For 40 years I thought I’d escaped a pervert as a teenager. Then I discovered the horrifying truth

A New York woman who believed for decades she had been targeted by a pervert as a teenager has revealed her horror at discovering he was in fact the ‘Dating Game’ serial killer.

Alice Feiring was just 14-years-old when she met Rodney Alcala in a book store on St. Marks Place in Manhattan in the summer of 1969.   

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Feiring recalled how Alcala had charmed her into letting him take photographs of her on the rooftop of his East Village apartment.

She felt uneasy soon after arriving and claimed he then turned into a ‘raving lunatic’. 

Feiring, now 68, managed to get out safely and even went back briefly to retrieve a book that she had left in his home. 

It was not until more than four decades later that she discovered the man she had encountered was one of the most prolific serial killers in American history who was linked to at least eight murders.

Horrified and confused as to why he let her live, Feiring went to see Alcala twice in prison to ask him that very question.

‘I knew that he wasn’t going to remember me or certainly tell me why he didn’t kill me but I was curious whether he remembered me,’ she said. ‘I thought the fact that I was an idiot enough to go back to get the book was enough for him to remember me because I am sure there weren’t many people who did that.’ 

Rodney Alcala was finally arrested in 1971 but was released on parole. He went on to murder six young women before being arrested again in California in 1979 (pictured)

Alcala’s horrific murder spree spanned New York, California and Wyoming, where he targeted women and children in the 1970s.

He gained his nickname when it emerged he had appeared as a contestant on a reality TV show, The Dating Game, to compete against eligible bachelors for a date in September, 1978. He won but his date later refused to go out with the ‘creep’.

His crimes were thrust back into the spotlight following the launch of Netflix’ Woman’s Hour starring Anna Kendrick last month.

After he was finally caught, Alcala was sentenced to death in California for five murders he committed between 1977 and 1979. 

However, a series of appeals meant that his case was not completely settled until 2010, when he was sentenced to death a third time.

He later died in prison aged 77 of natural causes in 2021. 

In 2022, Feiring wrote a book called ‘To Fall in Love Drink This: A wine writer’s memoir which included an essay about her own horrifying experience with Alcala.

Speaking to DailyMail.com she recalled their chilling encounter in June 1969. 

Feiring had walked to The Eastside Bookshop and was waiting for her father who was getting a haircut nearby before they took the train back to Long Island.

She was purchasing a copy of Albert Camus’ The Plague for her brother when Alcala approached her. 

‘Rodney started talking to me and I felt very uncomfortable,’ she said. ‘I tried to get away and pay for my book and get out. He followed me out and kept on walking with me and I just didn’t know how to get away from him.’

Feiring said she did not want to go to the salon where her father was as she knew he was having an affair with a woman he met there.

As the pair walked down the street, he told her his name was Jon Berger and started to make her feel less uncomfortable by discussing shows he had seen.

He complimented her red hair and white and black raincoat, and asked if he could take photos of her against the gray sky.

Though she was suspicious she went along with the idea but said she would not go into his apartment.

‘He was talking about how you need to trust people. It was 1969 and that was the spirit of the day. As a 14 year-old I was really too insecure and shy and terrified to show somebody I didn’t trust him,’ she explained.

Alcala suggested they take the pictures on the roof and she said that in her 14-year-old brain this seemed safer so agreed. 

Feiring followed him into his five-story walk-up but when they got to the roof things grew more sinister. 

‘As fate would have it there was a cloud burst, thunder and lightening, and he suddenly turned into kind of a raving lunatic,’ she said.

‘He screamed at me to help him carry his stuff into his apartment so it wouldn’t get wet and of course I obeyed with the intention of just dropping it and getting out as fast as I could,’ she said.

‘It seemed like a scary place that things happen there I was very sure of it,’ she added.

