New Investigation: Hard Evidence and Forensics
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
TODAY IS JANUARY 15, 2005. It marks the fifty-eighth anniversary of the sadistic murder of Elizabeth Short. How ironic yet appropriate that on this day I find myself fitting into place the final proofs of my father’s crime, which, found in the closing months of 2004, offer both “hard physical evidence” and additional confirmation of his unique surreal signature.
Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, January 9, 1947
My 2005 review of the secret DA files confirmed the fact that Elizabeth Short left the Biltmore Hotel on January 9, 1947, shortly after 10:00 P.M. Those files document an interview with Mr. Harold Studholme, the Biltmore bell captain, where he informed the police that he saw a figure (no further description) motion to Elizabeth from outside the Olive Street entrance. Elizabeth, who had apparently been waiting and expecting someone to arrive, then exited the hotel, and he last saw her walking south on Olive Street.
The photo on the next page shows a woman exiting the Olive Street entrance, just as Elizabeth Short did in 1947. The location remains unchanged from that time period.
Likewise, the photo showing the exterior lobby of the Roosevelt Building, 727 W. 7th Street, remains unchanged from 1947. Dr. Hodel’s office was located on the twelfth floor at the top of this building.
The aerial photograph shows the close proximity of the Biltmore Hotel to Dr. George Hodel’s medical office. The arrow marks the hotel’s Olive Street entrance. As supported by the bell captain’s statements, Elizabeth turned right and headed south toward the Roosevelt Building, possibly in the company of another. As can be seen, George Hodel’s office is a short five-minute walk from the Biltmore.
The Biltmore Hotel’s Olive Street entrance
Aerial view showing proximity of Biltmore to Roosevelt
Roosevelt Building, 727 W. 7th Street (Dr. Hodel’s top-floor office)
Georgette Bauerdorf Murder Weapon
One of the Category I murders in this book offered compelling evidence that my father, George Hodel, was the killer of twenty-year-old Georgette Bauerdorf. In October 1944, the attractive young woman, a volunteer “junior hostess” at the Hollywood Canteen, had been followed home and slain in her West Hollywood apartment.
Exhibit 81
In my original 2001 investigative summary I made specific note of the highly unusual murder weapon the suspect had brought with him, a rolled nine-inch elastic knit ACE bandage. After beating the victim, he forced the bandage into her mouth, resulting in asphyxiation.
During the autopsy inquest held on October 20, 1944, sheriff’s detectives handling the case informed the inquest jurors that they had determined that “the material of this nine-inch bandage had not been sold in this city for 22 years.”*
In chapter 23, I asked the question, “Who, other than a medical professional, would be carrying such a “weapon”? I further reasoned that my father had perhaps possessed such a “weapon” in his own medical black bag, and had not purchased it in Los Angeles but placed it inside the bag when he was a young doctor on the Indian reservations, or even earlier, during his 1936 internship at San Francisco General Hospital.
In December 2004, I received the above photograph from my sister, Tamar. It shows Father, at work at a small clinic, possibly in Santa Fe, New Mexico, circa 1937. Incredibly, we see, in plain view, resting on the shelf (ab), a rolled elastic knit nine-inch ACE bandage. We need speculate no further whether Dr. George Hodel may have had access to such a rare and unusual weapon. Clearly, he did!
In previous chapters I presented evidence from a number of authoritative sources (including LAPD’s own respected criminalist Ray Pinker, who conducted tissue studies in conjunction with Dr. Lemoyne Snyder) confirming that the bisection was performed by a medical doctor.
In October 2004, CBS’s 48 Hours television producers, in preparation for an hour-long special, decided to test the theory independently. The network went to Dr. Mark Wallack, chief of surgery at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York, and asked him to examine the crime scene photos, as well as a summary of the Short autopsy, and render an opinion. Dr. Wallack confirmed my, and LAPD’s, previous findings. Here is his on-air statement from the special, Black Dahlia Confidential:
Dr. Wallack:
You don’t get this kind of training where you can invade a human body unless you’ve had some sort of medical training.
Erin Moriarty:
So you’re saying you think it must have been a doctor?
Dr. Wallack:
In my opinion—yes!
In early 2005, I was contacted by the son of a prominent Los Angeles physician, whom I shall refer to as Dr. G. The son, a surgeon and professor of anatomy,* informed me that his father had been the personal physician to legendary LAPD chief William H. Parker. He stated that I had incorrectly attributed Chief Parker’s death in 1966 to a heart attack, and went on to inform me that “Parker died of an abdominal aortic aneurysm that ruptured as he was preparing to give a dinner speech.” According to the son, Dr. G. had previously referred Chief Parker to the Mayo Clinic for treatment, but the clinic’s doctors felt repair was too risky, though they did provide him with a pacemaker.
The son went on to say that sometime after Chief Parker’s death, he and his father were watching a television show about the Black Dahlia. During the show, Dr. G. told his son that LAPD had identified the Black Dahlia killer and that he was a doctor. I find this information, coming from Chief Parker’s personal physician, to be highly authoritative and reliable.
I have no reason to doubt this witness’s veracity. Like his father, he is a respected physician. His information is consistent with the known facts, and independently corroborates what we have heard from other high-ranking law-enforcement officers. As I close the investigation, I find it personally rewarding that Chief William H. Parker, a man I worshipped as a rookie, a man who reversed the direction of LAPD from corruption to professionalism, has here transcended time and space to add his voice in confirmation.
Identification of the “Jane Doe” Secretary
In April 2003, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote two articles independently confirming my own investigative findings, namely that LAPD reports showed that Dr. George Hodel was: (1) named as a suspect in the Black Dahlia murder and (2) named as a suspect in the possible overdosing of his private secretary.
