“Severed”  by pathological liar John Gilmore (d. 2016) was once the go-to book on the Black Dahlia case, but it’s 25% mistakes and 50% fiction.

Are there any good books on the Black Dahlia case? No. But there are a lot of really, really bad ones and you should avoid them all or you will just have to unlearn everything. And your head may explode from all the nonsense.

“Hollywood Babylon II” (1984). Pathological liar Kenneth Anger. Enough said.

“Severed”  (1994) by pathological liar John Gilmore. This was once the go-to book, now discredited. It’s 25% mistakes and 50% fiction. “Severed” is full of people who don’t exist and events that never occurred.

“Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer” (1995) by Janice Knowlton, with Michael Newton. Knowlton pioneered the “Daddy Did It” genre, making her claims based on “recovered memories.” The LAPD dismissed Knowlton as a crackpot. She used to leave voicemail messages for me claiming that she had been molested by many famous and conveniently dead movie stars.  She was the first to publicly link George Hodel to the Black Dahlia case, posting on an Internet bulletin board in 1998. She committed suicide in 2004, a year after publication of “Black Dahlia Avenger.”

“Childhood Shadows” (1999) by Mary Pacios. Orson Welles killed Elizabeth Short and left clues in his movies. Oh dear.

“Black Dahlia Avenger” (2003) by Steve Hodel. An elevator pitch (retired detective finds dead dad is serial killer) that falls flat. Reverse-engineered through a tortuous path, based on photographs that Steve Hodel claims show Elizabeth Short, but do not. Thought prints and blinking red lights purportedly connect George Hodel with a string of unrelated killings, but many details are distorted, misrepresented and suppressed. Steve Hodel later claimed his father was also Zodiac.

“Black Dahlia Files” (2005) by Donald Wolfe. Accuses Los Angeles Times execuctive Norman Chandler and soon-to-be dead gangster Bugsy Siegel of the killing, based on a faked document pasted together from material in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s files. So awful I spent several months fact-checking it.

“Hard-Boiled Hollywood” (2017) by Jon Lewis. Nonsense in an impenetrable academic style.

“Black Dahlia, Red Rose” (2017) by Piu Eatwell. Down the rabbit hole with a conspiracy theory of police corruption that claims Leslie Dillon killed Elizabeth Short. Dillon was in San Francisco at the time.

In compiling my list of bad books about the Black Dahlia case, I neglected to mention William T. Rasmussen’s fringe publication “Corroborating Evidence,” which I had forgotten, mainly because it’s so nutty that I won’t even let it in the house.

Executive summary: The Black Dahlia case is utterly unrelated to any other killing. Not the Cleveland Torso killings. Not the Georgette Bauerdorf case. Not the Suzanne Degnan killing. And not the Jeanne French murder.

In “Corroborating Evidence,” Rasmussen tries to tie them  together. Apparently there is a “Corroborating Evidence” franchise with “new evidence.” Funny thing about crackpot books: There is always “new evidence” to support some bogus claim, while never addressing the fundamental weakness of the theory.

There’s also “It’s Me,” by John A. Cameron. Cameron claims that Elizabeth Short and Suzanne Degnan were killed by Edward Wayne Edwards, who would have been 13 when he killed Elizabeth Short and 12 when he killed Suzanne Degnan. Edwards also supposedly killed another victim when he was 12 and still another at the age of 11, and my head is going to explode if I don’t stop.

So you may not read any Black Dahlia books before watching “I Am the Night.” But you may turn to Google. You should be warned.

BlackDahliaSolution.org may be the worst of the websites on the Black Dahlia case simply because it is still online and causing problems. BethShort.com, an outlet for the late John Gilmore, went dark a few years ago (more about that later).

BlackDahliaSolution.org was run by an oddball named John Frederick “Jack” Kohne Jr., who died in 2016. His obituary says:

Deeply introspective and complicated, Jack lived his life true to himself and his beliefs and accepted and embraced anyone and everyone’s truth of their unique perspective of the world around him.

If you look closely at Kohne’s photos of Elizabeth Short, you will see that Kohne made some bizarre, primitive alterations.

