Women, children shown in eerie photos taken by serial killer from San Antonio
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Women, children shown in eerie photos taken by serial killer from San Antonio

By , San Antonio Express-NewsUpdated
Click through the gallery to see dozens of photographs snapped by Rodney Alcala, a 72-year-old San Antonio native and convicted serial killer.
Click through the gallery to see dozens of photographs snapped by Rodney Alcala, a 72-year-old San Antonio native and convicted serial killer.Courtesy

The faces of dozens of women and children peer out of more than 1,000 eerie vintage photographs snapped by a convicted serial killer from San Antonio.

Rodney Alcala, a 72-year-old San Antonio native, has been convicted of killing seven people in California and New York between 1971 and 1979.

Alcala is currently awaiting execution in California, where he was convicted of murdering four young women and a 12-year-old girl in 2010.

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The photos, believed to be taken in the 1970s, were found in a Seattle storage locker belonging to Alcala.

The Huntington Beach Police Department and Orange County District Attorney's Office distributed more than 100 of the photos in 2010. A Facebook page dedicated to identifying the photos' subjects now hosts the photos.

Prosecutors at the time said Alcala took photos of his victims before killing them, the Associated Press reported.

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Authorities believed that the photos, many of which were either cropped or not released because they are sexually explicit, could show potential murder victims.

"The first thing is, 'Oh, my God, I hope these girls are OK,' and the next thing is, 'I wonder if any of them are victims.' Everyone has that question," prosecutor Matt Murphy told the Associated Press in 2010. "I can't imagine for a million years that we've got him for the only murders he's done."

RELATED: Inside the mind of a San Antonio man on death row: Condemned man finds art as release

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CBS News reported in 2010 that 21 women from the photos had come forward and revealed they were not missing nor dead.

Det. Patrick Ellis with the Huntington Beach Police Department said in an email that the department is not currently investigating Alcala.

Scroll through the slideshow to see Alcala's haunting photography. If you recognize anyone in the photos, please contact Det. Patrick Ellis at pellis@hbpd.org.

jfechter@mySA.com

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Twitter: @JFreports

|Updated
Photo of Joshua Fechter
City Hall Reporter | San Antonio Express-News

Joshua Fechter is a reporter covering City Hall and San Antonio politics for the Express-News. He previously covered real estate, economic development, retail and tourism. Upon graduating from Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014, Joshua joined the Express-News in 2014 as a breaking news reporter.