LAPD detective Brian Carr, unaware that the name George Hodel had ever been connected to the Dahlia investigation, immediately conducted a name search through the LAPD Dahlia files, where he indeed found a file on Dr. Hodel. He publicly acknowledged this, but was quick to point out that in the review of all of the Black Dahlia files “only a single-page memo was found that mentioned the name George Hodel.”* He added that, as a result of this discovery, LAPD would “check out his fingerprints against unidentified lifts from the evidence.” At the same time LAPD refused to identify Dr. Hodel’s secretary, known only as “Jane Doe,” either by name or by date of death.
In the summer of 2004, a woman contacted me and asked that I call her regarding the death of my father’s secretary. To preserve her privacy, I will call her Florence X. Florence, it turns out, had worked for my father in 1942–1943. An epidemiologist, she was employed by the L.A. County Health Department, and reported directly to Dr. Hodel. They shared an office downtown, at 8th and Broadway. Florence X was close to both of my father’s secretaries at the Health Department. She identified one as Ruth Spaulding, and indicated she died just at the close of World War II. Florence named my father’s second secretary as Marion Herwood Keyes* and said that Ruth and Marion, whom she described as “exceptionally beautiful,” were very close. Florence worked for Dr. Hodel for eighteen months, and recalls him throwing her a generous “going away party” when she left in 1943. During those years Florence attended Dr. Hodel’s parties with both Ruth and Marion, but found that she and her husband “did not fit in.” She remembered meeting my mother at several of the parties, and recalls seeing my brothers and me on a few occasions. She had been told by other staff members that Dr. Hodel had an apartment downtown, somewhere near the office, where it was believed he would take his girlfriends. Florence recalls hearing George Hodel tell both Ruth and Marion that he would “like to father a child of every nationality.”
Upon learning of Ruth Spaulding’s death in 1945, Florence contacted George Hodel to ask him what had happened and how she had died. She was placed on hold for forty-five minutes, but Dr. Hodel never came to the telephone. Later she had a meeting in San Francisco with Ruth’s sister, who refused to talk about the death or provide any details. Ruth’s sister did, however, query Florence about Dr. Hodel, saying, “What was going on there?” Florence had been unaware of Ruth’s affair with Father, but believes it could have started after she left the office, sometime in 1943. April 1944 was the last time she saw Ruth Spaulding, who visited her on a trip to San Francisco. She described Ruth as “tall and slender, a kind person with an understanding nature, who had a burning desire to become a writer.” At the end of our conversation, Florence told me what a special friend Ruth had been to her, and how much she “missed and loved her.”
In a Los Angeles Evening Herald Express article, dated May 10, 1945, Ruth Spaulding’s name appeared, identified as one of no fewer than ten Los Angeles suicides that had occurred over a three-day period. Below is an excerpt from that article:
3 MORE SUICIDES
L.A. POLICE STARLED BY WAVE
Three more persons today had ended their own lives in the Los Angeles area, pressing police into an investigation of motives behind the unusual number of suicides which has swept the city since V.E. Day. . . .
Ruth Spaulding, 25, of 1206 West Second Street, died last night in Georgia Street Receiving Hospital from an overdose of sleeping tablets, police said.
Now in possession of my father’s secretary’s name and date of death, I conducted an immediate follow-up at the L.A. County Hall of Records and the L.A. Coroner’s Office, where I was able to obtain Ruth Spaulding’s death certificate and the coroner’s cover sheet. All other coroner’s reports including the autopsy were missing. However, the surviving documents provided enough information to make the link. Here is the information gleaned from the official reports:
Coroner’s Register No. 21234
In 1945 Ruth Spaulding, age 27 and single, lived at 1206 W. 2nd Street in downtown Los Angeles. [This was within easy walking distance of both Dr. Hodel’s 7th Street medical office and his office at the L.A. County Health Department.] The reports, while not giving the name of her employer, list her job as “Secretary at a clinic.” On May 9, 1945 at 11:45 P.M., she was brought into Georgia Street Receiving Hospital by an unidentified person (s). Unconscious and in a deep coma, she died in less than an hour. Preliminary diagnosis was “suspected ingestion of a lethal dose of barbital poisoning.” No exact time of death was listed but the coroner’s report indicated that their office was notified by Georgia Street Medical staff of the death on May 10, 1945, at “12:45 A.M.” LAPD was called to the hospital and took a preliminary death report under DR#72-408.*
In “The Aftermath” chapter, I suggested that the bugged/transcribed conversation of February 18, 1950, between George Hodel and Baron Herringer in which my father talked about the murder of his secretary may have referred to another date, time, and location. Based on what we now know, clearly it did.
Let us re-examine those statements, in the light of the 1945 Spaulding death investigation.
Wire-recordings, Franklin House, 5121 Franklin Ave. (Notes, punctuation, and spellings reproduced as they originally appeared.)
2/18/50 Hodel speaking to Baron Herringer
7:35P
“Supposin’ I did kill the Black Dahliah. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my Secretary anymore because she’s dead.”
7:45P
(Hodel continues conversation with Baron Herringer) “Realize there was nothing I could do put a pillow over her head, and cover her with a blanket. Get a taxi. Call Georgia Street Receiving Hospital right away. Expired at 12:39. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. Maybe I did kill my Secretary . . .”
Compared to the now-known facts, my father’s statements leave no doubt. George Hodel was not, as some critics have speculated, just toying and taunting the police. His 1950 recorded conversation clearly refers to the 1945 overdose of Ruth Spaulding. They are very real admissions to a very real crime. With these missing pieces, we can now easily piece together the scenario.
