Episode 643: Rodney Alcala: The Dating Game Killer (Part 3)

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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.

this is morbid i kind of said my name weird. I was like, Ash.
It sounded like I had really big veneers in. This is Ash.
This is Ash. This is Ash, you guys.
This is Ass. This is Ass, you guys.
Ooh. No, we wanted to start out again.
I don't know when this comes out. You know, that's going to be a running theme for a few months.
I don't know when this is going to come out. But we just wanted to say to everybody in the LA area.
Yeah, we're so sorry. That we are so sorry.
And it is literally the scariest thing to watch from the other side of the country. I can't imagine.
I can't imagine being there. It's so apocalyptic looking.
It is. And it must feel that way to lose absolutely everything.
Yeah. And then to see firefighters are just on another level.
Yeah, they truly are. What? And to see them stacking up photo albums like that.
I was just going to say that. It's gut-wrenching.
It truly is. And to think that's like all some people are going to have left.
It's a badass community though it looks like. It absolutely is.
Because everybody's really pulling together and hopefully, you know, rebuild and get it all back to where, you know, some semblance of where it was. Yeah.
We're going to try to do something to help. Yeah, we're working on something right now.
We just don't want to say anything before we get the, you know, we don't want to say anything too preemptively. We're going to try to do something, but we just wanted to tell you guys, like, we're thinking of you.
We love you. We work with a lot of people in LA.
We have friends in LA. We have loved ones there.
So, like, we're thinking of you. Yeah, we love you.
We're sending you good vibes, and we're sorry. We are.
are. And sorry that you're probably hearing this so late.

Yeah, I was going to say, and I'm sorry if this sounds like weird coming weeks later, but we're still thinking of you. We just wanted to say something anyways, no matter how late it was.
Yeah, just so you know in the moment that we're thinking of you. Yeah.
But also, one thing we wanted to say before this began was like... On a happy note.
We're so happy that you guys seem to really vibe with episode 638, I believe it is. Our last episode.
I don't know if it's our last. It's not our last episode.
It's a few episodes ago. I don't know what the fuck is going on, guys.
I just know that you vibed with an episode. You vibed with the episode, The Crash of Uruguayan Air Flight 571.
That was a great story story it obviously was like gut-wrenching but i think people really liked the the survivalness of it all well and i it seemed like you guys were like first of all thanks for saying like that was a great episode like that i think dave did an amazing job with the research on that episode the story is just like such a harrowing story and i was really excited to tell it in a way that was a little different and kind of didn't didn't go didn't go so hard on the uh salacious with people see as the salacious aspects of it you highlighted more of the actual important details but thank you for recognizing that and thank you for letting us know how much you liked it that was very nice to see. And I think you guys really vibed with how it was an episode about people like coming together to overcome seemingly impossible odds and a terrible, terrible, horrible, no good situation that seemed to have no positive, like silver lining whatsoever.
But because they work together, and they stayed together, they were able to get out of it topical and i think that's important everybody work together let's all work together let's stay together let's be kind to each other let's take care of each other and lean on each other on each other that's all that's all we're saying we're not going to get into a big thing i'm just saying like let's all just work together here yeah definitely because look at what what terrible situation these people were able to get out of just by never giving up never laying down and accepting what they thought their fate was no matter how hopeless they insurmountable the odds seemed the word insurmountable is just popping up in my life a lot lately really and i just love it it's a great i love words i know i do too like words are great i get it i know that sounds like a stupid statement well you're an author so it doesn't but i just really like words no i do too certain words i also get an email every day with a word of the day if you'd like me to tell you about it later I got you let me just tell you about it right now tell me about it now maybe somebody else listening wants to get this email that's word of the day let me find it it's fun that's one of the reasons because I'm telling you know it's 2025 why don't we just get like really vibey here for a minute because it's gonna get really dark in a couple minutes uh but 2025 guys read read a lot of books get off of social media get off of the doom scrolling it's turned into kind of shit storm on there anyways yeah read some books i'm telling you you're gonna like once you get in the vibe and you find a genre you like or you find like an author you really like or just a vibe of book you like you're gonna come out of each book being like fuck i'm one i learned something two i felt shit and three you're gonna know new different words though and different like you're gonna you're gonna come out of there with some vocab it's fun excellence and that's fun and then you feel like tie and you just get to drop a new word yes i love it um if you can't find me on instagram right now i ran for the hills i am not on instagram anymore just try to unplug i don't know you know i might go back i might go back i don't know where i just went with that i might go back at some point but it just was it didn't feel great yeah and um i was following people that i didn't make the choice to follow so that was yeah that's the thing so but it's you know what this new year I think like we all like especially in the pod lab I feel like we all and actually in this house because like John was that way too we all had these like just thoughts of like you know what I'm unplugging yeah I'm taking a step back from all this, like, you know, internet, social media, hailstorm that's happening. And just, like, enjoying the small things more.
Life. And I think everybody needs to do that a little bit.
And grass. I'm going to go touch it when the snow melts.
But it gives you more time to do things that make you happy and actually feed you. And speaking of things that make us happy, back to words.
Hell yeah. Today's word of the day is, I don't know how to pronounce it yet.
I haven't listened, but it's, oh, it's bringing me to another place. Hello.
It is. Sedulous.
Sedulous. Ooh.
And that means showing dedication and diligence. It's an adjective.
Is it sedulous or sedulous? It's sedulous. Oh, okay.
I've never heard that word before. S-E-D-U-L-O-U-S.
Sedulous. What is this outlet that's sending you these words every day? Because maybe people want that.
Word daily. That's very easy to remember.
So word daily, I guess, if you want a word of the day. Things like that.
It's so fun. That's the thing.

The internet can be great.

And these are the things that the internet is great for.

Let's find the great thing.

I love it.

Yeah.

So yeah, that was a lot of, you know, good stuff.

Yeah.

And here's a lot of bad stuff.

I'm sorry.

We're on part three.

So the good news is this is the end. He, you know, we get to see Rodney, peace the fuck out, go to jail, and then eventually die, which is awesome.

He's going to shuffle right off this mortal coil.

Get the fuck off this coil.

