Because so many people are using Zoom to connect in these uncertain times, I thought it would be interesting to host a series of Zoom sessions on the Black Dahlia.

I envision weekly meetings with a fairly small group, maybe five or six to keep it manageable, intended primarily for people in law enforcement or teaching police science, working in the justice system, working in or teaching forensics, and that kind of thing.

The goal is a serious discussion and evaluation of all aspects of the murder, based on original news accounts, various public documents and that sort of thing. The one thing it will not be is a festival of snuff pictures or juicy tidbits for crime show producers, tour operators and podcast hosts (especially the ones who rip off my voice without permission – you know who you are).

The sessions are tentatively planned for Wednesday afternoons or evenings starting April 29. Email me if you are interested.

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

May 31, 1907
Los Angeles

In one Memorial Day observance, Col. James H. Davidson of Pasadena addresses the crowd at Memorial Hall.

He says, in part: “Another decade or two and taps will have sounded and lights will be out for the entire muster roll of Civil War veterans. Let us see who made possible the perpetuity of the Union, who fought its battles and upheld the flag, who filled the ranks, who rushed to the rescue, who died on sea and land that our great nation might survive.

“It was the men behind the guns, the private soldiers and sailors of the Civil War. Their valor, their heroism, their endurance, made possible those brilliant names of generals and admirals that blaze on the pages of our country’s history.”

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

I have a longstanding aversion to podcasts, especially “true crime” podcasts and particularly when it comes to “true crime” podcasts about the Black Dahlia. “The Murder Squad,” with Billy Jensen and retired Detective Paul Holes, released an episode earlier this week on the Black Dahlia and I thought that Holes, given his outstanding work on the Golden State Killer, might have some worthwhile insight on the case. I won’t make that mistake again.

Executive summary: Lots of bad information from Billy Jensen scraped off the Internet. Paul Holes scans the incomplete medical report included in the inquest,  looks over some morgue shots from the Internet and comes up with the wild claim that Elizabeth Short’s mouth was slashed so she could perform oral sex on the killer and that she asphyxiated while performing oral copulation. Don’t waste your time on this or risk your head exploding .

Caveat: I got through the ad for hair dye, but quit listening at the 46-minute mark when Holes got into the “asphyxiated while performing oral copulation” stuff. I am also not linking to the podcast because I don’t want to spread its misinformation any further.

I generally put the term “true crime” in quotes because as a rule so very little of “true crime” is actually true. The genre, whether it’s blog posts or sleazy books, makes a minimum effort at original research and a maximum use of lurid speculation. The TV shows, and I’ve done about 20 of them now, tend to be surprisingly well researched, the exceptions being when the producer jumps on the “George Hodel: Evil Genius” train.

In my limited experience, podcasts – and they are incredibly popular — can be the worst offenders when it comes to “true crime.” Exhibit 1 being BuzzFeed’s murder bros, Ryan Bergara and his sidekick du jour. Otherwise, they all have similar names: “My Funniest Murders,” “Madcap Murders and Drunk Soccer Moms” and “Bloodshed and Two-Buck Chuck.”

This is particularly true of two ladies (you know who you are) who giggle a lot about crime and use my voice without permission. Ladies, I’m pretty sure I didn’t sign a release for you to use my voice and imply that I gave you an interview. Knock it off.

Podcasts like “Madcap Murders and Drunk Soccer Moms” generally go like this:

Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc

Intro (raucous laughter) We’re not (hahaha) making fun (hahahah) of murder victims (hahahahah). No, we’re not (hahahahahahah).

Content read directly from Wikipedia. Groaner puns: “That part always makes me go to PIECES! hahahahah”

Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc.

Content read directly from Wikipedia. More groaner puns: “You’re killing me here! hahahahah.”

Wrapup (more laughter)

Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc.

Which is why I never listen to them. Until now.

The biggest fault with “The Murder Squad’s” presentation on the Black Dahlia is the poor research that went into the show. I gather that several shows were done rather hurriedly because Paul Holes is having surgery. So perhaps in the interest of pumping out a lot of episodes, research was the first victim.

But whoever did the research, whether it was Billy Jensen or someone who fed “facts” to Jensen, scooped up whatever they could find and passed it along without the slightest skepticism.

The chronology of Elizabeth Short’s life as rendered by “Murder Squad” was full of mistakes. And then the topper: Jensen falls for Steve Hodel’s claim that “hemicorporectomy” (cutting a person in half as a lifesaving measure) was a medical procedure taught in the 1930s.

Sorry, but it was introduced after the killing of Elizabeth Short. I’m no fan of Wikipedia, but even two minutes with Wikipedia will raise enough doubts to indicate further research or just scrap that claim. Unless you’re in a hurry to pump out a lot of episodes.

So for the historical gaffes, Jensen gets a D-minus.

Which brings us to Holes – and if it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have even listened to the podcast. I would give him a C-minus or D-plus.

I will preface this by repeating that I only listened to the first 46 minutes of the podcast because that’s all I could take without my head exploding. Holes was hampered by incomplete information and having nothing more than Internet pictures of Elizabeth Short’s body.

