Survivors Detail Courageous, Shocking Escapes From Serial Killers in “People Magazine Investigates' ”New Series

'People Magazine Investigates: Surviving a Serial Killer' premieres on Sunday, May 5 at 9/8c on ID and runs for six weeks

People Magazine Investigates presents a new series that focuses on the survivors of serial killer attacks.

People Magazine Investigates: Surviving A Serial Killer, “takes back the narrative of their lives by sharing the disturbing yet empowering accounts of how they escaped the clutches of a serial killer," according to a press release by Investigation Discovery.

The six-episode series produced for ID by Radley Studios premieres on ID on Sunday, May 5 at 9/8c and runs at the same time for six weeks. It includes interviews with the survivors, their family members and law enforcement, examining how they “piece together the emotional, shocking, and exclusive stories that finally brought serial killers to justice.”

The first episode features the untold story of teenage survivor Morgan Rowan, who was attacked by serial killer Rodney Alcala in 1965 and raped by him three years later.

In the episode, Rowan recounts for the first time her terrifying tale of being attacked by Alcala at age 16 and her decades-long search for another of the serial killer's surviving victims, Tali Shapiro, who was 8 when she was abducted, raped and brutally beaten by Alcala.

Rowan was racked with guilt because she didn't immediately report to police that Alcala assaulted her during a party at his Hollywood home. She wanted to offer support to Shapiro, who was victimized months later. Since then, the two women have forged a deep, and unique, bond, and they discuss their friendship on camera in the new series.

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Alcala was nicknamed the “Dating Game Killer” because he was the winning contestant on the ABC prime-time game show of the same name in 1978 during his killing spree. All told, he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, though authorities believe he may have killed up to 130 people.

His campaign of violence ended in 1979 when he was charged with the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe, who disappeared on her way to ballet class riding a yellow bicycle. In 1980, the former photographer and typesetter for the Los Angeles Times was sentenced to death for the murder.

But his conviction was overturned twice on different technicalities before he was finally sentenced to death for Samsoe's murder and the 1970s rapes and murders of four Los Angeles-area women:  Georgia Wixted, Jill Parenteau, Charlotte Lamb, and Jill Barcomb.

While on California’s death row, Alcala pleaded guilty in New York State in 2012 to the rapes and murder of Cornelia Crilley and Manhattan socialite Ellen Jane Hover.

Related: Woman Who Survived Attack by 'Dating Game Killer' at Age 8 Says: 'I Didn't Know to Fear People'

Crilley, a TWA flight attendant, was found strangled with her own pantyhose in her apartment on New York City’s Upper East Side on June 24, 1971.

Hover’s remains were found in 1978 on the Rockefeller estate in Westchester County, N.Y.

Authorities said Alcala preyed on young women, luring some of them by telling them he was a professional photographer who wanted to enter their pictures in photography contests. After killing them, Alcala placed their bodies in grotesque poses, sometimes photographing them.

Alcala died in prison of natural causes at the age of 77 in 2021.

People Magazine Investigates: Surviving A Serial Killer, a six-episode series, produced for ID by Radley Studios, premieres on ID on Sunday, May 5 at 9/8c and runs at the same time for six weeks.

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