Serial murder suspect Rodney James Alcala took the stand Tuesday and in a soft-spoken tone methodically asked himself detailed questions about his whereabouts the week in 1979 when 12-year-old Robin Samsoe was kidnapped from the streets of Huntington Beach and murdered.
A packed Orange County courtroom watched as Alcala, acting as his own attorney, sat in the witness stand and answered his own questions.
Alcala has twice been convicted in the girl’s murder and sentenced to death, but each conviction was ultimately overturned. With the passage of time and the development of DNA testing, detectives said they tied Alcala to the murders of four Los Angeles County women in Malibu, Santa Monica and Hollywood between 1977 and 1979.
During the monthlong trial, Alcala has repeatedly demonstrated that he is most concerned with defending himself against charges in the Samsoe case.
In the first two hours of testimony Tuesday, Alcala, dressed in a tan sports coat and jeans, asked himself a series of broad questions such as “What was the next thing you did, Mr. Alcala?” and “After that, what did you do, Mr. Alcala?”
Alcala told the jury that on June 20, 1979, the day Samsoe went missing, he went to Seal Beach to visit a friend. He testified that the friend wasn’t there so he went to a picture frame store then headed toward Sunset Beach and took photos of a young woman roller skating on the beach. From there, he went to Knott’s Berry Farm, he said.
For nearly 20 minutes Alcala told jurors how, after several years pondering in prison, he realized he could use the angle of shadows in the photos he took that day to estimate what time of day he snapped them, and thus provide an alibi.
The angle of the sun, he testified, proved that he was at the beach at 2:20 p.m. that day.
Prosecutor Matt Murphy initially objected to the testimony, saying Alcala was hardly an expert in such matters, then withdrew his objections, saying the time was not inconsistent with what prosecutors say happened that day.
According to the prosecution, Alcala approached Samsoe and a friend on the beach and took photos of them after taking photos of Lorraine Werts, the young roller skater. Samsoe disappeared soon after as she rode her bike to ballet class. Her remains were found nearly two weeks later in the Angeles National Forest.
— Paloma Esquivel