The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  FEAR NEW DAHLIA DEATH

  200 IN ACTRESS HUNT

  The victim, a prominent actress, had been kidnapped off the streets of Hollywood, and evidence found in Fern Dell Park sent two hundred LAPD officers on a search for her body.

  Jean Elizabeth Spangler was a twenty-seven-year-old actress on her way to becoming a star. She was beautiful, intelligent, filled with vitality and promise, and well liked in the film industry and the brand-new television business, where she had just started working.

  After the first headline story in the Daily News, early in the week, the other local newspapers picked up the scent. The grisly headlines quickly proliferated: "Spangler Mystery Deepens," "Cryptic Note Clue to Missing Actress Mystery," "Probe Dancer's Secret Date with Death," "Glamour Girl Body Hunted; Parallel to 'Dahlia' Case Seen," "TV Actress Feared Sex Murder Victim."

  Under pressure from the growing unrest in the district attorney's office at the unacceptable performance of his detectives, Deputy Chief Thad Brown held a meeting with officers in the Homicide Division, and then told the press, "Death by violence is indicated in her disappearance." He'd sent up the red homicide flag.

  Spangler presented an intriguing challenge to detectives, because, as a background check of the victim's activities in the years preceding her disappearance revealed, there were a number of times her path had crossed Elizabeth Short's. In fact, Spangler had once worked as a dancer at Mark Hansen's Florentine Gardens.

  Spangler had married Dexter Benner in June 1941, six months before the start of World War II. The couple had one daughter, Christine, born on April 22, 1944. Shortly after her birth, Benner was inducted into the service and sent to the South Pacific.

  Other court documents showed that Jean had asked her husband to initiate formal divorce proceedings in 1943, prior to her pregnancy and the birth of Christine. At that time, Spangler told her attorney she "did not want to appear in court," and revealed her infidelities with a "handsome Air Force first lieutenant," whom she "intended to marry." Jean freely admitted that she'd become involved in an "affair with this pilot," and they "had been living together off-and-on, in a Sunset Boulevard motel." In 1943, a few months after making these revelations, Jean became pregnant, reconciled with her husband, Dexter, and Christine was born the following April. Court papers revealed that after Dexter's assignment overseas, Jean again began seeing "Lt. Scott," and, on her husband's return, informed him of the resumed affair, which caused them to immediately separate and divorce. After their separation, the two became embroiled in a bitter child custody dispute that ended with the court awarding full custody of their daughter Christine to Jean.

  Albert Pearlson, Spangler's divorce attorney, told police (after her 1949 kidnapping and disappearance) that "Scott had, during the time of their relationship, beaten her up, blackened her eye, and threatened to kill her if she ever left him." In the same court documents, the Army Air Force lieutenant was described as being "tall, about 5-11, slender build, clean-cut and handsome." Jean Spangler refused to identify and provide the true name of her lover to the court. After her disappearance, her attorney indicated that he "could not recall the officer's name" and that "everyone just called him 'Scottie.'"

  Sensing another Dahlia-type murder story in the making, newspapers quickly sent reporters out to pursue their own investigations. Here is my reconstructed timeline of what they reported:

  Wednesday, October 5, 1949

  Spangler, while working on a movie set at Columbia Pictures studios with actor Robert Cummings, told Cummings that she "had a happy new romance" and was having the time of her life. She did not tell Cummings her new boyfriend's name.

  Thursday, October 6, 1949

  LAPD detective W. E. Brennan, in charge of the investigation, told the press that "Miss Spangler had a date with a man the night before her disappearance." Reporters also learned that a married couple, friends of the victim, had spoken with her briefly in front of the Hollywood Ranch Market. Spangler had been seen sitting with a "clean cut man in his thirties" in a black sedan parked in the Ranch Market parking lot. A short time later, witnesses saw Spangler and her companion standing at a nearby hot dog stand, which was located directly across the street from the studio apartment where Man Ray and his wife, Juliet, were living, approximately one mile from the Franklin House.

  Friday, October 7, 1949; 5:30-7:30 p.m.

