Serial Killer Appears on The Dating Game

One of the downsides of going on a TV dating show is you never know who you're going to wind up with. It could be the man of your dreams or it could be a guy who's in the middle of a west coast killing spree. In 1978, serial killer Rodney Alcala was picked by producers to appear on an episode of The Dating Game despite the fact that he was a convicted rapist and registered sex offender. Something tells me they didn't do background checks over at The Dating Game. At the time the show aired Alcala had already killed four women, two in California and two in New York. When all was said and done Alcala's killing spree would claim between 7-30 victims. He admitted to some of them and investigators believe there were more he didn't tell them about. Host Jim Lange introduced Alcala as a "successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13, fully developed. Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling". Actor Jed Mills, who competed against Alcala as "Bachelor #2", later described him as a "very strange guy" with "bizarre opinions". Alcala won the contest, and a date with "bachelorette" Cheryl Bradshaw, who subsequently refused to go out with him, according to published reports, because she found him "creepy". Criminal profiler Pat Brown, noting that Alcala killed Robin Samsoe and at least two other women after his Dating Game appearance, speculated that Bradshaw's rejection might have been an exacerbating factor. "One wonders what that did in his mind. That is something he would not take too well. [Serial killers] don't understand the rejection. They think that something is wrong with that girl: 'She played me. She played hard to get.'" Alcala is serving a life sentence and was forever dubbed the "Dating Game Killer".