The Dating Game Killer was brought back into the limelight recently when Anna Kendrick, who directed and starred in Woman of the Hour, released the show on Netflix.
The thriller, where a girl named Sheryl Bradshaw meets a psycho on the set of a dating show, is inspired by a real and very cruel case. Continue reading to know all that happened. Of course, this means spoilers for the movie.
Who Is The Dating Game Killer?
Rodney Alcala was a typesetter at the LA Times who was on a murder “spree” across New York, California, and Wyoming in the months leading up to his brush with reality television. One of the prosecutors in the case said he was not an abused kid or a social pariah, but a sadist with an IQ of 135.
When he appeared on The Dating Game in 1978, he had been released from prison two times for molesting girls under the age of 13, but producers never checked the background of their contestants.
Who Did He Kill?
The victims of Alcala were mainly young women whom he would lead to a dangerous situation under the guise of taking their picture. He was also a rapist, and the number of his victims could be as high as 131, as advances in forensic science over the years pinned him to more crimes.
How Was He Caught?
As shown in the movie, his first arrest after Dating Game was when a would-be teenage victim struggled free and called the police. But this was not the end of his crime spree, his mother posted bail and he killed again.
What Was His Sentence?
He received a death sentence for murder in California in 1980, and even though the sentence has been appealed and reversed several times, the conviction has not. He penned a book in 1994 claiming his non-guilt but he was later found guilty of other murders in New York in 2012. He passed away of natural causes in 2021.
What Happened To The Character, Cheryl Bradshaw?
The movie changed the spelling of Bradshaw’s first name to distinguish her from the real life person; the character is called Sheryl although in real life she is Cheryl.
Bradshaw actually did take Alcala on a date and in real life, she only needed one conversation backstage to come to the conclusion that he was ‘creepy.’ according to the BBC. In the movie they sit down to eat together before she realizes it.
In the movie and in real life Bradshaw moved from California to live a simple life and bring up a family; she is now dead.
Is Amy A Real Person?
Yes and no. The film has a brave teenager played by Autumn Best, who is based on a real-life survivor, though her identity has been altered. The real survivor later said in 2010 that Alcala had “destroyed her life.”
Elizabeth Logan is the writer of pop culture for the website Glamour.com. Before that she has contributed to Vulture, The Awl, Reductress, Above Average, Indiewire and NoBudge.
She studied at the NYU Tisch School Of The Arts and has one black cat. You can (and should!) follow her on twitter at @BBCNews03.