  Jean Spangler left her apartment at 6216 Colgate Avenue in Hollywood at 5:30 p.m. after telling her sister-in-law Sophie Spangler, who was babysitting Christine, that she would be home that night but expected to be late. Jean called the apartment two hours later at 7:30 p.m. to check on her daughter, spoke briefly with her sister-in-law, and again confirmed she would be home that night.

  Saturday, October 8, 1949; 1:30 a.m.

  Witness Terry Taylor, the proprietor of the Cheese Box Restaurant at 8033 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, who also knew the victim personally, recalled seeing her seated at a front table with a man he described as, "male, 30-35, brown hair, clean cut, tallish with a medium build." His information was confirmed by a second witness, Joseph Epstein, who sold papers in front of the restaurant, who also identified Spangler as being there at about 2:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.

  2:00 a.m.

  Witness A1 "the Sheik" Lazaar, a radio personality who broadcast his show live from the Cheese Box, said he saw Spangler sitting at the restaurant with two men he didn't know. When he approached the threesome at their table to do a radio interview, he saw that Miss Spangler "appeared to be arguing with the two men." When one of the men saw him walk up to the table, he abruptly signaled to him that they did not want to talk to him, and "the Sheik," in his own words, "veered away and did not attempt to conduct the interview."

  9:00 A.M.

  When Jean Spangler failed to return home, her sister-in-law, fearing foul play, contacted LAPD and filed a missing persons report. Dexter Benner picked up his daughter at his ex-wife's apartment and took her home to his place, intending to bring her back the following day.

  Sunday, October 9, 1949

  On Sunday morning, October 9, Jean Spangler's purse was found lying ten feet off the roadway at the entrance to Fern Dell Park, the exact location where Father would drop me and my brothers off to play during the summer months of 1949 when he went to his downtown office or made house calls. The park is exactly six-tenths of a mile from the Franklin House. A park employee, Hugh Anger, found the purse and called the police.

  The handle on Spangler's purse was torn loose and the purse itself had been ripped, which indicated a struggle. A handwritten note, written in pencil by the victim, was found in the purse:

  Kirk,

  Can't wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott.

  Will work best this way while Mother is away.

  Daily News headlines on October 11, 1949, read, "Fear New Dahlia Death," and speculated that the Spangler disappearance could be connected to other murders.

  . . . some of the officers working the case inclined to the belief that she may be the 10th victim of a series of unsolved female mutilation murders. The maniacal slaughter of women began with the famed Black Dahlia case in 1947, when the tortured and gruesomely carved body of black-haired Elizabeth Short was found naked in a weed-grown lot.

  As in the Spangler disappearance, also in the Black Dahlia case a purse was featured when some unknown person mailed it to police during the investigation of her baffling fate.

  And more recently a purse containing a note was found in the unsolved mystery of the disappearance of Mimi Boomhower, wealthy and flirtatious Bel Air widow.

  Jean's mother, Mrs. Florence Spangler, was out of town visiting relatives in Kentucky when she heard of her daughter's disappearance. She immediately returned home and, according to the papers, provided detectives with the name of a man whom she thought was responsible. The Daily News headline for the October 12, 1949, story read, "Mother Sure Film Player Murdered," and went on to say:

  The mother of film actress Jean S
pangler, who mysteriously disappeared five days ago, said today she is convinced her daughter has been murdered, and gave police the name of the man she thought responsible for the girl's death. "I am sure this man hired somebody to do away with my daughter," said Mrs. Florence Spangler, who arrived here today from a vacation in Kentucky.

  Police refused to reveal the name of the man named by Mrs. Spangler but said they had already questioned him at some length.

  The intensive two-hundred-man search by LAPD officers of Fern Dell Park, on horseback and on foot, revealed nothing new. The victim's body was never found, and the police never released the name of the man provided by Florence Spangler, whom they had questioned regarding the victim's disappearance. Although no progress was made in the case, Deputy Chief Thad Brown, in what appeared to be more of a public relations move than part of the actual investigation, interviewed actor Kirk Douglas to ascertain whether he might be the "Kirk" mentioned in her note. Douglas indicated he did not personally know the victim and could provide police with no information related to her disappearance.