In 1944–45, George Hodel, divorced from my mother, was dating and romancing his L.A. County Health Department secretary, Ruth Spaulding, as well as other women, including Elizabeth Short.* We know that during this period George Hodel broke off his relationship with Ruth. Then, in May 1945, she threatened to reveal damning information about her ex-lover through documents she possessed. George Hodel went to her downtown apartment, drugged her, called Dorero to the apartment, gave her the incriminating documents, and ordered her “to burn them.” My mother did as she was told, leaving her ex-husband with the unconscious but “still breathing” victim.* Once Ruth became comatose, Father called for a taxi and took her to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. She was dead in less than an hour. In the transcripts, with his perfect photographic memory, he even recalls the exact time of death: “Expired at 12:39.” Rules required the hospital staff to call the coroner’s office as soon as practical after death. Georgia Street Receiving staff called the coroner at 12:45 A.M., only six minutes after her death.
In his 1950 confession to his crime, my father not only admits his guilt in overdosing† Ruth Spaulding, but also connects himself to the murder of Elizabeth Short. The meaning of “Supposin’ I did kill the Black Dahliah. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my Secretary anymore because she’s dead” now becomes clear. Had he not overdosed Ruth Spaulding, she would have been alive some twenty months later, and available as someone the police would talk to: a living witness (and as a woman scorned, very willing) who would not only reveal that George Hodel and Elizabeth Short were dating but possibly also reveal their patient-doctor relationship.
Washington Boulevard Hotel and “Mr. Barnes”
In an earlier chapter,‡ I identified two key witnesses and a specific location as playing an important role in the Black Dahlia murder in the critical first days of the investigation: Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, the owners of a downtown Los Angeles hotel at 300 East Washington Boulevard.
As noted, on January 12, 1947 (three days before Elizabeth Short’s body was found), they positively identified Elizabeth as checking into their hotel with a man claiming to be her husband. Using the name “Mr. Barnes,” he informed the Johnsons that “he and his wife were from Hollywood.” Check-in was the only time they saw Elizabeth. However, “Mr. Barnes” returned three days later, January 15, the morning that her body was discovered. Mr. Johnson made a joking remark to “Mr. Barnes” that “he hadn’t seen him in several days, and he thought he must be dead,” whereupon the man immediately became agitated and nervous and fled. The Johnsons were shown photographs taken from the victim’s luggage and positively identified both the victim and a separate male photo as being “Mr. Barnes.” (The Johnsons would later inform the press that the man they identified “was connected to a foreign government.”)
Exhibit 82
In their competitive rush for a scoop the L.A. newspapers initially created some confusion over the Johnsons’ photo identifications.
In Exhibit 82 we see the Los Angeles Examiner headlining the story on January 22, 1947. Page 2 shows the Johnsons holding and viewing a strip photograph (seen at the right), which was enlarged by the newspaper. The caption reads, “Mr. and Mrs. William Johnson who identified photos of Beth Short and a man as the couple who registered in their hotel Jan. 12.” In fact, the Johnsons only identification was of Elizabeth Short. “Mr. Barnes” was identified from a separate photo found in her luggage. Because of the potential for confusion, the following day, the Examiner reprinted the photograph with a caption clarifying that the ID related solely to Elizabeth Short. It read, “CLEW—The Los Angeles Examiner used this picture to enable owners of an East Washington Boulevard hotel to identify Elizabeth Short as having registered at hotel. Man is unidentified.” The article went on to inform readers that police were continuing their search for “Mr. Barnes.”
It is obvious that from the outset the Johnsons never identified, nor did the police and press believe, that the young man in the strip photo was “Mr. Barnes.” Had the Johnsons actually identified the young man in the photo, he would have become Public Enemy No. 1. I believe the separate photograph the Johnsons identified was my exhibit 10, the photograph of Dr. George Hodel most likely mailed to Elizabeth from China in 1946 and subsequently found in her luggage. It shows my father in civilian clothes standing among the Chinese generals, which would explain the couple’s “connecting him to a foreign government.*
The “Unidentified Man”
Because the identity of the young man with Elizabeth Short in the strip photo has been kept secret by LAPD for almost sixty years, it has become part of the mysterious Dahlia lore. Some say he was Mr. Barnes, the actual killer, others believe he was the guilt-ridden writer of a suicide note left on the beach next to a pair of men’s trousers and shoes, who in March 1947 allegedly walked out into the ocean and drowned himself. Others believe he was Elizabeth’s secret lover. Actually, he was none of the above. My latest investigation has revealed his true identity. In mid-November 2004 I tracked him down and interviewed him. He is a Midwesterner, a good and decent man who spoke with me openly. Here for the first time is his story, which tells of his brief encounter with Elizabeth Short as she passed through his city on her way to California. For the sake of his privacy, let us call him “Gerald Moss.” He is now eighty-three years old. Gerald met Elizabeth in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1945 at the end of World War II. He was twenty-four, she twenty-two. Attracted by her striking beauty, Gerald struck up a conversation with her:
I met Elizabeth Short in The Circle, which is in the downtown part of town. She was beautiful, and we started talking and sort of hit it off. Everybody was celebrating the end of the war. We went to one of those booths and had our picture taken together. You know the kind, where you put in fifteen cents and out it pops. Elizabeth was wearing a black dress and I had on a light tan sport coat, but no tie. I gave her the picture of us.
From downtown the couple took a bus to a popular local eatery. As Gerald recalls it:
We stopped and got a bite to eat and were together maybe all of two hours before she went on by herself. I gave her my telephone number and asked her to call me when she got back out to California, but she never did. I was never in the military service. I had hay fever so bad that it kept me out. They were afraid if they let me in, I’d wake the enemy. Back then I was working at General Motors as a machinist.
Gerald went on to say that a friend happened to see his picture in the newspaper with Elizabeth Short, read the story about her murder, and called him. Gerald immediately telephoned the L.A. police. As he tells it:
After my best friend Tracy told me about my picture being found in her billfold, I called the police right away and told them that the person the newspapers called “the unidentified man” was me, but I had never been to Los Angeles. I told them how Elizabeth and I had just met those few hours in Indianapolis, and that was it.
