Alcala was not convicted of murder until 1980 for the death of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe—two years after his appearance on The Dating Game—but Bradshaw knew something was off as soon as the stage lights dimmed.
“I started to feel ill,” Bradshaw recalled of meeting up with Alcala after the taping in a 2012 Sunday Telegraph interview, per Newsweek. “He was acting really creepy. I turned down his offer. I didn’t want to see him again.”
At the time of his appearance on The Dating Game series, Alacala’s exact number of victims was unknown, but authorities believe that he killed as many as 100 women prior to being placed behind bars, per Newsweek.
Alcala was later sentenced to the death penalty for the murder of five women in 2010, but—due to a 2019 moratorium of the sentence in California—the 77-year-old died of natural causes in prison in 2021.
And it was this ominous real-life story of the dangers lurking in everyday life that led to Kendrick taking on double duty.
“I love the fact that it isn’t as simple as, ‘Oh, she asserts herself and everything works out great,’” Kendrick explained to Netflix’s Tudum Oct. 1. “Because this is the bargain we’re making every day: How much do I live authentically, and how much danger does that actually put me in?”