As such, you might think he would defer to the views of the medical examiner, the head of the LAPD crime lab who was at the crime scene and attended the autopsy, and the original detectives who examined the body and attended the autopsy.

You would be wrong. As far as Holes is concerned, the medical examiner misused several terms, probably didn’t bother to perform some procedures, and generally the autopsy was a haphazard examination because what do you expect for the dark ages of 1947, when people were still living in mud huts? Holes’ arrogance toward the past is a little hard to take, frankly. I will say it again: The Black Dahlia case was a state-of-the-art investigation for 1947. The LAPD might not have had the advanced technology we have today, but the lead detectives were seasoned investigators and the department excelled at one veteran called “basic gumshoeing.”

Dr. Frederick Newbarr, a prominent pathologist of his day, attributed Elizabeth Short’s death to “hemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain and lacerations of the face.”

And Holes goes in a completely different direction. I didn’t listen to enough of the podcast to find out if he went the “serial killer” route, but he laid the groundwork by talking about the “triad” of serial killers. And he surprised my by saying that the killing of Elizabeth Short was the work of a sexual sadist. (Retired FBI profiler John Douglas classifies the killing as a “lust murder” and I invite anyone who’s curious about that to do further research).

Cutting the body in half? Newbarr, the head of the crime lab and the original detectives – who viewed the body – all said it was a clean professional job. Holes thinks anybody with a knife could do it, no problem. Easy peasy.

Washing the body? Holes accepts the common view that the body was washed and scrubbed for transportation. But he then speculates that the killer might have been like Ted Bundy, cleaning up the body to continue having sex with it.

Holes says that the slashes in Elizabeth Short’s mouth were so that she couldn’t refuse oral sex and that she died, not from the causes given by Newbarr, but from asphyxiation while performing oral copulation on the killer.

And at that point, I quit listening to keep my head from exploding.

Based on part of one episode, it looks like “The Murder Squad” is just another fly-by-night, poorly researched program, with some bizarre takes by a retired homicide detective. I had a lot of respect for Paul Holes until now, but I have to say, a profiler he is not.

I decided to randomly surf Wikipedia this morning and I’m never disappointed with how bad it is. Example: Some bozo has restored Jacob Edward Fisk as a “suspect” in the Black Dahlia case. Fisk’s name was added as a prank in 2009 and has become hopelessly embedded in the case.

Note: This encore post from 2018 is still timely. Alas.

Somewhere, somebody is already thinking about a Black Dahlia costume for Halloween, so here is my annual reminder: Dressing up like the victim of a grotesque murder is not the look you want. Please rethink your choices. Thanks.

UC Irvine professor Miles Corwin, an old friend from the L.A. Times, spent months interviewing me about the Black Dahlia case. Here is Miles’ deep dive, published in the Delacorte Review, into my decades-long journey exploring the life and death of Elizabeth Short. It’s also been published on Crime Reads.

The Los Angeles Mirror-News, Dec. 23, 1949.

Today is the anniversary of a jury of eight women and four men finding Dr. George Hodel not guilty on two counts of molesting his daughter Tamar. I’ll have more to say about this in the days to come, but I wanted to mark the day.

Steve Hodel is fond of quoting an incomplete transcript of defense attorney Robert A. Neeb Jr. interrogating Tamar.

On the jump, the entire exchange, which tells a different story.

Los Angeles Daily News

December 17, 1949

Remember Jury Instructions 101: What attorneys say during a trial is not evidence. Only a witness’ testimony is evidence.

Neeb asked Tamar Hodel if she told Joe Barrett: “This house has secret passages. My father is the murderer of the Black Dahlia. My father is going to kill me and all the rest of the members of this household because he has a lust for blood. He is insane.”

Neeb’s question is not evidence, as much as Steve Hodel would like it to be.

Her reply, however IS evidence: “Tamar said she couldn’t remember any such thing.”

Again, what Neeb said isn’t evidence: “Didn’t she remember, the defense attorney persisted, telling her stepbrother Duncan Hodel and another youth in the family home last September: ‘If I’m not allowed to do what I want I’ll get even with that _____ (her father). I’m going to say that on a certain night I had sex relations with my father. I know it isn’t true, but the cops won’t.’ ”

However, this IS evidence: “The girl’s response was an indignant ‘No.’ ”

As longtime readers know, I always begin a new year with an annual donation in memory of Elizabeth Short to Heading Home, which works with the homeless in the Boston area. Partly because of my research on Elizabeth Short, I try to make the issue of homelessness a continuing theme of the Daily Mirror.

I donate to an agency in the Boston area because of Elizabeth Short’s connections there, but Los Angeles also has a severe, chronic problem with homelessness and there are many local agencies that welcome donations. I recently visited Hollywood and saw camps of homeless people along the exit ramp from the northbound 101 onto Hollywood Boulevard and along the Walk of Fame. Men pushing shopping carts. Women cowering in doorways of buildings that are boarded up or closed with roll-down shutters that are tagged.

I believe people will find helping the homeless more meaningful in the long term than, for example, leaving a bottle of liquor and some cigarettes at her grave, especially since Elizabeth Short didn’t smoke and rarely drank.

