Serial killer known as the 'Dating Game Killer' dies while on death row

The serial killer known as “The Dating Game Killer” died of natural causes while being held on death row.

Rodney Alcala, 77, died at a hospital around 1:45 a.m. July 24, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Alcala has been connected to five deaths and earned his moniker because he appeared on the dating game show while on his killing spree.

Alcala was sentenced to death in 1980 for the kidnapping and murder or 12-year-old Robin Samsoe in 1979. However, that conviction was reversed, and he was convicted of a new trial in 1986.

That 1986 conviction was again overturned. In 2010, Alcala was again convicted, this time of five counts of first-degree murder. He was again sentenced to death for Samsoe’s murder, the 1977 death of 18-year-old Jill Barcomb and the killing of 27-year-old Georgia Wixted, the 1978 killing of 32-year-old Charlotte Lamb and the 1979 death of 21-year-old Jill Parenteau.

In 2012, Alcala was indicted for murders in 1971 and 1977 in New York, according to the California Department of Corrections. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Then in 2016, prosecutors in Wyoming charged him in connection to the murder of a pregnant woman who disappeared in 1978 and her body wasn’t found until 1982.

California officials say Alcala was linked to killings in Los Angeles and Marin County in California; Seattle, New York, New Hampshire and Arizona.