Obviously, anybody who is making crude, bizarre changes to the photos of Elizabeth Short has a problem, no? Read this. Or try to read this:

Kohne gets super, super crazy about secret messages in the crackpot mail generated by the Black Dahlia case.

Somewhere along the way, Kohne derived the name “Ed Burns” out of these messages by anagramming it from “Maurice” as in “Maurice Clement.”

There was no Ed Burns. Ever. And yet “Ed Burns” gets enormous attention among armchair sleuths.

From one crackpot website, “Ed Burns” spread around the Internet and became part of the “hive mind” on the Black Dahlia.

Although some people are skeptical – or confused.

Note: I’m aware of Black Dahlia in Hollywood, but I’m not a member and would never go into it. 

But here is one of Kohne’s doctored images that you might recognize. Graphics editors of various websites and news outlets love this picture because it looks real. But it isn’t. Kohne took the original photograph, cropped it slightly and dropped it into a scan of the Daily News front page.

Here’s the real front page. I have had to make obnoxious watermarks on my images because people treat anything related to the Black Dahlia case as clip art. Websites, book covers, pretty much everywhere.

Perhaps you think you can detect all of Kohne’s B.S. and filter it out.

No, you can’t. Because one of the Kohne’s craziest ideas …

Are you ready for it?

Is that the killer left Elizabeth Short’s body on south Norton Avenue as a pointer (is this starting to sound familiar?)

To Degnan Boulevard … Why yes. You may recognize Kohne’s crackpot theory because it shows up in the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise! A crackpot theory is bad, sure, but what’s even worse is stealing someone else’s crackpot idea.

And it’s even in Wikipedia!

So no, your B.S. filter will not save you when crackpot theories show up on Wikipedia.

John Gilmore’s “Severed” was once the most popular book on the Black Dahlia case, although it was eclipsed by Steve Hodel’s seemingly endless series of “Black Dahlia Avenger” books.

You may Google “Black Dahlia” while you’re watching “I Am the Night.” Here’s more of what you should avoid.

The late John Gilmore (d. 2016) was a conman, grifter, b.s. artist and pathological liar. Nobody seems to remember him with anything but disgust and disdain aside from Anthony Mostrom, the author of a glowing eulogy in the L.A. Review of Books.  (Note: I had my own turn at Gilmore in LARB that made the exactly opposite point).

“Severed” is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction, as I have said countless times – always incurring Gilmore’s wrath. I was told that Gilmore hated me and I take that as a great compliment. The hatred of a pathological liar is the highest praise for a conscientious researcher.

Since BethShort.com was a repository for Gilmore’s Black Dahlia photos and writings, it’s most efficient to take them as a whole.

ALSO

Are There Any Good Black Dahlia Sites on the Internet? Oh Dear!

The Black Dahlia website BethShort.com in 1999, when it was the dominant Web resource on the case.

BethShort.com, run by Pamela Hazelton, was once the primary website on the Black Dahlia case, but went dark in 2016 after appeals for money to keep it going. The domain is up for sale and after being up in the thousands of dollars, the price has dropped to its current $477 on GoDaddy. (JohnGilmore.com went dark in 2017 and is for sale on GoDaddy for $900. Maybe someone can get a Black Dahlia twofer).

(Note: I clashed with Hazelton early on about her use of all Gilmore’s body shots and complained to her ISP, so the photos were taken down briefly, much to the temporary relief of Elizabeth Short’s family. This was in the early days of the Internet, when such matters were still unresolved. BethShort.com was a major vector of Gilmore’s Black Dahlia body pictures, which were heavily copied and used on keychains, totes, album covers, notebooks, T-shirts, etc. The merchandising of the Black Dahlia – like the “Living Dead Doll” series is really bizarre.)

Now that Gilmore is dead, with “Severed” eclipsed by the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise, and BethShort.com defunct, they are mostly notable for the lies they perpetrated, which have lived on.

I’ll bet you have heard at least one of these:

Gilmore and “Severed” were the source for the “Elizabeth Short worked at the Hollywood Canteen” story.

Gilmore and “Severed” were the source of the “Elizabeth Short was forced to eat feces” story.

Gilmore and “Severed” were the source of the “Elizabeth Short had infantile genitalia” story.

Gilmore and “Severed” were the source of the “Elizabeth Short traded oral sex for shoes” story.

