Rodney Alcala Recommended For Death Penalty For 5 Murders

Santa Ana Jury Recommends Death Penalty for the Third Time for Killer Rodney Alcala

Rodney Alcala, 66, has been recommended for the death penalty by a Santa Ana jury on Tuesday for five murders in the 1970s in the Los Angeles area. KTLA News reports that it only took the jury a few hours to return the verdict. 

This is the third time the death penalty has been recommended for Alcala, but the two previous convictions were overturned on appeal.

In the courtroom on Tuesday, Rodney Alcala spent 10 minutes arguing to the jury to spare his life and used a part from Arlo Guthrie's classic Alice's Restaurant and used the part when the central character tells a military psychiatrist:

Rodney Alcala was convicted for the third time for killing 12-year-old Robin Samsoe on June 20, 1979 in Huntington Beach and he was also convicted of killing Jill Barcomb, Georgia Wixted, Charlotte Lamb and Jill Parenteau, four women in the Los Angeles area in the 1970s.

He raped some of his victims as well as killed them, but claims he cannot remember his actions. A psychiatrist testified last week that Alcala suffers from borderline personality disorder and that could be why he does not remember.

During the course of the trial however, Alcala apologized for molesting and beating with a 12-inch pipe an 8-year-old girl that he then left for dead almost 50 years ago.

The victim was in the courtroom, but did not respond or look at Alcala. She did take the stand against him earlier in the trial however and was instrumental in the jury convicting Alcala of the five murders last week. He was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and a single kidnapping count.