Rodney Alcala, who was sentenced to death in California for murdering a 12-year-old girl and four other women, has died of natural causes, officials say.
The 77-year-old died at a hospital near California’s Corcoran state prison in the early hours of Saturday.
Rodney Alcala, who was known as the “Dating Game Killer” after taking part in The Dating Game TV show, was convicted in 2010.
As well as the California killings, he had also pleaded guilty to the murders of two other women in New York.
Rodney Alcala was first handed the death penalty in Orange County in 1980 for the kidnap and murder of Robin Samsoe, 12, in Los Angeles the previous year.
However, his sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court and he was granted a new trial.
He later received the same penalty in the second trial, but this was again overturned in 2003.
In the years that followed, investigators discovered forensic evidence linking Rodney Alcala to the other California murders.
At the 2010 trial, he was found guilty of killing Robin Samsoe as well as four other women aged between 18 and 32 in the years between 1977 and 1979.
In September 1978, Rodney Alcala took part in The Dating Game, a TV show in which a single woman questioned three single men hidden from her view before selecting one based on their answers.
Rodney Alcala was selected at the end of show, but the woman later said she decided not to date him after a conversation with him backstage, describing him as “creepy”.
In 2012, Rodney Alcala was extradited to New York after he was charged over two additional murders from 1971 and 1977. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced in New York to 25 years to life.
California state prison officials said in a statement on July 24 that Rodney Alcala was suspected of being involved in a number of additional killings.
No further details were given about his death.
There are currently some 700 inmates on death row in California, but Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered a moratorium on executions.
Brandon Bernard has been executed in Indiana after last-minute clemency pleas were rejected by the Supreme Court.
The 40-year-old death row inmate was convicted of murder in 1999 when he was a teenager, and is the youngest offender to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.
Brandon Bernard told the family of the couple he killed he was sorry, before dying by lethal injection on December 10.
Four more executions are planned before the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
If all five take place, President Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century. It would bring to 13 the total of federal executions since July.
They break with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition. Joe Biden becomes president on January 20.
Brandon Bernard was pronounced dead at 21:27 local time on December 10 at a penitentiary in the city of Terre Haute.
Before that he directed his last words to the victims’ family, speaking calmly for more than three minutes.
According to the Associated Press, he said: “I’m sorry. That’s the only words that I can say that completely capture how I feel now and how I felt that day.”
The execution was delayed for more than two hours after Brandon Bernard’s lawyers asked in vain for the Supreme Court to halt it.
He was given the death penalty for his involvement in the murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley in June 1999.
Brandon Bernard was one of five teenagers accused of robbing the pair and forcing them into the boot of their car in Texas.
They were shot as they lay in the boot by 19-year-old accomplice Christopher Vialva before Brandon Bernard set the car alight.
His lawyers say he feared what would happen to him if he refused to follow the orders of Vialva, who was executed in September.
Others involved in the incident were given prison sentences as they were under 18 and classed as juveniles.
Brandon Bernard’s lawyers argued that he should be given life in prison without parole, as, throughout his time in jail, he maintained a good record and worked with outreach programs to stop people from getting involved in crime.
The federal execution of Brandon Bernard is set to go ahead on December 10, the first of five before the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Kim Kardashian West is among those urging clemency for the row inmate.
Brandon Bernard, 40, was convicted of murder when aged 18 and would be the youngest offender executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.
If the five take place, President Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.
It would bring to 13 the total of federal executions since July.
The executions break with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions amid a presidential transition. Joe Biden becomes president on January 20.
Brandon Bernanrd is scheduled to begin the five executions, along with 56-year-old Alfred Bourgeois. They are both scheduled to be put to death at a penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Bernard was given the death penalty for his involvement in the murder of Todd and Stacie Bagley in June 1999.
He was one of five teenagers accused of robbing the pair and forcing them into the back of their car in Texas.
They were shot in the car by 19-year-old accomplice Christopher Vialva before Brandon Bernard set the car alight.
Defense lawyers say both of the Bagleys probably died before the car was set on fire.
An independent investigator hired by the defense said Stacie was medically dead before the fire.
However, government testimony during the trial claimed that although Todd Bagley died instantly, Stacie had soot in her airway, signaling that she had died from smoke inhalation and not the gunshot wound.