In 2022, Feiring wrote a book called ‘ To Fall in Love Drink This: A wine writer’s memoir which included an essay about her own horrifying experience with Alcala

Of the new Netflix drama Woman’s Hour, Feiring told DailyMail.com that while she had heard the film was ‘pretty good’ she had not watched it. a 14-year-old Feiring is pictured with her pooch, Jenny 

After fleeing to the east coast, Alcala (pictured in 1980) moved back to Los Angeles where he touted himself as a professional fashion photographer while secretly committing a string of gruesome murders

She recalled him asking if she would like to put on a kimono that was hanging in the apartment and then handed her a stack of Polaroids to look at while he went to the bathroom. 

‘I did not thoroughly understand what I was seeing but it thoroughly scared me. They were heavily made up woman in lifeless poses and they were naked,’ she said.

Feiring ran to the door but was struggling to get out was Alcala emerged from the bathroom naked and walked towards her with an erection.  

‘He wasn’t coming out in a violent way. It was obvious he was erect and coming for me but he seemed incredibly pleased with himself. Not like I am going to get you little girl but instead look at the amazing present I am going to give you.’ 

Feiring said she tried to remain calm and not cry. Her saving grace was that the door was not properly locked and she was able to get it open.  

When she got into the hallway she ran down the stairs but soon realized she left the book that she had bought for her brother and made the risky decision to go back. 

‘That was the crazy part of the story,’ she said. ‘I was very angry as if how dare he try and trick me. I remember pounding on the door and said ‘book please’ and he gave it to me and I just snatched it,’ she recalled. 

As she left he made a crude request about masturbation and she ran.  

Feiring told DailyMail.com: ‘I really thought for 40 years I had escaped a pervert. It never occurred to me that he would actually rape me and kill me.

‘I told that story for years and years until I stopped telling it in my early 40s. And then 10 years later I see him on television and my whole reality changes – and that is when you realize what could have happened.’

Feiring said she was writing a memoir about her brush with death when she visited Alcala in New York’s Riker’s Island prison in 2012 and was hoping she may even be able to help detectives locate more bodies.

She described thinking ‘what the hell am I doing here, what do I want from him and how am I going to handle it’.

‘I did not expect to be alone in a room with him being free,’ she said. 

‘The whole experience was terrifying. He thought I was a social worker or a lawyer coming to help him and he was actually very p***** off when he found out I wasn’t.’

When she saw him for a second time in San Quentin in California, she described the prison more like a ‘country club’ when compared to Riker’s. 

Tali Shapiro was only eight years old (pictured) when she became the victim of Rodney Alcala’s first recorded crimes in 1968 while she was walking to school in Los Angeles

Alcala managed to secure a date with bachelorette Cheryl Bradshaw (pictured, left), who later refused to go out with the ‘creep’ despite being paired with him on the popular TV show

In 2010, over three decades after his initial arrest, an Orange County jury convicted Alcala on five counts of first-degree murder, for which he was sentenced to death

She recalled that they discussed one of his first victims, Tali Shapiro, who was just eight was she was abducted, beaten and raped by Alcala. 

She miraculously survived and is now a 64-year-old grandmother living in California.

During their exchange, Feiring said the psychopath tried to claim he had not hurt Shapiro as much as people said he did.

Feiring said Alcala also tried to deny killing some of his victims and grew agitated when she told him he had murdered them. 

She added that she still keeps in touch with some of the woman who survived Alcala’s reign of terror.

One woman named Lisa had even given Feiring a message to pass on to Alcala when she saw him in prison. 

‘Lisa wanted to know if he remembered her. He didn’t. His response was ‘if she can tell me something pleasant about our time together I would be more likely to remember,” she said. 

Feiring explained that she was unable to get any additional information out of Alcala about his murder victims and that her visit made her want to stop researching her book.  

‘I realized after I saw him that I just didn’t want to spend a year working on the material and reliving the material,’ she told DailyMail.com. 

‘I am not interested in serial killers and do not want to have to read about them all the time. I was having enough nightmares with all the research I was doing. 

Of the new Netflix drama, Feiring told DailyMail.com that while she had heard the film was ‘pretty good’ she had not watched it.

‘I don’t need to see it. I don’t like serial killers. These are not stories that intrigue me,’ she said.