Woman who survived ‘Dating Game’ killer reveals thoughts on new Netflix film

By Michael Lee Simpson

A victim of “Dating Game” serial killer Rodney Alcala says Netflix’s “Woman of the Hour" fails to capture this true "evil" nature - imprinted on her brain from facing him twice in court.

Tali Shapiro, 65, from Palm Springs, California, endured violence and sexual abuse at the hands of Alcala in 1968 when she was just eight years old.

Alcala was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979.

But in 1968, Shapiro was walking to school in Los Angeles, when Alcala pulled up beside her and offered her a ride.

A concerned bystander alerted authorities and police discovered Shapiro beaten bloodied and beaten, lying unconscious on the floor of Alcala's residence.

After watching Anna Kendrick’s film for the first time last week, Shapiro has mixed feelings about how her rapist was portrayed.

While “Woman of the Hour” briefly addresses Alcala’s appearance on “The Dating Game” in the midst of his killing spree, Shapiro expressed disappointment with the film's lack of depth.

"I guess they touched base on a minute of his life, but that's about it," she said.

"I wouldn't have watched a movie like that personally if I hadn't had some sort of background in it - not my kind of movie.

"It just seemed weird the filmmakers chose to outline the things that they did."

“If it was going to be about the gal that was on ‘The Dating Game,’ they didn’t really go very deeply into her life,” she explains of Sheryl Bradshaw, who chose Alcala as her dating choice on the show in 1978 .

“It was just such a teeny bit of whatever it was. I mean, they didn’t even go into her life that much, you know what I mean?

“It was her story, but I didn’t think that went that much into her life.

"I didn’t think much of it, and they sure didn’t describe Alcala very well. I mean, not the evil person he was in detail, or even what he looked like.”

Reflecting on Alcala, Shapiro spoke of his unsettling charm, a trait that often masked his dangerous nature.

“He was an evil, evil person, but very charming," she said.

"I mean, the only way he got away with what he got away with was he was so charming.

“My frustration is that he just was able to manipulate the system so badly, or manipulate it so well, I should say, and was able to just get out of jail how many different times?”

As police spotted eight-year-old Shapiro on the floor of Alcala's residence back in 1968, the notorious killer snuck out a back door and vanished for two years.

Eventually, with the help of ID found at the apartment, authorities located Alcala and placed him under arrest.

Shapario's parents didn't allow their daughter to testify at the trial because of her tender age. Even though Alcala’s assault left her in a coma and with no memory of the attack, Shapiro faced additional trauma from the legal system.

“My frustration is why, just because my parents chose not to have me come up and testify — seeing as I’d been in a coma and didn’t remember anything — why would it have taken that to have kept him in jail?”

Alcala was convicted and sentenced to death for five murders he committed between 1977 and 1979.

Additionally, he pleaded guilty to two other murders in New York, for which he received a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Several other murder cases came to light over the years - sometimes decades later - that pointed to Alcala as the prime suspect.

Morgan Rowan - another survivor - spoke out for the first time in 2021 about escaping a murder attempt by Alcala in 1968 when she was 16.

Before he faced a mandatory death sentence, Alcala died from natural causes on July 24, 2021.

Shapiro questioned why her not testifying as a child should have impacted Alcala’s sentencing for her case - before he was released and able to commit more crimes.

“Wasn’t the person that saw me get in his car or the policeman that knew I was in his house enough? I was laying dying on the floor in his house," she recalls of the attack in 1968.

"Why would it have taken a nine, 10-year-old little girl to come back and face that, to have maybe made a difference? Just mind-blowing.”

Shapiro, who now works in onboard services at Amtrak, has moved on from being a victim of one of America’s most notorious serial killers.

“I like to think of myself as a really good person,” she shares. “I think it’s maybe made me more compassionate and more kind and more sympathetic in a way, if that’s possible. Because, I mean, we all have choices in life, and my cup’s always three-quarters full.”

Shapiro reflects on a chilling memory from her teenage years when she was called to testify about her case when multiple killings by Alcala surfaced.

“One of the creepiest things I recall in my life was the first time I went to testify, I think I was like 16, so I was underage,” she recalls.

“They put Rodney and I in an empty courtroom… That was the creepiest thing. My skin crawled. They put me next to him and asked me something like, ‘Do I recognize this guy?’ It’s like, what the f**k? I mean, that was so out of line.”

In 2010, Shapiro again found herself in a Santa Ana courtroom facing Alcala.

At the time, a jury was deciding whether Alcala would receive life without parole or the death penalty.

“He did look at me then. I didn’t look at him, though. I didn’t acknowledge him at all any of the times,” she says. “I chose to not give him any energy because that’s what he thrived on."

Despite the impact of Alcala’s crimes on her life, Shapiro emphasized that she doesn’t let it consume her.

“Bad things happen to good people. It was terrible that happened to me, but I don’t let it consume much of my life at all,” she shares. “You make a choice every day when you wake up. And I choose to have a good day, even when it’s not.”

“Even on a crappy day, just think of something yummy,” she notes. “There's always boxes of chocolates flying around somewhere. I try to find my box of chocolate during the day.”