Serial killer gets sentence for NY slayings

Convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala appears in court in New York.

Convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala appears in court in New York.

Published Jan 8, 2013

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Rodney Alcala, a convicted rapist and serial killer already sentenced to death in California, was handed a concurrent sentence of 25 years to life on Monday for killing two other women in New York.

Alcala, also known as John Berger, had raped and strangled Cornelia Crilley, 23, at her Upper East Side home in 1971. Six years later, he killed Ellen Hover, also 23, in Manhattan.

The two murders were unsolved until the cases were reopened in 2010, when Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance launched a cold case squad dedicated to solving about 3 000 cold cases, some of them dating back to the 1970s.

After a new investigation, Alcala was found guilty in January 2011. He had been jailed in California and was transferred to New York in June. He pleaded guilty to the New York murders last month.

The 69-year-old has been nicknamed the “Dating Game Killer” for his 1978 appearance on the television show The Dating Game as he was in the midst of his killing spree.

Police found hundreds of photographs Alcala had taken, mostly of women and teenaged boys in sexually explicit poses. - AFP

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