The real AlcalaMediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
Who did he kill?
Alcala’s victims were primarily young women he lured into dangerous situations by offering to take their picture. He was also a rapist, and his victims may have numbered as high as 131, as advances in forensic technology over the decades linked him to more crimes.
How was he caught?
As depicted in the movie, his first post-Dating Game arrest came when a teenage would-be victim managed to escape and call for help. However, this was not the end of his crimes, as his mother posted bail and he went on to kill again.
Projected images of Alcala’s victims.Ted Soqui/Getty Images
What was his sentence?
He was given a death sentence for murder in California in 1980, and though the sentence was later overturned multiple times, the conviction was not. He wrote a book professing his innocence in 1994, though he pled guilty to other murders in New York in 2012. He died of natural causes in 2021.
