Los Angeles Public Library:
All LAPL images courtesy of the Herald Examiner Collection / Los Angeles Public Library
Photograph of "Beth Short" telegram, page 156
Photograph of envelope mailed to District Attorney, page 170
Photograph of note sent to Herald Express, page 171
Photograph of note sent to Herald Express, page 175
Photograph of note sent to Herald Express, page 177
Photographs of post cards sent to Herald Express, page 178
Photograph of Armand Robles, page 179
Photographs of notes sent to Herald Express, page 180
Photograph of note sent to Herald Express, page 181
Photograph of envelope addressed to Herald Express, page 285
Photograph of LAPD Chiefs Thad Brown and William Parker, page 365
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertantly overlooked, the author would be happy to hear from them.
BLACK
DAHLIA
AVENGER
Introduction
For almost twenty-four years, from 1963 to 1986, I was a police officer, and later a detective-supervisor, with the Los Angeles Police Department, a period generally considered to be LAPD's "golden years." I was one of Chief William H. Parker's "new breed," part of his "thin blue line."
My first years were in uniformed patrol. My initial assignment was to West Los Angeles Division, where as a young and aggressive rookie, I was, as Chief Parker had demanded of all his men, "proactive," excelling in making felony arrests by stopping "anything that moved" on the early-morning streets and alleys of Los Angeles. Over the next five years, as a street cop, I worked in three divisions: Wilshire, Van Nuys, and finally Hollywood.
In 1969,1 applied for and was accepted into the detective bureau at Hollywood. I was assigned to and worked all of the "tables": Juvenile, Auto Theft, Sex Crimes, Crimes against Persons, Burglary, and Robbery.
My ratings within the detective bureau remained "upper ten," and as the years flew by I was assigned to the more difficult and complex investigations, in charge of coordinating the various task force operations, which in some instances required the supervision and coordination of as many as seventy-five to one hundred field officers and plainclothes detectives in an effort to capture a particularly clever (or lucky) serial rapist or residential cat burglar working the Hollywood Hills.
Finally, I was selected to work what most detectives consider to be the elite table: Homicide. I did well on written exams and with my top ratings made detective I on the first exam ever given by LAPD in 1970. Several years later I was promoted to detective II, and finally, in 1983,1 competed for and was promoted to detective III.
During my career I conducted thousands of criminal investigations and was personally assigned to over three hundred separate murders. My career solve rate on those homicides was exceptionally high. I was privileged to work with some of the best patrol officers and detectives that LAPD has ever known. We believed in the department and we believed in ourselves. "To Protect and to Serve" was not just a motto, it was our credo. We were Jack Webb's "Sergeant Joe Friday" and Joseph Wambaugh's "New Centurions" rolled into one. The blood that pumped through our veins was blue, and in those decades, those "golden years," we believed in our heart of hearts that LAPD was what the nation and the world thought it to be: "proud, professional, incorruptible, and without question the finest police department in the world."
I was a real-life hero, born out of the imagination of Hollywood. When I stepped out of my black-and-white, in uniform with gun drawn, as I cautiously approached the front of a bank on a robbery-in-progress call, the citizens saw me exactly as they knew me from television: tall, trim, and handsome, with spit-shined shoes and a gleaming badge over my left breast. There was no difference between me and my actor-cop counterpart on Jack Webb's Dragnet or Adam-12. What they saw and what they believed — and what I believed in those early years — were one and the same. Fact and fiction morphed into "faction." Neither I nor the citizenry could distinguish one from the other.
When I retired in July of 1986, then chief of police Daryl Gates noted in his letter to me of September 4:
Over twenty-three years with the Department is no small investment, Steve. However, twenty-three years of superb, loyal and diligent service is priceless. Please know that you have my personal thanks for all that you have done over the years and for the many important investigations you directed. As I am reminded daily, the fine reputation that this Department enjoys throughout the world is based totally on the cumulative accomplishments of individuals like you.
During my years with LAPD, many high-profile crimes became legendary investigations within the department, and ultimately household names across the nation. Many of the men I worked with as partners, and some I trained as new detectives, went on to become part of world-renowned cases: the Tate-La Bianca-Manson Family murders; the Robert Kennedy assassination; the Hillside Stranglers; the Skid Row Slasher; the Night Stalker; and, in recent years, perhaps the most high-profile case of all, the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
Before these "modern" crimes, there were other Los Angeles murders that in their day were equally publicized. Many of them were Hollywood crimes connected with scandals involving early film studios, cases such as the Fatty Arbuclkle death investigation, the William Desmond Taylor murder, the Winnie Judd trunk murder, the Bugsy Siegel murder, and the "Red Light Bandit," Caryl Chess\man. But in those dust-covered crime annals and page-worn homicide books of the past, one crime stands out above all others. Los Angeles's most notorious unsolved murder occurred well over half a century ago, in January 1947. The case was, and remains known as, the Black Dahlia.
As a rookie cop in the police academy, I had heard of this famous case. Later, as a fledgling detective, I learned that some of LAPD's top cops had worked on it, including legendary detective Harry Hansen. After he retired, all the "big boys" at downtown Robbery-Homicide took over. Famed LAPD detectives such as Danny Galindo, Pierce Brooks, and old Badge Number 1, John "Jigsaw" St. John, took their "at-bats," all to no avail. The Black Dahlia murder remained stubbornly unsolved.
Like most other detectives, I knew little about the facts of the case, already sixteen years cold when I joined the force. Unlike many other "unsolveds," where rumors flowed like rivers, the Black Dahlia always seemed surrounded by an aura of mystery, even for us on the inside. For some reason, whatever leads there may have been remained tightly locked and secure within the files. No leaks existed. Nothing was ever discussed.
In 1975, a made-for-television movie, entitled Who Is the Black Dahlia? and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Sergeant Harry Hansen and Lucie Arnaz as the "Dahlia," was aired. It told the tragic story of a beautiful young woman who came to Hollywood during World War II to find fame and fortune. In 1947 she was abducted and murdered by a madman, her nude body cut in half and dumped in a vacant lot in a residential section, where a horrified neighbor discovered her and called the police. A statewide dragnet ensued, but her killer was never caught. This was all I and my fellow detectives knew about the crime. Fragments of a cold case, fictionalized in a TV movie.
On several occasions during my long tour of duty at Hollywood Homicide, I would answer the phone and someone would say, "I have information on a suspect in the Black Dahlia murder case." Most of the callers were psychos, living in the past and caught up in the sensationalism of decades gone by. I would patiently refer them downtown to the Robbery-Homicide detail and advise them to report their information to the detective currently assigned to the case.