Gerald Moss* doesn’t remember being recontacted by the police since he spoke with them back in 1947. The nearly sixty-year myth and mystery surrounding the “unidentified man” is here reduced to its simple truth: a chance two-hour meeting, accompanied by some friendly talk and “a bite to eat,” as Elizabeth Short passed through a Midwest town.
LAPD—the Sound of Silence
Hodel’s hardcover book was pretty compelling. Then, when all the transcripts and stuff came out from the D.A.’s office that took it over the top for me. That would have been enough for me to bring a case against Dr. Hodel.
—LAPD deputy chief James S. McMurray
(ret.) Chief of Detectives
Los Angeles Times Magazine, November 21, 2004
October 2004 was a high-water mark month for the Dahlia investigation. The rising crescendo of media pressure finally took its toll on LAPD. For fifty-seven years the department had been hiding behind a wall of silence. The mantra was: “The Black Dahlia murder remains unsolved and is an active case. Because it is still ‘open’ we cannot release any information.” Absolute silence prevailed.
As a direct result of two major stories about to appear on CBS and in the Los Angeles Times, LAPD Chief William Bratton ordered his Robbery-Homicide detectives to prepare for questions and meet the press. On October 28, 2004, this historic meeting was held at Parker Center, the police administrative building. LAPD Robbery-Homicide detectives Brian Carr and David Lambkin (detective III in charge of the Cold Case Unit) did not agree to appear on camera, but would take questions from journalists. LAPD questioned-document examiner, Karen Chiarodit was also present.† The three journalists present were Paul Teetor, from the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Erin Moriarty and David Browning, representing CBS’s 48 Hours. The interview lasted two hours.
Here is a summary of what was learned.*
The missing evidence in the Elizabeth Short “Black Dahlia” investigation would include:
• Original address book belonging to the victim mailed to press by the suspect
• Victim’s identification and personal photographs sent in by the Avenger
• Purse and shoes belonging to victim Elizabeth Short
• Original twelve hand-printed notes mailed to police by “Black Dahlia Avenger” (potential DNA)
• Black hair follicles found on her body believed to belong to the suspect (victim’s hair had been eliminated) (potential DNA)
• Man’s “Croton military watch” found near victim’s body at the crime scene
• “Promise is a promise” telegram and follow-up investigation of identity of sender
Missing evidence in the 1948 Gladys Kern stabbing murder would include:
• Unique one-of-a-kind jungle knife (tentatively identified by Joe Barrett, taken from Hodel residence)
• White handkerchief left at crime scene by suspect (potential DNA)
• Original handwritten note mailed by suspect to press from same mailbox as 1947 Dahlia note (potential DNA)
• Photograph of unidentified male found in victim’s desk
Missing evidence in the 1947 Jeanne French “Red Lipstick” murder would include:
• Black hair follicles belonging to the suspect (found under victim’s fingernails) (potential DNA)
• White handkerchief left at crime scene by suspect (potential DNA)
• Purse, shoes, and clothing belonging to victim
When asked by reporters to explain how critical physical evidence in L.A.’s most notorious unsolved murder could “just disappear,” the detectives explained that “sometimes these things happen.” Speaking as a former LAPD homicide supervisor, I would, under normal conditions, have to agree with them. Physical evidence does inadvertently get signed off and disposed of when it shouldn’t.
However, there is nothing routine about this case, and only a select few detectives had access to the Dahlia evidence and files. Disposing of this evidence was not simply a snafu. But, for the sake of argument, let us assume for a moment that all the physical evidence in all three murder cases was inadvertently lost. The detectives’ interview goes on to reveal a much more serious problem. Through the question-and-answer process, Carr also confirmed that LAPD is not in possession of critical documents related to Dr. George Hodel. All of the below Hodel-related interviews, identified in the DA files and turned over to LAPD, have also “disappeared” from the Dahlia files. They include:
• Wire surveillance recordings of statements by Dr. George Hodel and admissions of Dr. Hodel to crimes
• Formal written interview/statements made by Dr. Hodel to DA/LAPD detectives in February 1950
• Formal written interview by witness Lillian Lenorak, identifying Dr. Hodel as boyfriend of Elizabeth Short
• Photograph and complete interview of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson wherein they identify “Mr. Barnes” as checking into hotel with victim, Elizabeth Short, two days before the murder
• Formal interview of Mattie Comfort, along with nude photographs of her and Dr. Hodel
• Formal interview of Tamar and statements made to her by my mother, Dorerò, connecting George to Elizabeth
• Additional interviews of George Hodel associates known to be interviewed: Fred Sexton, Nita Moladoro, Ellen Taylor, Tarin Gilkey, Ethel Kane, Dorothy Royer, and Rudolph Walthers
• Fingerprint cards on Dr. George Hodel from his felony arrest for incest
• Fingerprint cards on Dr. George Hodel taken for his State Medical licensing
To my mind, all this is key in proving my assertion that the LAPD files were sanitized long ago. With the exception of the “single memo” referred to by Carr, there was nothing in the LAPD files mentioning George Hodel before Carr obtained the DA Hodel files in the spring of 2004. Carr also said that while the LAPD Dahlia files did contain scientific tests conducted on other suspects (i.e., fingerprint comparisons, handwriting analysis, shoe-size comparison, polygraph examination, photograph or live lineups by witnesses etc.), none was found on Dr. George Hodel. How then, after becoming the “prime suspect,” could he have been eliminated without any further testing? Reporters followed up with a key question. “What cleared Hodel?” Detective Carr replied that he didn’t know specifically and that Hodel was cleared by Lieutenant Jemison and the DA’s office, after they had interviewed various witnesses and associates. Detective Carr and LAPD had no additional information about how he was cleared.”*
When the reporters observed that the DA files create more questions than answers, Detective Carr responded, “I somewhat have to agree with you. We’re talking about 1950. Things were done a lot different back then than they are now.”
