Survivor of dating game killer Rodney Alcala visits prison

A woman who escaped from the clutches of The Dating game Murderer Rodney Alcalá has revealed how she visited him in prison to demand answers about why he spared her.

She made the pilgrimage of pain more than four decades after fleeing his apartment in panic when a half-naked Alcala – who may have murdered 130 women – advanced on her after showing her a portfolio of disturbing photos. RadarOnline can reveal.

The woman was only fourteen when she was singled out by Alcala in a bookstore in 1969. It wasn’t until eleven years ago that she mustered the courage to confront him at Rikers Island Jail in her quest for closure.

She revealed: “The second time I met Rodney Alcala was on March 23, 2013. We were in one of the North Infirmary Command buildings on Rikers Island, two months after he was convicted of rape and murder Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Jane Hover, both women in their early twenties living in New York City in the 1970s.

“He was being chased by a prison guard, his baggy, dove-gray jumpsuit hanging loosely from his bony body. His once black hair had turned the color of steel wool, still in greasy curls that flowed down his shoulders. He was so much smaller than me. As he shuffled stiffly towards me, I felt stage fright, and then a wave of real terror when I realized he wasn’t in handcuffs.

“The first time was in April 1969, on a wet day at St. Marks Place in the East Village. He introduced himself as Jon Burger; I was 14 years old and he was 25. More than forty years later, I learned his real name when it beneath his familiar face and orange jumpsuit, flashed across a television screen: “Rodney Alcala, The dating game Serial killer, sentenced to death.’

‘It couldn’t be the same man, I thought to myself. But after hours of Googling, I had to accept the truth: Jon Burger was an alias; he was the winning bachelor on The dating game nine years after I met him; and he is considered one of the most prolific serial killers, officially responsible for at least seven murders, with authorities estimating his actual count at around 130.

‘I am not one of those people who are fascinated by series production murderers. I don’t even like horror movies. But I couldn’t stop searching, reading, asking. When Alcala passed away in 2021, I thought I was finally done. Then the new, inescapably popular Netflix film Woman of Hourdirected by and starring Anna Kendrickshowed me that there are some experiences that never really go away.”

She said Detective Wendell Stradford, the NYPD officer largely responsible for Alcala’s extradition, California to New York City, had the prison visit.

The woman added: “We sat in a partitioned side area on low plastic, primary-colored chairs, so close that my nose twitched from the stench of his alkaline prison soap. The guard said he would be outside and walked away. Alcala smiled at me, thin lips hiding the same teeth that had bitten off nipples according to the FBI reports I’d read.

“We met at the East Side Bookstore. That was Alcala kill and rape during those years,” she said.

She said: “He approached me as I was pulling copy The plague from the bookshelf. “Camus?” He asked me and I turned around and saw a tall man with a strong Adam’s apple. Clever, though there was something chilling about the way his eyes didn’t reflect any light. He scared me. I wanted to spend time in the bookstore waiting for my dad to get a haircut, but I ran downstairs to the register, paid, and left.

“He followed me out and kept talking about how he just came back Californiaabout NYU, about the baked apples at the restaurant we stopped by. Then he asked me to take pictures.”

“You wanted to photograph me,” I said to 70-year-old Alcala who was sitting opposite me. He had said something about my red hair, the black of my raincoat. The colors against the gray day.”

Alcala leaned into her and asked, “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I said. “You didn’t hurt me.”

Then the visit was interrupted by a guard and she was forced to leave to catch the prison bus.

And she concluded: ‘In the end, Alcala didn’t answer me. I was just one of hundreds he went fishing for, and one of the few he threw back into the river. Whether it was because I didn’t know how to cry, because I was being stupidly rebellious, or because of something completely random, it came down to one thing: I was just lucky.”

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