"I'm sorry for my despicable behavior."

                                                                                   Rodney Alcala

 (Above statement was reportedly made to victim, Tali Shapiro in today's court hearing for raping and attempting to murder her when she was 8-years-old.)

Tali Shapiro, now age 48, testified before the jury today at the penalty phase hearing which will decide whether convicted serial-killer, Rodney Alcala will get life without possibility of parole, or death. 

The below photos show her being interviewed today by ABC News. The piece aired tonight on the 6:00pm news.  See full video clip here for full interview, and her response to Alcala's "apology."

Upper left photo- Tali Shapiro testifying today in court   Lower Left- Tali Shapiro circa 1968 as she appeared about the time of my Hollywood investigation and arrest of Alcala.  Upper Right- Five Southern California Alcala murder victims; Lower Right- Alcala in Orange County court.

 ABC News Video - Tali Shapiro Interview click here.

LAPD Historical Society Museum artifacts spanning 100 years will be on display at the annual CHIA (California Homicide Investigators Association) Training Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The exhibit will be open to the public just two days,  March 3 - 4.  Click on below LAPDHS link for details and article, Homicides in LA History, written by LAPDHS Executive Director, Glynn Martin.  Conference is being held at the Palms Casino and Resort. (Martin has also included a complimentary article on my Black Dahlia talk given at the museum on January 15, 2010.)

LAPD Museum Newsletter (click here)

 L.A. Times article update 3.3.2010-  LAPD Apologizes to Kennedy Family for Diplay of Exhibits

3.4.2010  OPEN LETTER from DA & LAPD CHIEF BECK

Meet Rodney Alcala, Accused Serial Killer

February 25, 2010 7:12 AM

The jury could deliver a verdict in the Southern California trial of accused serial killer Rodney Alcala as early as today. Alcala is charged with killing five women in brutal fashion in the late 1970s.

The trial has been marked by stomach-churning details and Alcala's decision to represent himself -- a defense that includes footage from a dating game appearance he says disproves a point by the prosecution.

Here is an in-depth write-up by Mike von Fremd and producer Bonnie McLean, which explains in detail the belief by some that Alcala may be responsible for many more murders than those he's been charged with.

His youngest victim, according to authorities, is pictured above, opposite Alcala. Twelve-year-old Robin Samsoe was riding her bicycle to her first ballet class when Alcala allegedly convinced her to get in his car. He has been convicted twice for the child's murder, but both times the verdicts were overturned.

Ramsoe's mother told ABC News frankly, "I wish I had a gun again today."

A full report is scheduled for tonight.

I am informed that  ABC'S  Rodney Alcala piece is scheduled to air tonight, Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 11:35 pm PST. The jury received the case yesterday.

Steve Hodel

Los Angeles

In chapter 20 of MOST EVIL, I suggest that my father, Dr. George Hill Hodel may have obtained his "inspiration" for using the name and character of ZODIAC while working as a young doctor at the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair. He was there on location throughout the filming of Charlie Chan at Treasure Island which originally introduced the world to "Dr. Zodiac."

In my original draft, I also included what I believe to be a second thoughtprint, linking  George Hodel to Zodiac and again directly to the year 1939 and Treasure Island. Though edited out of the chapter in the final book, I here present it for your review as originally  written in its rough form:

"SWING MIKADO" & DR. GEORGE HODEL AT SAN FRANCISCO'S TREASURE ISLAND 1939

One of the Treasure Island Fairgrounds biggest summer hits of 1939 was the Federal Theater production of- SWING MIKADO. (Sponsored by President Roosevelt's WPA)

In an on-line 2003 Graduate Students Symposium article at Tufts University, here is an excerpt from Lucas Dennis, describing that original production of SWING MIKADO:

...included some major changes from the original Mikado. These changes included the re-scoring of five of the original numbers so that they would "swing," the insertion of some popular dance sequences including "The Truck" and "The Cakewalk," and the updating of some of the dialogue into the producers' version of black dialect."

Separate research shows that arranger, composer, performer, Jester Hairston played the part of Ko-Ko in both the original 1938 Chicago opening and at the Treasure Island production.