We'll be right back. is this is the end he you know we get to see rodney peace the fuck out go to jail and then eventually die which is awesome he's gonna shuffle right off this mortal coil get the fuck off this we were all behind him pushing him off bye bye so quick recap of part two for you rodney ended up serving less than three years for the attack on tolly shapiro which is disgusting fucking insane and he was back prowling on the streets in no time shameful zero regard for being on parole he had no regard for being on parole and parole had no regard that he was on parole which i think is why he had no regard for being on parole because if you don't see the parole people having any regard you're like why should i there was just no regard to be found yeah the regards were in short supply back then the regard was not in the room with us or anyone no one could find find it.
In between brutal attacks and murders, he made his appearance on The Dating Game, which we've talked about a couple times. Horrifying.
You know, he left his lasting impression on Cheryl Bradshaw there and even another contestant, one of the other Bachelors. And if you look at him in those clips, they were right on target.
Dead in the eyes. You look at him and you're like gross there's something

just gross about him skeevy yeah and finally he was apprehended yet again where he actually confessed to assaulting and raping a 15 year old monique hoite who bravely escaped and told police everything that happened to her yet for some reason he was released on a ridiculous ten thousand dollar bail instead of the prosecutor's fifty thousand dollar request so his mother posted that

bail Yet for some reason, he was released on a ridiculous $10,000 bail instead of the prosecutor's $50,000 request. So his mother posted that bail.
And again, I feel like I've said this 400 times throughout this series, Rodney was back out on the streets. Yep.
Insane. Yep.
We're still really short on the regard. No regards.
So a few weeks later, after he posted bail and was back home with mom, he gave his notice to the LA Times where he was working, remember? Oh, yeah. So effective May 12th, he would be unemployed.
And he told his employer that he wanted to focus on his photography, and he was actually thinking of moving up north. Yeah, you know, he's an artist.
Yeah, an artist. It's not that he's, you know, facing serious jail time or anything like that.
No, just artists. While Rodney was finishing out his last days at the Times, 21-year-old Jill Parenteau was settling into her new apartment in Burbank.
She's super excited just to start her new independent life. A few months earlier, she had started a job as a computer key punch operator.
She was making good money. She had everything going for her.
She was just really enjoying, like I said, being out on her own, her independence. On June 13th, Jill's sister Dee Dee called to find out what Jill was doing that night if she wanted to hang out or something.
But Jill said that she had a date to go to a Dodgers game with Dan Brady. And Dan Brady was somebody that she had known since high school.
So this wasn't crazy. But the next morning, Jill's friend Kathy waited by the phone to hear about the date.
She was anxious to hear how everything went. They called each other to check in before work almost every single day.
But Jill never called. So Kathy thought it was a little bit weird.
But she assumed, you know, maybe Jill just went into work earlier that morning. And I'll check in with her later.
Yeah. But hours later, nobody had heard from Jill, which was very out of character.
And her friends and family were starting to get pretty concerned. So not content to just sit around and wait to hear something, her friend Janet Jordan went straight to Jill's apartment to check on her.
poor janet yeah poor janet she had barely entered the apartment and made her way up to jill's

bedroom when she saw jill's body on the floor she was lying face up she was nude and she had

been beaten severely Dad barely entered the apartment and made her way up to Jill's bedroom when she saw Jill's body on the floor.

She was lying face up.

She was nude and she had been beaten severely.

Janet just ran out of there and ran to the closest phone to call the police.

Burbank detective Gordon Bowers was the first to arrive to the apartment.

And he was met by Janet, who was so upset that she could barely even speak.

Because one of the things you have to think about is she probably thought, oh shit, the person's probably still in this house. Yeah.
Like this, the range of emotions and fear you would feel. Oh yeah, there's immediate fight or flight and flight would absolutely kick in.
So she was so upset she could barely talk. Additional officers arrived a few minutes later.
And the first thing they noticed was that, and this is so fucking terrifying and creepy, the screen on the window facing the courtyard at her apartment complex had been cut vertically and horizontally, making a large hole so that, like, a person could fit through. Could literally just, like, open it up, spread it aside and just get right in.
And then they also noticed that the light bulb in the stairwell leading to Jill's door had been unscrewed. What the fuck? That's like strangers.
Literally the strangers type shit. Inside the apartment, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary, obviously aside from Jill being dead in the apartment.
Her purse lay on the table next to her Dodgers ticket stub and program, and nothing seemed to be missing, though. The medical examiner confirmed the obvious.
Jill had been violently sexually assaulted. She was beaten.
She was strangled. There was severe trauma to her nose, cheeks, her teeth, and even her head, and there were visible ligature marks around her neck, which were caused by the cord from an electric blanket that had been twisted around her throat he is so fucking like brutal like he's just so violent yeah like it's the beating and a lot of times it doesn't even seem like he came with something to strangle people with he just finds something nearby because a lot of times it's like you know their tights that they were wearing and in this case it's like an electrical cord blanket she probably just had you know a heated blanket laying around and that's what he uses just on the fly because i think it's like the beating he knows he's going to administer he doesn't need to bring anything with him yeah that's so scary it's he just incapacitates somebody enough to go find something in their own house, which is even like another level of.

Yeah.

I don't even know what the word is.

Yeah.

Now, nearly everything in the bedroom from the walls to the clothing scattered around the floor was splattered with blood everywhere.

In the autopsy report, the medical examiner noted significant pulling or striking blunt traumas to the head by an object broader than a hammer.

Holy shit.

So that caused extensive scalp hemorrhages.

There were also, quote, deep scratches around both breasts, tooth marks and puncture wounds below the left nipple and cuts on the left side of the left breast.

He's like, he's seriously a wild animal. When you really stop to think about what these attacks must be like.
Oh, yeah. It is beyond your wildest nightmare.
He's rabid. Yeah, he doesn't even seem like a human.
No. The ultimate cause of death was the ligature strangulation.
So you imagine that, and I hate to even like, you know, go further into this, but you imagine he is beating his victims viciously yeah he's attacking them with his teeth with his hands with some object bigger than a hammer and the ultimate cause of death is strangulation so they're alive while he's inflicting all that pain and just trauma onto them yeah it's awful the killer had also left fluids on and inside the body, and there was additional blood evidence found on the windowsill, leading investigators to believe that actually the killer had cut himself when he broke into the apartment. So at least that was good.
Yeah. They had bad evidence.
Detectives in LA had barely started processing the evidence at this scene when on June 20th, a call into the Huntington Beach Police Department. The caller Marianne Fraser explained that her 12-year-old daughter Robin Samso had left the house earlier that day but she hadn't been seen or heard from since leaving her friend's house on her bicycle that afternoon.
Which is so typical. Yeah.
Just of course going out on a bike ride with your friend. At that time, it was very common for kids to be reported missing, only to turn up a couple days later, though, having run away.

But in his statement to the press, Lieutenant Bruce Young told reporters,

Robin is a, quote, very dependable child who had no history of being a runaway

and had never been in any trouble of this nature before.

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A few days into the investigation of Robin's disappearance,

Huntington Beach Police got a call from Dana Crappa,

a Forestry Service firefighter,

who thought she might have actually seen Robin on the day she went missing.

