CA CA - Elizabeth Short 'Black Dahlia', 22, Los Angeles, 15 Jan 1947

[YESorNO]

Watch TNT's trailer for I Am the Night, a limited-series about a mystery related to LA's Black Dahlia murder.

"...I Am the Night tells the story of reporter Jay Singletary who happens upon the story of a young woman discovering something very disturbing about her family history. The entire tale is one of redemption and is based on the very real story of Fauna Hodel (who tragically passed away last year at age 66), who after finding out she was adopted, uncovers a twisted, convoluted web that some (including George Hodel's children) think connected her father Dr. George Hill Hodel to LA's infamous and unsolved Black Dahlia Murder of 1947 – where victim Elizabeth Short was surgically bisected, drained of blood, maimed and dumped in urban Los Angeles. Short was labeled "The Black Dahlia" as a reference to the Raymond Chandler-written Fritz Lang-directed The Blue Dahlia which came out not long before the murder and because of Short's black attire. Nevertheless, some who have studied the crime do not buy the idea of Hodel being connected....

Catch I Am the Night on TNT in January 2019 and enjoy the trailer below."

Watch TNT's trailer for I Am the Night, a limited-series about a mystery related to LA's Black Dahlia murder.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Neisha]

That article contains some substantial evidence against Hodel. The DA actually bugged his home and recorded him talking about Elizabeth Short's murder and how his secretary couldn't testify against him since she mysteriously died. They also recorded sounds in Hodel's home of a woman being beaten and screaming, probably in the basement (shudder). His son makes a pretty good case against the father. George Hodel was a dangerous person, already a known rapist who stood trial for impregnating his own teenage daughter.

ETA: According to the article, the Lt Jemison file was found at LAPD that confirmed George Hodel was the primary suspect in the murder.

My Mom and Dad lived in Hollywood when Elizabeth Short was killed. 3 years later he told me about how the whole city was talking about everywhere he went. He remembers driving passed the scene, but couldn’t get close enough to see anything. He told me this when I was about 12 and I’ve been semi-obsessed since. Quite a few years ago I read the book Hodel’s son wrote. If all he said was true, then he convinced me his dad did it. What sealed it for me was the handwriting analysis.

 

[YESorNO]

Ex-LAPD Detective believes his surgeon father is behind the gruesome Black Dahlia murder and a slew of other unsolved killings because of methodical way the bodies were cut up and mutilated

"Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel belives his late father George killed aspiring actress Elizabeth Short and could have carried out other murders in California...

Steve Hodel believes his father George, a well-known surgeon based in Los Angeles is the Black Dahlia killer and could also be responsible for a spate of other brutal unsolved murders.

Hodel, a retired LAPD homicide detective, said his father could be the suspect due to the way the body of the Black Dahlia victim was cut up which could only have been learned by someone who attended medical school. ...

Steve Hodel told the New York Post: 'The killer had performed a hemicorporectomy on her [Short].

'It’s a unique procedure that was taught at medical school in the 1930s, when he was there, where you cut between the second and third lumbar vertebrae.

He added: 'It’s the only way you can divide a body without cutting through bone.'

Hodel is working to prove his late father's guilt and has been writing and researching about the case for decades.

He claimed his father, who worked as a top LA public health specialist, was an art lover with a specific interest in surrealist painters.

Steve believes his father killed Elizabeth Short in the basement of the house where George lived with his third wife Dorothy and their three sons.

According to his research, his father was knew Short as a patient and eventually began an extra-marital affair with her. ...
An early clue which raised alarms bells for Steve was seeing a note the Black Dahlia killer mailed to an LA newspaper that matched his dad’s block handwriting.

He has linked his father to the Chicago 'Lipstick Murders' of 1945-46, which included a 6-year-old girl who was also given a hemicorporectomy, as well as the 1945 murder of his secretary.

He said he could also be the infamous Zodiac killer, who carried out a spate of murders in Northern California in the late sixties and seventies.

Hodel believes his father wanted to emulate the artwork he loved when carrying out the murders due to the skillful way he carved up and mutilated the bodies of women.

'My father’s personal insanity was directly linked to his belief in surrealism.

'He really believed there was no difference between dream and waking states. He was a nihilist, a misogynist and a sadist of the highest order.'..."

