There was the 12-year-old girl who disappeared while riding her bike to a ballet lesson. The 18-year-old nurses’ aide who was raped, strangled and beaten with a rock. And the 27-year-old nurse who was strangled with a stocking and beaten with a hammer.

Justice Bonnie G. Wittner’s stoic demeanor began to give way with the recounting of each killing, committed in California by the wizened man standing before her on Monday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan.

The man, Rodney Alcala, a onetime contestant on “The Dating Game” television show, was appearing before Justice Wittner to be sentenced for two murders in New York, to which he pleaded guilty last month.

“This kind of case is something I’ve never experienced, hope to never again,” Justice Wittner said before losing her composure. The judge, who has heard all manner of mayhem in New York’s criminal courts in her three decades here, paused for a long moment, sobbing, before continuing.