My Page 1 story on the Black Dahlia case. Now behind the Los Angeles Times pay wall. The full version of the story (expanded by two-thirds) is available on my old, old website.

The anniversary of Elizabeth Short’s murder, coming up Friday, always promotes a flurry of retrospectives on the 1947 Black Dahlia case. The stories are typically scraped off the Internet by reporters dashing off stories who rarely venture beyond Wikipedia.

A few guidelines to avoid the more common mistakes:

The Victim

–She was not Elizabeth Ann Short. She had no middle name. She sometimes went by Beth, sometimes by Betty or Bette.

–Elizabeth Short was nicknamed the Black Dahlia at a drugstore in Long Beach that she patronized in the summer of 1946, not by newspapers after the killing. The killing was nicknamed by the Los Angeles Herald-Express as “the Werewolf Murder,” which did not catch on.

–Elizabeth Short lived with her father, Cleo, in Los Angeles for a few weeks in January 1943 before she left for Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg AFB).

–She arrived in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area by bus in late July 1946 and stayed until December 1946, when she went to San Diego, returning in early January 1947.

–Elizabeth Short was not an aspiring actress. She was essentially homeless at the end of her life.

–Elizabeth Short did not have “infantile genitalia.”

–Elizabeth Short was not a prostitute.

–Elizabeth Short was not a lesbian.

–Elizabeth Short did not smoke – she had asthma – and generally did not drink alcohol.

–Elizabeth Short did not exclusively wear black outfits.

–Elizabeth Short was last seen in the old lobby of the Biltmore Hotel now called the Rendezvous Court. There is nothing to connect her to the Hotel Cecil or any other location except folklore.

–Nobody knows where she went after the left the Biltmore. Stories that she went to the Crown Jewel Cocktail Lounge were thoroughly investigated and eliminated.

–No one knows where she was from when she left the Biltmore on Jan. 9, 1947, to when she was found Jan. 15, 1947. Many people came forward with purported sightings, but all of them were investigated by the police and eliminated.

The actual front page of the Daily News of Jan. 15, 1947, contrasted with the altered front page floating around the Internet.

The Killing

–Elizabeth Short’s body was found Jan. 15, 1947, in a vacant lot in Leimert Park by a young woman wheeling her daughter in a stroller en route to a shoe repair shop. They were not “out for a walk.” The daughter was not a willful, disobedient child who failed to mind her mother and discovered the body. The girl never saw the body.

–Google maps has the wrong location for the crime scene and I’m not going to correct it. So much for the wisdom of the Web.

–Examiner reporter Will Fowler was not the first reporter on the scene (even I fell for this one). Among the first reporters to arrive were Aggie Underwood of the Herald-Express, Sid Hughes of the Los Angeles Examiner and Marvin Miles of the Los Angeles Times, along with photographers for those papers.

–The body was mutilated, drained of blood, cut in half with surgical precision, washed and scrubbed with a brush. The killer did not henna her hair or give her a makeover.

–Detective Harry Hansen, quoting medical examiner Dr. Frederick Newbarr, called Elizabeth Short’s bisection “a fine bit of surgery” and “a clean, professional job.”

–The term “Glasgow Smile,” often used to describe the slashes to her mouth, did not exist in 1947. The term is a 2007 contamination from Wikipedia.

The Investigation

–A rewrite man from the Examiner called Phoebe Short and claimed that her daughter won a beauty contest, then said Elizabeth Short had been murdered. Phoebe Short didn’t believe the call until police in Medford, Mass., arrived to convey the news in person.

–The killer mailed an envelope of items from Elizabeth Short’s purse to the Los Angeles Examiner. The letter was addressed with letters cut out of a newspaper. Original investigators believed that only the first letter – with her belongings – was authentic. The rest, and there were many of them, were considered pranks, a relatively common practice in the 1940s.

–Police considered everyone who knew Elizabeth Short as potential suspects who had to be eliminated. Detectives interviewed thousands of people. Men and women confessed to the killing. All were eliminated.

–The LAPD conducted a state-of-the-art investigation (for 1947) of the Black Dahlia case. Some parts of the investigation involved hundreds of officers from the LAPD, Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol.

–The Black Dahlia murder was not a serial killing. The original investigators were familiar with the phenomenon, then known by such terms as “chain murders.” The investigators looked for similar murders, like the Cleveland torso killings, and determined they were unrelated. The Black Dahlia murder is one of a kind.

Suspect: Leslie Dillon

–In 1949, self-styled police psychiatrist Dr. J. Paul De River conducted a rogue investigation of the Black Dahlia murder using members of the Gangster Squad, bypassing the lead detectives and the homicide division. The inquiry violated all standards of best practices and procedures, and ignored the appropriate chain of command.

–De River’s rogue investigation of Leslie Dillon, a fiasco for the LAPD, resulted in a grand jury investigation of the Black Dahlia case.

Dist. Atty’s Lt. Frank Jemison’s report on Leslie Dillon, Nov. 23, 1949. According to this report “P.D.” rather than the widely reported “B.D.” was written on Jeanne French’s body.