Family is convinced its surgeon patriarch is notorious killer | Daily Mail Online
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[YESorNO]

RE: Chicago 'Lipstick Murders' of 1945-46, which included a 6-year-old girl who was also given a hemicorporectomy:

Who Was the Lipstick Killer

"On September 5, 1946, William George Heirens was sentenced to 3 consecutive life sentences for the murders of 43 year old Josephine Ross, 32 year old Frances Brown, and 6 year old Suzanne Degnan. He will forever be known as the Lipstick Killer. But did he really do it?..

...6 year old Suzanne Degnan was reported missing from her family’s home at 5943 North Kenmore Avenue, Edgewater, Chicago. Her first floor bedroom window was open, and a ladder was placed underneath it, outside the apartment...

Neighbors of the Degnan family were all questioned, but most had nothing useful to report. That is until police received an anonymous phone call, suggesting the police look in the sewers near the Degnan home. When police did, they discovered the severed head of Suzanne Degnan in a storm drain sewer that was in an alley only a block away from their home. Further search led police to the girls right leg in a catch basin, her torso in another storm drain, and her left leg in a drain in another alley. Each piece found was further and further from the family home.

It took investigators an additional month to find her arms, which were in a sewer drain on the other side of the Howard elevated train line – more than three blocks from the Degnan residence. All the drains had been capped with circular cast iron manhole covers, weighing at least 110 pounds, yet no one heard them being lifted or even slid back into place....

The coroner placed her time of death between 12:30 and 1:00 am, and said that a very sharp instrument or knife had been used to dismember her body. Dr. Kearns, the coroners expert, said “either a man who worked in a profession that required the study of anatomy or one with a background in dissection…not even the average doctor could be as skillful, it had to be a meat cutter.”.
More witnesses came forward, and police gave over 170 polygraph tests....

The afternoon of June 26, 1946, 17 year old William Heirens set out for the post office to cash his $1,000 savings bonds, purchased with money from previous burglaries. He had a date with his girlfriend later, and needed cash....

When the polygraph test was finally administered, results were declared inconclusive. Oddly enough though, John E. Reid and Fred E. Inbau published the findings of the polygraph test in their 1953 textbook, Lie Detection and Criminal Interrogation which states, “Murderer William Heirens was questioned about the killing and dismemberment of six-year old Suzanne Degnan … On the basis of the conventional testing theory his response on the card test clearly establishes (him) as an innocent person.”...

Heirens’ defense attorney felt he was guilty, and made it his goal to keep Heirens from dying in the electric chair. State’s attorney, Tuohy didn’t feel he could get a conviction, so he sought out cooperation from defense counsel. Tuohy offered Heirens a plea bargain. The bargain stated that in exchange for confessing to the murders of Josephine Ross, Frances Brown, and Suzanne Degnan, Heirens would serve a single life sentence....

Heirens later stated, “I confessed to save my life.”...

On September 4, with Chief Justice Harold G. Ward presiding, Heirens admitted his guilt on the burglary and murder charges. That night, he tried to hang himself in his cell, but was discovered before he could die. “Everyone believed I was guilty…If I weren’t alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. But I wasn’t successful even at that. …Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn’t even have a trial…”

On September 5, Ward formally sentenced Heirens to three life terms. As he waited to be transferred to Stateville Prison, Sheriff Michael Mulcahy asked Heirens if Suzanne Degnan suffered when she was killed. Heirens answered, “I can’t tell you if she suffered, Sheriff Mulcahy. I didn’t kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter, because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there.”...

On March 5, 2012, William Heirens died at the age of 83 at the UIC Medical Center from complications arising from diabetes...."

Who Was the Lipstick Killer | The Scare Chamber

William Heirens did not murder 6 year old Suzanne Degnan (or the other women), IMO- so who did- Hodel???

William Heirens

"William George Heirens (November 15, 1928 – March 5, 2012) was an American convicted serial killer who confessed to three murders in 1946. Heirens was called the Lipstick Killer after a notorious message scrawled in lipstick at a crime scene. At the time of his death, Heirens was reputedly Chicago's longest-serving prisoner, having spent 65 years in prison.

He spent the later years of his sentence at the Dixon Correctional Center in Dixon, Illinois. Though he remained imprisoned until his death, Heirens had recanted his confession and claimed to be a victim of coercive interrogation and police brutality.

Charles Einstein wrote a novel called The Bloody Spur about Heirens. The novel was later adapted into the film While the City Sleeps by Fritz Lang..."

