Robin Samsoe

Case background and investigation

Robin Christine Samsoe, 12, lived in Huntington Beach, California, and studied ballet. On June 20, 1979, she and a friend were at the beach when a man approached them and asked to take their photographs, according to Wikipedia's account of the case and the police publication Behind the Badge. Later that afternoon Robin borrowed a friend's yellow bicycle to ride to her ballet class and never arrived.

Twelve days later, on July 2, 1979, her remains were found in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in the Angeles National Forest, about 50 miles north of Huntington Beach, CBS News and Wikipedia reported. Detectives circulated a sketch of the photographer based on the girls' descriptions, and Rodney Alcala's parole officer recognized him. Alcala was arrested on July 24, 1979.

Alcala was convicted of Robin's murder and sentenced to death in 1980. The California Supreme Court reversed that verdict in 1984 because jurors had heard evidence of his prior sex crimes against children. He was convicted and sentenced to death again in 1986, but a federal district court granted habeas relief in 2001, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling in 2003, according to CBS News and Wikipedia.

For a third trial, prosecutors joined the Samsoe charge with the murders of four women in the Los Angeles area between 1977 and 1979: Jill Barcomb, 18, Georgia Wixted, 27, Charlotte Lamb, 32, and Jill Parenteau, 21, with DNA evidence used in at least one of those cases. Evidence included a pair of gold ball earrings found in Alcala's storage locker that Robin's mother testified belonged to her daughter, KSAT reported. Huntington Beach detective Steve Mack, who took over the case in 2003, helped build the retrial, according to Behind the Badge. Alcala represented himself. On February 25, 2010, a jury convicted him on all counts, and on March 9, 2010, after deliberating about an hour, the jury returned a death verdict.

In December 2012 Alcala pleaded guilty in New York to the murders of Cornelia Crilley in 1971 and Ellen Hover in 1977 and was sentenced to 25 years to life in January 2013. He died of natural causes at a hospital in California's San Joaquin Valley on July 24, 2021, at age 77, while still on death row, according to the Associated Press as published by KSAT. California had a moratorium on executions at the time.