–Dr. River’s suspect, Leslie Dillon, was in San Francisco when Elizabeth Short was murdered, as determined by an exhaustive investigation.

–Leslie Dillon was in Oklahoma when he supposedly robbed a hotel in Santa Monica, thus Oklahoma officials refused to extradite him to California.

–There was no connection between Leslie Dillon and nightclub executive Mark Hansen.

–Mark Hansen had no connection to whatever minimal “organized crime” might have existed in Los Angeles at that time.

–The Aster / Astor Motel on South Flower Street was thoroughly examined by police. Nothing was found to indicate Elizabeth Short was killed there or had ever been there.

Suspect: Dr. George Hodel

–Dr. George Hodel had no connection to Elizabeth Short.

–Dr. George Hodel was never a “prime suspect” in the Black Dahlia case. He was put under surveillance from Feb. 18, 1950, to March 27, 1950, and then eliminated.

Dist. Atty. Lt. Frank Jemison’s final report on the Black Dahlia case. “All of which tend to eliminate this suspect [Dr. George Hodel].”

–Dr. George Hodel was never suspected of killing his secretary, who committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills in 1945. Nor was he suspected of killing Jeanne French in 1947 nor Louise Springer in 1949.

–Dr. George Hodel had minimal surgical training – just enough to graduate from medical school. He had no admitting privileges at any hospital in Los Angeles and was not accredited by the American College of Surgeons. Without this accreditation, Dr. Hodel would not have been allowed to operate at any hospital.

–Hemicorportectomy, bisecting a patient at the lower spine, was hypothesized in 1947 but never performed until 1960. This radical procedure was not taught in medical school in the 1930s.

–Dr. George Hodel specialized in public health, particularly STDs. His clients were poor Blacks living in Little Tokyo, renamed Bronzeville, during World War II, not the wealthy elite of Los Angeles.

–In 1949, Tamar Hodel accused her father and 19 boys at Hollywood High School of having sex with her.

–Dr. George Hodel was neither rich nor influential, and took out a loan on his house to cover his legal expenses when accused of molesting his daughter Tamar.

–A jury of eight women and four men found Dr. George Hodel not guilty of molesting his daughter Tamar. Numerous witnesses, including Tamar’s mother and grandmother, said she had been a “pathological liar” for many years and prone to making up fictional stories about sex. All of them said they would not believe her even under oath.

–Dr. George Hodel did not flee to escape prosecution in the Black Dahlia case. His reputation was so ruined after being accused of molesting his daughter – even though he was found not guilty – that he had to go to Hawaii (then a U.S. territory) to find a job. The LAPD could have extradited him to Los Angeles if it wanted to.

Random Allegations of Dirty Cops

–Dr. J. Paul De River conducted a rogue investigation of the Black Dahlia murder using members of the Gangster Squad, bypassing the lead detectives and the homicide division. The inquiry violated all standards of protocol and ignored the chain of command.

–De River’s rogue investigation of Leslie Dillon, a fiasco for the LAPD, resulted in a grand jury investigation of the Black Dahlia case.

–The 1948 Brenda Allen prostitution ring scandal involved members of the vice squad, not the homicide division. The original homicide detectives remained on the case for years. Harry Hansen, one of the lead detectives, was in charge of the case until he retired in 1968.

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.

An EBay vendor has listed a sign from South Norton Avenue with an asking price of $500, stating that:

Elizabeth Short, the infamous Black Dahlia was found brutally murdered, severed in two, just down the street from where this sign was posted.

Street numbers in Los Angeles start at 1st Street, on the south side of City Hall, so 600 South Norton is at 6th Street. Which means that 39th Street is 3.6 miles away. Not “just down the street” even under the most generous interpretation. It’s just plain old flea market flimflam.

Executive summary: A story in Entertainment Weekly looks at the 1949 disappearance of bit actress Jean Spangler. The author lists purported suspects, including Dr. George Hodel, whom Steve Hodel has accused of countless unsolved killings, including the Black Dahlia, and of being Zodiac. Newspaper accounts from the time show that when Jean Spangler disappeared, George Hodel had just been arrested on charges of molesting his daughter Tamar and held in the County Jail on $5,000 bond pending his preliminary hearing.

Interested? Read on, as I expose even more of Steve Hodel’s lies…

Jean Spangler	Elizabeth Short

“Spangler bore a striking resemblance to Black Dahlia victim Elizabeth Short.”

Uh-oh. This is not a good sign. Either the writer is stretching to make a point or never looked at a photo of Elizabeth Short.  

In an Entertainment Weekly feature story brimming with Los Angeles tropes (mandatory references to the “City of Angels” and evil “lurking among the fragrant orange groves and endless sunshine,”) Maureen Lee Lenker takes a long look at Jean Spangler’s 1949 disappearance.

Spangler’s story is, naturally, the occasion for one of the biggest Los Angeles tropes: The naive, ambitious, star-struck girl who comes to a bad end in Tinsel Town, the foolish moth burned by the Hollywood flame, a beautiful young woman who in death finds the fame that she so very desperately wanted in life. Cue the mournful trumpet, rainy nighttime streets and hard-edged narration by A.J. Benza or Robert Stack.

