Rodney James Alcala was born in 1943 in San Antonio, Texas. When he was 12, his father left the family. After that, his mother moved with the children, Alcala also had two sisters, to a suburb of Los Angeles.
At 17, he volunteered for the army before reaching legal adulthood. For four years, Alcala served at various headquarters, working as a clerk and typist.
In 1964, he suffered a nervous breakdown. He went absent without leave and returned to his mother. On her advice, Alcala turned himself in to the military police in order to avoid desertion charges.
A military psychiatrist examined him and diagnosed him with antisocial personality disorder. After that, further service was no longer possible, and Alcala was discharged from the army without public scandal while keeping the benefits he was entitled to.
Those benefits allowed him to enroll in the School of the Arts at the University of California, UCLA. In 1968, Alcala earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts.
That same year, the text says, he committed his first crime. On an October day in 1968 on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, Alcala saw eight-year-old Tali Shapiro walking to school.
The street was deserted at the time. He drove up to the girl and persuaded her to get into the car. A taxi driver parked nearby noticed an adult man putting a child into a vehicle, alerted the police, and followed Alcala’s car himself.