According to Crappa, she was on her way to work that afternoon, and she was driving up Santa Anita Canyon Road when she saw a Datsun F-10 station wagon parked at a local turnout area. And she remembered the car because she had actually nearly collided head on with a similar vehicle a few days earlier oh wow which was weird as she got closer she said she saw a dark-haired man forcefully steering quote-unquote a blonde girl into the woods toward a dry riverbank she said she said it was less alarming than it was unusual so she kept i was like i feel like that would be that not alarming i feel like that would be both alarming and unusual.
So she kept, I was like, I feel like that would be. How is that not alarming? I feel like that would be both alarming and unusual.
Yeah. So she kept driving and she ignored what she saw.
It had completely left her thoughts by the time she reached her destination. That's wild.
And it wasn't until she saw the notices about the missing girl that she remembered the incident. At the time of her phone call, police had just reported that they were, quote, no further ahead in the investigation than they were a week ago.

So the call from this forestry firefighter was the first real lead that they had. Lieutenant Young described the suspect as a, quote, man in his 30s, 5 foot 11 to 6 feet tall with collar length, dark curly hair.
the description of that man seen by crappa matched those given by robin's friends who actually said a man had approached them earlier that day on the beach and asked if he could take their pictures.

So all of the description of him, the man that Crappa saw, and the description by Robin's friends all are lining up. On July 2nd, William Popke, a member of the Forest Service spraying crew, was clearing brush near the Chantry Flat campground near the Sierra Madre foothills, and he came across skeletonized human remains that were scattered across the ravine.
According to his report, and this is a little brutal, the skull was separated from the neck and the lower teeth were fractured. It almost looked to him like the individual had been struck in the face with a hard object.
Oh, God. And she was 12.
12 years old. When the medical examiner arrived to remove the body, he noted that the left foot and portion, quote unquote, portions of the hands were missing.
Jesus Christ. Yeah.
By the time the body was discovered, the scene had been thoroughly trampled by wildlife. So that was going to explain of that but still investigators found critical evidence near the body including a cane cut brand kitchen knife with blood droplets on it and a beach towel with wipe stains of what was eventually determined to be type a blood oh nearby there was additional blood evidence found among a pile of rocks and leaves but there was no clothing found at the scene other than one tennis shoe that bore the name robin on the inside god just one tennis shoe the name in the shoe prompted investigators to check dental records of robin samso which would end up being a match for those remains that's fucking terrible 12 years old 12 years old the medical examiner conclude, actually, that the most likely cause of death in Robin's death was stabbing.
Holy shit. Yeah.
Given the advanced decomp, it was pretty impossible for the medical examiner to determine if Robin had been sexually assaulted. But investigators in Huntington Beach strongly suspected that this was their killer's motive.
Detective Ron Jenkins said, We're assuming Robin was sexually assaulted and this guy is going to do it again. Holy shit.
Yeah. While the medical examiner had been unable to determine the exact cause of death because he thought maybe stabbing, but he couldn't be sure, investigators were treating it as a homicide no matter what.
Jenkins told a reporter from the LA Times, I don't think a healthy 12-year-old girl

walked 50 miles to the hills

and then just laid down and died.

No.

No.

I think we can safely say that.

Definitely not.

And also, how crazy is it

that while Rodney Alcala was working at the LA Times,

these cases were happening.

Like, people were reporting on these cases

while he works there.

While he's working there.

Which is just nuts to think about.

He probably loved it.

Oh, yeah.

Of course he did.

I'm sure they were all talking about it

and he was so excited about it.