All of them complete lies (welcome to the world of John Gilmore, liar par excellence).

Gilmore’s favorite technique for lying, which he used again and again in “Severed,” was to introduce two actual people, for example homicide Detectives Harry Hansen and Finis Brown, and then make up a third person accompanying them who was Gilmore’s supposed “source.”

The best example of Gilmore’s lying technique is his fictitious source on Elizabeth Short’s autopsy, when he introduces the entirely fictional Detective Herman Willis, who was supposedly at the autopsy with Hansen and Brown. This was impossible to confirm when Gilmore wrote “Severed” (1994) but the Los Angeles County district attorney’s files make a note of who attended the autopsy. Guess what. No HermanWillis. And nobody who could have been given the bogus name Herman Willis. The LAPD also stated that there was never a “Herman Willis” or “Willis Herman” on the force.

Another of Gilmore’s favorite techniques was to write to someone famous, like Gore Vidal, and say “Here’s a quote (or book jacket blurb) I’m going to attribute to you. I know you’re a busy person and all of that, so if I don’t hear back in, say, six months, I’ll just assume it’s OK to use this quote.”

The average person equipped with any sort of conscience or moral compass cannot imagine just how sleazy John Gilmore was.

Gilmore also pushed back hard unless you had concrete proof that he was lying. Then he just vanished. He used to claim that his father was an LAPD officer (true) who worked the Dahlia case (maybe knocked some doors during a neighborhood canvass, otherwise no). Gilmore was adamant about this until I produced an old L.A. Times story that said his father was a traffic officer (as you can tell from the uniform Gilmore Sr. is wearing in a photo in “Severed”) and showed a safety film at some event. Gilmore disappeared, without saying another word about his dad.

::

And guess what happens when a liar meets a liar. Because that’s what happened to Gilmore.

The “Elizabeth Short had infantile genitalia” story actually came from former Examiner reporter Will Fowler, who was another pathological liar (the Black Dahlia case seems to inspire extravagant lies). I spent a fair amount of time with Will over the years and eventually figured out just how much he was lying, using techniques that wouldn’t necessarily be noticed in a one-time interview. Will did it because he liked to “put one over on the competition,” for he considered the Black Dahlia his literary property, and also because he liked to feel superior to whomever he was talking to.

(Trivia note: Will Fowler was the one who made up the “Robert Slatzer was married to Marilyn Monroe for three days and the studios quashed it” story. Straight-up total lie.)

You will notice in the first edition of “Severed,” cover shown above, that the book is dedicated to Mary Pacios. You will also notice that Gilmore deleted her from later editions.  If you read Will Fowler’s book “Reporters” (also full of lies and other pitfalls for the unwary) you will get his take on Gilmore and Pacios.

Why is it so important to know the Gilmore’s lies and mistakes in “Severed” and BethShort.com?

Because they take on their own life and appear in what would seem to be credible books. What does FBI profiler John Douglas and co-author Mark Olshaker use in “The Cases That Haunt Us?” when examining the Black Dahlia case. You got it. “Severed.”

And, yes, these lies show up in Wikipedia.

Worked at the Hollywood Canteen…

Forced to eat feces…

Infantile genitalia…

Be wary, Black Dahlia novices, there are pitfalls everywhere. (Gosh, I seem to be getting some space in the Wikipedia entry. “Harnisch disputes” … “Harnisch denies” … “Harnisch claims” … In the early days of Wikipedia, everything I ever contributed was ruthlessly wiped out as “self-promotion” and “not neutral POV”)

Lucie Arnaz in “Who Is the Black Dahlia?”

“Inspired by a true story?” A painful lesson about Hollywood and the Black Dahlia.

In 1975, the murder of Elizabeth Short was the basis for the TV movie “Who Is the Black Dahlia?”

Under American law, dead people have no reputation and can’t be libeled, so the production could do whatever it wanted with Elizabeth Short.

At the time, several people were still alive, which was more of a problem – scriptwise.

A few of them agreed to sign releases, like Bevo Means, who is portrayed in the movie by the cherubic Tom Bosley, and Detective Harry Hansen, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Several of the more prominent people in the case refused to sign releases and were written out of the movie. That would be Elizabeth Short’s mother, Phoebe, and Robert M. “Red” Manley.

