Connecticut Psychiatrist Tells Police She is One of Alcala's Girls
March 18, 2010— -- A 48-year-old woman is shaken and unable to sleep after spotting her teenage photograph among a mountain of pictures found among the belongings of convicted serial killer Ronald Alcala.
Liane Leedom told ABC News that the photo was taken in June 1979 when she was 17 -- and in between Alcala's murders of a woman and a girl.
Leedom, who is now a psychiatrist in Trumbull, Conn., said her brush with the man accused of killing five females has left her rattled.
Leedom said she could pinpoint exactly when the photos were taken -- immediately after the murder of Charlotte Lamb and weeks before the murder of Robin Samsoe.
Leedom was only 17 years old and Alcala's neighbor in Monterey Park, Calif., when the serial killer asked her, "let me take some pictures of you".
"Then he invited me into his mother's home, and so I went in and we talked," she told Good Morning America. "He was very preoccupied with the idea that he was a member of Mensa."
The charming photographer, who had appeared the year before as a winning contestant on the "Dating Game," convinced Leedon to go back home for the photo shoot. Leedom said Alcala never made any sexual advances.
Alcala, one of the worst serial killers in California history, is facing the death penalty. Last week police released a stash of photos three decades old in the hopes of finding closure for the families of dozens of potential murder victims.
In addition to killing 12-year-old Samsoe and 32-year-old Lamb, he is charged with murdering Jill Barcomb, 18; Georgia Wixted, 27; and Jill Parenteau, 21.
Police are also hoping more families of loved ones come forward so they can link more killings to the serial killer.
And they may never know exactly how many woman Rodney Alcala may have killed. Police have nearly 2,000 photos of possible victims and a lengthy investigation ahead for investigators who say they will solve as many cases as they can.
"They want to go at 110 mph after every lead they get," said Huntington Beach Police Department Capt. Chuck Thomas. "That's what we're here for and we'll do everything we can for these potential victims."
Leedom said many of the photos in that collection were of naked women and nude children that Alcala showed her in the presence of his mother.
It wasn't until years later that she understood the look of disgust on his mother's face.