  On October 13, 1949, some six days into the Spangler murder investigation, LAPD homicide detectives again arrested Tom Evans. Evans was booked on a technical charge of robbery after detectives found him in possession of a large amount of cash, with, according to the charges, "no visible means of support."

  The newspapers indicated that Evans was being held for suspicion of robbery and would be questioned the following day by Captain Jack Donahoe himself, now head of Robbery Division, in connection with both the Spangler and Boomhower investigations. Captain Donahoe told the papers, "We have no evidence linking him to either case, but he is known to play women to get money." Evans's photograph was prominently displayed in three local newspapers; yet, once again, he denied any involvement in either crime. "I didn't know either one of the women," he said to newspaper reporters. "Next they will be trying to pin Cock Robin on me. I'm presently involved in promoting a deal in the Philippines involving sugar and hemp. Now I suppose this current publicity will ruin my Manila deal." Evans told reporters that a similar roust by LAPD a month earlier on the Mimi Boomhower investigation had "ruined a Las Vegas deal" he was about to close. Evans blamed his troubles on a "retired LAPD detective, now working as a private investigator."

  As Evans had predicted, no charges were filed against him in connection with the Spangler case, and, even though the press applied relentless pressure on the LAPD to come up with some resolution, the hunt for the perpetrator of the Spangler kidnapping, like that for the killer in the Dahlia and Lipstick homicides, came up empty.

  There were, however, reports in the papers that a real struggle was taking place inside the LAPD over the handling of the Spangler case, notably in the search for the person named Scott to whom Spangler had referred in her note. A Los Angeles Times article of October 12, 1949 stated:

  Yesterday the investigators had a conference with top brass in the Police Department to discuss the case. Meeting with Dep. Chief I had Brown were Inspector Hugh Farnum, Capt. Harry Elliott of the Central homicide squad, Det. Lt. Harry Didion of Wilshire Division and Dets M.E. Turlock and William Brennan, who are handling the case. After the conference, Didion said that investigation has confirmed the existence of a "Scotty" or "Dr. Scott," who was known to Miss Spangler and her coterie of night-clubbing friends. But what is lacking is knowledge of the man's whereabouts, he said.

  Detectives from the Gangster Squad, assigned to pursue and attempt to identify "Dr. Scott," later reported that while they had checked out six different "Dr. Scott"s during the investigation, none was the Dr. Scott of Spangler's note and none claimed to know or were connected with her. Similarly, LAPD detectives claimed they were never able to identify any individual or friend of Jean Spangler by the name of "Kirk," to whom she had addressed the original note.

  Focusing on the Spangler case, I believe the real "Scottie" — and later "Dr. Scott" — could well have been George Hodel, who closely fits the profile of everything known about this mysterious "Scottie." Jean's Scottie, like Elizabeth Short's fiance "George" and Georgette Bauerdorf's boyfriend, was an Air Force lieutenant from Texas. "Scottie" had an affair with Jean during the war years while her husband was overseas. They shared a motel room on the Sunset Strip. He was tall and handsome. He assaulted her and was violent and extremely jealous.

  Because of her affair and the threats her lover had made to her, Jean Spangler had felt compelled to divulge the facts to her husband, with the results we have seen. In her original interview with detectives, Mrs. Florence Spangler gave the name of her daughter's boyfriend, "Scott," the abusive Army lieutenant who had figured prominently in her divorce. The detectives never released his true name and "doubted there was a connection."

  LAPD detectives, working out of separate offices, unknowingly provided conflicting information to the press relating to "Scottie" or Dr. Scott. On the one hand, Homicide Division's Gangster Squad detectives indicated they had checked out all the known "Dr. Scott"s in Los Angeles and were unable to identify any doctor by that name who was connected to Ms. Jean Spangler. On the other hand, Detective Lieutenant Harry Didion stated, "The investigation has confirmed the existence of a 'Scotty' or 'Dr. Scott,' who was known to Miss Spangler and her coterie of night-clubbing friends. But what is lacking is knowledge of the man's whereabouts."

