"The Dating Game Killer": ABC News 20/20 Report, Part 2 (Tali Shapiro and the 1968 Attack), 2021

Name: "The Dating Game Killer": ABC News 20/20 Report, Part 2 (Tali Shapiro and the 1968 Attack), 2021
Uploaded: 2021-01-09T00:00:00Z
Duration: 11 min 7 s
Description: Tali Shapiro, who was eight when Rodney Alcala lured her into his car in 1968, and Chris Camacho, the officer who found her and saved her life, describe that day for ABC's 20/20.

Tali Shapiro, who was eight when Rodney Alcala lured her into his car in 1968, and Chris Camacho, the officer who found her and saved her life, describe that day for ABC's 20/20.

Subject: Rodney Alcala
Recorded: about January 8, 2021
Runtime: 11:07

Content warning: Describes the 1968 abduction, sexual assault and near-fatal beating of an eight-year-old girl, including the scene in which police found her; mentions an earlier assault on a young woman in New York.

The Report

This is the second 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 fifty years after the attack it describes, not archive footage, and Rodney Alcala himself is not heard in it. Over eleven minutes, Tali Shapiro, who was eight in 1968, and Chris Camacho, the Los Angeles police officer who found her, describe the day Alcala lured her into his car. The report then traces Alcala's background and his flight until his arrest in 1971.

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. On September 25, 1968, in Hollywood, he lured eight-year-old Tali Shapiro into his car and took her to his apartment, where she was sexually assaulted and beaten nearly to death. She survived. He fled, was put on an FBI most-wanted list, and was arrested in New Hampshire in 1971.

Circumstances of the Report

ABC built the special around interviews recorded decades after the events. Tali Shapiro speaks on camera under her own name. Chris Camacho, then an LAPD officer, followed a motorist who had seen the girl get into a stranger's car and reported it. A second former LAPD officer, not named in this part, worked the case after Alcala fled. Narration and commentators, apparently including a psychologist, fill in the rest.

What the Report Covers

Shapiro recalls the warm morning, the crocheted dress she wore, and the man who said he knew her parents; she was "raised to respect my elders" and got in. She remembers wanting to jump out when he drove to his place, and nothing after entering the apartment. Camacho describes the call, the naked man at the window who asked for time to put on his pants, kicking in the door, and finding the girl in the kitchen with a steel bar across her neck. He says he thought she was dead, chose to stay with her rather than chase the suspect, who escaped through the back door. An ID found in the apartment identified the man as a UCLA photography student, Rodney Alcala. The report says she was in a coma for 32 days and that her family later moved to Mexico; Shapiro recalls classmates looking at her "like I was supposed to be dead". The second officer recalls UCLA professors telling him Alcala "wouldn't hurt a flea". The report then covers Alcala's birth in San Antonio, his family, his troubled Army service, a 1963 assault in New York, his honorable discharge, his UCLA studies, and the FBI's call from New Hampshire in 1971.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The report sets two first-hand accounts of the same morning side by side: the survivor's and that of the officer who saved her life. Camacho's account of choosing to give aid rather than chase the suspect explains how Alcala escaped in 1968.

Archival Importance

The 1968 attack on Tali Shapiro, and Alcala's escape and later release, came years before the murders for which he was condemned; the report calls it the start of "a pattern of catch and release". This report, broadcast in the year Alcala died, records the accounts of the survivor and the officer who found her.

Important Caveats

Alcala is not heard in this video; it is a 2021 news-magazine report, not footage from the time. Lines in which he is quoted ("I have a beautiful picture I'd like to show you"; "let me put my pants on") are other people's recollections of what he said, decades later. Several speaker attributions in the transcript are judgments from context, the second LAPD officer is not named in this part, and the transcript has not yet been checked by a listener. The descriptions of the psychological traits are a commentator's view, not a clinical finding in this video. The report says Alcala was put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list; Wikipedia says it was a separate FBI most-wanted fugitives list, so the page says only "an FBI most-wanted list".