Thank you. reporting on these cases while he works while he's working which is just nuts he probably loved it oh yeah of course he did i'm sure they were all talking about it and he was yeah so excited about it now the strongest lead investigators had was the description of the man seen at the beach and then later with robin near the area where her body was discovered but the problem was that description also matched thousands of people in california and didn't really help investigators narrow down their pool of suspects.
Detective Jenkins said, I've had 50 calls from Laguna Beach to Santa Monica about who this guy is since we put out the description of him. If I had 50 people, we could check all these guys in one day, but there's only so many of us, so we have to put the names in some sort of priority.
That's what's so sad to me is when it's like a resources thing. Yeah.
Where it's like, we could check all these, we just don't have enough people. We don't have that manpower.
Investigators also asked for the public's help in locating the bike that Robin had been riding when she disappeared. It wasn't found at the scene and it hadn't been seen since she left her friend's house that afternoon.
Fortunately, Jenkins and his team investigators would not have to wait long for the public's help. A few days after they released the sketch of the suspect, Officer Dennis McNaught contacted the Huntington Beach Division and reported that the sketch and the description of the suspect matched a parolee that he had on his caseload a few years back, and his name was Rodney Alcala.
So we love a parole officer finally coming through. Thank goodness.
Yeah. It's about time.
It's about time. According to McNaught, Alcala had a history as a child molester and a quote known penchant for prurient photography of children.
Jesus Christ. It's disgusting.
He's a fucking monster. And not only that but he strongly resembled the sketch that police had released and it turned out that officer mcnaught was not alone in his belief a few days later donald haynes which if you remember that name he's the good samaritan who reported the assault on tolly shapiro he called the tip line to report that the man in the sketch strongly resembled alcala who, who he remembered from the assault on Tali.
Donald Haynes. Good Samaritan of the motherfucking century.
The fact that he was following this and was like, oh no, that's the guy and I'm going to make sure they know that. A lot of people, and it sounds sad, but it's like a lot of people wouldn't.
They don't want to get themselves involved. They don't want to get re-involved.
They don't want to like deal with it again. This guy was like, nah, fuck this guy.
That's the thing. We tell that the former story way more often than the latter of Donald Haynes.
It's incredible. I feel like he, I hope he was like the head of his neighborhood watch.
Because I would feel so safe with that man's as my neighbor. I hope he just thrived.
I also, I should look. I don't know why I didn't already.
I should look and see if he got some kind of reward because he absolutely should have. Yeah.
Some kind of acknowledgement. He's adorable, by the way.
Oh yeah? Yeah. He just, he looks like an adorable old man.
I feel like good people who are like have good insides, sometimes it like really shines through. Yeah.
You know? It's true. But based on the tips from the public, his his criminal history and the fact that he was known to frequent the area where robin's remains were discovered investigators were granted a warrant for alcala's arrest and a warrant to search his home and his car on july 24th detectives arrived at alcala's mother's house for the 457th time that's me being hyperbolic but not really.
Barely. They found Rodney just chilling in his bedroom and took him into custody without incident.
During their search of the house, though, they found a considerable amount of photography equipment and photographs, as well as a receipt for a storage locker in Seattle. Ooh.
Yeah. Which I never knew that detail of this case, that there was a whole storage locker full yeah nefarious shit i had no idea they also found a cane cut knife set interestingly enough but it seemed as though none of the knives were missing from the set but still interesting other items seized that day included a pair of handcuffs this is disgusting eight issues of a magazine which i don't know how it got into publication, but it's called Young and Naked magazine.
Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. Get it together.
Disgusting. Get it fucking together.
They found a leather bullwhip and over 1,000 photos, negatives, and slides. Jesus Christ.
He was booked on suspicion of murder, though he claimed that on the afternoon that Robin went missing, he was at Knott's Berry Farm Amusement Park being interviewed for a photography job. Oh, you were at an amusement park? That's good.
Isn't that interesting? That's disgusting. Regardless of his supposed alibi, he was put into a Huntington Beach jail cell, and his bail was set at $250,000, a sum far beyond his mother's reach this time thank goodness thank goodness mom can't come bail this fucker out honestly mom should be ashamed of herself yeah i'm glad you said it because i completely yeah you just i don't like you can agree or not i whatever yeah but there's there's a certain time when when they have to face the music when the police continuously come to your home saying your son is accused of doing this crazy-ass shit.
You can't enable a child who is a grown adult now. It's not like they're a child.
It's not like you're saving a child from, you know. Yeah.
This is a grown adult. Absolutely.
He's making stupid decisions and he's hurting people. It's time to start holding him accountable for it.
Well, and it's not like the police just came and said, oh, you know, he's a suspect. He's a suspect.
He's a suspect. That happened.
But also he was convicted multiple times. That's the thing.
Horrible, horrible crimes. And that's the thing.
It's time to start letting the justice system hold him accountable. Yeah.
So a few days after his arrest, I'll call his sister came to visit him in the Huntington Beach jail. During their conversation, guards overheard Rodney and his sister talking about a storage unit in Seattle.
And they heard him say to her, do me a favor, get the stuff out of there, get it cleared out. Holy shit.
You didn't think anyone was listening to your conversation in prison, sir? Like, really? Okay. He's like, I bet this is totally like off the record.
Yeah, totally. No one record yeah no one's gonna hear this no one's listening you know prison is a place where no one hears anything it's cool the calls aren't wired or anything like that not tapped no but intrigued at the thought of what alcala could be hiding in his storage locker detectives ed mclaren and craig robinson got a warrant to search that unit and they flew right over to seattle when they reached the storage shed, however, they found that it was locked with not one, but two padlocks.
Fortunately, they had brought along with them two keys discovered in a briefcase that was seized from Alcala's mother's house. And when they tried them in the locks, they worked.
Oh, shit. Can you imagine how that must have felt? Because they probably had those two keys and were like, like who knows where the factually go to yeah and then boom oh my god to hear that lock click must have been the most exhilarating and terrifying moment yes of any of their lives because you're like a double-edged sword you're like we're gonna find evidence we can nail this fucker like this is our time but we're gonna find you're like find horrifying shit.
What the fuck are we going to find in here? Yeah. Inside the storage unit, McLaren and Robinson discovered what appeared to be an assortment of personal belongings, including cold weather clothing, kitchenware, more than 1,700 photographs.
Oh, God. A large number of photo slide carousels, including one marked, is awful tolly va rape i am so glad that this fucker died same and i hope it was so painful awful i hope it was an awful death i hope he felt every second of every horrific feeling one could possibly feel i hope rodneycala got the same kind of experience that Angelus had on Buffy.
Yes. Where the soul suddenly hits and every bad thing you've ever done rushes.
Like, I hope he had to feel every bad thing he's ever done. Yeah.
And the simultaneous feeling of like a bunch of nails lifting his fingernails yeah i hope you know that's what i hope i hope that uh they also found another um photo slide carousel that was marked ode to new york by john berger so boom alias wow dumbass he's also i'm so glad he's so fucking stupid same like that is helpful very helpful when they're dumb as fuck that's the thing they also found several pieces of jewelry and among that jewelry the detectives found a pair of gold earrings that matched those described by robin samso's mother which she was wearing on the day she went remember robin was 12 12 i remember tallie was eight eight like like i'm not taking away from the young women that also lost their lives it's just like 15 year olds man he really he really hit every like every age group he had no actual profile except for woman exactly yeah and and he liked woman or girl yeah he's disgusting on july 26 he appeared in municipal court where he was arraigned on charges of kidnapping, lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under 14, first degree murder and robbery. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and a preliminary hearing was set for early August.
At the same time, the judge ordered that Alcala would finally be held without bail. Yeah.
Oh, thanks. That's a very weird thing.
Thanks, guys. Yeah.
For finally doing that. Thanks.
thanks yeah while he sat in a jail cell awaiting trial investigators started combing through the photos and negatives discovered in the storage unit which must have been fucking awful it takes like it's i don't think we think enough like the average person about the kind of shit that the like um the people who go to these crime scenes and detectives have to see yeah and have to comb through and then have to just like place aside and move on to the next one like these people have to comb through stuff like that and then go eat dinner with their family yeah like they have to see these awful pictures of an eight year old girl being assaulted yeah and brutally like like harmed and attempted to be murdered and then some have to go home and see their child yeah and then just send them off to school or send them down the street to play or whatever the compartmentalizing that must have to happen in your brain is just beyond like i feel like it's beyond most human capabilities you can see why a lot of detectives like end up oh yeah having so much trouble in their personal life absolutely we even say like after recording a case like this it's tough like for a few weeks it's tough but if I have to if I was forced via my job description to have to look through every single crime scene photo like things that are not released to the public and like yeah i that would break i think there's so many cases where i've thought about i'm like i can't imagine the people looking at the photos here no because it would break so even juries juries are shown wild photos sometimes and sometimes they need like extensive therapy that's actually one of my biggest fears is getting called to jury duty and having to be exposed to some of this stuff because it's like I get it. Well they see the same obviously like on a lesser they see a lesser amount of it most times but they see the things that these detectives

see and have to go through you know. It's damn like the people who do this stuff are

are different kinds of people. They really are.
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Which is the least shocking thing in the world. Truly.
They also discovered a photograph that appeared to have been taken at Huntington Beach on the day that Robin went missing. So there went that alibi.
Yep. Yeah.
There that goes. So the image was actually published in papers across california to be like hey if who is this woman do you have any information detectives were contacted by lorraine watson who was the young woman in the photo and she confirmed the day that the photo was taken effectively undermining his claim that he was at a job interview that day.
What a dumb shit.

Truly.

What a dumb shit.

The detective worked there to be like, maybe we can track this girl down.

