Who Escaped Rodney Alcala? Where The Survivors Of The ‘Dating Game Killer’ Are Now (2024)

Netflix’s Woman of the Hour is based on the true story of infamous serial killer and sex offender Rodney Alcala, who appeared on The Dating Game in 1978 during his murder spree. After watching the true crime drama, you might be curious about what happened to the women who escaped Alcala and where they are now.

Thankfully, Cheryl Bradshaw, the real-life woman (based on Anna Kendrick’s character) who chose Alcala as the winning bachelor on the dating show, didn’t follow through with their date. Alcala killed his first victim almost a decade before he was cast on The Dating Game and continued to commit murders until his arrest the following year.

Alcala was convicted of murdering seven women in the 1970s, though investigators believe the true number of his victims may never be known. He was charged in 1979 for the death of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, and Orange County prosecutors eventually uncovered evidence linking Alcala to the murders of four other women between 1977 and 1979: 18-year-old Jill Barcomb, 21-year-old Jill Parenteau, 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, and 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb.

ForbesThe Chilling True Story Behind Netflix’s ‘Woman Of The Hour’ Serial Killer Rodney AlcalaBy Monica Mercuri

Decades later, Alcala accumulated more murder charges in other states. In New York, he was sentenced to 25 years to life in 2012 for the murders of 23-year-old Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Jane Hover, both of whom were killed in the 1970s. In 2016, Wyoming prosecutors charged him with the murder of 28-year-old Christine Ruth Thornton, who was six months pregnant at the time.

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Alcala was sentenced to death for his California murders but died of natural causes in July 2021 while awaiting execution. One survivor, who managed to escape his brutal attack, played a pivotal role by testifying against him during the 2010 trial.

Here’s what you need to know about the women who escaped Rodney Alcala and where they are now.

Who Escaped Rodney Alcala?

Tali Shapiro and Morgan Rowan were lucky enough to escape Rodney Alcala’s vicious attacks. Shapiro was 8 years old and Rowan was 16 when Alcala raped and attempted to murder each of them.

What Happened To Tali Shapiro?

Second grader Tali Shapiro was walking to school on Sept. 25, 1968, on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles from the Chateau Marmont Hotel, where her family was temporarily living. Alcala pulled up his car and asked if she wanted a ride. Although she initially said no, when he said he knew her parents, she said yes.

Shapiro later told PEOPLE Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer that “it was totally possible” that Alcala knew her parents; her father worked in the music businesses with stars like Mama Cass, Jim Morrison and Lenny Bruce. “There were always people going in and out of my house. It was [like] Grand Central Station.”

Alcala said he was a professional photographer and wanted to show her a poster at his home. She followed him in when they arrived at his house, and that’s all she remembers. “He obviously hit me over the head right after that, and that was it.” He raped Shapiro and beat her with a metal bar.

How Did Tali Shapiro Escape?

A bystander named Donald Haines followed Alcala and called the police after he was concerned about the man’s behavior around the 8-year-old girl. “He was fixated on this little girl,” Haines said on PEOPLE Magazine Investigates. “That disturbed me.”

When police arrived, they opened the door to find Alcala, who was naked and had “a rage in his eyes,” officer Christopher Camacho told People. Shapiro was unresponsive in a pool of blood on the floor with a metal bar on her neck. They initially thought she was dead, but when Camacho removed the bar from Shapiro’s neck, they heard her breathing, and she was sent to the hospital.

“[After the attack, I needed] over 27 stitches in the back of my head,” Shapiro revealed at a 2010 sentencing hearing for Alcala, per ABC7. “He hit me right over the head, in the back of the head.”

Alcala escaped police through the back door of his apartment, but he left his ID at the crime scene, which helped investigators identify him. It took more than two years for authorities to arrest Alcala for the horrific crime. Shapiro’s parents didn’t let her testify, and because prosecutors didn’t have a key witness in the case, Alcala pleaded guilty to child molestation and served just 34 months in prison.

What Happened To Morgan Rowan?

Morgan Rowan told PEOPLE Magazine Investigates that in 1965, when she was 13 years old, she first encountered Alcala in the parking lot of a teen nightclub with her friends.

Rowan told the site that Alcala was “tall, attractive, charismatic,” and she “never saw that as dangerous” at first. She recalled that Alcala kept looking over at them and smiling. She scratched his arm with her fingernails to get his attention, and when she didn’t stop, he pulled her into an alley behind the club.

