Rodney Alcala

July 24, 1979- Alcala is arrested in his parents’ Monterey Park home.

1980- Alcala is tried and sentenced to death for the murder of Robin Samsoe, but the judge had allowed the jury to learn about his past charges so the Supreme Court overthrew the conviction.

1986- Alcala was convicted again, but the Ninth Court of Appeals repealed his sentence because a key witness confessed to perjury in the past ruling.

1994- Published You, The Jury, a book that outlined his innocence in the Samsoe case and discloses a new suspect.

2003- Alcala becomes suspect in two more murders because his semen is found on two murdered women in Los Angeles. Another pair of earrings found in Alcala’s locker matched the DNA of one of the victims.

Additional cold case DNA samples connected Alcala to four other murders.

In 2003, prosecutors entered a motion to join the Samsoe charges with those of the four newly-discovered victims.

In 2006, the California Supreme Court ruled in the prosecution's favor, and in 2009 Alcala stood trial once again.

At the third trial, Alcala, acting as his own attorney, told jurors, often in a rambling monotone, that he was at Knott's Berry Farm when Samsoe was kidnapped.

Tali Shapiro appeared in this trial as a witness.

March 2010- Alcala is convicted in all five murders and sentenced to death a third time.

April 2012- Huntington Beach Police Department made public 120 of Alcala’s photographs to get the women in the pictures to identify themselves to ensure that they weren’t also victims.

Alcala has confessed to at least 30 other murders. Police have connected him to 3 Seattle murders of teens.

Alcala had hundreds of photographs of various women, whom police believe may have been other victims.

Alcala is still in prison today.