Prosecutor: Man stalked, killed victims

Santa Ana - A man accused of five serial slayings in the late 1970s was a hunter who stalked women like prey and took earrings as trophies after they died, a prosecutor said Monday.

"You're talking about a guy who is hunting through Southern California looking for people to kill because he enjoys it," Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy said about Rodney James Alcala during closing arguments at his trial.

"I don't think in your lifetime you will ever see cases with more brutality, and there is ample evidence that all of these women put up some resistance and they were punished for it."

Alcala, 66, who is acting as his own attorney, was expected to begin his closing argument later in the day.

He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of first-degree murder in the killings of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe and four women between 1977 and 1979.

Prosecutors accused Alcala of torturing, strangling and raping some of the women then taking earrings as trophies. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Murphy told jurors two of the four women were posed nude and possibly photographed after their deaths; one was raped with a claw hammer; and all of them were repeatedly strangled and resuscitated during their deaths to prolong their agony.

Prosecutors know little about the death of Samsoe, who disappeared in 1979 while riding a friend's bike to a ballet class in Orange County.

Her body was found 12 days later in Angeles National Forest, where it had been mutilated by wild animals. Investigators were never able to determine her cause of death or if she had been molested.

Alcala, an amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, has been sentenced to death twice for Samsoe's killing, but both convictions were overturned. He has been in custody since his arrest in 1979, including stints on death row.

Prosecutors filed the case for a third time and added the four Los Angeles County cases in 2005 after DNA and forensic evidence surfaced. It's the first time Alcala is being tried in those four cases.

Murphy begged the jury to convict Alcala in the death of Samsoe, pointing out it was the only charge for which he offered a defense during the monthlong trial.

"The L.A. cases, he's going down on all four of those and he knows it," Murphy said. "He wants to get away with this murder, he's living to get away with this murder ... this is the one we need you on," Murphy said. "He turned this beautiful young girl into a rotting corpse eaten by animals."

Evidence in the case included a pair of gold ball earrings that prosecutors said belonged to Samsoe and were found in a jewelry pouch in a Seattle storage locker rented by Alcala after her disappearance.

Alcala, however, claimed video footage from his appearance on "The Dating Game" showed him wearing the earrings a year before the girl died.

Murphy said it was impossible to see in the seconds-long, grainy clip what kind of earrings Alcala was wearing.

Another earring in the pouch carried the DNA of victim Charlotte Lamb of Santa Monica, who was 32 when she was killed, Murphy said.

That evidence was introduced for the first time during the current trial.

Murphy called Lamb a silent witness.

"All these years, Charlotte Lamb was there. Charlotte Lamb is telling you all (that) what Rodney Alcala does is he murders women and steals their earrings," Murphy said. "Listen to her."

As his own attorney, Alcala has cross-examined Samsoe's mother, questioned former prosecutors and police detectives, and even quizzed himself when he took the stand in his own defense.

Also murdered were Jill Barcomb, 18, who had just moved to Los Angeles from Oneida, N.Y.; Georgia Wixted, 27, of Malibu; and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.