Harrowing true story behind notorious serial killer who was invited on popular TV show

Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.

Like with all of the best true crime watches, Netflix’s latest offering has a truly chilling real story at its core.

It focuses on the crimes of serial killer Rodney Alcala, who became known as the ‘Dating Game Killer’ after appearing on a TV dating show in the midst of his killing spree.

Back in 1978, Alcala was a contestant on The Dating Game back in 1978, having been one of three bachelors lined up as a potential suitor for singleton Cheryl Bradshaw.

The concept of the programme, is similar to the UK’s Blind Date, saw Bradshaw ask a series of questions to a trio of men, who only the studio audience and viewers at home are able to see, before picking her favourite.

She ended up picking Alcala, but later decided not to go ahead with the date after a ‘creepy’ conversation with him backstage.

"I started to feel ill,” Bradshaw told the Sydney Telegraph in 2012.

“He was acting really creepy."

Rodney Alcala got his nickname because he had once appeared on The Dating Game (ABC)

Just two years after their encounter, he was convicted of murdering a 12-year-old girl.

Alcala, from Texas, was found guilty of eight murders across California, New York and Wyoming between 1971 and 1979, but it’s thought he may have killed more than 100 women and girls.

The harrowing story is now the subject of new Netflix film, Woman of the Hour, directed by Anna Kendrick, who also portrays Bradshaw.

Alcala, brought to life in the movie by Daniel Zovatto, died in prison in 2021, having had a previous death sentence overturned.

Earlier this year, a number of his survivors spoke out in an Investigation Discovery documentary, Surviving the Dating Game Killer, which was part of the People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer series.

Tali Shapiro was just eight years old when she was raped and nearly killed by Alcala in 1968.

Alcala was arrested in 1979 (Huntington Beach Police)

Weeks beforehand, he had also attacked Morgan Rowan who at the time was 16. Luckily, she managed to escape from the horrific ordeal.

Rowan, who had been lured into Alcala’s Los Angeles house with two friends, can remember how she was convinced she was going to die.

“I wasn’t praying to live,” she said.

“I was praying to die.”

After being raped at knifepoint, she managed to escape to a nearby alley, hiding with her friends in a dumpster shed.

Several weeks later, she saw a newspaper article about Acala being wanted by police for kidnapping and raping an eight-year-old girl – Shapiro.

Tali Shapiro is one of Alcala's survivors (ABC)

She had been walking on Sunset Boulevard when Alcala encouraged her to get into his car, before taking her back to his house and knocking her unconscious.

After a tip-off from a bystander who saw Shapiro getting into the car, police arrived as Acala was still assaulting her.

“They made a choice of saving me or chasing him,” said Shapiro, who was found by police in a pool of blood, near death.

With no memory of what happened, she spent more than a month in a coma.

Many years later, Rowan reached out to Shapiro on Facebook.

“I had always felt responsible for her,” she said.

“I just poured my heart out that I was sorry, and I should have done something.”

But Shapiro told her there was ‘nothing to forgive’, adding: “There’s only one person that’s responsible for this, and he’s pure evil.”