At the close of the interview, detectives indicated that since all the physical evidence is missing from the evidence lockers, there is no way to confirm DNA on Dr. Hodel, and therefore the crime cannot be cleared. Several weeks after detectives Carr and Lambkin met with reporters, LAPD chief William Bratton appeared at a book signing at the Book Soup bookstore in West Hollywood. At the end of his short talk, he took questions. Here is a brief verbatim exchange:
Audience voice:
Isn’t it about time we released all the information about the Black Dahlia case? [applause]
Chief Bratton:
I just told our Cold Case Squad guys to give it [Dahlia investigation] up. I’m more concerned about the nine (9) murders we had last week, than one going back that many years. . . .
I know that is problematic for some people who would like to see it solved. But what would you have to write about if it was solved? Better it go unsolved. There are more and more books being written about it all the time. (Absolute silence from crowd for ten seconds)
Blowup
As my Dahlia investigation comes to a close I again find death imitating art.
Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s thriller Blowup, a seminal film of the 1960s, forced us to think and question lifestyles, mores, art, and the subjectivity of perception, all focused through the lens of a photographer’s camera. In the film, a whodunit or wasitdun existentialist mystery, David Hemmings plays a mod fashion photographer who while strolling through a London park, happens upon and takes photographs of a couple embracing. In developing the photographs, he discovers that his camera has caught a possible murder in progress. Is there a hand showing a man holding a gun in the shrubbery? A dead body? He begins to enlarge small sections of his prints (hence the title), and as they grow, they enhance the mystery as distinct pieces of the puzzle.
Some forty years after seeing this fascinating film, I now find myself cast in the very same role of protagonist-photographer. The only difference: we are in the year 2005, and I have traded Hemmings’ 35mm Leica for a Hewlett-Packard computer and Adobe Photoshop!
What my investigation has revealed forces me to make public crime photographs that are graphically horrifying. In previous printings of my book I have been able to restrict this aspect of the investigation to verbal descriptions, which though shocking, reduced significantly the violence. Hearing is a much kinder sense than sight. For the sake of truth and the further need to prove my case, I must, I am afraid, cross the line and delve into that darker corner. I would ask that you, my readers, consider yourself a seated juror in a murder trial. Before showing you this evidence, I will do what most prosecutors do in court: apologize for having to show you scenes so violent that they will doubtless shock your senses; but this additionally compelling evidence must be added to our case.
Blowup 1 & 2: Elizabeth Short Identification
[NB: Some of the findings published in the HarperCollins July 2006 edition of this section are here removed. They related to the blowup and identification of a second photograph found in George Hodel’s photo album, “Photo No. 2.” In that earlier edition I identified this second photo as being Elizabeth Short based on an unusual freckle found in the photo, which matched in size and shape a freckle found on Elizabeth’s left eyebrow in the exact same location (see below Exhibit 83). In that earlier edition I stated, “This anatomical anomaly is as distinct as a tattoo, and proves beyond any doubt that they are one and the same woman.” I was wrong. They are not! In 2006 I was able to locate, identify, and eliminate the woman. In my interview I refer to her as “Maganda.” I refer my readers to my website, www.stevehodel.com, for a full reading on how “Maganda,” an actress/model and 1940s friend of George Hodel’s, played an important role in providing new information some sixty years after the murder. In late September 2006 I appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and during that interview publicly eliminated Photo Number 2 as not being Elizabeth Short. —SKH]
Exhibit 83
“Maganda”—Photo No. 2 [lower left] has been identified and eliminated as not being Elizabeth Short
Exhibit 84
Exhibit 84 is a blowup of my father’s second nude photograph, which showed a pronounced freckle centered mid-forehead, just above the eyebrows. In most of Elizabeth’s photographs this freckle was covered by makeup. However, in the crime scene photo, we know, the body had been washed clean. Was the freckle there? Yes. Same size, shape, and location. While the existence of this freckle appears to add weight to the identification of Photo No. 1, based on my 2006 revised “Maganda” discovery, I am going to “go to school on myself” and offer this only for circumstantial consideration.
Blowup 3: Autopsy Photographs–Burn Marks
From the beginning of my investigation, one troubling fact has continued to gnaw at me. The actual coroner’s protocol has never been released. Bits and pieces have appeared here and there, but never the complete report. Detective Carr made a public statement that he has never seen it, “because it remains locked in the Coroner’s Office.” Most strange! In all of my homicide cases, I have never not possessed a copy of the coroner’s protocol in my homicide book. It is basic in any murder investigation. Even in the DA files, it was only referred to—in part. Why? Thanks to the newly discovered crime scene and autopsy photographs (referred to in “The Aftermath” chapter as being provided to me by Harry Hansen’s granddaughter, Judy May) and the miracle of computer technology, I can now present four additional links that further connect my father to the Dahlia murder.
Burn Marks
When Dr. Paul de River, the LAPD criminal psychiatrist, volunteered to testify before the 1949 grand jury regarding his own investigation into the Dahlia murder, the police department was not happy. He went ahead anyway. He informed the grand jury that he suspected wrongdoing and a possible cover-up,* and was aware of an ongoing turf battle between the Gangster Squad and Homicide detectives. In his secret testimony, he also informed the jurors that Elizabeth Short had been sadistically tortured in many ways, including being burned with a cigarette or cigar.
Exhibit 85
Below are two photocopied excerpts from Lieutenant Jemison’s official report, submitted to the 1949 grand jury. On two separate pages, he categorically informs the jury that “there were no cigarette burns on Elizabeth Short’s body.”†
That statement is false. Lt. Jemison either knowingly lied or was kept in the dark by LAPD detectives as to the actual condition of the body.
