Most Evil

by Steve Hodel

  Understanding the details of the Dahlia murder and the other, similar murders of young women in L.A. in the 1940s, all of which I am convinced are the work of George Hodel, will lay the foundation for the emerging portrait of an international serial killer who didn’t stop killing until late in his life.

  Mrs. Ora Murray—“The White Gardenia Murder”

  On the night of July 26, 1943, a man who said his name was Paul introduced himself to the forty-two-year-old victim at a downtown L.A. dance hall. Ora Murray, who was married to an Army sergeant stationed in Mississippi, was in L.A. visiting her sister. Witnesses described Paul as “in his thirties, tall, thin, black hair, wearing a dark double-breasted suit, dark fedora, exceptionally suave and a good dancer.”

  Paul told the victim that he “lives in San Francisco, and is just down to L.A. for a few days,” gave Ora a Navajo or Hopi Indian bracelet, and offered to “show her Hollywood.” He then drove her to an isolated golf-course parking lot, a few miles southwest of Hollywood, where he pummeled her face and body with a blunt instrument.

  Investigators determined that the primary cause of death was “ligature strangulation” with the secondary cause being “concussion of the brain and subdural hemorrhage.” Postmortem, the killer wrapped Ora’s dress around her body “like a sarong” and delicately placed a white gardenia flower under her right shoulder.

  Miss Georgette Bauerdorf

  Georgette Bauerdorf was the attractive, twenty-year-old daughter of an oil magnate. As a means of helping boost the morale of World War II soldiers, she worked as a volunteer junior hostess at the popular Hollywood Canteen, where she and many Hollywood film stars danced and socialized with uniformed GIs on leave.

  On the morning of October 12, 1944, a janitor entered her prestigious West Hollywood apartment to investigate the sound of “running water.” He found Miss Bauderdorf’s dead body submerged in the bathtub. Police speculated that she was followed home from the USO club.

  The suspect had assaulted her and forced a nine-inch rolled medical Ace bandage into her mouth. The coroner determined that the cause of death was from asphyxiation, which meant she was dead when the suspect placed her in the bathtub and filled it with water. Bruises, scratches, and finger marks on her neck and body indicated that she had tried to fight back.

  On September 21, 1945, approaching the one-year anniversary of the crime, the suspect left a typed note for police, which was published in the Los Angeles Examiner.

  To the Los Angeles police—

  Almost a year ago Georgette Bauerdorf, age 20, Hollywood Canteen hostess was murdered in her apartment in West Hollywood—

  Between now and Oct. 11—a year after her death—the one who murdered her will appear at the Hollywood Canteen. The murderer will be in uniform. He has since he committed the murder been in action at Okinawa. The murderxx of Georgette Bauerdorf was Divine Retribution—

  Let the Los Angeles police arrest the murderer if they can—

  Figure 2.1 shows how the original note appeared in the September 21, 1945, Examiner along with Georgette’s photograph. A separate Los Angeles Times piece on the same day informed readers that LAPD crime-lab analysis of red smudges, visible on the typed paper (shown right) proved to be iodine, and was placed there by the suspect to represent blood.

  2.1 Los Angeles Examiner, September 21, 1945

  Elizabeth Short—“The Black Dahlia”

  On the morning of January 15, 1947, twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short’s nude and surgically bisected body was found posed in the vacant lot of a residential neighborhood five miles south of Hollywood. Medical examiners determined that prior to her death she had been cut with a scalpel-like instrument on the face, breasts, and left thigh. The bisection was between the second and third intervertebral lumbar disks—an operation known as a hemicorpectomy, a procedure taught in U.S. medical schools in the 1930s. The torture continued with a vertical incision, consistent with a hysterectomy, in the suprapubic region. Also, pubic hair was cut from her labia and inserted into her rectum, and a large piece of flesh cut from the left thigh was stuffed into her vagina.

  The crime’s shocking sadism and the victim’s beauty quickly made the murder national news. The first major clue arrived eight days later, when a man who identified himself as the Black Dahlia Avenger placed a taunting telephone call to Los Angeles Examiner city editor James Richardson and promised to send Richardson “a few of her belongings.” Richardson informed the police about this phone call immediately but kept it secret from the public for seven years, hoping the Avenger would call again. He never did.

