Rodney Alcala, convicted Calif. serial killer, admits to 2 NYC murders
(CBS/AP) NEW YORK - A convicted serial killer admitted Friday to murdering two other young women in New York City in the 1970s.
Pictures: Serial Killer's Secret Photos
Rodney Alcala, 69, told a Manhattan judge he wanted to plead
guilty to two murder counts so he could get back to California - where he was convicted of killing four women and one 12-year-old girl - to pursue an appeal
in his death penalty case.
Alcala complained in letters to the judge that his jailers in New York wouldn't give him access to a laptop computer and legal records.
Alcala wants the materials "to do the work I need to do on my death penalty case," he said before withdrawing a not guilty plea entered earlier this year.
Alcala was a former photographer and one-time dating-show contestant who has been behind bars since 1979. With his plea, he will receive an automatic term of 25 years to life for his crimes in New York, to be served concurrently with his other convictions.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who had his cold-case unit reopen the New York investigation two years ago, said the plea finally brings justice to victims of killings from another era.
"Rodney Alcala's victims were never forgotten," Vance said in a statement. "Tragically, neither of them lived past the age of 23. Two families were robbed of daughters who never had a chance to have families of their own, grow old, and see the city change and become safer."
Alcala was found guilty in 2010 of killing four women and a 12-year-old girl in Southern California in the 1970s. He represented himself in court, offering a defense that involved showing a clip of his 1978 appearance on "The Dating Game" and playing Arlo Guthrie's classic 1967 song "Alice's Restaurant."
While pursuing an appeal in California, Alcala was indicted last year in the killings of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover in New York, partly on evidence that emerged during his California trial, prosecutors said.
Crilley was found strangled with a stocking in her Manhattan apartment in 1971. Hover, a comedy writer who had a degree in biology and was seeking a job as a researcher, was living in Manhattan when she vanished in 1977. Her remains were found the next year in the woods on a suburban estate.
Alcala was eyed in Hover's death for decades and in Crilley's killing for at least several years. According to court papers, a detective went to talk to Alcala again in 2005. On learning that the investigator was from New York, Alcala reportedly asked, "What took you so long?"