Like if you're this girl, contact us. That's the shit that blows my mind.

When they can get that stuff done, I'm like, hell yeah.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

Rodney Alcala's trial was delayed multiple times as the defense filed one motion after the other

to get testimony and evidence suppressed, most of which were unsuccessful, luckily. And the trial finally got underway in February of 1980, with Deputy District Attorney Rich Farnell acting on behalf of the state and John Barnett working on behalf of Alcala.
The state's case was pretty straightforward. Alcala had met Robin Samsoe on or near Huntington Beach on the afternoon that she went missing, and he had taken her up into the mountains, stopping at marker 11, where he sexually assaulted and murdered her.
In support of that theory, they called several witnesses, including the two teenage girls that Alcala had approached with his camera earlier that day. Another young woman, Lori Wertz, also testified that Alcala had taken her photo on the beach that afternoon.
So he was yeah he was just out there taking a prowling on the beach taking pictures of everybody he possibly could and all of these women undermined his alibi which was perfect because now the jury is listening yeah those witnesses helped to place him at the scene but the state's most significant witness was dana crappa that firefighter who saw Alcala with Robin on the afternoon that she was killed. Unfortunately, while she did appear in court to testify, her testimony was a major revelation to both the prosecution and defense, who were not expecting the story she told, because it was quite different than what they had both originally heard.
Initially, she had testified that she had seen Alcala and a young blonde girl headed into the woods on the night of June 21st, and that was her extent of involvement in the case. But since Alcala's arrest, she had become uncooperative with police and was very cagey about the testimony that she had given in previous hearings.
Huh. At a hearing in February 1980,

Alcala's defense attorney, John Barnett,

pressed Crappa about the truthfulness of her statements,

and that's when she started telling a very different story than anyone had heard.

Interesting.

According to her, she had seen Alcala on the day of the murder,

just like she had told investigators,

but there was a great deal more to it that she hadn't said.

It turned out that just a few days later, on June 25th, she returned to Marker 11 where she had previously seen Alcala. She said she parked her car, but she left the engine running, and she walked a little way up the trail to investigate.
She said she hadn't made it very far when she noticed a foul smell in the air, and a few feet away she saw various pieces of clothing, including that tennis shoe, a pair of shorts, and a t-shirt. And remember, they didn't find any clothing at the scene.
a few feet away, she saw various pieces of clothing, including that tennis shoe, a pair of shorts, and a t-shirt.

And remember, they didn't find any clothing at the scene.

A few feet away from the clothing, she said she spotted a body.

She said, quote, it was missing the hands and the feet.

It was pretty cut up on the torso, arms, and legs.

It was bloated like an animal gets when it sets a while.

What the fuck?

She claimed she was horrified and she ran back to her car and then drove to her parents house where she said nothing about what she had found i don't get that a few days later she was working on a spraying crew in that same area wait so baby you just went back to work you just went to work it gets a lot worse like what are you doing nothing good you just going back to work nothing Mm-hmm. You just went to work? It gets a lot worse.
Like, what are you doing? Nothing good. You're just going back to work? Nothing to be proud of.
What the fuck? So she goes back to work, and she's in that same area, and she and William Popke came upon a pile of bones. Believing them to be the remains of a deer or some kind of other animal, she said William actually picked up one of the bones and, quote it at Crappa as a joke, though she admitted she knew that they were not animal bones.
Later that night, she returned to the scene again. It was dark, but in the light of her flashlight that she brought along with her, she said she could see some of the girl's blonde hair and the pile of clothing still near the body.

There were obviously signs of further decomposition, and she said the right arm appeared to be missing at that point.

Three days later, while working with the spraying crew, was when William Popke finally discovered the remains of Robin Samsoe.

I am literally shocked.

Without words.

This is the most disgusting behavior outside of, like a murderer it's also just bizarre you're like is that true like are you why would you lie about that why would you lie about that but why did you lie in the first place in this story this story is way worse than this so fucking bizarre i get why she about it in the first place, because the actual truth that she was forced to tell under oath is so bad and makes that person look so fucked up that you're not going to... Well, and also at that point, you're not going to believe anything they say because they've already lied so much.
That first story was to cover up what this looks like it is because to me this looks like what the fuck is wrong with you well i mean yeah why the fuck are you out here walking around multiple why are you returning to the scene multiple times multiple times that's insane behavior because it's also like okay what's wrong with you oh so much is wrong with them like let's let's pull you aside when this is all said oh i'd be like we need to take a real hard look into this person's background because what the fuck is going on there the new version of events was not only a stunning discovery to elena but also the prosecution and the defense and me as well uh the prosecution and the defense had suspected that she was withholding something, but didn't expect that it was so significant. When asked why she hadn't said anything about any of this before, she said, from the very beginning, I was trying to find a way out.
I did not want to testify. Blaming it on my imagination was easier to say than actually saying I believed it.
Here's the thing. I get that.
I get you saying I didn't want to testify.

I get it. Because I think about that all the time, that if you just happen to stumble upon a body, you're now fully involved in that investigation.
And that sucks. That's a nightmare.
Because you didn't ask to be fully involved in that. It sucks ass.
It's a lot of weight to carry. I totally get that.
Hearing that makes a little nope doesn't i get that i get that feeling it still doesn't make sense you still have an obligation as a fellow human you just do yeah i know it's gonna suck but you have a fucking obligation as a fellow human well that's as you see blonde hair this is a 12 year old and you know that you know this is a child like you can tell saw, that's... You see blonde hair? This is a 12-year-old.
And you know that a 12-year-old girl is missing. You know this is a child.
And you think you saw her. That's the other thing.
You thought you saw her. You think you saw them.
So it's like you saw her alive. That's fucked.
And now you're just going to work and going home and acting and letting your fucking co-worker throw her bones about. That's the part that I'm like, okay, when as soon as that happened, you should have called the police and been like we thought this was animal bones but i don't think it is can you come out here and check and it's that's the part where it would have been like okay you fucked up but like you were scared when it gets to the point where it's like i saw something i didn't say anything and then i saw another thing and somebody threw something at me and i didn't say anything and then i went back a third time and I still didn't say anything and then I decided maybe I should say here's the other thing too again I understand not wanting to have to testify and I'm not wanting being thrust into the investigation like that I can't imagine I've never stumbled upon a dead body no and hope to never why did you keep going back to it if you didn't want to be involved in this why the fuck did you keep going and looking at that body because you involved yourself that's the part and to me that tells me that you're fucking curious and you don't know like i there's something wrong here that's not somebody who doesn't want to be involved the only thing the only thing that i can think of is that she thought that her imagination was playing tricks on her.
And she's like, is this a human? Is this a human? It is, babe. But it's like, call someone.
And it is. Call someone.
You don't need to go back four different times and smell that smell to know that you're looking at a human being. Let's be real.
And to, like, bring a work crew out there. That's the thing.
It's just, I don't know. Again, I can get down with you with the feeling of being scared to have to testify and be involved in the whole thing what you did is fucked up beyond measure and i can't understand it no so that's that damn i didn't see that happening yet no one did holy her decision to reveal the truth was a major blow to the the prosecution because it called into question the credibility of her testimony, which was the key to the prosecution's case.
So everybody's stunned. Another important witness for the prosecution, Robert Dove, had similar credibility problems.
He was an inmate at the Huntington Beach Jail where Alcala was held pending trial, and he testified that during his time there, he overheard alcala discussing robin's murder and boasting about his chances of an acquittal this inmate claimed he heard alcala tell another inmate no one's seen me take her and added that he didn't stab her but he quote slapped her unconscious jesus christ which is just so brutal yeah i he also toldmate they, quote, would never convict him without the, quote, film and the bike, and they would not find the bike.