In a 1980 interview[1] here is what Hairston had to say:

"So I did the Mikado in swing and played the part of Ko-Ko and directed the show. It was a tremendous hit. We did it at the San Francisco World's Fair. The Federal Theater had a theater on Treasure Island out there in the water. Mrs. Roosevelt came to our show. She came backstage and shook hands with all of us. That was a thrill. "[2]

We know that Dr. George Hodel was present and doctoring at Treasure Island simultaneous to the afternoon and evening performances of this SWING MIKADO. There can be little doubt that he saw the show. Perhaps several times.  Was this performance with its modified lyrics Zodiac's inspiration which he included in his Gilbert & Sullivan references some thirty-years later? The 1939 Swing Mikado program shows that Ko-Ko sang, "I've Got a Little List" in Act 1, followed by "Titwillow" in Act 2.

Here are a few excerpts from Zodiac's mimicking "lyrics," ("crooked cues and twisted shoes") inserted just prior to his moderately accurate quotation of Gilbert's, "I've got a Little List."[3]

Some  I shall  tie over  ant hills

and watch them scream & twich

and squirm. Others  shall have

pine splinters driven under their

nails & then  burned.  Others shall

be placed  in cages & fed salt

beef untill they are gorged then

I shall listen to their pleass

for water and I shall laugh at

them. Others will hang by

their thumbs & burn in the

sun then I will rub them down

with  deep heat to warm

them up.  Others I shall

skin them alive & let them

run  around screaming . And

all billiard players I shall

have them  play  in a darkend

cell with crooked

cues & Twisted  Shoes.

Yes  I shall have great

fun in flicting the most

delicious  of pain to my

Slaves.

Are they Zodiac originals? Or are they his own vain attempts to plagiarize Mikado-like words, perhaps similar to those he heard performed in the SWING MIKADO at Treasure Island in 1939? Perhaps thirty-years later he reasoned, "If there can be a Black Swing version of Mikado, then why not a Zodiac one?  When coincidences pile upon coincidences one is forced to pay attention.  I find the fact that BOTH the Dr. Zodiac and Mikado linkage can be traced directly back to the San Francisco World's Fair at Treasure Island at the same time Dr. George Hodel was there is highly suspicious, and makes for a compelling- THOUGHTPRINT.

[1] Source is from a taping of oral histories preserved by the African American Musica Collections, University of Michigan

[2] The Swing Mikado, a WPA Federal Theatre Project, originally opened in Chicago in 1938, then moved to New York where it ran for 86 performances. The New York opening was attended by Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins, and Mayor LaGuardia. The production was conceived, staged, and directed by Harry Minturn, with swing re-orchestrations of Arthur Sullivan's music by Warden and starring Maurice Cooper as Nanki-Poo. In 1939, after closing at Treasure Island, the Swing Mikado, by popular demand, continued performances through the fall of that year at San Francisco's prestigious downtown, Geary Theater, as well as across the Bay in Oakland.

[3] In comparing Zodiac's words to the original lyrics, I suspect he is quoting from memory. (Excluding, what I believe are his deliberate misspellings.) The few notable differences appear for the most part to be omissions, which would seem to indicate Zodiac is not copying from a visible text.

1939 SAN FRANCISCO TREASURE ISLAND MIKADO A SMASH HIT

The  SWING MIKADO was so successful at Treasure Island that it was performed that summer at the famed, GEARY THEATRE in downtown San Francisco  and later that fall across the bay at the  Oakland Auditorium.

The hit show was also featured in the March 1939 edition of LIFE MAGAZINE:

After serving only two-years for the brutal rape and attempted murder of an 8-year-old child in Hollywood, a prison psychiatrist's "expert" opinion that Rodney Alcala was "considerably improved" paved the way for his early release on parole in 1974.

Alcala is now on trial for five DNA linked serial killings (1977-1979) committed after that 1974 release.  Investigation is pending on his suspected involvement in additional East Coast murders.  

Alcala circa 1978    1979 victim Robin Samsoe  Alcala 2010

ABC News Correspondent, Mike Von Fremd interviewed me yesterday surrounding the facts leading up to my 1971 arrest, prosecution and conviction of child rapist and convicted murderer, Rodney Alcala. Alcala is currently on trial in Orange County for multiple murders alleged to have been committed after his release from prison in 1974.

My 1971 Hollywood case involved then 25-year-old,Alcala picking up "Tali" an 8-year-old girl who was walking on Sunset Blvd on her way to school. Alcala drove the second-grader in his car a short distance to his home and then raped her and struck her over the head with a steel bar.

