"The Dating Game Killer": ABC News 20/20 Report, Part 1 (Christine Thornton), 2021

Name: "The Dating Game Killer": ABC News 20/20 Report, Part 1 (Christine Thornton), 2021
Uploaded: 2021-01-09T00:00:00Z
Duration: 6 min 58 s
Description: In the opening part of ABC's 2021 20/20 special, Christine Thornton's sister recalls the free-spirited woman who vanished, pregnant, in 1977, and whose remains lay unidentified in Wyoming for decades.

In the opening part of ABC's 2021 20/20 special, Christine Thornton's sister recalls the free-spirited woman who vanished, pregnant, in 1977, and whose remains lay unidentified in Wyoming for decades.

Subject: Rodney Alcala
Recorded: about January 8, 2021
Runtime: 6:58

Content warning: Concerns the disappearance and death of a pregnant woman and the remains of her infant; the closing minute introduces the 1968 abduction of an eight-year-old girl (no graphic detail in this part).

The Report

This is the first part, as posted on ABC News's YouTube channel, of "The Dating Game Killer", a two-hour 20/20 special first broadcast on January 8, 2021. It is a news-magazine report made more than forty years after the crimes it describes, not archive footage, and Rodney Alcala himself is not heard in it. The seven-minute part opens with the family of Christine Thornton, a young woman who disappeared in 1977, then steps back to 1968: the counterculture, Los Angeles, and the television show on which Alcala would later appear as a contestant.

Historical Context

Rodney Alcala was a photographer who, over more than a decade, abducted, sexually assaulted and killed women and girls in California and New York. He was convicted in 2010 of five California murders and sentenced to death, pleaded guilty in New York to two more murders, and died on July 24, 2021, while on California's condemned row. In 1978 he appeared as a bachelor on ABC's "The Dating Game", the episode that gave him his nickname. Christine Ruth Thornton disappeared in 1977 while about six months pregnant. Her remains, with infant bones as the report describes, were found near Granger, Sweetwater County, Wyoming, in 1982 and were identified in 2015 through her relatives' DNA, after a photograph of her was found among Alcala's pictures. Wyoming charged Alcala with her murder in 2016; he was never tried for it.

Circumstances of the Report

ABC built the special around interviews recorded decades after the events: relatives of victims, a survivor, police officers who worked the 1968 case, and prosecutors from Los Angeles and Orange County. Its promotion said it also included Wyoming investigators' questioning of Alcala about Christine Thornton; that material is not in this part.

What the Report Covers

Christine Thornton's sister, Kathy, describes her as tall, dark-haired, trusting and a "free spirit", and recounts what the family understood of her last months: a trip with her boyfriend to pan for gold, an argument in southwest Wyoming, and her being left there, pregnant and alone. She says the San Antonio police would not take a missing-person report because Christine was an adult. An investigator describes the 1982 discovery of the remains by a herder and the decades in which they went unidentified. A speaker who says he would later prosecute Alcala, probably Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, introduces the photograph that led the family to her. The report then sets the scene for 1968: commentators on the era's politics and music, a retired Los Angeles police officer on the anti-establishment mood, and an account of how "The Dating Game" began under Chuck Barris. It closes as the story of the 1968 abduction of an eight-year-old girl who lived at the Chateau Marmont begins (continued in Part 2).

What Makes the Recording Significant

The part gives Christine Thornton's family a voice in the record of the case: her sister speaks about her as a person and about the family's long search for her in the years before her remains were identified.

Archival Importance

The Thornton case was linked to Alcala only in the 2010s, through one of the many photographs he kept. This report, broadcast in the year he died, records her family's account alongside the investigators and prosecutors of the wider case.

Important Caveats

Alcala is not heard in this video; it is a 2021 news-magazine report, not footage from the time of the crimes. Alcala was charged with Christine Thornton's murder but never tried for it, so his responsibility for her death was never decided by a court. The report gives her age in the summer of 1977 as 27; other sources give 28. The identity of the prosecutor narrating at 03:14 and of the investigator at 02:44 are inferences from context; the transcript has not yet been checked by a listener. ABC's promotion dated the Wyoming questioning of Alcala to 2013, the year a relative recognized her photograph and the Sweetwater County detective took up the case; she was not identified until 2015, so the date is unconfirmed; do not repeat it.

