His First Crime

While in NYU, he had apparently been using an alias, John Berger. By the time that he had enrolled in film school, Alcala had already committed his first brutal crime. It was at least the first one that police had known about. In 1968, Alcala lured an 8-year old girl named Tali Shapiro into his apartment where he beat her with a metal pipe, raped her, but fortunately, she remained alive. Sadly though, Alcala was able to get away before police could find him.