Let me emphasize that if people have signed away their rights to a story, or if they are dead, a Hollywood production can do whatever it wants, using their name. The old biopics did this all the time, like MGM’s “The Great Waltz.”

George Hodel died in 1999. Tamar Hodel died in 2015. Fauna Hodel died in 2017.

You can see where this is going with regards to “I Am the Night.”  I have not seen the mini-series, but there is no reason to believe any of them will be portrayed with any accuracy whatsoever.

“Inspired?” I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

The Short family rarely speaks on the record, but in 2003, they were so incensed by Steve Hodel’s “Black Dahlia Avenger” and his bogus claims of photos purportedly showing Elizabeth Short that they issued a public statement through me.

“The first thing I noticed was that [it] was definitely not Betty. She never wore flowers all over her head only one on her ear. She always loved Hawaii and I think it made her think of that and Dorothy Lamour.”

I occasionally scan the Web to see what’s out on the distant fringes of the Black Dahlia case. And wow. This is fringe.

Here we have a portrait of Elizabeth Short – post-mutilation – painted in the artist’s blood. Listed on EBay for $250. People never cease to amaze me in the ways they will try to cash in the Black Dahlia.

Jeanne French was found beaten and stomped to death Feb. 10 1947, almost a month after Elizabeth Short was killed. French died from a broken rib that punctured her heart. Heel prints were found on her chest and near her body, according to Los Angeles County district attorney’s files. The prints were identified as a man’s shoe, size 6 or 7, someone with unusually small feet. Dr. George Hodel had, according his family, much larger feet.

Many armchair sleuths and authors of crummy books on the Black Dahlia case (notably “Severed” and “Black Dahlia Avenger”) claim that the Black Dahlia and Jeanne French killings were related. The concise answer is no. The full analysis is much longer and reaches the same conclusion.

The takeaway is that George Hodel could not have killed Jeanne French because his feet were the wrong size. And he had no connection to Elizabeth Short and was not the Black Dahlia killer.

Period.

Aug. 8, 1998: A post on the old usenet alt.news-media by Janice Knowton was the first to publicly link Dr. George Hodel and the Black Dahlia case.

At this point, George Hodel was alive but would die in a bit less than a year. He was never publicly identified as a suspect – and certainly not a “prime suspect” before then, despite claims by the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise.

Knowlton killed herself in 2004, a year after “Black Dahlia Avenger” was published.

Here’s the link.

Today is Jan. 15, the anniversary of Elizabeth Short’s death. As is the custom, the Daily Mirror will be dark.

Trim your roses in her memory.

Black Dahlia breakthrough!

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

Let us suppose that there was a mathematician. A retired mathematician who once taught at a major university, who published and received tenure, and retired as a well-regarded member of the faculty.

Let us further suppose that in retirement, this mathematician wrote a book and on the day of publication called a news conference to announce his stunning discovery:

1 + 1 = 3.

The way the retired mathematician derived this amazing breakthrough was not through the typical methods that have been used for millennia. Instead, the mathematician had spent hours and hours gazing at photographs and paintings of the number “1” and the number “3.”

Until finally, seizing upon Salvador Dali’s surrealist painting “Persistence of Memory,” the mathematician found the proof he was seeking.

1 + 1 = 3. Don’t you see it?

To skeptics who insisted that he was wrong and that any child with a calculator could prove that 1 + 1 = 2, the mathematician would say that there was a vast, shadowy conspiracy among the calculator and adding machine cartels of the world, who were ruthlessly suppressing the facts. Indeed, much of the book was devoted to the massive “coverup” mounted by Texas Instruments, Casio, Hewlett-Packard and other office machine manufacturers to prevent anyone from learning the truth.

Once he embarked on his theory, the mathematician would go on to make other, similar discoveries: 2 + 2 = 5, therefore 2 x 2 = 5, thus rendering any number times itself an odd number. He capped his theory with the long-sought and elusive square root of –1, widely assumed to be an “imaginary” number, (or “Error” to the calculator and adding machine cartels determined to ruthlessly suppress the truth), which was 42.

Proof of the coverup by the calculator and adding machine cartels!