So that's interesting.

Fuck this guy.

Although the credibility of those two witnesses, two key witnesses, was weakened under cross-examination, the prosecution was handed a major victory when the judge allowed for Alcala's previous arrest record and violent conduct to be brought to the attention of the jury goodness that doesn't happen a lot no it doesn't it's kind of stupid in my opinion it is i agree i know it's like a case by case thing no i know in a lot of cases it's a slippery slope you know but in this one it's like yeah come on as a result though the entire courtroom was familiarized with the assault the assault on tolly shapiro in 1968 the kidnapping of julie johnson in 1975 if you don't remember that's from part two where he had kidnapped that girl yeah um she was on her way to julie johnson was on her way to school and he forced her to smoke weed and then the park ranger found them yeah and nobody. Nobody believed her.
They thought she, this child was at fault for going with this grown man. And of course, they were made aware of the recent sexual assault and kidnapping of Monique Coit, which he hadn't even faced yet.
He was still, he was out on bail for all that. The criminal history established obviously a pattern of luring young girls into his car and then attacking them violently, which is precisely what the prosecutor Farnell argued had happened to Robin Samso.
And it's also just facts. In his closing arguments, John Barnett flatly rejected the prosecution's theory and argued to the jury that Dana Crappa's dishonesty, quote, entirely discredits the prosecution's case, which not exactly.
I don't think so. No.
He said, though, if they couldn't trust the prosecution's key eyewitness, could they really be certain beyond a reasonable doubt that the rest of their theory was accurate? He said, quote, set your emotions aside. Set your feelings aside.
Decide the case on the facts. If we are to be a country of laws, you must acquit because the prosecutors have failed to prove their burden beyond a reasonable doubt.
It's like, that's not actually up for you to decide. You, I mean, that is some, I know it's his job.
It's some slimy shit. That's some slimy ass shit.
In this case, I'm not saying all defense attorneys, but in this case, that's some slimy shit. In this actual case, it is horrifying.
You're defending somebody who was literally convicted.

And has been caught many times.

Multiple times for assaulting young children and women.

You're defending a predator.

That's a problem.

And he's an established predator.

And I get it.

I know.

I know.

Somebody needs to defend all the people and all that shit.

I don't like it in this case.

I don't like it in this case either.

So deal with it.

After two months of testimony and evidence, the jury deliberated for nearly a day before returning with their verdict, finding Rodney Alcala guilty on charges of kidnapping and first-degree murder. On May 7th, he returned to court for the penalty phase of the trial, and that was when the jury was asked to determine whether aggravating circumstances were such that they warranted the death penalty.
During this time, Farnell attempted to establish for the jury that Alcala had in fact killed before. He referred to the 1977 murder of Ellen Hover, where the judge sustained the defense's objections because there was unfortunately never sufficient evidence or a conviction for Ellen Hover's murder.
Unfortunately. Which is awful.
Even, well, we'll get there. Don't worry.
Oh, good. even though Farnell wasn't able to connect Alcala to hoover's murder unfortunately which is awful even well we'll get there don't worry oh good even though farnell wasn't able to connect alcala to hoover's murder the jury still returned a recommendation that rodney alcala be sentenced to death for the murder of robin samson so he didn't even need to introduce that they were like yeah no they were like we got you and honestly life was going to introduce him the death penalty anyways so exactly not unfortunately not like right away yeah it usually takes a while i know when the recommendation was read robin's mother marian fraser shouted all right from her seat near the front of the courtroom and then she collapsed into the arms of a police officer next to her i would be the same way oh yeah absolutely the same way that's your baby that's her 12 year old baby who went to hang out with her friends and ride her bike around.
Yep. Which she should be able to fucking do.
Like, everybody knows our stances and all that on the death penalty. I don't need to say it again, but I can say 100%.
I would be 100% for it if it was my child. Yep.
Yep. Not a doubt in my mind.
I don't even have kids yet. Not a doubt in my mind.
Judge Schwab set a date of June 20th for official sentencing. In between the recommendation phase and the final sentencing on June 20th, Alcala and his attorney of course petitioned the state Supreme Court for a new trial.
They argued that the evidence in the case, primarily the jewelry and the photos seized from the storage locker, had been obtained illegally and should warrant a new trial. Shut the fuck up.
But they weren't.

They had search warrants.

No.

Shut up.

And the Supreme Court, though, rejected the petition entirely.

And on June 20th, Rodney Alcala was formally sentenced to death.

