Two Hour Special on Serial Killer Rodney James Alcala featured on “Very Scary People” Sun May 23rd 9-11pm on HLN
May 20, 2021
Los Angeles, California
A new two-hour special will air Sunday night at 9 pm on HLN telling the story of Rodney James Alcala, one of this nation’s “worst of the worst” serial killers.
In this new special, I was interviewed related to my 1971 arrest and extradition of Alcala for the rape/attempt murder of an Tali Shapiro, an eight-year-old victim he abducted in Hollywood. I would arrest Alcala in 1971, extradite him from the East Coast and send him to prison in 1971.
Sadism can be puzzling. I heard a young jailbird talking on the tv about an incident that made him sound like he´d been given something expensive wrapped in nice paper. But he remembered having nearly killed an innocent elderly person with a tool for no reason. There real understanding stops for most people. And to call them monsters will only push knowledge further away.
Every time we think we’ve heard of the “worst” serial killer, we discover that he has some serious competition we never heard of, like the 4-man “death cult” that abducted, tortured, mutilated, and murdered over 20 young women in the far western suburbs of Chicago in the early 80s. I have read of many more that I had never heard of before, whose names escape because there are too many to keep track of.
No other species of fauna on Earth displays so much cruelty to its own, as the human species. I don’t understand, but I’m past expecting we’ll improve anytime soon.