In the ensuing years, the mathematician built up elaborate theories about other mathematical concepts that were wrong, including the secret messages contained in five-place log tables, publishing more books, maintaining a website and delivering occasional public appearances about his increasingly complex theory, all of it based on 1 + 1 = 3 and the shadowy conspiracy of the calculator and adding machine cartels determined to suppress the truth.

The mathematician gained a number of followers, who likewise insisted that “I think he’s proved it!” and “Yes, 1 + 1 = 3.”  The supermarket media adored the mathematician, writing  headlines such as: “Math Prof Claims 1 + 1 = 3!” It was never necessary to interview anyone else about the validity of the theory. “Math Prof Claims 1 + 1 = 3” was sufficient. The mathematician  sold books (some of them self-published), gave lectures and all was well.

But not really, because 1 + 1 = 2 and any elementary school pupil who turned in 1 + 1 = 3 was marked wrong.

Black Dahlia breakthrough! Former homicide cop says dad was Black Dahlia killer!

Which brings us to the George “Evil Genius” Hodel Franchise.

Recently, author Steve Hodel has received publicity about “new evidence” in the Black Dahlia case.

Ignoring the problems of the “old evidence,” which is the foundation of everything that follows, including the “new evidence.”

And that is this: The photographs found in the belongings of Dr. George Hodel after his death – claimed in the “Black Dahlia Avenger” series to show Elizabeth Short – are not Elizabeth Short.

One might question the validity of the original assumption – that both photographs were of the same woman, and that woman was Elizabeth Short – when one of the women came forward and identified herself as Marya Marco.

The remaining and unidentified (at least for now) photo is likewise not Elizabeth Short. This is according to the family of Elizabeth Short, whom I consider definitive.

And if the spurious photo is removed, the entire George “Evil Genius” Hodel scenario collapses like a house of cards in a strong wind. Because without this spurious photo, there is nothing to show that Dr. George Hodel and Elizabeth Short ever met.

I have heard one of Steve Hodel’s presentations, and when confronted with this statement, he talked his way around it by saying that the photos  merely served to get him interested in the case and that it was irrelevant whether they were Elizabeth Short. But at that time he said he believed they were her.

The truth is that there is nothing to show that George Hodel and Elizabeth Short ever met.

In other words: George Hodel + Elizabeth Short = 0

Back in 2003, a few photos from Elizabeth Short’s scrapbook were sold on EBay for $7,611.11 Perhaps they look familiar. I archived the page (it has vanished from EBay, of course) to keep anybody from claiming that they found them in their dead father’s belongings. (Ahem).

In preparing for the launch of TNT’s “I Am the Night,” I thought it would be interesting to do a bit of research on Fauna Hodel. Just to see if she ever mentioned Dr. George Hodel earlier in her life.

I found a Nov. 24, 1990, feature in the Reno Gazette-Journal on “Pretty Hattie’s Baby,” which was being filmed on location in Reno. The film starred Alfre Woodard, Charles S. Dutton and Jill Clayburgh. For complicated reasons, it was never released.

In the feature story by Sandra Macias, Fauna Hodel calls her biological mother, Tamar, “the hippie of the year.”

And there isn’t a word about the Black Dahlia or Dr. George Hodel. Nada.

If you’re curious about whether “I Am the Night” is indeed “inspired by a true story,” I did a bit more digging into the tale of Fauna Hodel and her unfinished film “Pretty Hattie’s Baby” (spoiler alert – there’s nothing about the Black Dahlia or Dr. George Hodel).

“Pretty Hattie’s Baby” was filmed in Reno in 1990. When the shoot finished, the Reno Gazette-Journal published a letter from Fauna “Pat” Hodel thanking the city for being so generous to the cast and crew.

But on Sept. 17, 1992, the Gazette-Journal reported that the $7.5-million film was never finished because of “litigations and financial problems.” The story by Sandra Macias said that the legal problems were settled, but that Fauna Hodel was trying to raise $3 million to finish the movie herself. Fauna said that two days of filming remained, plus two months for editing.

On June 3, 1996, the Honolulu Advertiser reported that Fauna Hodel was staging “Working the Dream: The Fauna Hodel Story,” which featured her and some friends as well as clips from the unfinished film.