Police were called to Alcala's house to investigate after a citizen-witness observed Alcala pick the child up and followed them to the location and called the police. Hollywood patrol officers responded to the call and door-knocked his house, Alcala fled out the back, leaving the child for dead. The crime occurred in 1968 and Alcala managed to flee and avoid arrest for three years, until my 1971 arrest and extradition of him from Concord, New Hampshire.

The NIGHTLINE piece featuring Alcala will air this coming Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:30 PST. (UPDATE-  NIGHTLINE airing has been pushed back a few days and will. I will advise of new date/time. skh)

Alcala Crime Spree Chronicled after his 1971 release from prison

Alcala Linked To Cold Case Unsolved Murders through DNA in 2005

My old partner and retired Black Dahlia homicide detective, Kirk Mellecker took the stand in Orange County last Friday and testified to investigating the 1977 Hollywood murder of 18-year-old, Jill Barcomb, raped, strangled and beaten to death --her body left in the Hollywood hills. Forensics has reportedly linked Alcala to this brutal murder by DNA. 

Kirk Mellecker whom I trained and worked with at Hollywood Homicide in the 1970s later transferred to Robbery Homicide Division and became the partner to legendary homicide detective John St. John, known as "Jigsaw John." 

Kirk figured prominently in my 1999-2001 Black Dahlia investigation as documented in BDA.

See BDA Chapter 30- "The Dahlia Investigation 2001-2002" (pages 390-399) which features my follow-up and interview with then retired Black Dahlia Case investigator, Kirk Mellecker. Kirk unknowingly in that interview, help me establish that the LAPD files were "sanitized" by the fact that though he and his partner, "Jigsaw John" were assigned the Elizabeth Short, Black Dahlia Files for an eight-year period neither detective was aware Dr. George Hodel had been the prime suspect.  Mellecker in his interview with me stated, "There was no mention in them (LAPD Dahlia Files) relating to a Dr. George Hill Hodel." (We would later establish that more than a thousand pages of investigation including 14 witness interviews, secret tape recorded transcripts all linking George Hodel as the prime suspect "had disappeared from the LAPD files."

Neither Kirk Mellecker, nor now retired detective Brian Carr (who inherited the Dahlia case files after Kirk's retirement) had ever seen or heard the name-George Hill Hodel prior to the 2003 publication of Black Dahlia Avenger.

FBI Chief Special Agent Richard Hood seen at function in May, 1951 just one month after George Hodel fled the U.S. to avoid being arrested as the prime suspect in the Black Dahlia murder. DA taped transcripts record George Hodel admitting to the murder, making law enforcement payoffs and informing Baron Harringa that he was contacted by the FBI in January, 1950. FBI interview was just one week prior to the installation of the DA's electronic surveillance and the beginning of the task-force stakeout at Dr. Hodel's Franklin House residence.(18 detectives, 24/7 for the next five weeks- Feb. 15 - March 27, 1950)  

In below 1942 press photo, FBI Special Agent Richard Hood has just introduced Dr. George Hill Hodel (seen at lectern), Chief Venereal Disease Control Office for L.A. County, as guest speaker at 1942 Southland Law Enforcement Conference. The conference was held at the LAPD Police Academy. Four years later, in January 1947, SA Hood was assigned as Chief  Special Agent-In-Charge to assist LAPD in their attempt to identify and arrest the Black Dahlia killer. (See Los Angeles Times article July, 1942 below.)

 Dr. George Hodel, L.A. County Chief Venereal Disease Control Officer  lecturing LAPD vice officers and command staff at  police academy during WW II. (1942)

Los Angeles Times

July 10, 1942

DA 1950 Hodel-Dahlia Electronic Surveillance                                             Dr. Hodel informs Baron Harringa of his FBI interview:

(DA Tape spool 1)

...

Feb. 18. 1959

7:35 pm

George Hodel to Baron Harringa:

"Hodel then explained about his being questioned at the D.A.'s office on Wednesday morning, and told in great detail as to questions perpounded [sic] to him at that time. One statement made to the German was as follows: "Supposin [sic]' I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my Secretary anymore because she's dead."

...

7:45 pm  ...The FBI were over to see me too, three weeks ago."

                                                          "The Baron"

 Baron Ernst von Harringa circa 1940s

                                 (photo courtesy of grandson, Baron von Harringa)                          

 Baron von Harringa (his given name) is the grandson of Ernst von Harringa. Baron is a handsome young man of just 18-years. He too is looking for answers.   