But then comes the next trope, popular in film noir: the mysterious, powerful Mr. Big, a man of pure evil who lives in a strange house and exerts weird powers over the police and public officials.

Enter Dr. George Hodel, now more fiction than fact, thanks to Steve Hodel’s tireless campaign to turn his father into a criminal mastermind – and cash cow.

In reality, George Hodel was eliminated as a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. But Lenker, alas, is no match for Steve Hodel’s usual lies.

::

Dist.Atty’s Lt. Frank Jemison’s final report on George Hodel: “See supplemental reports, long [log?] sheets and hear recordings, all of which tend to eliminate this suspect.”

In reality, Dr. George Hodel’s home was bugged by the LAPD from Feb. 18 to March 27, 1950, and he was eliminated as a suspect in the murder of Elizabeth Short. But you won’t hear that from the George Hodel franchise.

The George Hodel files Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 |Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36

The transcripts are online if you care to read them – and without Steve Hodel’s cherry-picking.

Like this: “Had trouble with one spool.”

Which becomes this: “I’m in trouble.”

::

So this is the kind of source a writer is dealing with in Steve Hodel. He lies all the time about everything, and he gets a pass from Lenker.

Here are some more lies:

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s material says absolutely nothing about the disappearance of Jean Spangler. There is material on the Jeanne French and Gladys Kern murders in the district attorney’s files, but nothing about Jean Spangler.

Followed by even more of Steve Hodel’s lies.

George Hodel was never a suspect in the death of his secretary – she committed suicide. Here’s her death certificate.

Suicide.

Steve Hodel also likes to claim that his father performed abortions.

Once again, we know the claims are false. Who says so? Duncan Hodel, Steve Hodel’s half brother, testifying in George Hodel’s trial on charges of molesting Tamar Hodel.

Duncan [Hodel] said Tamar once told him she was pregnant and wanted an abortion, but her father wouldn’t let her go through with it ‘because he’s death on abortions.’

But there is more…

Pro tip: Dr. Leslie Audrain died in May 1949, so he probably wasn’t heading an abortion ring in October 1949. This is the sort of lying you can expect from Steve Hodel and the lack of fact-checking all too common with most reporters.

And then Steve Hodel goes into the whole Buster the Cadaver Dog story, which is too long to recount here. Arpad Vass – after years of delays – said soil samples

“came up positive for human remains”

but he added:

I would say probably between maybe 20 and 100 years.

“Probably between maybe?” That’s so vague as to be useless.

::

And here’s where Steve Hodel’s claims about his father collide, requiring some fancy footwork.

Jean Spangler disappeared on the evening of Friday, Oct. 7, 1949.

And where was Dr. George Hodel? He was under arrest Oct. 7, 1949, and held in the County Jail on $5,000 bond, pending a preliminary hearing Oct. 14, 1949.

Before we go on, let’s ask:

Why is this purported criminal mastermind so powerful that he can murder with impunity, but not so powerful that he can’t be placed under arrest?

And why is this purported criminal mastermind not so powerful that he has to make bail, set at $5,000 (almost $55,000 in today’s money)?

And why is this purportedly rich, powerful criminal mastermind so lacking in influence that the LAPD can bug his house?

And why, during the weeks that Dr. George Hodel was under LAPD surveillance, is there no record of him even once contacting any of his purportedly wealthy, influential friends for assistance to call off the LAPD?

And how does George Hodel hold sway over all Los Angeles public officials? Because he runs a VD clinic in Little Tokyo.

So you’re telling me VD is worse than murder?

Note: Hodel’s clinic actually treated poor Blacks who were housed in Little Tokyo during World War II, when people of Japanese ancestry were in the internment camps.

How is all of this possible?

::

Steve Hodel likes to claim that his father was wealthy and powerful, and says his father bailed out of jail the same day he was arrested. And, being the evil genius that he was, went off to “disappear” Jean Spangler, whom he had dated (oops, no evidence of that). And why? Well she “knew too much” about the incest allegations, or about something or other and it’s dangerous to “know too much” about an evil genius.

By all accounts from George Hodel’s trial on charges of molesting Tamar Hodel, for which he was found not guilty, there were five people in the room:  George Hodel, Tamar Hodel, Fred Sexton, Barbara Shearman and Corrine Tarin. None of whom was Jean Spangler. So how on earth could Jean Spangler “know too much?”

Steve Hodel has such a horrible record of lying about everything that I would want to see the paperwork documenting George Hodel’s release before I believe him.

Isn’t it just as likely that if George Hodel were released on bail, the police would put him under surveillance? And might they be checking on him when the rolled up to his house the next day to arrest his tenant?

Because the LAPD came to Hodel’s house Oct. 8, 1949, when Jean Spangler was missing, and arrested Joe Barrett, who languished in the Hollywood jail for several days at least.

And if George Hodel were really a powerful, evil genius, wouldn’t you expect him to bail out his tenant because he “knew too much?”

