CONVICTED "Dating Game" psycho killer Rodney Alcala hoarded 1000 photos of women and children in a chilling photo diary that could help police solve dozens of Cold Case investigations.

The New York Police Department this week released 226 snaps of women and children they believe were photographed by the death-row psychopath while he lived in New York in the 1970s. They want to identify those photographed who they say might be dead or alive.

Alcala, who allegedly went by the name John Berger while living in New York, took the photographs around Greenwich Village while studying film under shamed sex-case director Roman Polanski in the city.

He was known for charming women with his good looks, his suave appeal landing him a spot on Tv's The Dating Game.



Watch Alcala in this clip from the show

The photographer with a genius-level IQ was found to be hoarding 1,000 pictures in a storage locker when he was finally arrested. Many of the shots are suggestive in nature.

The serial killer, now 66, is on death row in California for killing four women and a 12-year-old girl.



Photos

Alcala is still a suspect in at least two Manhattan murders, including the 1977 murder of Ellen Hover, daughter of the owner of Ciro's, a legendary Hollywood club. Hover’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in 1978.

Hover’s cousin, Sheila Weller, said this week she is upset the photos weren’t made public sooner.

"They should be in every newspaper, on TV and on the Internet," Weller told The New York Daily News prior to the release of the NYPD's photos. "It is rare that someone kept trophies of the women he came into contact with."

Another Manhattan victim, TWA air hostess Cornelia Crilley, 23, was sexually assaulted and strangled to death in her Manhattan apartment in 1971. Forensic evidence left at the scene connected Alcala to the slaying.

Retired detective Steve Mack, who worked on the Alcala case until 2008, said releasing the material to the public could help flesh out the true toll that Alcala took on society.

"He definitely was involved in more murder than we know of," Mack said, adding that he fears the body count could top 20 before the investigation is finally closed.

He said his hope is that having the pictures made public will help families of loved ones who may have fallen into Alcala's killer clutches.

"We ought to give the families that lost loved ones a proper identification," he said.



See more pictures from the gallery

Originally published as Psycho killer's chilling photo album