Forensics Link Alleged Killer to Malibu Crime

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

It was one of the most brutal murders in Malibu’s history. On Dec. 16, 1977, Georgia Wixted, 27, a registered nurse, was sexually assaulted, beaten with a claw hammer and finally strangled with a nylon stocking. Her naked body was found in her east Malibu apartment. The crime shocked the community.
Print technicians recovered a single partial palm print from the scene, believed to belong to the murderer. More than 30 years later, that print was matched to Rodney Alcala, a former death row inmate now charged with murdering five female victims, all killed using the same MO between 1977 and 1979.
Alcala was arrested in July of 1979 after a witness identified him from a police artist’s sketch made after the murder of a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl, Robin Samsoe. Eyewitness, including the murdered girl’s friend, identified the wild-haired Alcala, who approached Samsoe with a camera prior to her abduction and asked to photograph her.
Alcala was tried twice and convicted of the murder of Samsoe. He has twice been sentenced to death but both sentences were reversed on appeal. Alcala was awaiting a third trial in 2003, when forensic technology not previously available allegedly linked him to four other murders, including that of Wixted.
Computer technology enabled Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department fin-gerprint technician Dale Falican to match the palm print from the Malibu murder to Alcala. Falican, one of the first to testify in the trial that began on Jan. 11, stated that the palm print conclusively links Alcala to the Malibu crime scene, since no two individuals have ever been found to have identical prints.
DNA testing has also been deployed, linking Alcala to biological material collected at several of the crime scenes and retained as evidence.
The five murders have been consolidated into one case for the trial in Orange County over Alcala’s objections. In a macabre twist, Alcala, who is said to have a near-genius IQ, has dismissed his attorneys and is representing himself in court, which means that victims’ family members who are testifying in the case will be cross-examined by the alleged serial killer.
If Alcala is convicted of the charges, which include five murders with special circumstances—torture, rape, burglary, robbery and kidnapping—he could face multiple death sentences.
At least one victims advocacy group now says emerging evidence could potential link Alcala to other unsolved crimes.