We met for breakfast in mid-January at my favorite deli in Studio City. Both of us were there with the same hope. Baron wanting to learn more about his mysterious grandfather and I wanting to discover additional background on my father's old friend, confidant, and possibly his accessory to murder!

Our talk lasted nearly two-hours, but unfortunately provided little new "hard" information for either of us. Here is what I learned from the grandson:

1.  Von Harringa family rumors have it that his grandfather, Ernst von Harringa, aka Ernst Meyer, may have been related to nobility in Germany, but nothing to support the information and no actual names.

2. Ernst von Harringa apparently returned to the U.S. (possibly from India) in the mid-1950s and supposedly died in Los Angeles circa 1960. (I have yet to find a death certificate or obituary as documentation.) 

3. He (the grandson) met his grandmother Alene Valla Von Harringa) several times before she died in 2001 and he had heard that her family (Valla) had owned large land parcels in Orange County in the early days. (Turn of the century?) 

4. Baron gave me the above photograph of his grandfather, believed taken sometime in the 1940s or possibly early 50s?

Was Baron Ernst Harringa an accessory to murder? The 1950 Franklin House Tapes-

Two days after above taped conversation (2.20.50) DA investigator McGrath locates and interviews Dr. Hodel's residence plumber attempting to determine if a body might have been recently buried in the Hodel basement.  McGrath asks the plumber if he had seen "signs of fresh digging?" Dr. Hodel is placed under physical surveillance and his vehicle is followed by investigators Walter Morgan & James McGrath.

DA Black Dahlia File, March 1950 handwritten notes made by DA Lt. Jemison show he has decided to reinvestigate the 1945 murder of Dr. Hodel's secretary, Ruth Spaulding with plans to reinterview all of the original witnesses.

George Hodel flees Franklin House in March, 1950 relocating to the Territory of Hawaii.

"Take it from me. We are never going to know!"

James Ellroy, Paris, January 2010 on  book-signing tour/promotion for his new novel, Underground USA

Bests.
Stéphane BOULAN
sboulan@gspresse.fr

(SKH Note- For Boulan's French article and sound clip on tape (in English) click to below link:

http://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/20100123/17232/breve-rencontre-avec-james-ellroy-meme-dieu-fait-des-erreurs

An open letter to Stephane Boulan re. James Ellroy and my book, Black Dahlia Avenger

To:               Stephane Boulan

From:           Steve Hodel

Subj:            James Ellroy quote

Dear Stephane:

Merci!

Thank you for the email regarding your brief Q&A with James Ellroy at a Paris talk/book-signing in January, 2010. I also received your tape-recorded clip containing his response to your questions regarding my book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder.

As to James observations that "even God makes mistakes" and that his ex-wives were pounding chocolate with mysterious cartels, I'll pass on making any response. Both of those subjects are way beyond my experience/knowledge level.

I can however, provide you with the back-story along with my response to Ellroy's recent personal comment to you as relates to my father, George Hodel and my book.

  Steve Hodel's 2004 Fr. Ed.

            James Ellroy (From the Foreword to Black Dahlia Avenger 2004

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE- THE BACKSTORY

First, let me clarify the record. 

My book, Black Dahlia Avenger was published in the U.S. in April, 2003 and became a NYT bestseller. A year later, in 2004, James Ellroy then read my newly written "AFTERMATH" chapter. The new chapter included the secret documents and transcripts locked away in the prosecutor's files for fifty-three years which confirmed that George Hodel was the "prime suspect" back in 1949-1950,

After reading George Hodel's admissions and confession statements, James Ellroy approached me and made an unsolicited offer to write the Foreword to my soon to publish, 2004 HarperCollins-paperback edition.

I gave James offer thoughtful consideration and was initially reluctant to agree. Mainly, because Ellroy while being a popular novelist, was one of the primary contributors to the myth-making process that had recreated the real victim, Elizabeth Short into something that she was NOT. In his original novel, Black Dahlia (written in 1987, some sixteen years earlier) he had mixed real names with fictional events which helped create the myth which further obscured the facts and the truth. (Unlike others though, to his credit, Ellroy never claimed his novel was anything other than "pure fiction.")

In the end, I agreed and told him, "Go ahead and write it." He did and the result was a beautiful and poetic tribute first to the real victim, Elizabeth Short, "a post war Mona Lisa" and secondly to my then five-year investigation. I quote from his Foreword to my 2004 edition:

                      ...Steve Hodel convinced me. His knowledge is conclusively  catalogued in this book. I began the book unimpressed and came away converted. ...It's a rich story of late-40's L.A. and an indictment of official negligence and obfuscation. "

That was 2004. In October of that same year, thanks to the excellent translation by my French editor, Robert Pepin, L'Affaire Du Dahlia Noir was published in your country and quickly became a national bestseller.

