NEW YORK, June 21 (UPI) -- A serial killer sentenced to death in California pleaded not guilty Thursday in New York, where he is to be tried for killings in 1971 and 1977.
Rodney Alcala, 68, was in court Thursday in Manhattan, where he was charged last year with the murder of Cornelia Crilley and Ellen Hover, the Los Angeles Times reported.
He was flown to New York Wednesday in the custody of U.S. marshals.
Alcala was nicknamed the "Dating Game Killer" after his arrest in California because he appeared on the TV show in 1978. He was later convicted of killing two women in 1977.
He was first convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1980 but won two appeals in that case. He was eventually found guilty of the murders of four women and a 12-year-old girl, who were all killed between 1977 and 1979 in Los Angeles suburbs.
Crilley, 23, a TWA flight attendant, was raped and strangled in her Manhattan apartment in 1971.
Hover, also a 23-year-old Manhattan resident, was killed in 1977. Her body was found in Westchester County north of the city.
