Serial killer Rodney Alcala, who was sentenced to death in an Orange County courtroom in 2010, was sentenced today to 25 years to life for two murders in New York during the 1970s. Alcala pleaded guilty in the Big Apple last month, explaining to the judge that would allow him to be returned to California's Death Row, where he is working up an appeal to his conviction for killing a Huntington Beach 12-year-old and four young Los Angeles County women, also in the 1970s.
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It is the 69-year-old's third appeal of the California convictions, having twice before won appeals on technicalities after being found guilty in previous trials.
Rodney Alcala, Serial Killer Convicted in Orange County, Pleads Guilty to 2 Murders in New York
The two New York women, airline stewardess Cornelia Crilley and student Ellen Hover, were both 23. Alcala has been in custody since July 1979, when he was arrested for the June
20, 1979, kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach.
Click here for Christine Pelisek's excellent deconstruction of the Rodney Alcala case
Besides those three and the four LA County women, Alcala may have at least one other victim: an aspiring model who was raped and murdered in the Bay Area.
Click here for OC Weekly's Rodney Alcala archives
The Associated Press reported the judge fought back tears as he sentenced Alcala in New York.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.