Convicted Calif. Serial Killer Pleads Not Guilty to 2 Women’s NYC Murders in 1970s

NEW YORK — A convicted California serial killer pleaded not guilty Thursday to murdering two women in New York City in the 1970s, charges lodged just last year after suspicion swirled around him for decades.

Rodney Alcala, a former dating-show contestant who has spent the last 33 years tangling with authorities in a series of trials and overturned convictions, was arraigned Thursday in the deaths of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover.

Hands and feet shackled, Alcala looked thin and drawn as he said only “not guilty” in a steady voice. He wore an orange jail jumpsuit and long gray hair in ponytail.




He was ordered held without bail and is due back in court Oct. 30.

A former photographer with an IQ said to top 160, Alcala was convicted in 2010 of killing four women and a 12-year-old girl in Southern California in the 1970s. He represented himself, 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 appealing his death sentence in California, Alcala was indicted last year in New York, partly on evidence that emerged during his California trial, prosecutors said. He was brought to New York on Wednesday on a U.S. Marshals Service plane unsuccessfully fighting his extradition to New York.



Crilley was found strangled with a stocking in her Manhattan apartment in 1971. Hover, a comedy writer and former Hollywood nightclub owner’s daughter 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. Both women were 23.



Alcala had been eyed in Hover’s death for decades and in Crilley’s killing for at least several years. New York Police Department detectives investigating her killing went to California in 2003 with a warrant to interview Alcala and get a dental impression from him.



A forensic dentist later found that a bite mark on Crilley’s body was consistent with Alcala’s impression, a law enforcement official has said. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.



The Manhattan district attorney’s cold-case unit also conducted new interviews with more than 100 witnesses.



“After more than three decades, the defendant will finally face the justice system in New York for the murder of two victims,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said. “Today’s arraignment brings us a step closer to obtaining justice for Ms. Crilley and Ms. Hover.”



Alcala has been behind bars since his 1979 arrest in one of the California killings. Before that arrest, he also served a prison sentence on convictions of furnishing marijuana to a minor and kidnapping and trying to kill an 8-year-old girl.



After his 2010 conviction, California authorities released more than 100 photos, found in his storage locker, of young women and girls. They said they were exploring whether Alcala could be tied to cases in New York and other states.

Remains Found on Long Island Aren't Those of Missing Woman

New York (CNN) -- Searching for clues to the disappearance of a missing woman, authorities made a grisly discovery: the bodies of four women in various stages of decomposition, stuffed into bushes along an isolated strip of waterfront property on Long Island.

But the remains of Shannon Gilbert, the woman they sought, weren't there, the Suffolk County (New York) Medical Examiner's Office said Thursday.

Gilbert, 24, of Jersey City, New Jersey, was last seen alive on May 1, CNN affiliate WABC reported.

Suffolk County Detective Lt. Gerard Pelkofsky told WABC that Gilbert worked as a prostitute and had last arranged to meet a client on Fire Island about a mile from Oak Beach, where the bodies were found, he said.

"Common sense tells us it's not a coincidence," Pelkofsky said.

A Long Island resident -- who lives a few miles from where the bodies were found -- said a young woman who "looked like she was partying all night" came to his door at about 5 a.m. on May 1.

"She was screaming 'Help me, help me!' and said somebody was chasing her," said Gustav Coletti, who lives in the town of Oak Beach.

He described the woman as a "young, light-brown-haired person in her early 20s."

Coletti said he called 911 after opening his front door to the woman, prompting her to flee into the weeds along an embankment near his house.

Moments later, Coletti said, an Asian man driving a dark-colored sport utility vehicle pulled up alongside his home, looking for the woman.

"Things got out of hand at a party and I'm just looking for her," Coletti quoted the man as saying.

When Coletti informed him that he had called the police, the man said that he "should not have done that" and drove off in the direction of where girl had fled, Coletti said.

Authorities were searching in the area on Saturday when they found the first body, and three more were found Monday, Suffolk County police said.

All were discovered on a quarter-mile stretch of Oak Beach, "which indicates they were dumped there by the same person or persons," Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said. "It's too coincidental that there were four bodies in the same location."

Investigators broadened the search Thursday, but no additional remains were found, according to Suffolk County Police.

Dormer said police could be dealing with a serial killer but have not been able to sufficiently link the bodies to make that determination.

Federal agents have joined police in their Investigation, according to Dormer.

"I held a meeting between members of my staff and the FBI's New York office today concerning the discovery of four bodies in Gilgo Beach during the past several days," Dormer said Wednesday. "The FBI has offered all available resources in support of our investigation."

The FBI was not immediately available for comment.

Authorities say investigators will continue to search the surrounding area Friday.

L.A. Police Seek Public Help With Women's Photos in Grim Sleeper Case

-View the photographs released by the Los Angeles police.-

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Los Angeles authorities expanded their investigation into the Grim Sleeper serial killer case Thursday by asking for the public's help in identifying women in 180 photographs whose images were found in the suspect's home this summer.

Police are trying to determine if there are additional killings among the more than 100 women depicted in the photos.

Last July, 57-year-old Lonnie David Franklin Jr. was arrested and charged with 10 murders and one attempted murder dating back to 1985, and Los Angeles police spent hundreds of hours sifting through thousands of photographs, Polaroids and videotape found in Franklin's house.

The bodies of victims, many working as prostitutes, were all found in close proximity to each other in a neighborhood formerly known as South Central Los Angeles.

Franklin, a mechanic who once worked for the LAPD, was arrested in July after police say they matched his DNA with DNA left on some of the victims. Police were led to Franklin after his 28-year-old son got arrested and gave a DNA swab, authorities said.

Authorities said they narrowed down the confiscated images down to 180 photographs, some of them duplicates of the same women.

At a media conference attended by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck, authorities said they had difficulty determining whether some of the women were alive or dead in the photos.

"We cannot tell," Beck said. "Obviously, as all of you can see, some of them are animated and some are not. It's impossible to tell by the photographs.

Robbery Homicide Detective Dennis Kilcoyne said police have a responsibility to try to determine the whereabouts of the women.

"These are clearly photos of women that Mr. Franklin had contact with," said Kilcoyne. "We have a responsibility to identify these women. They may be alive and well, but we need to be certain."

"If there's nothing we glean from this, we are able to fill in the timeline of Mr. Franklin's life, and that's one of our goals as well," Kilcoyne said.

He declined to talk about the context in which the women's images appeared.

"The lifestyle or the situation that these women are in would defeat our plea with the public," Kilcoyne said.

Police are not sure where the women in the images resided, because Franklin's movements throughout his life are not yet ascertained, authorities said.

"His travel habits are unknown to us," Kilcoyne said. "We believe he spent the majority of his life right here in the city of Los Angeles."

DNA Links Convicted Killer to Four Murders in Bridgeport. Are there Others?

Emanuell Lovell Webb convicted of manslaughter of a woman in Georgia now faces trial in the strangulation murder of 34-year-old Elizabeth "Maxine" Gandy.

DNA evidence has also linked him to the murders of Sharon Cunningham, Minnie Sutton, and Sheila Etheridge. During the late 80s and early nineties, more than a dozen women were killed in Bridgeport.

He lived in Bridgeport from 1987 until August of 1993 when he moved back to Georgia. He was charged in July 1994 in the murder of Evelyn Charity, whom he sexually assaulted and strangled. Webb plead guilty and received a prison sentence of 20 years. He was paroled in 2001.

May 22, 2008, Webb pleads no contest to murdering Sharon Cunningham, Minnie Sutton, and Elizabeth Gandy. More details to come.