The “dating game killer”, suspected of killing 130 people, has died

The man known as “the dating game killer”, who tortured his victims before committing suicide, died on Saturday awaiting execution in California, authorities said. He was 77 years old.

Rodney James Alcala died of natural causes at a San Joaquin Valley hospital, prison officials said in a statement.

Alcalá was sentenced to death in 2010 for five homicides in California between 1977 and 1979, including that of a 12-year-old girl, although authorities say could have killed 130 people in various parts of the country.

The man, known as the “Dating Game Killer” for his appearance on a game show of the same name in 1978, was also sentenced to life in prison plus 25 years in prison in 2013 after pleading guilty to two homicides At New York.

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 of ​​southwestern Wyoming. However, a prosecutor said that Alcalá I was too sick to face judgment for the death of the woman, who was six months pregnant when she died.

California’s death row is located in San Quentin State Prison, near San Francisco, although for years Alcalá was held over 320 kilometers (200 miles), in a prison in Corcoran, where he could receive medical care 24 hours a day.

According to prosecutors, Alcalá hunted down 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 prosecutor Matt Murphy of Orange County, Calif., During the accused’s trial. .

Investigators say the true death toll of Alcalá may never be known.

The earrings helped sentence him to death, although Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended executions while he was in office.

Amateur photographer and former student at the University of California, Alcalá had a very high IQ and photographed hundreds of his victims.

In January of this year, authorities in Huntington Beach, California released dozens of the photos in the hopes that the public would help them identify those depicted and determine if they could be the victims of Alcalá.