Thornton Relative: Sometimes I think Chris is probably hitchhiking, probably looking to get away somewhere, and he just probably stopped for... She's by herself. She could have met him at a gas station when he's filling up. [unclear: "Can you give me a lip?" / probably "Can you give me a lift?"] But somewhere along the lines, I think he was giving her a ride someplace. I don't think she had any indication what was about to happen to her. Chris was very trusting. So, you know, that was her downfall.

Kathy: My sister, Christine, was born Christine Ruth Thornton, but we always called her Chris. She was 11 years older than me. Chris was tall. She was 5'10", dark hair, dark eyes. Just, you know, a beautiful person inside and out.

Narrator: In the summer of '77, Chris was just 27 years old. Chris was in San Antonio. She was pregnant at the time.

Kathy: Christine was a free spirit. She kind of went where the wind blew her. She met up with her boyfriend and, you know, had this crazy idea of going to Montana to pan for gold. And my understanding is that they were in southwest Wyoming and an argument ensued between the two of them. And he left her pregnant and alone. And I believe that's the last time anybody had ever seen her. In the summer of '78, I decided to go down to San Antonio and do some investigating of my own. I actually tried to find her boyfriend, but did not have a good address for him. The San Antonio police refused to take a missing persons report on Chris because she was an adult.

Thornton Relative: I believe throughout all the years that Christine was missing, I think Kathy was always looking for a way to open up that door of where she is.

Investigator: In '82, this herder out in the middle of nowhere comes across a pile of bones, obviously human remains. What they found was it was a body of a 25- to 35-year-old female. Along with her bones were also bones of an infant. There wasn't any identification. And so it remained cold for many years.

Prosecutor , Narrating: And investigators never imagined that those bones would lead them to a notorious serial killer, a man I would later be called upon to prosecute. And this photograph, discovered by police, would lead a heartbroken family to their loved one, missing for almost 40 years. A smile shared by a tragic list of young women and girls who trusted a charming stranger, only to discover a dark secret that began back in the fall of 1968.

Commentator: So '68 was tumultuous. It was sort of flower power, [unclear: "reliving" / possibly "free living"]. It was quite an era and quite a year.

Commentator: Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Andy Warhol [unclear: "is shocked at you" / possibly "is shot at, you know"], and there have been urban uprisings throughout the '60s.

Retired Lapd Officer: Being a police officer in Los Angeles, or anywhere in the country for that matter, at that time, everything was anti-war, anti-establishment.

Commentator: And it's commented on by some of the leading vocalists of the day. You had Barry McGuire in 1965 doing "Eve of Destruction." You had Bob Dylan, of course, doing "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." [About 04:31 to 04:42: no speech in the machine text (probably music).]

Commentator: So what we're seeing is the influence of the new freedoms represented by the counterculture be appropriated by mainstream culture. And that includes daytime television. That even includes game shows like "The Dating Game."

Commentator: "The Dating Game" began with Chuck Barris back in, I believe it was 1965. He had dealings with ABC, and he just came up with the idea and he pitched it to a couple of people. It caught on right away. The premise was a female asking questions of three bachelors who sat on the other side of the partition. She wasn't able to see them, of course, and she picked one for a date. And then she met the guy that she had picked, and they were awarded a date.

Narrator: Looking back, it is chilling to realize that this iconic show celebrating love and romance would unknowingly feature a remorseless killer.

"the Dating Game": Welcome once again to "The Dating Game."

Commentator: And from the mid-'60s on, Southern California is a mecca for anyone looking to reinvent him or herself and have a fantastic time. They're all partying at some of the hotels on the Strip, like the Chateau Marmont.

Commentator: Tali Shapiro was an eight-year-old little girl who lived at Chateau Marmont, which is a famous hotel in California. Her father was a music industry executive. She had a mother and a sister and a brother. And they were living there because their house had gone on fire, and they were staying there temporarily. And a car pulls up alongside of her. And it's this man who says, "Oh, it's okay, I'm not a stranger. I know your parents. I'm friends with your parents." And she thought, "Hmm, well, maybe I'll get in the car."

Commentator: Well, fortunately, a good citizen looks at this and says, "I don't like the looks of this." [06:36 to 06:58: no speech in the machine text; the part ends.] ---