Bye. But that is not the end of our story.
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Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. It turned out that Marianne Fraser's relief at Alcala's conviction was to be short-lived, which breaks your heart for her and all the other families.
You just couldn't take a breath. This family and most of the families...
This got tor. Tormented.
Tormented for years. It ultimately took, I think, three trials.
In 1984, Rodney Alcala appealed his conviction to the state Supreme Court again, this time arguing, among other things, that the prosecution had biased the jury against him when they disclosed his past criminal acts. Well, babe, you're a predator.
So that's for life, babe. That's the thing.
That's for life. But unfortunately, the court justices agreed.
Wow. They agreed.
Inciting with the argument put forth by the defense, the justices overturned that original ruling and they granted Alcala a new trial. That's dumb as fuck.
It is. It drives you insane.
So the second trial held in the spring of 1986, so six years later. This family had six years of, I don't want to say peace because they lost their loved one, but they had six years of knowing that this man was behind bars and was going to die for what he did.
Yeah, trying to rebuild the pieces of their life for six years. Yeah.
And then it gets opened right back up. And then boom, it's all it's starting all over again.
It was essentially a rerun of the first trial. But this time the prosecution had to leave out his past criminal history.
In the end, he was still found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Robinson. Of course he was, because he fucking did it.
Marian Fraser told reporters, I just thank God. Maybe now my daughter can go to sleep for the first time in seven years maybe the rest of my family can go back to life oh during the penalty phase a month later alcala pleaded with the jury to spare him the death penalty oh like your victims pleaded with you probably yeah exactly you piece of shit saying that his record as a model prisoner was proof that, quote, I'm absolutely harmless.
I'm not a threat. You're a child predator, dude.
Someone dig his corpse up so we can all kick him in the nuts. Literally.
You're not a threat. Yeah, you're not a threat when you're in prison because there's no children there.
Exactly. You fucking asshole.
But despite his pleas, the jury again recommended the death penalty for the murder of Robin Samsoe. Later, Marianne Fraser hugged the jury foreman and told him, thank you, my daughter deserved this, which she absolutely did.
In the years that followed, though, he continued to appeal his conviction. He should not have been allowed to keep doing this.
No. He just shouldn't have.
No, not at all. And in in 2001 a federal court's appeals judge overturned the conviction in the second trial on the grounds that alcala had not been given the opportunity to present contradictory evidence during his trial get it together it's also like okay how many times does he get to make this the perfect yeah defense you just keep you keep getting to try again like that's not how this should work had years and years to sit and stew over this and I finally come up with the perfect defense.
You just keep getting a try again. Like that's not how this should work.
I've had years and years to sit and stew over this and I've finally come up with the perfect plan to get out of it. Can you let me have another trial? And they're like, sure.
And it's like, it's again, a slippery slope. He's sitting in prison.
It's all he has to do. Some people are sitting in prison and that's all that you want.
Like I want to sit here and be like, they shouldn't be able to do that. No, but it's true.
Some people are innocent and they get proven guilty and they they get that time to finally sit there and think, oh, this is the one thing. So I can't even sit here and say it's a bad thing.
No, it's a perfectly imperfect system. It is.
And this is a perfect example of it. Our first instinct is to say, fuck this.
He shouldn't be allowed to keep doing this. And then you can flip it right to the other side and go, but there's so many innocent people that get convicted and need that time.
And they do come up with a way that finally they can tell people that they are innocent. And they deserve that time.
And they deserve that time. So 100%.
It's perfectly imperfect. That's why it's such a case by case basis.
Even us making a blanket statement like, I shouldn't be allowed to do this, is not true. It's just not.
He shouldn't have been able to do this. But I feel like we're- This one guy shouldn't have been able to do this.
We are growing and we are not making as many blanket statements. You just got to catch yourself when you make it.
Yeah, catch yourself before you wreck yourself. You have to give a little bit of an amendment when you make a blanket statement.
Exactly. I to and then i was like no no no girl don't do that yeah this specific man he should not have been allowed to do anything no he should no nothing nothing but this decision meant that he could be tried a third time for the murder of robin samso her poor family we gotta find a better way we do deputy attorney general adrian denalt told reporters we are incredibly disappointed we think the court is wrong and that the justice has not and that justice has not been served in this case because this family is just getting bombarded years and years after they think they finally have peace which the second time around i'm sure that family robin samso's

family was like should we even rest or is this going to happen again that we're going to have to go through this all again and then boom they had to go through it all again oh it's awful well the district attorney's office may have been frustrated by the court's decision by that time remember it is now 2001 oh yeah major major advances in science and technology had allowed. And babe, they have some DNA.

That's the thing had allowed for the testing

of DNA and those blood samples that I mentioned. Open it up, babe.
Now they could pinpoint that with surprising accuracy. And in 2003, a recently collected sample of Alcala's saliva was matched to samples taken from Jill Barkholm, Georgia Wickstead, Charlotte Lamb,, and Jill Parentos cases.
Oops, all that time sitting around didn't get you to realize that they can now nail you to the wall even better than they could before. Even more.
In fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt now. That meant that in addition to retrying Alcala for Robin Samso's murder, the district attorney could also now prosecute him for those additional murders.
I love that. Then he was like, oh, I'm innocent again.
And then they were like, oops, now we can actually get you for more. You fucking thought.
In the words of Balin, you're done. You're done.
This time around, the prosecution had more than enough evidence to convince the jury, including the DNA evidence, bite mark impressions taken from the victims. But unfortunately, the family's present at trial would have to endure Rodney Alcala serving as his own fucking attorney this time.
Come on. Also, some of the things that he was allowed to do while representing himself will boggle your goddamn mind.
Those are things that do need to look at. Absolutely.
I think there's a lot of instances where it becomes their own personal kink. Yes.
And it's allowed to be like displayed. On display.
And the fact that they are doing it in front of the victim's families becomes part of their kink. Yes.
And it shouldn't be allowed to be done. One gajillion percent.
There needs to be safe safeguards on those for sure and unfortunately again it's like a case-by-case basis because the judge gets to decide what happens in this case i'm like you're like what are you doing i'm like tap tap is this thing on hello so on march 9th 2010 it took an orange county jury less than an hour to find rodney alcala guilty on all five counts after the verdict was read one juror told a reporter he's a monster he's not a human being 100 true hear hear to that my friend before the jury announced their sentencing recommendation though alcala again asked that he be spared the death penalty and actually at this point wanted to be granted clemency no you could you could bro he said let me put the death penalty in perspective for you if you desire to join in the killing of a human being you and the families of all the victims will have to wait at least 15 to 20 years while the case slowly turns through the appellate process what are you really trying to be like let me explain it to me are you trying to mansplain the death penalty to everybody yeah we know people will wait 20 years to see you die with bated breath yeah he also at this point was allowed to play arlo guthrie's alice's restaurant specifically the verse where he sings i want to kill i want to kill i want to see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies.
I mean, kill, kill, kill, kill. Why? Why are you letting him do that? Why? In front of victims' families too? At all.
But in front of victims' families? What? Who know what happened to their loved ones? That's the thing. And he was saying, if you're going to inflict the death penalty on me you're the same as i am wow so let me let me play this song to show you who you guys are and apparently who i am which you shouldn't be allowing a convicted killer and child predator to be talking to people that way no you just shouldn't they shouldn't have the the podium to be saying that shit period yeah at all but to be sitting there being like let me preach to you that you're the same nah babe and also are you not just proving the prosecution's case you literally just called yourself a killer yeah you're saying you're no better than i am yeah so you're saying you're a killer so you're so you're saying hello you're saying it's true hello yeah he was just in absolute terror to the very last second but luckily the jury wasted no time recommending to the judge that hey they still felt like he should be sentenced to death and during this please don't ask us again yeah like we're done here during a separate penalty phase tally shapiro was actually able to speak about her harrowing experience as an eight-year-old girl attacked by this monster.
Later, she told 48 Hours, I'm one of Rodney Alcala's first and one of his only living victims. It should have stopped with me.
Why in the world are there so many other victims when it was a known fact what he did to me? Yes, Tali. Which the fact that she was able to speak on this makes me so happy that she her voice was heard but it's so true yeah why the fuck when they knew what he did to her at eight years old in the morning in her own fucking apartment complex oh it's shameful why shameful why was anybody else allowed to ever come across this man's path yeah the only icon in that scenario is Donald Hayes.
Yes. He was the only one that made a move to stop anything from happening, and they just washed it aside.
And without him, oh my God. It could have even been worse somehow.
Could have been worse. She could be dead.
She could be dead. She would be dead.
She would have been. Absolutely.
She would be dead without him. Absolutely.
And he would have stayed in California and done the same thing more boldly. So Rodney Alcala was finally being held accountable for his horrific crimes committed decades earlier.
And it turned out that it wasn't just prosecutors in California who wanted justice for his victims. No, of course not.
In January 2011, a grand jury in Manhattan indicted Alcala for the 1971 murder of Cornelia Michael Crilly. Hell yeah.
And the 1977 murder of Ellen Hover. Remember, Cornelia Michael Crilly, she was moving and he broke into her.
Oh, yeah. Seems that maybe he got into her apartment under the guise of helping her.
Yeah. And then, oh my God.
Asshole. Ellen's cousin Sheila said, for the longest time, it was a foregone conclusion that he would never be charged for her murder.
This is a terrific surprise. Yeah, you want to see him go down for it.
Absolutely. On December 14th, 2012, he appeared in a New York courtroom where he pleaded guilty to both murders, though he offered no details about either crime.
He just knew that they had the DNA to convict him. Yeah, he's a little bitch.
He knows. At the time, investigators made public a large number of the photos discovered in Alcala's storage unit in Seattle, hoping that they'd be able to identify women in the photos.
Yeah, I remember this. It was like a big deal.
Yeah. In response, many women came forward to identify themselves and told police, quote, a photographer named John Berger had taken their picture in New York in the 1970s.
I can't fathom being one of those women just to know you got away and you would spend so much time like if not the rest of your life just thinking what was it yeah what was it that why i got why did i get away oh why why did he take a picture of me and then move on to the next girl and do what he did to her holy shit like that would plague you i think yeah now while this helped to identify many of the women in the pictures a significant number of these women unfortunately remain unidentified which makes me nervous of course because i'm like where are these women yeah it's i think unfortunately we'll never know where some of these women are but hopefully hopefully we will hopefully we will four years later in 2016 a prosecutor in wyoming had charged alcala with the murder of 28 year old christine thornton who disappeared in 1978 and her body was discovered in 1982 she was six months pregnant at the time of her disappearance at the time he was in very poor health who gives a fuck. But the prosecutor declined to extradite him to face charges.