Narrator: Tali Shapiro was eight years old, and it was a beautiful sunny day in September. And this adorable little girl would skip to school each morning, carefree, loving, wearing her little white Mary Janes. And then the horror story of Tali begins.

Tali Shapiro: I remember the morning was nice and warm, because I wore the dress that my nanny had crocheted for me.

Commentator: And a car pulls up alongside of her, and the man leans out and says, "Hmm, I have a beautiful picture I'd like to show you."

Tali Shapiro: And I guess asked if I needed a ride to school. And I told him I didn't talk to strangers.

Commentator: And he pulled up alongside of her a little further, kept trolling her.

Tali Shapiro: And that's when he told me he knew my parents. And I really didn't want to get in the car, but I was raised to respect my elders. I got in the car. That's when he asked what time my school started, and then that's when he realized that we had plenty of time and he was going to swing by and show me a poster. You know, I didn't know to fear people.

Commentator: Well, fortunately, a good citizen looks at this and says, "I don't like the looks of this." And he actually follows him to his apartment.

Tali Shapiro: The moment I felt danger was when he wanted to go by his place, and I remember wanting to jump out of the car.

Commentator: And he actually followed the car to a residence where the man took the little girl out of the car and walked her inside, and that didn't look right. And he calls the police and says, you know, "This is really hinky looking, I don't like it. There's this little girl, you know, I think you ought to check it out."

Tali Shapiro: I don't remember going up to the apartment, and I don't remember anything after that.

Chris Camacho: I was driving down Sunset heading toward West Hollywood when I received a call to go see a man about a possible kidnapping. I followed him over to the location. At that time I thought, okay, I better call in for a backup. So I went and called in and requested a backup unit. I went to the front door and started knocking. I could hear someone running around. So the man came and he opened up the curtains a little bit and peered out and said, "Oh, sorry, I was in the shower, I'll be right there." I see this male person on the other side, no clothes, not dripping with water, no towel. And I said, "Okay, you need to open the door right now, I need to come in." And he said, "Wait, let me put my pants on." I said, "Okay, you got three seconds." I probably waited five seconds and I kicked the door in.

Chris Camacho: To the right was a dining room, to the left was a living room, and straight ahead was a kitchen. And here was this little girl, blood all over the place, clothes, shoes, and a dress thrown to one side. There was coins on the floor, and she had this steel bar across her neck, which probably weighed two pounds.

Chris Camacho: And there's an image that I will never forget. It's an image of this pipe used to strangle her with, essentially, press it against her throat, and more blood than should ever be able to come out of a little eight-year-old girl, next to these Mary Jane shoes on the floor of this kitchen.

Chris Camacho: I looked at her. I thought she was dead. She wasn't breathing. The other officers came around. We were looking for the suspect. I went back to check on Tali, and I just couldn't leave her there like that.

Commentator: The officer had a sort of a life-or-death decision to make: chase this man out the back and catch him, or render life-saving aid to the little girl and save her life. And he chose the little girl.

Chris Camacho: And as I went back in the kitchen, she started gagging, Tali. So then that put everything into high gear. But when I was yelling, the officer that was covering the back door thought I was asking for help, so he ran to the front to help me. We later found out the suspect escaped through the back door.

Commentator: Tali was bleeding out, literally clinging to life. Fortunately, there was already an ambulance racing to the scene. Tali arrived in the emergency room, and the doctor said there was no chance of saving her. And after she had been taken by the ambulance, they started looking around the apartment to see if there were any clues as to who the person was.

Chris Camacho: I found this ID. We determined he was a student at UCLA in the photography department.

Commentator: And the name of the man who attended UCLA was Rodney Alcala. They searched that house, and there are references and reports of hundreds and hundreds of photographs of young women and boys in various stages of dress, in various stages of vulnerability, that were in Rodney Alcala's possession.