But Barrett stayed in jail, unable to make bail.

What we do know is that the supposedly wealthy, influential criminal mastermind George Hodel didn’t have the money for legal counsel and on Oct. 13, 1949, took out a second mortgage on the Sowden House for $10,000, payable to attorneys Jerry Giesler and Robert A. Neeb Jr. to defend him on charges of molesting Tamar Hodel.

Bottom line:

There was no connection between Dr. George Hodel and Elizabeth Short.

There was no connection between Dr. George Hodel and Jean Spangler.

Frank Jemison’s final report on George Hodel: “See supplemental reports, long [log] sheets and hear recordings, all of which tend to eliminate this suspect.”

Lenker ends with a noirish kicker – to which I can add: “You didn’t dig deep enough in the dirt — or at all, really — when it comes to Steve Hodel.”

Sorry, Netflix. But once again. There is no connection between Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia and the Hotel Cecil. This is Arty, 634 S. Main St., former location of the Dugout Cafe, where bartender C.G. Williams said thought he might have seen Elizabeth Short – and no, he didn’t.

Former L.A. Times reporter and Valley Edition colleague Michael Connelly, author of the “Bosch” novels and TV series, among many other achievements, talks to Tai Freligh of the Wonderland Murders podcast. Mike ends with the kicker that he considers the Black Dahlia case unsolved. Which is remarkable since Steve Hodel likes to brag that Mike endorses his claims that his father, Dr. George Hodel, killed the Black Dahlia.

I wonder if Steve Hodel will have to recalibrate.

Mike’s offhand remark follows the LAPD’s response to the “Today” show in 2019 about allegations in the TV series “I Am the Night” and podcast “Root of Evil” that Dr. George Hodel killed Elizabeth Short.

Halloween is coming up, so I’ll issue my annual warning: Don’t dress up like “The Black Dahlia.” It’s not honoring the memory of Elizabeth Short. It’s not “Justice for Beth,” however you might define it. Just don’t do it.

To the Oct. 26, 2021, audience at the Council Bluffs, Iowa, Public Library who attended Duffy Hudson’s performance delivering the words of Steve Hodel: You should know that virtually everything you heard was a lie.

The fault is not necessarily with Hudson, except for his lack of skepticism. He transformed himself into a human tape recorder and delivered what appeared to be a flawless repetition of what Steve Hodel told him. The responsibility is with Steve Hodel and his rather incredible gift for making up new lies and embellishing his old ones.

Hudson spoke for 90 minutes, including a question-and-answer period, and it would be humanly impossible to catalog all of the fiction. But here’s a few tidbits:

Update: Steve Hodel claims George Hodel ran an abortion ring. He did not. George Hodel was opposed to abortion. Who said so? Tamar Hodel. Oops.

Steve Hodel now claims that the Sowden House was his boyhood home. It was not.

Steve and his two brothers, Kelvin and Michael, were in the custody of his mother, the former Dorothy Harvey, when she separated from George Hodel, and they lived at a number of residences when Steve was young.

We know this because she was repeatedly cited for neglecting Steve and his brothers and eventually sentenced to jail. To cite one instance, in December 1944 and February 1945, Steve and his brothers were living with their mother at 4555 Glenalbyn Drive in Mount Washington.  There were times when Dorothy Hodel was couldn’t afford a residence and she and the children lived at the Sowden House. But the arrangement was temporary. She also used the Sowden House as a mail drop when she had no fixed address. When Dorothy Hodel was questioned by investigators in 1950, she was living over a bait shop on Santa Monica Pier. So all of Steve Hodel’s stories about the swanky parties his parents threw at the Sowden House – you guessed it: Lies.

Steve Hodel now claims that Los Angeles County district attorney’s Lt. Frank Jemison was “ordered” to turn over his files on the Black Dahlia case to the LAPD and that he shrewdly left second copies in a vault, safe and secure to be discovered (surprise!) by Steve Hodel.

Not at all. The district attorney’s files are a shambles and I should know because I’ve gone through them. The D.A.’s office now distributes a CD ROM of the files rather than granting access to the originals, so researchers have no way of knowing that Steve Hodel is lying. But in reality, the files are a mess; lots of papers randomly shoveled into boxes with no order whatsoever.

And, of course, Steve Hodel doesn’t mention that the only reason the district attorney has any Black Dahlia files is because the grand jury was looking into in the Leslie Dillon debacle of Dr. J. Paul De River and the gangster squad. 

Steve Hodel has also returned to his claim that his father “probably” killed Geneva Ellroy, mother of author James Ellroy. Steve Hodel earned a robust, throaty “FU” from Ellroy when he originally floated this nonsense, but Ellroy eventually jumped into the Hodel crowd and has now jumped out, refusing to discuss Steve Hodel or the Black Dahlia.

One of Steve Hodel’s more bizarre claims is that when the purported killer of Elizabeth Short called Examiner city editor James Richardson, he identified himself as the “Black Dahlia Avenger.” Of course, that isn’t true. As with so many things, it’s something Steve Hodel would very much like to be true. But it’s not.