Again, no mention of the Black Dahlia or Dr. George Hodel.

Retired LAPD Capt. Ed Jokisch , who was in the Homicide Division in the 1940s, fought back against the claims in Steve Hodel’s “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise until his death in 2011. This letter from former Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay agrees with Jokisch that there was no coverup by the LAPD.

I’m posting this now because TNT’s “I Am the Night” may raise questions about LAPD complicity in the Black Dahlia case. If you are new to the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise, Kay supported Steve Hodel’s case against his father, Dr. George Hodel. But even Kay thought Steve Hodel was going too far in claiming a massive LAPD coverup.

The letter was originally published on the “Warning Bells” blog of Gary Ingemunson, the independent counsel for the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

Before TNT airs “I Am the Night,” (“inspired by a true story,”) I’m digging for references to Fauna Hodel, George Hodel and the Black Dahlia. So far, it’s not going well..

On June 2, 1976, the Nevada State Journal published a story about Fauna that says she tracked down “her natural mother and found her — in Hawaii. ‘I also found some new brothers I didn’t know I had,’ she added. It was a pleasant meeting and they correspond occasionally. And her curiosity is satisfied.”

In a later story, Fauna would describe Tamar Hodel as “the hippie of the year.”

What she apparently did not find is anything about her grandfather George Hodel or the Black Dahlia. And Fauna’s unfinished 1990 biopic also didn’t mention the Black Dahlia or George Hodel.

Maybe we should call “I Am the Night” “inspired by a new story.”

The FBI file perpetuates the error that Elizabeth Short’s middle name was “Ann.” She had no middle name.

Note: This item was originally posted on lmharnisch.com in 2005.

Here’s a quick guide to the most frequent errors made in writing about the murder of Elizabeth Short:

Myth: Her name was Elizabeth Ann Short.

Fact: Her mother testified at the inquest that she had no middle name.

Origin: A Los Angeles Times story in the 1970s erroneously added a middle name, which now appears in seemingly reputable sources on Los Angeles history. To add the semblance of authenticity, the middle name has even made its way into her FBI file. Whenever you hear someone call her Elizabeth Ann (like “Black Dahlia Avenger”) you can be sure they don’t know what they are talking about. A headline with the same story erroneously said there were hundreds of confessors. As the story says, there were hundreds of suspects.

Myth: The newspapers nicknamed the case.

Fact: Elizabeth Short got the “Black Dahlia” nickname in a Long Beach drugstore. The Los Angeles Herald-Express tried to nickname the case the “Werewolf Murder,” but dropped it after several days.

The Los Angeles Herald-Express tries to nickname the murder of Elizabeth Short the “Werewolf” killing.

Myth: She was a lesbian.

Fact: She disliked homosexuals, according to a report to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.

Origin: In trying to determine how she survived for a week without her luggage or any change of clothing, the original detectives  theorized that she had been with a woman and from that, guessed that she had been killed as part of a lesbian love triangle. The idea that lesbians are murderous degenerates certainly reflects the thinking of the 1940s.

Myth: She worked at the Hollywood Canteen.

Fact: The Hollywood Canteen closed in 1945, while Elizabeth Short didn’t get to Los Angeles until late July or early August 1946, according to a time line of her life prepared by the district attorney’s office, among many other sources.

Origin. “Severed” claims that Elizabeth Short worked at the Hollywood Canteen  as part of its attempt to link this killing to the 1944 murder of Georgette Bauerdorf.

The claim in “Severed” that she met Gordon Fickling at the Hollywood Canteen is even more ridiculous. As an officer, Fickling wouldn’t have been allowed inside because it was strictly for enlisted men, as any photo of the front will prove. (The sign above the door said: For Service Men.”) As I say many times throughout this Web site, “Severed” is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction. For the record, when I interviewed Fickling in 1996, he said they met in Florida.

Myth: She lived at the Alto Nido Apartments

Fact: The original newspaper accounts identified three places Elizabeth Short lived in Hollywood: The home of Mark Hansen at 6024 Carlos Ave. (demolished), the Hawthorn Hotel  on Orange Drive (demolished) and the Chancellor Apartments at 1842 N. Cherokee (still there).  I have identified two other locations where she stayed briefly, but since they have never been publicly identified, I’m withholding them for my book.

