In June 1979, Alcala beat, raped and strangled Charlotte Lamb, a 33-year-old legal secretary, in the laundry room of her El Segundo apartment complex, authorities said. That same month, he raped and murdered Jill Parenteau, 21, strangling her with a cord or a stocking in her Burbank apartment, they said.

Alcala's blood was collected from the scene after he cut himself crawling out a window, the prosecutor said, adding, "Based on a semi-rare blood match, Alcala was linked to the murder."

He was charged with murdering Parenteau, but the case was dismissed after he was convicted of killing 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, also in 1979.

Alcala approached the girl at the beach in Huntington Beach, California, and asked her to pose for pictures, authorities said. She did, they said, and Alcala then kidnapped and murdered her, dumping her body in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Alcala was convicted in Samsoe's killing in 1980 and sentenced to death, but the California Supreme Court subsequently overturned his conviction. A second trial, in 1986, also resulted in a death sentence, but it was overturned by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As he awaited a third trial, Alcala's DNA was linked to the crime scenes in the Barcomb, Wixted and Lamb cases, and he was charged with killing them and Parenteau.

Jed Mills, who was "Bachelor No. 2" on "The Dating Game" alongside Alcala's "Bachelor No. 1," recalled that he had an almost immediate aversion to him. "Something about him, I could not be near him," Mills said last year.

Alcala succeeded in charming bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw from the other side of the game show's wall. But she declined the date that the show offered them: tennis lessons, tennis clothes and a trip to an amusement park.