In fact there were by my count eight or nine large cigar or cigarette burn marks‡ clearly visible on the body. Exhibit 86 on the next page is a never-before-shown autopsy photograph of Elizabeth Short. It was found in detective Harry Hansen’s private effects, and given to me by his granddaughter, Judy May. At least five burn marks are clearly visible on the lower back.§
Also included in the DA file was an early LAPD investigative summary written immediately following the discovery of the body. Elizabeth was still a “Jane Doe,” and therefore a detailed description of all body marks and scars was provided. I quote directly from page 2 of that document, exactly as it was typed:*
Exhibit 86
burn marks enlarged below
At 7:25PM, January 15, 1947, a description was circulated seeking identity of this girl, description being as follows: age indeterminable, young; ht 5’3”; weight 118#; all fingernails down to the quick; no bunions on feet; hair shaved on legs below the knees; hair shaved under arms; grayish green eyes; narrow, small nose, uptipped slightly; small upper lip; vaccination scar left leg between knee and thigh; small scar above left knee; 1” in length scar about 1 ½ inches to right of navel; brown hair, indication of being hennaed; extremely high forehead or hair line; no ear lobes, ears not pierced; 1 large wart center of back of neck about even with shoulder line (1); 2 small warts to the right of the above about 1” (2&3); 1 small wart on back, center of shoulder (4); 1 large mole on left shoulder(5); 1 wart on back, center of back, about 1” to right of medial line (6); 1 operational scar 3 1/2” in length, right side of back about 4th rib from bottom such as made for deflating a lung in T.B.
This careful documentation prohibits any possibility of interpreting the burn marks as preexisting birthmarks, and further establishes that their existence was intentionally left out of all reports.
On page 3 of his report, Lieutenant Jemison makes the following recommendation to the grand jury:
On the date of this report there are one hundred and seven remaining possible suspects after a definite elimination of two hundred and nine suspects. There have been nineteen suspects who have confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short.
After examination of the files and evidence it appears that the investigative effort should be continued and concentrated on the following suspects:
Leslie Dillon—Mark Hanson[sic]—Carl Balsiger—Glen Wolfe—Henry Hubert Hoffman—Dr. George Hodel—[emphasis mine]
Also the victim’s doctor, as he is a suspect and he is unknown. (Victim has stated to several persons that she was taking treatments from a Los Angeles Doctor for female trouble and asthma just prior to her death.)*
At the close of his report to the 1949 grand jury, Jemison makes the following remarkably candid observations:
These records and reports which were obtained from the officers of the police department and the Chief of Police indicated to the undersigned that the present administrators of the police department are of the opinion that there was an error made on the part of the preceding administrators when they assigned the Gangster Squad and Dr. Paul De River [sic] as psychiatrist to investigate the Short murder. They appear to be of the opinion that the Homicide Division officers should have had control over it at all times.
The LAPD records and reports indicate some stupidity and carelessness on the part of some of the more inexperienced officers who were working on the case from time to time, but as of this report dated October 28, 1949† there has not been found any indication of payoff, misconduct or concealment of facts on the part of any officers.
It is the consensus of Officers Ed Barrett, Jack Smyre, F.A. Brown and the undersigned that there is insufficient evidence as of this date, October 28, 1949, upon which any suspect could now be brought to trial for the murder of Elizabeth Short.
Respectfully submitted,
Frank B. Jemison
Blowup 4: Crime-Scene Trace Evidence
We know from 1947 reports that black hair follicles were found on Elizabeth Short’s nude body at the crime scene and that LAPD criminalist Ray Pinker made a microscopic comparison to the victim’s hair and found it to be different. Detectives theorized that it came from her killer. We have also been informed by detectives that the hair follicles have “disappeared” from the evidence locker and no DNA is available. Actually, they are only partially correct. Again, I performed high-resolution scans of the Harry Hansen/Judy May crime scene photographs and was able to locate one of the original samples.
Exhibit 87
Exhibit 87 (1a) shows the original hair follicle on Elizabeth Short’s upper chest just below the chin line. Photo 1b is an enlargement of that same hair follicle, showing it to be curly and black in color, 1c depicts George Hodel’s hair as it appeared in his October 1949 booking photo for incest. Even though LAPD has “lost” this original trace evidence, preventing DNA analysis, we can still observe that the follicle found on her body matches and is consistent with my father’s hair.
Encouraged by my discoveries, I continued my macabre search, using twenty-first century software to pixelate myself into the past. My screen monitor whisked me back. I was there: 1947 Los Angeles, 3800 block South Norton Avenue. The Black Dahlia crime scene. I could view it better, closer, and cleaner than any of the on-scene detectives had seen it. I moved slowly from the sidewalk to the grass, then through the grass, to the paper cement sack. South to the body. Starting with the head I moved downward. Quadrant by quadrant, inch by inch. I reached the cleanly bisected upper-torso. Something shined in my monitor. Sunlight reflecting off exposed bone? No, I think not. I zoomed in closer. It was an object, but blurred. I would have to rescan the original photograph at a higher resolution. That done, I zoomed in for a second look. Yes, definitely an object. It appeared mechanical. Not bone, not tissue, what was it? Closer. The object was perfectly round, approximately one-inch in diameter. Dark-faced with a lighter edging around the circumference. A small strip or band could be seen just to the right, angling off in a four o’clock position. It was a watch. A man’s wristwatch, carefully placed, inside the body cavity. More of my father’s “art.” Daddy the Dadaist. More of his surrealist’s juxtaposition to shock the viewer.