Origin. This relatively new myth appears in “California Babylon.” Since she couldn’t afford $1 a night for a bunk bed at the Cherokee, I can’t imagine how anyone would think she lived at the Alto Nido.

“Famous” people who actually lived at the Alto Nido, 6350 Franklin Ave., include the prolific, obscure screenwriter Eugene Walter, who died there in 1941; building manager Burt Berry, who died there of acute alcoholism in 1937 at the age of  48; Bunco artist Roy Kirkham in 1938;  Harry Michael, a witness in the 1944 fatal shooting of Hollywood figure Harry Lucenay (trainer of Pete the bulldog in the “Our Gang” comedies) over allegations of a crooked card game;  actress Collette Lyons (you may remember her as the telephone operator in “Return to Peyton Place”), whose nylons (a rationed item) were stolen there in  1945; and my favorite, Lila Leeds, who took an overdose of sleeping pills there in 1948, a few months before being arrested with Robert Mitchum for possession of marijuana at her house in Laurel Canyon.

Myth: She was a regular at the Snow White Waffle Shop, the bar at the Biltmore Hotel,  the Spanish Kitchen and just about every other restaurant in old Los Angeles

Fact: Except for one or two places, nobody knows for sure where she ate her meals. The laundry lists of restaurants that appear on the Web are–at best–nothing but fantasy and wishful thinking with absolutely no supporting proof. The amusing thing is that the few places where she was definitely placed by investigators are never mentioned in these lists.

Myth: She was a prostitute.

Fact:  The final report to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury states that she was not a prostitute.

Origin: Although this myth is deeply entrenched in the public imagination, it is relatively recent. Accounts as late as Jack Webb’s “The Badge” (a fairly flawed account in its own right) portray her as a drifter, con artist and tease, but it isn’t until the 1970s, with “True Confessions” that Elizabeth Short is first cast as a prostitute.

Myth: Her body was found at 39th and Norton or at 3925 S. Norton Ave.

Fact: The body was found on South Norton Avenue halfway between 39th Street and Coliseum, 54 feet north of the fire hydrant, according to the coroner’s inquest.

Origin: The mislocation of the crime scene appeared quite early, presumably because it’s easier to say “39th and Norton” than “Norton between 39th and Coliseum.”  While this may seem like a trivial distinction, I hate to think of all the tourists who come to L.A. to see where the body was found and visit the wrong spot. “California Babylon” inexplicably places the body a block away and includes a picture of the house at that address. How the authors could be that far off is truly amazing.

Myth: William Randolph Fowler of the Los Angeles Examiner was the first reporter at the crime scene.

Fact: Based on a lengthy analysis of crime scene photos, I believe Will was probably one of the last reporters to arrive, just as Aggie Underwood said. The photograph he always used as proof (the one that appeared on the front page of the Examiner) was cropped to eliminate the fender of a car that is visible in the full image.

Origin: Will Fowler adamantly insisted for years that he was the first reporter on the scene, and told a  long, dramatic story of encountering the first police officers (who drew their guns, of course) of rushing back to the Examiner, which put out an extra, and returning to the crime scene to fool the competition so they wouldn’t realize they had been scooped. He claimed that he had another photo of himself with the body, but that it had “disappeared.” Even I fell for this one. It’s impossible to state with 100% certainty since I wasn’t there, but to the best of my knowledge, the first reporter on the scene was most likely Marvin Miles of the Los Angeles Times, based on the position of the shadows in the photos and the other people who are present. .

Myth: The killer washed her hair, dyed her hair or gave her a makeover.

Fact: Her hair had been hennaed and was growing out so the roots showed.

Origin:  This myth appeared in one of the Los Angeles newspapers within two weeks  of her death, then  vanished for many years until it resurfaced in various crime books.

Myth: She was covered with cigarette burns.

Fact: False. There were no cigarette burns.

Origin: A few weeks after the killing, a teenage  girl disappeared and  then returned home, claiming to have escaped from her abductor. To bolster her story, she burned herself with a cigarette, all of which was reported in the Los Angeles newspapers.

Myth: She was strangled.