Brandon Bernard’s lawyers claim he feared what would happen to him if he refused to follow the orders of Christopher Vialva, who was executed in September.
Others involved in the incident were given prison sentences as they were under 18 and classed as juveniles.
Brandon Bernard’s lawyers argue that he should be given life in prison without parole as throughout his time in jail, he has maintained a good record and worked with outreach programs to stop people from getting involved in crime.
The federal prosecutor who defended Brandon Bernard’s death sentence has since called for Bernard to see out his sentence in prison.
Five of the surviving nine jurors have called for President Trump to commute Brandon Bernard’s death sentence.
Tens of thousands of other people have urged the president to grant Bernard clemency.
Kim Kardashian West has sent numerous tweets about Brandon Bernard’s case to her followers, urging them to get behind the cause and raise awareness.
She is studying to be a lawyer in California and has previously helped sway criminal cases.
In March, Kim Kardashian visited the White House with three women whose jail terms were cut by President Trump.
Death row inmate Joseph Wood has died after an execution in Arizona took nearly two hours to kill him.
Joseph Wood, a double murderer, was executed by lethal injection.
His lawyers filed an appeal for an emergency stay of execution, after he had been “gasping and snorting for more than an hour” in the death chamber.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer says she has ordered a full review of the execution, although she said that Joseph Wood “died in a lawful manner”.
Joseph Wood’s lawyers argued the extended execution process violated his right to be executed in the absence of cruel and unusual punishment.
Jan Brewer said: “By eyewitness and medical accounts he did not suffer. This is in stark comparison to the gruesome, vicious suffering that he inflicted on his two victims, and the lifetime of suffering he has caused their family.”
The execution should have taken 10 minutes, his lawyers said, but Joseph Wood, 55, gasped more than 600 times before he died.
Joseph Wood was convicted of the 1989 murders of his estranged girlfriend Debra Dietz and her father Eugene Dietz
It began at 13:52, and Joseph Wood was pronounced dead at 15:49, one hour and 57 minutes later, according to the Arizona attorney-general’s office.
He was convicted of the 1989 murders of his estranged girlfriend Debra Dietz and her father Eugene Dietz.
Family members of the victims were unconcerned by the way the execution was carried out.
“This man conducted a horrific murder and you guys are going, let’s worry about the drugs,’’ said Richard Brown.
“Why didn’t they give him a bullet?”
Joseph Wood’s lawyers had sought to force Arizona to name the manufacturers of the drugs used in the execution, but a last-ditch ruling by the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the execution to go ahead.
In communications with Joseph Wood’s lawyers this year, Arizona officials said they would use a two-drug combination of midazolam and hydromorphone to put him to death.
However, they declined to provide further identifying information, including the name of the drug’s manufacturer, citing a state confidentiality law aimed at protecting the drug makers from reprisal.
In 2010, the sole US manufacturer of sodium thiopental, a sedative used in lethal injections, stopped producing it. States switched to pentobarbital, also a sedative, but its Danish manufacturer Lundbeck began tightly restricting its distribution to prevent it being used in executions.
And in 2011, the UK imposed export bans on three common lethal injection drugs, pentobarbital, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride. In the same year, the EU restricted the distribution of sodium thiopental to nations that practice capital punishment.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has ordered a “full review” of the state’s procedures following Clayton Lockett’s botched execution.
Clayton Lockett’s execution was stopped after 20 minutes on Tuesday evening
Officials say one of his veins ruptured, preventing the drugs from taking full effect. He died of a heart attack less than an hour later.
The execution of a fellow inmate, scheduled to die hours after Clayton Lockett, has been postponed amid the review.
Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death for shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman and watching as two accomplices buried her alive in 1999.
Stephanie Neiman and a friend had interrupted the men as they robbed a home.
Clayton Lockett’s lawyer, David Autry, said the failed execution was a “horrible thing to witness”.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin has ordered a “full review” of the state’s procedures following Clayton Lockett’s botched execution
“Obviously the whole thing was gummed up and botched from beginning to end,” David Autry said.
“Halting the execution obviously did Lockett no good.”
The problems surrounding Clayton Lockett’s execution come amid a wider debate over the legality of the three-drug method and whether its use violates guarantees in the US constitution “against cruel and unusual punishment”.
Both men scheduled to die on Tuesday had unsuccessfully challenged a state law that shields the identities of companies supplying the drugs.