In that same year I was honored with an invitation to come to Paris which I happily accepted. I was interviewed by Paris print-journalists as well as your television and radio media. I found it to be a truly wonderful experience especially since it was my very first visit to France. I loved that week in Paris.( I was invited back in 2006 to give a PowerPoint slide show and talk at the Pompidou Centre related to my Black Dahlia investigation which focused on the surrealist connections.)

Meanwhile, back in the U.S. my book and new investigative discoveries continued to spark both excitement and controversy. (Three separate investigative documentaries were produced in 2003-4 by the major television networks.  (NBC Dateline, "Black Dahlia", CBS 48-Hours, "Black Dahlia Confidential" and Court TV's, "Who Killed the Black Dahlia?")

The bright klieg lights of publicity were not a welcome sight at LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division.  With the press pushing for more answers, in 2004, then Black Dahlia gatekeeper LAPD detective Brian Carr (now retired) was forced to issue a statement to the press announcing that "all the original Black Dahlia evidence had disappeared from the locked files." This included all of the original 1950 reports connecting George Hodel as the prime suspect along with the original tape-recordings containing his admissions to being involved in police payoffs, abortions, and committing the Black Dahlia murder as well as the murder of his personal secretary.(In 1945, some eighteen months prior to the Dahlia murder, LAPD suspected and investigated George Hodel in the "apparent suicide" by pills, of his then girlfriend/secretary, Ruth Spaulding, but were unable to prove he killed her.) Detective Carr also informed the press that "George Hodel's fingerprints were also missing from the files and since all the evidence is missing we are unable to proceed with any DNA analysis, and the case is not solvable."

As far as James Ellroy was concerned these events were "good news-bad news." The Good- because of all the renewed interest in my Black Dahlia investigation, the studios had decided to "green-light" his original Black Dahlia novel, which had been under option, but had remained in "Production-Hell" for sixteen-years. The Bad- All of his good friends at LAPD's Robbery Homicide were very unhappy with his personal and very public televised endorsement of my Black Dahlia investigation as- "CASE SOLVED."

Ellroy's CBS 2004 on-air sound byte click below

ellroy SKH SOLVED BD Nov272004.wav 

"I think Steve Hodel is a good and noble guy. I think he solved the Black Dahlia murder case."

James Ellroy, to CBS investigative journalist Erin Moriarty on the hour-documentary, Black Dahlia Confidential, November 2004

Fast forward to 2006.  LAPD detective Brian Carr received increasing pressure from the media to comment on what LAPD was doing and what action they were taking related to my investigation?  In an  A&E Bill Kurtis Black Dahlia Cold Case Files documentary detective Carr was forced to respond:

"I don't have time to prove or disprove Hodel's investigation. I'm too busy with other cases that are solvable." 

Detective Brian Carr retired from LAPD in 2009

Likewise, James found himself in a quandary.  How did he reconcile his bold assertion that I had solved the Black Dahlia murder, with the fact that a major motion picture (Black Dahlia) was about to be released presenting his fictional version? The public was asking him, "Why not present the truth which was far far stranger than even he had original conceived it to be?"

That was the public face of it. Next, James started getting blasted from the rear by the film studio. They had just invested big bucks (75 million+) and wanted him to shut up about claiming that Hodel had "solved the case" fearing it would hurt box-office sales.

So, under pressure from without and within, James made a public statement to the effect:

"As of October, 2006, I will no longer respond to any questions about the Black Dahlia Murder. I no longer wish to discuss it. I'm tired of talking about it. Time to move on to other things."

CUT ELLROY SOME SLACK-JACK

As to James statement to you that he "led with his heart" and no longer believes George Hodel was the killer and that it "can never be proved if Man Ray was or was not indirectly involved." 

My response?

Whatever his current motives or reasons may be for saying that, I say, "Cut the dude some slack-Jack."  I know for a fact that James truly regrets writing the Foreword to my book. However, I suspect that his real regret is coming not so much from the heart, but rather from Ellroy, the businessman. And, believe me James is first and foremost - a businessman. His business is the promoting and marketing of James Ellroy, and he is very good at it.  Nothing wrong with that!