“I think he slammed my head into the wall because I was unconscious,” she said. Alcala had pushed against a large industrial dumpster on top of her chest. She screamed for help, and the owner of the club and his wife came and helped her. Unfortunately, that didn’t mark the end of her nightmare because Rowan ran into Alcala again three years later in 1968.

Rowan and her family were getting ready to move to New York. Before she left, she had a going-away celebration on the Sunset Strip. Alcala was there, and Rowan said she felt “creeped out” when she saw him. Rowan sat in the backseat with her friends and was fearful when Alcala got into the driver’s seat.

He drove Rowan and her friends to his house, where he gave them marijuana. But Alcala took the distraction as an opportunity to grab Rowan and pull her into a bedroom.

“He took his belt off and wrapped it around his fist. I tried to be brave and said, ‘No, you can’t keep me here,’ and he just punched me between the eyes as hard as he could,” she said. Rowan added that her head hit the wall, and she fell to her knees but was still conscious. Alcala used a knife to cut the tie of her blouse around her neck.

“I could feel blood start to flow down my chest,” she recalled, “and I remember thinking, ‘He cut my neck. I’m going to die.’” Rowan said that he shoved his belt into her mouth, blocking her airway so she couldn’t breathe, and bound her wrists with a necktie. He punched her in the stomach, then took his knife to cut off the rest of her clothes and raped her.

“His face was red and swollen, his eyes were glassy,” she remembered. “He was out of control, like an animal ... I wanted it to be over. I wasn’t praying to live. I was praying to die.”

How Did Morgan Rowan Escape?

Eventually, Rowan’s friends noticed that she and Alcala were missing, and they began pounding on the bedroom door. Rowan’s friend Mike broke into the window in the bedroom, which is when Alcala stood up with blood all over his shirt and told Mike, “Take her,” according to People.

“If my friend Mike hadn’t broken in through the window, I would not be here today,” Rowan told the publication. “I have no doubt he was going to kill me.”

Rowan said she ran out of the house and into the path of a moving car. Her friends joined her, and the couple in the car drove them to safety. Mike took Rowan to his apartment by the beach, where his neighbor, who was a nurse, gave her first aid. She made it back to her parents’ home minutes before they were headed to New York.

She said that she was traumatized and slept next to her parents’ bed after moving away but never told them what happened. A friend later sent her a newspaper clipping about Alcala’s attempted murder of Shapiro, and Rowan said she felt guilty because she never reported his attack.

“I should have stopped it. I should have told my parents,” she said. “I should have gone back to that house and killed him myself ... I fully felt that it was my fault, that I should have done something.”

Where Are Survivors Tali Shapiro And Morgan Rowan Now?

Shapiro had been called to testify against Alcala numerous times, including in 2010 at his sentencing. “I didn’t have any feelings except of duty, of justice,” she told People. “I never once looked his way. I consciously didn’t want to give him any energy whatsoever. I didn’t glance at him, I didn’t acknowledge him, I never spoke his name. I didn’t give him any satisfaction.”

Alcala, who acted as his own attorney at the trial, did not question Shapiro, but he did apologize for what he called his “despicable behavior.”

“He’s never apologized before, and for him to even bother, I mean, that made me sick to my stomach,” Shapiro said at the time, per ABC7.

After the hearing, Shapiro approached Haines, the man who called 911 and saved her life decades prior. “I said, ‘I’m so glad to see you,’” he recalled.

After Alcala died in 2021 from natural causes, Shapiro told The New York Times, “The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure.”

Meanwhile, Rowan told her story in her 2023 book, Stolen from Sunset: A True Story of Surviving the Dating Game Killer. She later wrote a letter to Shapiro over Facebook to apologize for not reporting Alcala sooner.

Shapiro responded that there was nothing to forgive and that it wasn’t Rowan’s fault. “Tali saying she forgave me changed everything,” Rowan told People. “It was definitely a huge step to my recovery.”

Rowan and Shapiro eventually met up and are now close friends. “It was just wonderful. We spent a couple days together. We were like sisters,” Rowan said.

“She cares for me immensely. I love her. We have a bond,” Shapiro added.

Woman of the Hour is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the official trailer below.

Who Escaped Rodney Alcala? Where The Survivors Of The ‘Dating Game Killer’ Are Now (2024)
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