The execution began at 18:23 local time, when officials administered a sedative.
Clayton Lockett was declared unconscious 10 minutes later, allowing officials to begin injecting the two drugs that would kill him.
But three minutes later, he began breathing heavily and writhing.
Prison officials pulled a curtain across the view of witnesses when it became apparent that something had gone wrong.
Oklahoma’s top prison official ordered a halt to the execution shortly after.
“We believe that a vein was blown and the drugs weren’t working as they were designed to.” Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said.
But David Autry questioned the remarks, insisting his client “had large arms and very prominent veins,” according to the Associated Press.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said in a statement that she had issued a 14-day stay of execution for fellow inmate Charles Warner, 46, while the state completed a review of its execution procedures.
Charles Warner had been scheduled to be put to death in the same room two hours later in a rare double execution.
He was convicted of the 1997 murder and rape of an 11-month-old girl.
Charles Warner’s lawyer, Madeline Cohen, who witnessed Clayton Lockett’s execution, said he had been “tortured to death” and called for an independent investigation, including an outside medical examination.
The US has encountered increasing problems in obtaining the drugs for lethal injections, amid an embargo by European pharmaceutical firms.
Some states have turned to untried combinations of drugs or have sought to obtain the drugs custom-made from compounding pharmacies. Several states that still have the death penalty have since switched to a single-drug method.
Charles Warner and Clayton Lockett had unsuccessfully challenged an Oklahoma state law that blocks officials from revealing – even in court – the identities of the companies supplying the drugs.
The state maintains the law is necessary to protect the suppliers from legal action and harassment.
Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner argued they needed to know the names of the suppliers in order to ensure the quality of the drugs that would be used to kill them and to be certain that they had been obtained legally.
Oklahoma death row inmate Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was halted because the lethal injection of three drugs failed to work properly.
Clayton Lockett, 38, experienced a vein failure which prevented the drug cocktail from being fully effective.
The execution was halted after 20 minutes, during which he writhed and shook uncontrollably, US media report.
The execution of fellow inmate Charles Warner, due to take place just two hours later, was postponed for 14 days.
A spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told US media that Clayton Lockett had died of a heart attack following injection of three lethal drugs.
“We believe that a vein was blown and the drugs weren’t working as they were designed to. The director ordered a halt to the execution,” corrections department spokesman Jerry Massie said.
Prison officials pulled a curtain across the view of witnesses when it became apparent that something had gone wrong.
Clayton Lockett died of a heart attack after his execution was halted because the lethal injection of three drugs failed to work properly
“He was conscious and blinking, licking his lips even after the process began. He then began to seize,” Associated Press news agency reporter Bailey Elise McBride tweeted from the scene.
“This was botched, and it was difficult to watch,” said David Autry, one of Clayton Lockett’s lawyers.
Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin said in a statement that she had ordered a full review of the state’s execution procedures.
Charles Warner, 46, had been scheduled to be put to death in the same room two hours later in a rare double execution.
Clayton Lockett was sentenced to death for the 1999 shooting of a 19-year-old woman. Charles Warner was convicted for the 1997 murder and rape of an 11-month-old girl.
The two men had unsuccessfully challenged an Oklahoma state law that blocks officials from revealing – even in court – the identities of the companies supplying the drugs used to sedate inmates, paralyze their respiratory systems and stop their hearts.
The state maintains the law is necessary to protect the suppliers from legal action and harassment.
Clayton Lockett and Charles Warner argued it was necessary for the men to learn the name of the suppliers in order to ensure the quality of the drugs that would be used to kill them and to be certain that they had been obtained legally.
In March a trial court ruled in their favor, but the state’s highest court reversed that decision last week, ruling that “the plaintiffs have no more right to the information they requested than if they were being executed in the electric chair”.
In recent years US states have had increasing problems in trying to obtain drugs used in executions, amid an embargo by European pharmaceutical companies.
Some have turned to untried combinations of drugs or have sought to obtain the drugs custom-made from compounding pharmacies.
Clayton Lockett’s last moments:
18:23 – Sedative administered
18:33 – Doctor declares Clayton Lockett unconscious
18:36 – Clayton Lockett is restless and a doctor discovers a ruptured vein
Curtain drawn
Execution halted
19:06 – Clayton Lockett dies from a heart attack
All times local – Central Time
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