Exhibit 88
crime scene shows object which appears to be a man’s wristwatch.
taken at Coroner’s office—shows object missing
But why no mention in the reports? Was this another LAPD secret? Perhaps not. We recall that a man’s Croton military watch was found at the crime scene. Was this the Croton watch found by police recruits who canvassed the crime scene a week after the body’s removal? Had the watch gone unnoticed and fallen into the grass when the body was moved to the coroner’s wagon for transportation? I went to the coroner’s photographs. Amazingly, they showed the view I needed to make the comparison. My blowup showed it was gone. The object was no longer in the cavity. There are only two possibilities. The Croton was a separate watch, unrelated to the murder and coincidentally found in the vacant lot, or it was the same watch. I find it difficult to believe that the on-scene detectives did not see the watch. I recall photographs showing them looking directly inside the body. They must have seen it.
My father’s placing of a watch inside the body cavity was no casual afterthought. It was his surreal signature, and yet another imitation of and homage to Man Ray. It represented a third crime scene clue, connecting his “work” to Man Ray’s photograph Minotaur and painting The Lovers. The complete original title to The Lovers is actually A l’heure de 1’Observatoire—Les amoureux (Observatory Time—The Lovers). The woman’s lips suspended across the horizon, in Man Ray’s painting, are of his former lover, Lee Miller, who left him in 1932 after a three-year affair. In the painting, in part, he has created a painful reminder of his own lost love. “Its title exemplifies Gertrude Stein’s insistence upon ‘embodying time in the composition.’”*
Man Ray embodies time in his painting with the inclusion of the Paris Observatory, through which the Paris meridian passed. In a second famous work, Man Ray again fragmented Lee Miller’s body parts and attached a photograph of her eye to a metronome (again the representation of time) and titled it Object of Destruction. In George Hodel’s “painting,” we now discover that time has literally been embodied by the shocking juxtaposition of a man’s watch placed inside the cadaver of his own fragmented lost love, his object destroyed. How ironic that one of his most dramatic touches would go unnoticed and be held back from the general public. This must have been a painful loss for the publicity-hungry artist-avenger.
Blowup 6: The Earring
I had found the trace evidence hair follicle on the body from the crime scene photographs. Was I missing anything? To make sure, I decided to recheck the remaining few photographs taken at the coroner’s office. More scans, this time from foot to head. I moved slowly upward, forced to endure in magnification the many visible horrors of my father’s sadism. I finished with the head. I had seen enough. I reached to turn off my screen, and again, an object caught my eye. Perhaps, it was just a small white mark on the nearly sixty-year-old print? I zoomed in on it. Something was there. Inside her left ear. Too blurred to see. Again, I rescanned with higher resolution. Another blowup. Now I could make it out. An earring. But not just any earring. It appeared identical to the earring seen worn by the woman in my father’s nude photograph. Small circular pearls. Is this an additional link to his album photo No. 1?
Exhibit 89
Autopsy 90’ rotation
George Hodel photo 1
Short autopsy photo
These links help us to close the circle. We have viewed and compared the actual hair follicle, photographically preserved and found on Elizabeth’s nude body, identical to George Hodel’s curly, black hair. We have seen my father’s sardonic and surreal placement of a watch and an earring, inside the body. The pearl earring appears identical to the one worn by the woman in my father’s photograph Number 1. And we have documentation of law enforcement’s deliberate misstatement and falsification of evidentiary facts, (“no burn marks on the victim’s body”) formally presented to a seated grand jury.
We are left with one final question: the coroner’s report. Locked and never released to the public. What more can it reveal? Does it contain the evidence as shown in the photographs? Do the watch, and the earring, still exist? Or has the full and complete report, along with the physical evidence, also simply “disappeared”?
LAPD’s Chief Bratton has told us his department is off the case. “I just told our Cold Case Squad guys to give it [the Black Dahlia investigation] up.” All the LAPD evidence has disappeared. There is no “ongoing investigation” and there are no more secrets. The shadows are gone and the silence is broken. That should effectively remove any objection to a public viewing of this final document. The coroner’s protocol is not held within any LAPD (city) file, but is locked within the purview of the county. Two years ago, District Attorney Steve Cooley opened his county vault and let me and the public read the “Hodel File.” Perhaps he will now take a second step, and order the coroner’s vault open as well. We shall see.*
Steve Hodel
Los Angeles, California
August 2005
* In 2001 I attempted to locate this size, but was unable to find it ready made, so I recreated and photographed it as exhibit 55, in Chapter 23.
* The professor identified the medical bisection performed on Elizabeth Short as a “hemicorpectomy.” He informed me that the procedure was taught at medical school during my father’s years (1930s), and in his opinion, could be performed by any skilled and anatomically trained M.D.
* Detective Carr’s seemingly innocuous public statement in 2003 becomes important to the 2004 investigation because it underscores the fact that today’s LAPD detectives had no knowledge that George Hodel’s name ever appeared in the files. Like his predecessor, detective Kirk Mellecker, Carr was unfamiliar with the Hodel connection. For me this was key since it verified my suspicion that the DA’s Hodel files, consisting of hundreds of transcript pages, along with the wire recordings, which were known to have been turned over to LAPD—were not there—confirmation that the critical files and witness interviews naming George Hodel had been “sanitized” long ago. A full year would pass (spring 2004) before detective Carr would go to the DA’s office, copy the hundreds of documents, and begin to realize George Hodel’s connection to the murders.
* At the time she worked for GHH, Marion Herwood Keyes was also a renowned costume designer for the film studios, and was credited for her work in many well-known films of the day such as Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Clock, and The Postman Always Rings Twice.
* I made a formal request to LAPD for information and a copy of this Spaulding death report and the related investigation involving my father. Their search for reports proved negative: “nothing in file.” They advised that most “nonhomicide” reports from that time period have been disposed of as a matter of routine policy.