No, send that motherfucker where he needs to go. I don't give a shit if he's sick.
Because she lost her life. Yeah.
He's still here. And her baby's life.
So he should face the fucking music and her baby's life. Exactly.
Yeah. So I don't give a fuck how sick he is.
What, is he going to be uncomfortable? I don't give a shit. Extradite him.
I hope he is uncomfortable. Yeah.
on july 10th 2021 he died of natural causes at a hospital in kings county california he got to live until he was 77 77 he got to live a whole fucking life that upsets me upon hearing of alcala's death though tolly shapiro who was then 61 years old told a reporter the planet is a better place without him. That's for sure.
Yes. Now, at the time of his death, though, he was still suspected of murder by investigators in Los Angeles, Seattle, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Marin County, California.
Oh, I'm sure there will be more things that come out. And so many more cases, I think, will be connected to him because he left dna at so many of these cases yes

he did so there's definitely hope that he that some people will finally have answers to their loved ones murders but what a fucking monster he is one of the worst people that we've ever talked about truly we talk about horrible horrible horrible people and he is up there with the worst of them. I had no idea.
I knew he was really bad. I had no idea how bad.
I had absolutely no idea. I really didn't.
Going into the details, reading some of them, oh my God. Yeah.
Oh my God. Like, holy shit.
Yeah. So I think maybe for our next case, we'll do something a little fluffy, a little light.
And if you need a, you know, palate cleanser after this, which I'm sure you do, go listen to the rewatcher. Yeah, we're talking about Buffy.
In case you haven't listened to it, Ash hasn't seen the whole Buffy series. She's watching it for the first time.
I've seen it a million times. And we have Mikey on there with us, who has also seen it a million times.
So we got varying degrees of Buffy watching this and we're going episode by episode. I think we're in the sixth season right now, like halfway through.
About halfway. And it's a lot of fun.
We end up laughing until we cry every single episode. So it's well worth it.
A very good palate cleanser if you need it. Yes.
And if you don't watch By or you're not into that we also have scream with caleb where we cover horror movies or you can listen to both and be into all of it scream is also a place where we end up laughing so hard we cry every single episode somebody said that they ran out of morbid episodes and went to scream and they were like i did not think it was going to be this funny holy shit you guys we literally cry laughing like there have been times where I've had to run out of the room because I'm going to pee my pants. Literally.
So definitely if you need a little lighter stuff, those are the way to go. Actually, a perfect palate cleanser for you guys.
Our next episode, we're going to be talking to the two directors of this new docuseries on Netflix. I think it dropped December 11th.
It's Kings of Tupelo. You need to dedicate at least four hours of your life to watching this.
It is the zaniest docuseries you will ever see. And we're so stoked to talk to them.
That shit was wild. And I can't wait.
We're gonna have so much fun. So look out for that.
Definitely try to check out the doc before the episode drops because I you know, I'm sure there's going to be spoilers so yeah and like we were saying at the top of the show we want to cover some more survivor cases some more strange history coming up yeah for sure yeah so we'll we'll vary it up keep your eyes out something for everybody yeah we gotcha whatever whatever your fancy is we can help you we're here here we are i don't know i gotta go uh

so with that being said we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but definitely not

as weird as rodney alcala because wow i need to go scrub my brain with a toilet brush be cool to

each other a toilet brush with bleach on it. Thank you.
I'm I'mos. I'm Lindsey Graham from the podcast American History Tellers.
And if you're still reeling from Ash and Elena's episode on the Boston Molasses Dis, and you want to dive even deeper, you're in luck. My show doesn't usually venture too far into the spooky or creepy, but we've dedicated two full episodes to uncovering fascinating details about this bizarre molasses catastrophe.
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