  Which statement was true? Further, what happened to the name of the suspect Jean Spangler's mother provided the LAPD? Was that name George Hodel? Had Jean Spangler been so intimate with Dad and his business that she possessed information and knowledge related to Tamar and the incest trial, which, upon learning of his arrest, she threatened to expose? Were her public argument with the two men and her disappearance minutes later, just hours after Father's arrest and release from custody, related?

  Assuming for the moment that my father was "Scottie," what else did Spangler know about him that might have put her in jeopardy? Could Jean Spangler have been the 1944 girlfriend that my half-brother Duncan told me about in our conversations when he said, "I remember after Dad stopped seeing Kiyo in 1942 or so, he started dating this other woman. I think her name was Jean Hewett. Jean was this drop-dead beautiful young actress."

  Very reluctantly, I also have to consider whether the elusive "Scottie" might be Christine's real father. Was she the issue of Jean's Hollywood affair with my father? Did Jean Spangler's acknowledged 1943 affair result in a pregnancy? Could Christine be my half-sister and is she still alive somewhere, with only the most fragmented memories of her mother and grandmother?

  Or perhaps things are exactly as they appear on the surface, and Jean Spangler, as she represented to actor Robert Cummings, did meet Father only a few days before her kidnap-murder and was "having the time of her life with a new romance." Perhaps the mysterious Lieutenant Scott, whose identity she took great pains to conceal during the war years, was a different lover, with no connection to the events of 1949. Perhaps the anonymous "Lieutenant Scott" and invisible "Dr. Scott" are just coincidences in Spangler's short life. However, the real possibility exists that both men were one and the same and that Jean Spangler, upon learning of Father's arrest on October 6 for incest, met him after he posted bail and threatened to give damning information to the police. Two men — Dad and Sexton — argued with her at the Hollywood restaurant in the early-morning hours of October 8, and she vanished, never to be seen again.

  But, as we will see, her disappearance was not "without a trace," because she left behind in her own note important clues, as if she were telling us from beyond the grave, "Look to 'Kirk' and 'Dr. Scott,' because they will help you find my killer."

  25

  Sergeant Stoker, LAPD's Gangster

  Squad, and the Abortion Ring

  CAUGHT IN A WEB OF MACHIAVELLIAN INTRIGUE and systemic corruption within the highest ranks of the LAPD that eventually ended his career as a police officer, Sergeant Charles Stoker wound up unwittingly documenting the information that would, fifty years later, become
the nexus linking LAPD Gangster Squad detectives and their superiors to a willful and deliberate cover-up of the Black Dahlia investigation and the other sexual serial homicides committed in the 1940s and beyond. Stoker never learned the true extent of his influence or effectiveness as an honest cop trying to fight corruption inside the police department. In his book Thicker Thieves he provided a powerful record of his personal investigation that ultimately helped me unravel the mystery surrounding my father's escape from justice. In particular, his chapter "Angel City Abortion Ring" showed me what the motives were for the LAPD's cover-up of the Dahlia case and explained why the department chiefs made their decision to aid and abet the efforts of George Hodel, a known, identified serial killer, to flee the country rather than prosecute him.

  Sergeant Stoker was an idealistic, no-nonsense, by-the-book vice squad officer, who believed that the LAPD was the finest police department in the world. However, in the spring and summer of 1949 his naivete earned him a crash course in realpolitik that not only toppled his beliefs in the efficacy of the system he'd come to rely on, but took away his job and security, permanently tarnished his good name, and left him tragically disillusioned about people and government. He died without ever being publicly vindicated.

  Charles Stoker had joined LAPD in May of 1942, worked briefly in uniformed patrol, and was then transferred to administrative vice. Stoker was a smart, perceptive, and honest cop, surrounded by partners with their hands out, reaching for a crooked buck within a system that not only tolerated corruption but fostered it. Stoker kept his hands in his pockets, which was not an easy or a popular position to take in the plainclothes units, especially in vice, where money greased the skids for felons at all economic levels, particularly purveyors of illicit sex operations run by L.A.'s organized crime cartels. While it worried many of his partners that Stoker remained squeaky clean, they treated him as an oddity and were careful not to do or say anything around him that would force him to report any corrupt activity.