Fact: False. Although the body showed restraint marks around her wrists, neck and ankles, the coroner’s inquest says Elizabeth Short died of shock and loss of blood. 

Myth: She was hacked in half.

Fact: Her bisection was a clean, professional job, according to one investigator who was at the crime scene. In sworn testimony before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, Detective Harry Hansen said he believed the bisection was done by “a very fine surgeon.”

Origin: This is one of the claims in “Severed.”

Myth: She was forced to eat feces.

Fact: The fecal material found in her stomach was from the natural digestion of food and a result of her being cut in half, according to doctors and investigators I have interviewed.

Origin: Still another claim from “Severed,” attributed to a nonexistent LAPD detective.

Myth: She was disemboweled, her ovaries were “switched,”  etc. etc.

Fact: Her body was mutilated, cut in half and drained of blood, but all her internal organs were present, as the coroner’s inquest shows.

Myth: She had a last drink at the Biltmore bar before vanishing to meet her grisly fate.

Fact: Elizabeth Short didn’t drink except for perhaps the last month or two of her life (her autopsy showed a very slight presence of liquor). Her alleged sighting in the Biltmore’s bar is nothing by P.R. hype, unsubstantiated by any official reports whatsoever.

If you’re watching “I Am the Night”  on TNT, you may be tempted to read the Wikipedia entry on “evil” Dr. George Hodel.

Here are a few warnings:

Do you remember what Wikipedia says about no self-promotion? And “neutral point of view?”

Oh dear.

So here’s one of the big lies in Wikipedia’s entry on George Hodel. Dr. George Hodel was never friends with Man Ray. How do we know? Here:

And here’s another good one:

This is the exact opposite of what happened. In a Feb. 20, 1951, report, Frank Jemison noted interviews and other evidence on George Hodel “tend to eliminate this suspect.”

Or in simple language, a lie. One of Steve Hodel’s many, many lies about his father. Spread on Wikipedia.

How long before some citizen-editor corrects this on Wikipedia? How about never? Yes, never sounds about right.

I have already shared this on Twitter but I thought I would post it here as well.

This is an example of Steve Hodel’s amazing detective work on his father, Dr. George Hodel. Steve evidently cannot tell when he is looking at records for a ship or an airplane..

I already posted this on Twitter, but here it is for the Daily Mirror readers.

Sam Sheridan’s portrayal of hotshot/disgraced reporter Jay Singletary (a tousled Chris Pine, who loses his shirt a lot) is utter b.s. Here’s why:

Jay’s backstory is that he was supposedly hired by the Los Angeles Times at the age of 18. Evidently Sheridan has never read a news story by an 18-year-old reporter. Shakespeare, it ain’t.

In this sequence of “I Am the Night,” Jay puts on a white coat (which he keeps in the trunk of his car, like all good reporters would do) to sneak into the morgue. In real life, any reporter who did this would be fired because its unethical and anything you obtained would be unusable. Plus in the 1960s, reporters had much more access than they do today. They wouldn’t need to sneak into the morgue.

Once Jay gets into the morgue, he begins frantically snapping pictures of a murder victim.

OK, so now we ask:

Why is Jay frantically taking pictures of a murder victim when there isn’t any paper in L.A. (or maybe in the country) that would use them? Does Sheridan think that newspapers routinely ran morgue shots of a murder victims? Recall that morgue shots of Elizabeth Short were heavily retouched and were only published to help identify her. Once she was identified they weren’t published again.

Also.

Why is Jay, a reporter, taking pictures? That’s what photographers do, right?

You know what kind of a job an 18-year-old could get at a newspaper? Copy boy, like David Nelson in “Thirty.” Not star reporter.

And finally, Jay is beaten up by a cop.

During the day.

In the Civic Center.

And decides he isn’t going to report it.

There are so many things wrong with this that it’s hard to know where to begin. Cops beating up a reporter would be viewed as an attack on all newsmen and would get a HUGE response in all of the papers. When the LAPD roughed up a photographer covering the famous wreck of the San Diegan in the 1950s, there was so much protest that Chief William Parker appointed the first public information officer, Inspector Ed Walker.

And now I have to stop before my head explodes.

“Inspired by a True Story?” What?