Another bizarre claim, and there are so many that it’s hard to keep track, is that Elizabeth Short went from Los Angeles to Chicago to “investigate” the 1946 Suzanne Degnan killing. In reality, Elizabeth Short stopped in Chicago en route from Medford, Mass., to Los Angeles several months after the Suzanne Degnan murder. As for Elizabeth Short being interested in the murder – everybody was. It was a huge case and everyone was following it.

Oh. And the nonsense about George Hodel being a taxi driver and knowing the city of Los Angeles like the back of his hand, including the neighborhood on South Norton Avenue where Elizabeth Short’s body was found. Naturally, Steve Hodel has never actually researched when the neighborhood was developed – or he would know that it didn’t exist when his father was driving a cab. Yet another example of the caliber of research one can expect from former Detective III Hodel.

Did I mention that George Hodel’s purported photos of Elizabeth Short aren’t her? So says her family.

I may add to this as I find more lies – and these are lies. Steve Hodel knows that these things aren’t true. These aren’t mistakes. These are deliberate misrepresentations and lies. But truly: fact-checking Steve Hodel would be a life’s work.

The main thing, of course, is that every bit of Steve Hodel’s investigation is about Steve. Elizabeth Short barely enters the discussion. It is all about Steve Hodel.

I’m told that Steve Hodel has published the last two volumes in his life’s work of accusing his father, George Hodel, of every unsolved killing between 1907 and 1999. The Black Dahlia Avenger has gone through countless revisions and updates in which the Black Dahlia Avenger was meeting Billy the Kid Jr. and battling Mothra. Then there’s the Zodiac book. And even a play in which George Hodel poisons his secretary, Ruth Spaulding. (Reality check: She committed suicide). In hailing Steve’s final efforts, here’s a title that he may have overlooked. Or not, since I haven’t read the books and don’t plan to. You won’t find this on Goodreads anytime soon.

Someone asked me to write a one-paragraph rebuttal to Steve Hodel’s claims about his father, Dr. George Hodel. My reply:

Steve Hodel has been lying about his father and the Black Dahlia for nearly 20 years, so it’s impossible to put a rebuttal into one paragraph, but here goes.

“Retired homicide detective discovers dead dad is serial killer” is a great elevator pitch. But it’s a lie. All of it. All of it? Yes. All. Of. It. The slew of books and updates, the TV interviews, the magazine articles, the talks, the blog. And the podcasts. All of it is a lie. It is a massive, massive lie — almost 20 years in the making.  Lie upon lie upon lie. The average person who knows nothing of the Black Dahlia case cannot imagine the magnitude of Steve Hodel’s lies. You wouldn’t think someone would be capable of fabricating so many falsehoods.

His claim, in essence, is this: Multiple law enforcement agencies in an investigation involving hundreds of officers and detectives covered up a terrible murder and in fact allowed a known serial killer to continue murdering because:

He. Knew. Who. Had. VD.

So VD is worse than murder, right?

Understand: You have to be a good liar to be a cop: You have to lie to witnesses to make them think you know more than you do. You have to lie to suspects to make them think you have more evidence than you’ve got and obtain a confession. You may have to lie or misrepresent to a judge to get a search warrant (ever read a Harry Bosch book?). Being a good liar is an essential part of the cop’s toolbox. Steve Hodel lies confidently, he lies with self-assurance and he lies with impunity, because that’s how a cop lies.

Steve Hodel has contributed 23% of George Hodel’s Wikipedia page.

Where Steve Hodel goes wrong is that he lies all the time and he lies about everything involving his dad being a killer. Take George Hodel’s Wikipedia page. Who is one of the top authors? Steve Hodel. Who has edited it the most? Steve Hodel. Is that against Wikipedia’s rules? Of course. Has he been warned? Of course. Does he do it anyway? Of course. Welcome to the world of Steve Hodel’s lies.

Wikipedia’s warning to Steve Hodel about potential conflict of interest – ignored, of course.

Start with George Hodel’s supposed photos of Elizabeth Short — they’re not her. Who says so? Her family. Without those photos Steve Hodel has nothing, which is why he keeps dredging up more “related” cases  and continues to find “new evidence” based on technobabble about “thoughtprints.” The foundation of his case is a lie. He will try to talk his way around the photos and say they don’t matter. Because that’s how cops lie when they are confronted with hard, cold evidence. The photos aren’t her and without them he has nothing.

Dr. George Hill Hodel had no connection to Elizabeth Short. None.

Did George Hodel say “supposin’ I killed the Black Dahlia?” Of course he did. He was a smart guy and he was baiting the cops who had installed bugging equipment in his house a few hours before. Make an absolutely absurd, outlandish claim to see if they will react. And they did nothing — because they knew he was baiting them.

Steve Hodel is the top editor of his father’s Wikipedia page. Conflict of interest much?

What are Steve Hodel’s other lies? Let me catalog some of them: His dad wasn’t rich. His dad wasn’t influential. His dad had no admitting privileges at any hospital, he wasn’t an accredited surgeon (meaning no hospital would let him operate) and in fact had the minimum surgical training to graduate from medical school. (Note: The “hemicorporectomy” surgery that Steve Hodel claims his dad was taught in medical school didn’t exist then. Another lie).

