FPT $27.95
$39.95 in Canada
In 1947 the brutal, sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman led to the largest manhunt in L.A. history. The killer teased and taunted the police and public, but his identity remained a mystery. Until now . . .
On January 15, 1947, at about 10:30 A.M., in Los Angeles, California, a woman's body was discovered in a vacant lot at 39th and Norton. Not only had the murderer bisected her but he had horribly mutilated her body, then carefully posed her as if to leave a provocative message. When LAPD detectives arrived on the scene a few minutes later, even the most hardened among them were shocked and sickened.
That crime, which until now has never been solved, became known to history as the Black Dahlia murder. It made front-page headlines coast-to-coast for weeks, as the LAPD sought vainly to track down the killer. The murdered girl, it turned out, was lovely twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short. From Massachusetts, she had come west, like so many women before her, in search of fame and fortune in the film capital of the world. Shortly after her murder, the L.A. papers began receiving notes from a person who called himself the Black Dahlia Avenger. For weeks the killer tormented police, clearly reveling in his notoriety and ability to avoid detection, much as his English counterpart Jack the Ripper had done in London sixty years before. At one point he offered to turn himself in, then reneged and said he was leaving town. "Catch me if you can," he challenged.
When the LAPD failed to solve the crime, the case was passed down from year to year to crack homicide detectives, but none could ever bring the killer to justice. In 1949, the Los Angeles grand jury—convened by the district attorney in the wake of public outcry against the failure of the LAPD to solve not only this crime but a dozen other murders of lone women in Los Angeles over the succeeding two years—conducted their own investigation and subpoenaed LAPD detectives and the chief of police to testify. As a result, a "prime suspect" was identified and named in secret, but for some unexplained reason he was never indicted or brought to justice. Hints of LAPD corruption were rife during that era, and some very high-ranking police department heads rolled, as politicians vied to capitalize on the situation to their advantage.
04032745 (continued on back flap)
BLACK
DAHLIA
AVENGER
BLACK
DAHLIA
AVENGER
A Genius for Murder
STEVE HODEL
ARCADE PUBLISHING • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2003 by Steve Hodel
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 1-55970-664-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003101031
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication information is available.
Published in the United States of America by Arcade Publishing, Inc.,
New York
Distributed by AOL Time Warner Book Group
Visit our Web site at www.arcadepub.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Designed by API
EB
PRINTED IN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For the victims, living and dead
When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of Truth and Love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.
—Mahatma Gandhi
Contents
Introduction
1 The Biltmore
2 Jane Doe Number 1
3 A Death in the Family
4 A Voice from Beyond the Grave
5 Dr. George Hill Hodel Jr., 1907-1999
6 George and Dorero
7 The Hollywood Scandal
8 Gypsies
9 SubicBay
10 Kiyo
11 The Dahlia Witnesses
12 The LAPD and the Press:
The Joint Investigation
13 The LAPD and the Press:
The Avenger Mailings
14 The "Red Lipstick" Murder
15 Tamar, Joe Barrett, and Duncan Hodel
16 Fred Sexton: "Suspect Number 2"
17 LAPD Secrets and the Marquis de Sade
18 Elizabeth Short's "Missing Week"
19 The Final Connections:
Man Ray Thoughtprints
20 The Franklin House Revisited
21 The Watch, the Proof-Sheet Papers,
the FBI Files, and the Voice
22 Handwriting Analysis
23 More 1940s L.A. Murdered Women Cases
24 The Boomhower-Spangler Kidnap-Murders
25 Sergeant Stoker, LAPD's Gangster Squad,
and the Abortion Ring
26 George Hodeclass="underline" Underworld Roots— The "Hinkies"
27 Dahliagate: The Double Cover-up
28 The Grand Jury
29 The Dahlia Myths
30 The Dahlia Investigation, 2001-2002
31 Forgotten Victims, 1940s: The Probables
32 Forgotten Victims, 1950s: The Probables
33 George Hodel-Elizabeth Short:
Reconstructed Timeline
34 Filing My Case with the District
Attorney's Office
The Final Thoughtprint
Epilogue
Author's Postscript
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Illustration Acknowledgments
The author would like to gratefully acknowledge the kind assistance he has received from the UCLA Special Collections Department, the Los Angeles Public Library, the Man Ray Trust, and Artists Rights Society.
UCLA Special Collections files:
All UCLA images courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
Photograph of Grant Terry/Roger Gardner, page 298
Photograph of Jeanette Walser, page 299
Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society:
All Man Ray images copyright © 2003 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris
Man Ray, Portrait of Dorothy Hodel, 1944 page 38
Man Ray, George Model, 1946 page 79
Man Ray, Self-Portrait, page 88
Man Ray, The Minotaur,; page 241
Man Ray, Les Atnoureux, pages 241 and 244
Man Ray, Juliet, page 242
Man Ray, The Riddle, or The Enigma of Isidore Ducasse, page 251
Man Ray, George Hodel and Yamantaka, pages 253 and 265
Man Ray, Dorothy Hodel, Hollywood, 1944, page 299