New Netflix film Woman of the Hour recreates some of the brutal crimes including killings committed by Rodney Alcala who became known as the Dating Game Killer.

While the movie doesn't use the same names as his victims for characters, many scenes portray representations of what happened to them. This includes the role of Amy, who is a stand in for Monique Hoyt, a teenage hitchhiker who was attacked by Alcala but managed to later get away and report the incident to police.

However there is another Alcala victim who managed to escape their ordeal that wasn't included in the Anna Kendrick directed film. She also eventually assisted in convicting Alcala for his crimes years after the attack.
Serial killer Rodney Alcala pictured in 2010 (
Image:
MediaNews Group via Getty Images)

In September 1968, then eight-year-old Tali Shapiro was walking to school from the Chateau Marmont hotel in Los Angeles where her family were staying temporarily at the time.

Alcala, then 25, approached her in his car and offered her a lift to which Shapiro initially said no but Alcala convinced her he knew her parents. He then told her he was a professional photographer and offered to show her a poster at his home.

Speaking to PEOPLE Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer, Shapiro said: "He drove me to his house. I followed him in, and that's all I remember. There was nothing else to remember. He obviously hit me over the head right after that and that was it."

Shapiro was raped and beaten with a metal bar. Donald Haines, a sales representative who was in the area on a work call, had spotted Alcala take Shapiro to his home and was suspicious of how he was acting around a child.

As a result, he decided to follow them, telling People: "He was fixated on this little girl. That disturbed me. All the signs were there." Haines saw Shapiro taken into Alcala's apartment and called police. When officers arrived they found her unresponsive and in a pool of blood.

Shapiro says authorities made the decision to save her life over chasing Alcala as while she was receiving medical attention the killer managed to flee through the back door.
Rodney Alcala's crimes are explored in Netflix film Woman of the Hour (
Image:
Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

It was more than two years later before Alcala was charged over the incident during which time he killed at least one woman.

Shapiro's parents refused to let her testify for fear of retraumatising her, after she spent 32 days in a coma following the attack and months recovering. Lacking a key witness, Alcala served 34 months in prison for child molestation.

His appearance on The Dating Game would come around four years after he was released and he would go on to commit at least eight other rapes and murders in California, New York and Wyoming.

In 2010, when Shapiro was 50 years old, she appeared in court to finally testify against her attacker as a jury decided whether he should face the death penalty or life in prison.

She said: "I didn't have any feelings except of duty, of justice. I never once looked his way. I consciously didn't want to give him any energy whatsoever. I didn't glance at him, I didn't acknowledge him, I never spoke his name. I didn't give him any satisfaction."

Following Alcala's death in 2021, Shapiro told The New York Times: "The planet is a better place without him, that's for sure."

Woman of the Hour is available to stream on Netflix now