Was George Hodel friends with Ben Hecht? The Hecht archive hasn’t a word about him. Was his murder buddies with Man Ray? There’s nothing in the Man Ray archives to indicate anything more than a superficial business relationship.

The John Huston letters tell a much different story than the one Steve Hodel paints by distorting and manipulating the correspondence between Huston and Steve’s mother. The Herrick Library’s rules forbid posting the letters (which I have) online, which allows Steve Hodel to manipulate the texts in whatever way he wants — a typical Steve Hodel ploy. He exploits uninformed, gullible readers.

Ruth Spaulding, Dr. George Hodel’s secretary, committed suicide. But Steve Hodel has concocted a bizarre scenario in which George Hodel “forced her to commit suicide” with an overdose of sleeping pills. All because she “knew about billing irregularities.” All a lie. All. Of. It.

And wow does he cherry-pick his quotes.

Watch the master liar at work:

becomes:

Yes, “Had trouble with one spool” becomes “I’m in trouble.” Because no one will ever fact-check retired homicide Detective Steve Hodel.

A total fraud.

George Hodel was never suspected of killing his secretary, who committed suicide. His clients were poor Blacks living in segregated L.A., not the wealthy elite.

He did NOT rape Tamar Hodel. She made up the charges against him and thirteen boys at Hollywood High to get even with George Hodel for being sent to L.A. from the Bay Area.

Why did Tamar want revenge on her father? Because she was an incorrigible teenager; her mom couldn’t handle her any more, mainly because Tamar was lying about men molesting her.

And no, George Hodel didn’t run an abortion ring and was in fact opposed to abortions. Who said so? Tamar Hodel, who was mad at her father because he wouldn’t allow her to get an abortion. I can hear you saying “Wait, that’s not what Steve Hodel says.” Of course not. That’s in the original newspaper coverage, which most people haven’t read.

George Hodel wasn’t Zodiac. That’s a lie. He didn’t kill Suzanne Degnan. That’s a lie. Steve Hodel even lies about the district attorney’s report on the case.

He claims that the investigator, Frank Jemison, was a “white hat” who was ordered to turn over files to the LAPD and kept backup copies for Steve to magically find 50 years later in pristine condition. NOT EVEN REMOTELY TRUE. The D.A.’s final report said the investigation of George Hodel “tend to eliminate this suspect.” Steve will try to talk his way around this and say the investigator “was ordered” to write that and “was ordered” to turn over files. You guessed it. Even more Steve Hodel lies.

But don’t just take my word for it. Who else says George Hodel didn’t do it? The LAPD, which broke its silence on the Black Dahlia case to say that there was nothing to Steve Hodel’s claims or anyone else’s. Of course, Steve has to blame that on the “continuing cover-up” at the LAPD rather than admit that he’s lying.

George Hodel was under surveillance for a little more than five weeks and eliminated as a suspect. Not because he was wealthy. Not because he was influential. But because the investigators determined that he didn’t do it. And Steve Hodel has spent almost 20 years building a massive structure of lies — all based on the foundation of two photographs that he says are Elizabeth Short. And aren’t.

After almost 20 years, Steve Hodel shows no signs of stopping the lies. But really, folks, it is time to stop falling for his nonsense. Be a fact-checkers and gatekeepers, not megaphones for Steve Hodel’s lies.

Note: This is an encore post from 2021.

As longtime readers know, I always begin a new year with an annual donation in memory of Elizabeth Short to Heading Home, which works with the homeless in the Boston area. Partly because of my research on Elizabeth Short, I try to make the issue of homelessness a continuing theme of the Daily Mirror.

I donate to an agency in the Boston area because of Elizabeth Short’s connections there, but Los Angeles also has a severe, chronic problem with homelessness and there are many local agencies that welcome donations. I recently visited Hollywood and saw camps of homeless people along the exit ramp from the northbound 101 onto Hollywood Boulevard and along the Walk of Fame. Men pushing shopping carts. Women cowering in doorways of buildings that are boarded up or closed with roll-down shutters that are tagged.

I believe people will find helping the homeless more meaningful in the long term than, for example, leaving a bottle of liquor and some cigarettes at her grave, especially since Elizabeth Short didn’t smoke and rarely drank.

Do reporters check the clips when writing for publication? Or do they rely on a faulty memory?

In the case of Jill Abramson, reviewing Carl Bernstein’s Chasing History for the New York Times, faulty memory wins out, along with a lack of fact-checking.

In a mere two lines of her review, Abramson packs in several errors that ought to be corrected.

–Will Fowler was a reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner. He never worked for the Los Angeles Times.

–Will Fowler claimed he was the first reporter at the Black Dahlia crime scene. He never said he found the body of Elizabeth Short.

–Will Fowler was also lying when he said he was the first reporter at the crime scene. He was one of the last to arrive. Will told many tall tales about his involvement in the Black Dahlia story; this was just one of them.

Reporters: Check the clips (or Google) rather than relying on your memory, which is apt to be faulty.