William Heirens - Wikipedia

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[YESorNO]

More on Bill Heirens/Suzanne Degnan:

The Degnan Murder - 65 years later

Vol. XXIII No. 1 - SPRING 2012

"...Another uncertainty was whether the person who killed Suzanne Degnan was the same person who earlier murdered Josephine Alice Ross and Frances Brown. Though there were similarities, there were also differences. While all three bodies were washed, only the body of Suzanne Degnan was dismembered.

And, of course, the key uncertainty remains: Did Bill Heirens do it? There was reasonable doubt that he did, even at the time, and there is even more now as a result of subsequent examinations of the evidence. There is also doubt of his innocence (perhaps even reasonable doubt), but that is not the standard of justice, is it?..."

The Degnan Murder - 65 years later | Edgewater Historical Society

 

[Kell1]

Actually discussed this case briefly with a member of the FBI BAU once, their feeling is it was the work of someone who actually knew her, possibly fueled by alcohol or drugs, at the time of her murder, angry for real or perceived wrongs the victim bestowed upon him, most likely a loner not uncomfortable with blood (Hunter, possibly a butcher).

We didnt get into too much detail regarding the case however

 

[rosesfromangels]

The manner in which she was left displayed, legs wide open and gruesome “grin” cut on her face spoke to some Madonna-wh*re kind of mentality. The ultimate shaming to be left with ones legs splayed open, not to mention all the other gruesome aspects.

Shaming seems to be a heavy theme

 

[rosesfromangels]

The manner in which she was left displayed, legs wide open and gruesome “grin” cut on her face spoke to some Madonna-wh*re kind of mentality. The ultimate shaming to be left with ones legs splayed open, not to mention all the other gruesome aspects. t

Shaming seems to be a heavy theme

Quoting myself! : )
Thinking about this case again, and combining my thoughts with Kell1's post, I think we have someone who felt he had been disrespected, that this woman "wh*red" around on him; cheated on him. He left her mutilated to the extreme; but the legs spread apart are such an important statement. Haven't we all heard the term "she spreads her legs for anyone". Sorry, very vulgar, but contextual to this case.

This was punishment for being a "loose woman".

As always, amateur opinion and speculation

 

[Kell1]

Facial mutilation can have a few meanigs, its otften thought as "sending a message", to the victim or to anyone who finds the victim .

In the very few cases Ive seen where it was present in any form not associated with trauma that caused the victims death

Secondary mutilation was a form of anger or rejection of the offender , or rejection by the offender to the victims lifestyle , but in those cases, the victim was at least aquianted with the susect.

 

[rosesfromangels]

Facial mutilation can have a few meanigs, its otften thought as "sending a message", to the victim or to anyone who finds the victim .

In the very few cases Ive seen where it was present in any form not associated with trauma that caused the victims death

Secondary mutilation was a form of anger or rejection of the offender , or rejection by the offender to the victims lifestyle , but in those cases, the victim was at least aquianted with the subject.

Yes, this all makes sense and aligns with my speculation as well.
I trying to push aside the sheer horror of what was done to this woman, and focus on any signature that emerges.

I've heard so many theories of this case, as is understandable given the extreme nature. Some offered up a coroner, then a surgeon, as POI's. I wonder how clean the cuts were, and if they pointed more towards a surgeon/coroners tools vs. a butcher. The purported draining of blood could point to either a coroner/mortician, or a butcher.

I can't recall any other murders with a similar signature in that proximity or time frame, which does seem to reinforce the highly personal nature of the crime.

One correlation that I have never heard made is between The Black Dahlia and Jean Spangler. They were about the same age, both from L.A., and bore a resemblance to each other (IMO). Both were aspiring actresses, and disappeared within two years of each other. While their "look" was very popular for that time, I do think they look alot alike. I can't shake this notion of a connection.

Amateur opinion and speculation only

 

[Kell1]

Yes, this all makes sense and aligns with my speculation as well.
I trying to push aside the sheer horror of what was done to this woman, and focus on any signature that emerges.

I've heard so many theories of this case, as is understandable given the extreme nature. Some offered up a coroner, then a surgeon, as POI's. I wonder how clean the cuts were, and if they pointed more towards a surgeon/coroners tools vs. a butcher. The purported draining of blood could point to either a coroner/mortician, or a butcher.

I can't recall any other murders with a similar signature in that proximity or time frame, which does seem to reinforce the highly personal nature of the crime.

One correlation that I have never heard made is between The Black Dahlia and Jean Spangler. They were about the same age, both from L.A., and bore a resemblance to each other (IMO). Both were aspiring actresses, and disappeared within two years of each other. While their "look" was very popular for that time, I do think they look alot alike. I can't shake this notion of a connection.

