Daily US Times: A serial killer who was in death row in California for murdering a 12-year-old girl and four other women has died of natural causes.
Officials say that the 77-year-old Rodney Alcala, who was known as the “Dating Game Killer” after taking part in a US TV show, died at a hospital near California’s Corcoran state prison on Saturday.
Alcala was convicted in 2010.
As well as the killings in California, Rodney Alcala had also pleaded guilty to the murders of two other women in the US state of New York.
The serial killer was first sentenced to death sentence in Orange County in 1980 for the kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in Los Angeles the previous year.
His penalty was overturned by the California Supreme Court and he was granted a new trial.
Mr Alcala also received the same penalty in the second trial, but this was again overturned in 2003.
Investigators discovered forensic evidence in the years that followed linking him to the other California murders.
He was found guilty of murdering Samsoe at the 2010 trial, as well as four other women aged between 18 and 32 in the years between 1977 and 1979.
Alcala was extradited to New York in 2012 after he was charged over two additional killings from 1971 and 1977. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 25 years to life in New York.
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