Victim recalls assault during Alcala death penalty trial
Rodney Alcala, right, enters the courtroom before the start of final arguments in the death penalty trial.
From the Huntington Beach Independent
More than 40 years after the incident, the 8-year-old girl with pigtails is now a woman.
On Tuesday, she sat across from her attacker in a Santa Ana courtroom, testified against him and then listened as he apologized for his actions.
Newport Beach resident Tali Shapiro, who willingly identified herself and discussed the case with the media after providing her testimony, was lured into Rodney James Alcala’s car and sexually assaulted by him in 1968.
Alcala, 66, was found guilty Feb. 25 of the murder and kidnapping of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl in 1979 and four Los Angeles women in the 1970s. The jury now has to decide whether Alcala deserves life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
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