From that standpoint, what looked good to him as a 2004 business opportunity (writing a Foreword to my bestseller, Black Dahlia Avenger) by 2006 had turned around to bite the Demon Dog in the butt.

That original 2004 endorsement of my investigation by 2006 was a huge thorn in his side. By then it had come back to haunt him by upsetting his powerful friends both within the LAPD and in the film industry. Friends that he needed and wanted to keep close. Friends that were (and still are) his bread and butter.

 It was a lot of pressure on him for a long time, so again I say- Let's all cut the dude some slack!  James has a perfect right to change his mind for whatever his reasons and motive might be. More than that, he doesn't need a reason. Who really cares whether it is his head or his heart that is talking now? (Besides, I thought you French had the exclusive on "leading with the heart.")

In conclusion, James is not the final arbitrar of Truth-YOU ARE. YOU and the rest of my readers have always been the sole judge and jury. After careful review, you alone and individually have held the responsibility to weigh the evidence and decide the case. (Not an easy task, since the latest updated French edition now runs 761 pages. Add to that my new sequel, Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel (Dutton 2009) which runs 320 pages, and the combined investigations now surpass the page count of- Tolstoy's, War and Peace.)

Feel free to translate my letter to you into French so your fellow countrymen and women can have a fuller understanding of the back-story to all this. (There is actually more to the Ellroy story, with some very interesting LAPD connections, but will leave it at this for now.)  

Most Respectfully Yours,

Steve Hodel

Los Angeles, California

January 25, 2010

www.stevehodel.com

P.S.

Stay tuned and keep the faith. I predict we will eventually get an answer not from Ellroy's God who "makes mistakes", but from Science, which generally does not. My investigation continues and a massive amount of new evidence linking George Hodel to the Dahlia and other crimes has been added to what we now know. Most of this "new evidence" has come to us since my last updated chapter in the HarperCollins July 2006 edition and can only be found here on my website in both FAQs and blogs. One of the most dramatic links came as recently as 2008 connecting some 50 lb. cement sacks to our Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. "Franklin House" as likely being the same cement sacks left by the killer at the Black Dahlia crime scene.

 I still maintain the hope and expectation that we will eventually get law enforcement to compare a DNA source to known evidence in one of the many connecting cases. Who knows, with Chief Bratton and detective Brian Carr now gone we may see a new LAPD administration, with Chief Beck at the helm, open up their minds and science lab to a new day?

Original 1947 Black Dahlia investigators and "top brass" privately confirmed among themselves and their families that the "BLACK DAHLIA CASE WAS SOLVED."

                  "I have been trying to forget what happened...  I have forgotten all about Rod Alcala and what he did."

Rod Alcala, August 1971 in-custody statement to LAPD DetectiveSteve Hodel regarding his 1968 assault of Tali S., an 8-year-old Hollywood victim, whom he abducted, raped and left for dead.

        Alcala Orange Co. Court 2009            Alcala on "The Dating Game" 1978             

MY 1971 ARREST & EXTRADITION OF RODNEY ALCALA FOR RAPE/ATT-MURDER

In 1971 my three-year search for Rodney Alcala, a brutal child-rapist wanted by Hollywood Division's LAPD for rape and attempted murder finally ended.

In July of that year, I had met with the FBI in their L.A. office. In that meeting a decision was made to join forces in attempting to locate and arrest fugitive Rodney Alcala by placing him on the Bureau's- -"10 MOST WANTED LIST."  We did and it paid off --big-time. A month later Alcala, teaching as a counselor at a teenage girl's school,  was apprehended and in custody in Concord, New Hampshire.

In the summer of '71, I boarded a plane, flew to Boston, then drove north to Concord, where I arrested and extradited Rodney Alcala.  Our Los Angeles warrant charged him with two felony counts- child rape and attempted murder.

That same year, Alcala was prosecuted, tried, convicted and sent to prison. 

Sadly, this would turn out to be JUST THE BEGINNING of this monster's murderous crime spree. Because of multiple failures in "The System" and his release after serving just a little over two years in prison his incarceration would become no more than a stepping stone to bigger and more horrific crimes. 

Journalist and crime reporter, Christine Pelisek presents the full tragic story as a feature article published in today's (1.21.2010) LA WEEKLY. 

Read Christine's incredible summary of Alcala's many crimes:  

 RODNEY ALCALA: The Fine Art of Killing