* Based on newly discovered documents found in the DA file relating to Elizabeth Short’s autopsy, we now know she had a Bartholin gland cyst. The Bartholin’s gland is a tiny organ on each of the labia (vaginal lips), near the opening of the vagina. If the cysts become infected they are usually very tender. Infected cysts can be caused by sexually transmitted germs. Several (not all) of her intimate boyfriends stated to detectives that she did not seem to enjoy sexual intercourse with them. This diagnosis could well explain why. It also introduces the very real possibility that Elizabeth Short could have originally met Dr. Hodel at his VD clinic, where she may have sought treatment for this problem.
* This single act would make her vulnerable to being considered an accessory or accomplice to murder and I am sure my father used it to his full advantage. It was his leverage to keep her silent about whom and what she knew. The threat of “If I go to prison, you go with me” was enough to compel her silence and have her stonewall DA investigators.
† This 1945 suspected overdosing of Ruth Spaulding by George Hodel is the first of three to be identified and documented in this investigation. The second was also a police reported drugging of his girlfriend Lillian Lenorak in 1950. The third was the knockout drug given to his fourteen-year-old granddaughter Deborah at a Beverly Hills hotel in 1969, where he took her to his room to “recover” and then undressed the unconscious girl and took salacious nude photographs while she slept.
* The Johnson’s reference to the “man being connected to a foreign government” most likely came from their identification of him in the photograph. LAPD detectives would not volunteer this information to civilian witnesses, so they had to have seen the connection. Exhibit 10 shows that connection. It is also interesting to note that in the DA transcripts, in the days immediately before he fled the country, George Hodel makes statements to Baron Herringer about the Black Dahlia and a picture the police have of him and a girl, though he “thought he had destroyed all of them.” Is this a reference to Exhibit 10, a picture in police custody, he had sent to Elizabeth Short?
* His memory may be faulty on this, as my source information indicated they met in 1946.
* In 2013, I publicly identified “Gerald Moss” and provided his true name, which was George Main. George died of natural causes in Indianapolis, Indiana, at the advanced age of 89.
† Ms. Chiarodit, while questioning the methodology of handwriting expert Hannah McFarland, stated that in her opinion McFarland’s analysis had “lots of holes in it,” nevertheless offered no opinion of her own. When asked if she could eliminate Dr. Hodel as the writer of the notes, she answered simply, “No.”
* Through re-interviews of me by both Erin Moriarty and Paul Teetor, in their follow-up preparation for the television and print articles that would appear the following month. LAPD confirmed that all of the physical evidence in the 1947 Elizabeth Short “Black Dahlia” murder had, in their words, “disappeared.” Further, the physical evidence in the 1947 Jeanne French and 1948 Gladys Kern murders has also “disappeared.” Detectives advised that since all the evidence is missing, no DNA comparison could be made to Dr. George Hodel.
* This was a critical response by Carr. Prior to this acknowledgement, Carr has always maintained that “LAPD cleared Dr. Hodel as being a Dahlia suspect,” but would make no further comment. He now informs us that not only do they not have any separate reports on Hodel, but further, LAPD did not participate in any of the Hodel interviews, or contacts with his associates, and they have no idea why or how Lieutenant Jemison cleared him. In fact, Jemison did not “clear” Dr. Hodel. His careful wording was “tend to eliminate him.”
* This did not relate to Dr. George Hodel, but rather to Dr. de River’s favorite suspect, Leslie Dillon, arrested almost a year earlier (January 1949). Dillon would later be cleared after it was established he was in San Francisco at the time of the Dahlia murder.
† We also learn that Dr. de River informed the grand jury the body had been “shaved.” In fact, some pubic hair was cut or “shaved” from her body, so this could have been a semantic problem. Further note that no drug tests were performed as “vital organs had been misplaced or accidentally thrown out.”
‡ At my request, D. P. Lyle, M.D., examined the autopsy photographs and provided the following opinion: “The lesions high on her back appear to be moles and the lesions on her mid-back are most likely traumatic in nature. They appear to be cigarette burns, which are partially healed. They could be only hours old but more likely are one to three days old since they seem to display some degree of healing in the central portion of each.” Dr. Lyle is a practicing cardiologist, as well as a nationally respected forensics expert, and a mystery writer. A consultant for CSI, he has written numerous books on forensics, his latest being Forensics for Dummies (2004).
§ The numbers (Exhibit 86-top) relate to identifying mole marks, and are not cigarette burns.
* Bracketed numbers (1–6) in text and those in the photograph were inserted by me to identify wart and mole locations.
* As indicated earlier, it is my opinion that Elizabeth Short’s “unidentified downtown doctor” and my father were one and the same. We know that Lieutenant Jemison’s euphemistic term, “female trouble” refers to her Bartholin’s gland cysts. This could have originated as a sexually transmitted disease. The logical location for her to seek treatment? My father’s First Street VD clinic. Further note that of Lt. Jemison’s five named suspects, Dr. George Hodel is the only one possessing the prerequisite medical skill and knowledge to commit the crime.
† Three weeks before the submission of this report, my father was arrested by LAPD for incest, “held to answer” in a preliminary hearing, and his Superior Court trial would begin in two weeks. In the next three-month period, Lt. Jemison would identify George Hodel as the prime suspect in the Dahlia murder, initiate surveillance, and install the microphones for the bugging of our residence. With the microphones and bugging still in place, George Hodel would flee the United States for forty years.
* Baldwin, Neil, Man Ray: American Artist, p. 172. New York, Clarkson N. Potter Inc. 1988.
* On July 13, 2005, I conducted an interview with UK television journalist Sam Kiley for a documentary on the Dahlia story, to air in Great Britain in December 2005. During that interview, I was advised by Kiley that he had contacted personnel from the L.A. Coroner’s Office who had agreed to provide him with a copy of the complete protocol. However, a subsequent search for the records revealed that all the files “have disappeared.” Coroner’s officials added that they had no idea how or when the Elizabeth Short file became “lost.”
