“Haunted by the Past: The Chilling Encounter Between a Survivor and ‘The Dating Game’ Killer That Unveiled Dark Secrets”
She revealed: “The second time I met Rodney Alcala was on March 23, 2013. We were inside one of the North Infirmary Command buildings on Rikers Island, two months after he’d been sentenced for raping and murdering Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Jane Hover, both women in their early 20s and living in New York City, in the 1970s.
“The first time was in April 1969, on a wet day on St. Marks Place in the East Village. He introduced himself as Jon Burger; I was 14 years old and he was 25. Four-decades-plus later, I learned his real name when it flashed across a television screen beneath his familiar face and orange jumpsuit: ‘Rodney Alcala, The Dating Game Serial Killer, Sentenced to Death.’
“It couldn’t be the same man, I’d thought to myself. But after hours of Googling I had to accept the truth: Jon Burger was an alias; he was the winning bachelor on The Dating Game nine years after I met him; and he is believed to have been one of the most prolific of serial killers, officially responsible for at least seven murders with authorities estimating his real body count at about 130.