Chris Camacho: We had to find this Rodney Alcala. We had to get him off the street, because if he would do that to a little eight-year-old girl, uh, [unclear: "don't tell him what he would do" / probably "don't tell what he would do"]. You know, it was just by, uh, you know, sheer luck that Tali didn't die. She should have died, but she didn't.

Commentator: She was in a coma for 32 days. Nobody thought that she would survive, and miraculously, she pulled through. She was able to get back on her feet after several months in the hospital.

Tali Shapiro: My parents mentioned nothing. It was never brought up. It was never spoken about. I remember walking into my classroom and everyone looking at me like I was supposed to be dead.

Commentator: And [unclear: "our" / possibly "her"] parents had just had enough. They could not stay in California another minute. They moved out of the country shortly after that. Uh, they moved to, uh, Mexico. Uh, the father wanted to, uh, give her a better, safer environment to live in. And that's where they stayed for the next many years.

Narrator: Rodney Alcala has gotten away, and now he's fled, and nobody knows where he's gone.

Former Lapd Officer: I was a police officer with LAPD. This was one of my very first cases, actually, and it was four, five months old at that time, and he was in the wind. I went out and interviewed a number of his professors at UCLA. One of the things they told me is, "You know, you got the wrong guy. You know, Rod Alcala is a super guy. He wouldn't hurt a flea. Really nice guy."

Narrator: Police wanted to know: who is Rodney Alcala, and why would this well-liked 25-year-old college student so viciously attack an eight-year-old little girl?

Unidentified Voice: This is San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo.

Commentator: Rodney Alcala was born Rodrigo Jacques Alcala Buquor on August 23, 1943, in San Antonio, Texas. He had an older brother, Raoul, he had an older sister, and then he had a younger sister. His family lived in Mexico for a while. The grandma passed away and the father left the family. They ended up moving to Los Angeles area, to Monterey Park. He had everything he wanted, Alcala. He went to Catholic schools, he went to private schools. Everyone who knew him said he was a kind boy, a respectful boy, and highly intelligent.

Commentator: Rodney Alcala had every advantage that somebody could have in life. He had a mother who loved him, which is a big deal psychologically. He had friends, he had brothers and sisters who all turned out to be very successful. His older brother was already at West Point, so this is a pretty patriotic family. And then he joined the Army in the early '60s, and that's where the trouble really began for Rodney Alcala.

Commentator: So Alcala didn't fare well in the Army. He went AWOL a few times, got in some trouble.

Narrator: As it turns out, this bright, handsome young man with the promising future had nightmarish urges that he refused to [unclear: "endure" / possibly "ignore"].

Commentator: So in 1963 he gets a pass in the military. He ultimately goes to New York. While in New York, he assaults a girl. He hits her over the head with a Coke bottle. That girl was able to run away.

Commentator: He had sociopathic personality traits. He had no shame, and he didn't feel guilty about anything that he did.

Commentator: The military felt that he had had a nervous breakdown; that was their analysis of it. The psychiatrist at the hospital felt it was a lot more serious than that, but he was discharged honorably, and not a blemish on his record.

Narrator: So he ends up coming back to California, where he enrolls in the UCLA fine arts program as a photography major. So Rodney Alcala is actually attending UCLA and living less than a mile away from Chateau Marmont when he attacks Tali Shapiro in 1968, and then seems to vanish.

Former Lapd Officer: I was pretty much convinced he'd gone to Mexico, because he had relatives in Mexico.

Narrator: So it's been three years now since the rape of Tali Shapiro. The FBI eventually became interested in the case and put Rodney Alcala on the Ten Most Wanted list.

Former Lapd Officer: So I get a phone call, and it's the FBI in New Hampshire. Say, "Hey, we've got your guy in custody, Rodney James Alcala."

Narrator: It seemed like an open-and-shut case, but it was just the beginning of what would become a pattern of catch and release that would continue for more than a decade.

George Stephanopoulos: Hi, everyone. George Stephanopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights, and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching. [11:04 to 11:07: no speech; the part ends.] ---