'Dating Game' killer will be brought to justice, New York D.A. vows

A New York City district attorney on Thursday vowed to bring California serial killer Rodney Alcala to justice for the killings of two New York women in the 1970s.

Alcala was extradited to New York on Wednesday after cold-case detectives spent a year reviewing the two slayings. He pleaded not guilty in court Thursday in connection with the slayings of flight attendant Cornelia Crilley and researcher Ellen Hover.

“After more than three decades, the defendant will finally face the justice system in New York for the murder of two victims,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance told reporters today in New York. “My office’s forensic sciences/cold case unit was created because all crime victims and their families deserve closure, no matter how long ago the crime occurred. Today’s arraignment brings us a step closer to obtaining justice for Ms. Crilley and Ms. Hover.”

Authorities have long suspected that Alcala, who has been held in a California prison under a death sentence, had struck outside of California. New York authorities have been investigating links between Alcala and the two women for nearly 10 years.

The photographer and onetime "Dating Game" contestant was convicted in 2010 of murdering four Los Angeles County women and a 12-year-old girl from Huntington Beach in the late 1970s. He was sentenced to death.

After his conviction, police detectives released a trove of photographs of women and children they seized more than 30 years ago from a storage locker Alcala rented just as police were closing in on him. Detectives said they wanted to know who these people were and whether they might have gone missing during Alcala's murder spree in the late 1970s.

Hundreds of people called police in response to the photos, but it's unclear if they played a role in the New York cases.

Seattle police have also investigated Alcala in connection with some unsolved slayings.

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: Rodney Alcala in Orange County court in 2010. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times