Serial killer Alcala faces trial in slaying of N.Y. women

California serial killer Rodney Alcala arrived in New York on Wednesday to stand trial in the killings of two women in the 1970s.

Manhattan prosecutors announced that Alcala was being extradicted to face charges in the slayings of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover, according to the Associated Press and WCBS.

Authorities have long suspected that Alcala, who is now in a California prison under a death sentence, had struck outside of California.

The photographer and onetime “Dating Game” contestant was convicted in 2010 of murdering four Los Angeles County women and a 12-year-old girl from Huntington Beach in the late 1970s. He was sentenced to death.

After his conviction, police detectives released a trove of photographs of women and children they seized more than 30 years ago from a storage locker Alcala rented just as police were closing in on him. Detectives said they wanted to know who these people were and whether they might have gone missing during Alcala’s murder spree in the late 1970s.

New York police have long considered Alcala a suspect in the slayings of three women there, apparently including Crilley and Hover. Alcala lived in New York during that period.

Seattle police have also investigated him in connection with some unsolved slayings.

This story was reported by Times Staff Writer Shelby Grad.

For a timeline on the Alcala case, click here.