Serial killer appeared on ‘The Dating Game’–and won!

Rodney Alcala’s now infamous winning appearance on “The Dating Game” in 1978 proves two things. First, that you shouldn’t look for romance on a television show. Second, that some serial killers really do have weirdly charismatic personalities.

When Alcala appeared on the show as Bachelor No. 1, he was introduced as “a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the dark room at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motor-cycling.” In fact, last month he was found guilty of murdering four women and a girl between 1977 and 1979, with the first murder–of a 12-year-old girl–happening shortly after the television appearance. With all four adult women, prosecutors said Alcala raped and then strangled them with such force that he broke bones in the jaw and throat area.

In 1968–ten years before being selected for the game show–he’d been convicted or raping an 8-year-old girl. Clearly background checks were less than thorough at ABC in the late 70s.

According to CNN, Bachelor No. 2 Jed Mills was creeped out by Alcala almost immediately and said he caught himself leaning away from him when they were on the set. In the green room before taping, Mills said Alcala was “obnoxious and creepy”:

“He was quiet, but at the same time he would interrupt and impose when he felt like it… he became very unlikable and rude and imposing as though he was trying to intimidate. I wound up not only not liking this guy … not wanting to be near him … he got creepier and more negative. He was a standout creepy guy in my life.”

The contestant who chose Alcala, Cheryl Bradshaw, refused to go out with him. Crime profiler Pat Brown suggested to CNN that that may have helped trigger his violent behavior that started up again shortly after the taping: “One wonders what that did in his mind. That is something he would not take too well.”

“Convicted serial killer won on ‘Dating Game’” [CNN]
“Rodney James Alcala On ‘Dating Game’” [Huffington Post]

March 9, 2010 | Filed Under Crime, News, People, Television | Comments 

Scotland Yard considers opening its “Black Museum” to the public

When serial killers and other violent criminals terrorize Britain, their possessions–equipment, souvenirs of victims, personal belongings, or simply crime scene evidence–are stored away in the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum, a 120-year-old  private collection that Scotland Yard’s investigators have access to, but not the general public*. That may change if Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has his way. He wants to open up at least part of the collection as a tourist trap, noting, “If we had a Black Museum, we would have tourists queuing around the corner.”

No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.
No, this is not an exhibit from the Black Museum.

Among other things, the museum contains notes alleged to be from Jack the Ripper, items owned by Dr. Hawley Crippen (an American doctor hanged in London in 1910 for murdering his wife), the clothing that Police Constable Keith Blakelock was killed in when a mob tried to behead him in 1985, various nooses used to execute men, and death masks of executed criminals. I’m trying to imagine what they’re going to be able to sell in the gift shop without looking completely tasteless.

* although special appointments can sometimes be made

Official Crime Museum page at the Metropolitan Police website

(Photo: eschipul)

May 7, 2009 | Filed Under Crime, Places | Comments 

3 Teens Dig Up Skull, Use It As A Bong

Three home schooled teenagers in Houston have been charged with “abuse of a corpse,” which it turns out is a misdemeanor in Texas, for digging up the body of an 11-year-old boy buried in 1921 and allegedly decapitating his head to smoke the Devil’s Licorice out of it.

You know what I’m talking about: swampweed, Persian tobacco, gypsy kraut. Sheesh, marijuana! How naive are you, anyway? At first, the officer investigating the claim was suspicious, the boy’s separate stories matched enough to concern him. That and the fact that one of them grossed himself out recounting his misdeed:

“He regurgitated in his plate of food when I asked him about it,” [Officer] Adkins said. “So I knew there was some truth to the story.”

Read more

May 9, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, News, Skulls | Comments 

Victorian-Era Black Widows Used Flypaper Arsenic

If any group of female killers are deserving of the label “black widows,” it’s got to be the middle-aged Victorian women Margaret Higgins and Catherine Flanagan, along with several other women in their neighborhood who were quite likely also responsible for various insurance-related murders but who weren’t found guilty at the time.

The women took out multiple insurance policies on relatives and spouses, then soaked flypaper strips in water to remove the arsenic, and slowly poisoned their victims over 6-8 days.

I came across this story on a Biography Channel special about killer women, but it looks like its source was a novel called “The Black Widows of Liverpool”, published in the U.K. in 2003 by amateur historian and retired crime lawyer Angela Brabin. Unfortunately, Amazon U.S. doesn’t have the book for sale.

May 4, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, History | Comments 

Indian Police Want To Display Head Of Local Murdered “Witch”

Mannequin headsA small museum in a rural part of India is considering displaying the decapitated head of a woman killed over the weekend by a villager on suspicion of witchcraft. “I think displaying this head in a museum will create a sensation in society and could be helpful in preventing people from taking to such heinous crimes,” says the police officer. Well, okay, but how about displaying the severed head of the villager who committed the crime? That would probably be even more effective.

(Photo: troismarteaux)

April 24, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Religion | Comments 

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