, during his murder spree. Alcala won the competition, and a date with the episode's bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw, who subsequently refused to go out with him because she found him "creepy". Her remains were discovered in 1978 buried under heavy rocks on a hillside overlooking the Hudson River, near a location on the John D. On December 16, 1977, 27-year-old nurse Georgia Marie Wixted was discovered dead in her Malibu apartment. In May 1986, after a second trial virtually identical to the first except for omission of the prior criminal record testimony, he was again convicted and sentenced to death in August.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.