Amateur opinion and speculation only

In forensic (FBI) terms, "Signature" can only be applied to subsequent or repeated crimes, single instances are referred to as "personation"

"Signature" is repeated personation in 2 or more cases.

Again im not too deeply rooted in this case, but from what ive ever heard on the case it wouldnt be far off from what the FBI feels happened to her.

 

[Richard]

Elizabeth Short

 

[amateuragent]

Currently watching Steve Hodel's various media interviews and while I do not believe that the woman in the photographs is indeed the victim, Elizabeth Short, but I do believe there is a strong connection between Dr. George Hodel and this case. I have a few lingering questions...

1. Has there ever been a connection made between this case and any other victims matching Elizabeth Short's description? Is it possible that Dr. GH had killed before The Black Dahlia? The woman in the picture clearly matches The Black Dahlia physically. Could Dr. GH have had a "type", and then killed Elizabeth Short to recreate this first crime in an exaggerated, almost romanticized fashion? He may have carried the photographs to remind himself of his first victim.

2. Is it possible that Dr. GH staged the photographs after the murder? One has to see the connection between the arrangement of flowers in the woman in the photograph and the Black Dahlia. It is known that Dr. GH had various women parading through his home at any given night and that he took photographs of his sexual conquests and kept materials hidden in a secret chamber in his Franklin Ave. home in Hollywood. Could he have convinced a young, naive girl that resembled Elizabeth Short at one of his parties to pose for a famous photographer such as Man Ray and in her excited/inebriated state she did not make the connection? He must have known that it was too risky to photograph the actual victim, so maybe this was his way of creating a momento, or trophy representing his victim?

Any thoughts, Sleuthers?

 

[amateuragent]

I remember reading this book when it first came out in hardcover. I remember thinking how he seemed to base his theories on very few actual facts and more on his interpretations of events. I’m never truly sold on photos. I mean how many times have I gotten my hopes up reading a thread where the victim looks so much like a Jane Doe only be proven wrong. Yes I know I am a skeptic and proudly one but the whole time I was reading this book, I felt like not only was Hodel trying to convince me that his dad was the killer but felt like he was also trying to convince himself.

Two things struck me as very odd. First if he truly believed that those photos were BD why didn’t he take them to a forensic anthropologist so that they could be compared to the known photos of BD? More than likely he knew it wouldn’t stand up and the whole basis of the book would be shot. Computer alignment doesn’t lie and it can’t be manipulated.

Second: Why didn’t he ask for the DNA that was on the envelopes? Being a police officer certainly would have helped grease those tracks.

I think just like P.Cornwell did with the Ripper case, he tries too hard to make things fit that just don’t. By leaving out information that doesn’t jib he can present a case that simply doesn’t hold water. :sick:

It is my understanding all the evidence in this case has been lost- pointing to a cover up.

 

[LadyMorgahnna]

I haven't read much about the case but some seem to think a George Hodel was the killer.
Did he have a motive?

Listen to the new podcast done by Hodel’s two granddaughters and other family members. Root of Evil.

 

[Salmynkka]

Ive just finished listening to 'Root of Evil' and while George Hodel was without a doubt a sexual predator, paedophile and likely a murderer, I'm struggling to see the link to Elizabeth Short's murder. The one murder he does seem to have committed was nothing at all like Elizabeth's. Ive had a nose on his website too and again I cant see any actual links. Maybe Im just missing them for some reason.

 

[Bargle]

Ive just finished listening to 'Root of Evil' and while George Hodel was without a doubt a sexual predator, paedophile and likely a murderer, I'm struggling to see the link to Elizabeth Short's murder. The one murder he does seem to have committed was nothing at all like Elizabeth's. Ive had a nose on his website too and again I cant see any actual links. Maybe Im just missing them for some reason.

Going from my memory of the book, his statement that with his secretary dead, they could no longer prove he knew Short. There was no reason for him to not want to be linked to her unless he was involved in her murder, or so I think. I may be wrong.

 

[PastTense]

"July 29, 2019. Today is the 95th birthday of aspiring actress, daughter, sister and unsolved murder victim Elizabeth Short.

Nicknamed “the Black Dahlia,” Elizabeth Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. The Black Dahlia’s killer was never found, making her murder one of the oldest cold case files in L.A. to date, and the city’s most famous."
Happy 95th Birthday Elizabeth Short

 

[jaejae]

Here is a video from You Tube about the case:

 

[Feme98]

Wasn't this case solved?