Serial Killer Rodney Alcala, a California resident, who brutally murdered two women in the 1970s was sent to New York this past week to face his long overdue trial.

Alcala pleaded ‘not guilty’ to murders in both the first and second degrees in the killings of 23-year-old New York beauties Flight Attendant Cornelia Crilley and Researcher Ellen Hover back in the 1970s.

According to law enforcement sources, Crilley was found on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1971 and had been brutally raped and then strangled with her own pantyhose. Hover, was last seen on July 15, 1977, when she didn’t show up for a photo shoot according to her personal calendar. The photographer she was supposed to shoot with was a man known by the name of “John Berger.” It was later found out that Alcala used that name as an alias. Hover’s body was found a year later near the Rockefeller Estate, a place well known for Alcala taking women for photo shoots.

However, these two are not the only ones to fall victims to Alcala.

Alcala, who is a former photographer and got his nickname from being a contestant on the once popular show, the “Dating Game,” has been held in a California prison facing the death penalty after he was charged with murdering four women and one 12-year-old girl in Los Angeles back in the 1970s.

After Alcala was convicted nearly thirty years ago, the Los Angeles Police Department found dozens of pictures of women and children that had been stashed in a storage locker that Alcala had rented.

Things started to come together piece by piece once the New York Police Department caught word of Alcala’s killing sprees in California. They then started to consider him a suspect of the slaying of three New York City women (including Crilley and Hover) once it was found out that at the time of those murders, Alcala was a resident of NYC. There was little information to go on, but a case for the women was opened in 2003 with Alcala as the lead suspect.

“These cases were built one brick at a time, as each new lead brought us closer to where we are today,” Dist. Atty. Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said at the time, according to the Associated Press. He said he hoped that the belated action “brings a small measure of peace to the families and friends who have spent decades searching for answers, and justice.”

Alcala’s next date in court is set for October 30, 2012.

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About the author

Elizabeth Lowry
Elizabeth graduated from the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University with her specialization in Broadcast News as well as a minor in business and psychology. She enjoys writing, reading and researching about humanitarian affairs, health & fitness, fashion and sports. In her free time she enjoys working out, traveling and exploring different cultures, trying new things and spending time with her Chocolate Lab.

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