SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A prolific serial torture-slayer dubbed “The Courting Game Killer” died Saturday whereas awaiting execution in California, authorities stated. Rodney James Alcala was 77.

He died of pure causes at a hospital in San Joaquin Valley, California, jail officers stated in an announcement.

Alcala was sentenced to dying in 2010 for 5 slayings in California between 1977 and 1979, together with that of a 12-year-old woman, although authorities estimate he could have killed as much as 130 folks throughout the nation.

Alcala acquired an extra 25 years to life in 2013 after pleading responsible to 2 homicides in New York.

He was charged once more in 2016 after DNA proof related him to the 1977 dying of a 28-year-old girl whose stays have been discovered in a distant space of southwest Wyoming. However a prosecutor stated Alcala was too ailing to face trial in the dying of the girl, who was six months pregnant when she died.

California’s dying row is in San Quentin State Jail close to San Francisco, however for years Alcala had been housed greater than 200 miles away at a jail in Corcoran the place he might obtain medical care across the clock.

Prosecutors stated Alcala stalked girls like prey and took earrings as trophies from a few of his victims.

“You’re speaking a couple of man who’s searching by means of Southern California on the lookout for folks to kill as a result of he enjoys it,” Orange County, California, prosecutor Matt Murphy stated throughout his trial.

Investigators say his true sufferer rely could by no means be identified.

Earrings helped put him on dying row, although Gov. Gavin Newsom has imposed a moratorium on executions as long as he’s governor.

The mom of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe testified at his homicide trial {that a} pair of gold ball earrings discovered in a jewellery pouch in Alcala’s storage locker belonged to her daughter. 

However Alcala claimed that the earrings have been his and {that a} video clip from his 1978 look on “The Courting Game” exhibits him carrying the studs almost a yr earlier than Samsoe died. He denied the slayings and cited inconsistencies in witness’ accounts and descriptions.

California prosecutors stated Alcala additionally took earrings from not less than two of his grownup victims as trophies.

Two of the 4 girls have been posed nude after their deaths, one was raped with a claw hammer and all have been repeatedly strangled and resuscitated to lengthen their agony, prosecutors stated.

Investigators stated one sufferer’s DNA was discovered on a rose-shaped earring in Alcala’s possession, and his DNA was discovered in her physique. 

He had been sentenced to dying twice earlier than in Samsoe’s homicide, however each convictions have been overturned. He was charged in the slayings of the 4 grownup girls greater than 20 years later primarily based on new DNA and different forensic proof.

After the decision, authorities launched greater than 100 pictures of younger girls and women discovered in Alcala’s possession in hopes of linking him to different unsolved murders across the nation.

“There’s homicide and rape after which there may be the unequivocal carnage of a Rodney Alcala-style homicide,” Bruce Barcomb, the brother of 18-year-old sufferer Jill Barcomb, stated as Alcala was sentenced to dying.