  The caller kept his promise the next day when he dispatched a package containing Elizabeth Short’s photographs, Social Security card, birth certificate, and personal address book. Included was a cut and pasted note which read:

  2.2 “Los Angeles Examiner and Other Los Angeles Papers / Here! Is ‘Dahlia’s Belongings Letter to Follow”

  Three days later, the promised “letter to follow” arrived, this time hand-printed.3

  2.3 “Here it is. Turning in Wed Jan. 29 10 A.M. Had my fun at police. Black Dahlia Avenger”

  In the weeks that followed, the Black Dahlia Avenger played bait-and-switch with investigators through additional communications often signed with the initials “B.D.A.” or “B.D.”

  2.4 January 28, 1947: Avenger note enlarged

  2.5 “Dahlia’s Killer Cracking, Wants Terms”

  2.6 “To Los Angeles Herald Express I will give up in Dahlia killing if I get 10 years. Don’t try to find me”

  2.7 “Have changed my mind, you would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified.”

  2.8 The Herald Express, January 28, 1947: “‘Go Slow’ Man Killer Says Black Dahlia Case”

  2.9 “The person sending those other notes ought to be arrested for forgery. Ha Ha! B.D.A.” “If he confesses you won’t need me. B.D.A.”

  2.10 “Ask news man at 5 & Hill for clue. Why not let that nut go I spoke to said man B.D.A.” “To Herald Expess/Building 1243/Trenton St./ Zone is Los Angeles Calif.”

  2.11 January 27, 1947: Avenger envelope

  2.12 January 29, 1947: Los Angeles Evening Herald Express envelope

  2.13 January 29, 1947: Avenger note

  In 1947, two nationally recognized handwriting experts were tasked with analyzing the Avenger’s handwriting. Questioned document examiner Clark Sellers found that “the writer took great pains to disguise his or her personality by printing instead of writing the message and by endeavoring to appear illiterate. But the style and formation of the printed letters betrayed the writer as an educated person.”

  Expert Henry Silver concluded that the Avenger was “an egomaniac, and the handwriting’s fine sense of rhythm could indicate he was possibly a musician and or a dancer.”4

  By the spring of 1950, Los Angeles investigations had zeroed in on Dr. George Hodel as their prime suspect. They had him under active surveillance and were close to making an arrest. Although they were aware of his imminent plans to leave the country, District Attorney investigators waited too long to make their move and George Hodel fled the country sometime in late March 1950.

  Soon thereafter, DA investigator Lt. Frank Jemison was ordered to close down his investigation and turn over all evidence, recordings, and interviews to the LAPD. DA documents verify that a minimum of fifteen Hodel acquaintance interviews were conducted by investigators. Thirteen of those interviews have “disappeared” from both LAPD and the District Attorney’s Office files. The two surviving interviews implicate him in crimes, establish a relationship with Elizabeth Short, and place her at his Franklin residence prior to the murder.

  Jemison was further instructed to include a written agreement “that the case would never be assumed by the District Attorney’s Office, and that all the files and evidence would remain with the Los Angeles Police Department Homicide Division.”

  In what I know from my years in law enforcement to be a classic CYA—Cover Your Ass—move,
Lieutenant Jemison complied with the orders but also secreted copies of the George Hodel investigation files in the DA’s vault, creating a second set of books. Had he not done this, it is doubtful the identity of the prime suspect would have ever been revealed.

  It wasn’t until after the publication of my book in 2003 that L.A. County district attorney Stephen Cooley finally opened the DA vaults and made public the secret files, revealing a fifty-year-old secret: Dr. George Hill Hodel was not only the prime suspect in the Elizabeth Short murder, he was also under active investigation in connection with three additional murders from 1947 to 1949: Jeanne French, Gladys Kern, and Jean Spangler.

  Mr. Armand Robles

  Although not a murder, a bizarre and seemingly senseless robbery occurred in downtown Los Angeles four days before the Black Dahlia was killed, which bears scrutiny.

  As seventeen-year-old Armand Robles was walking down the sidewalk, a man knocked him to the ground, stole his wallet, and drove away. Robles later described the assailant as “tall and well dressed, driving a newer model car.”

  At the time, Robles didn’t report the assault. But two weeks after the murder of Elizabeth Short, two separate photographs of Robles were mailed to the press in messages from the killer.

  2.14 “Here is the photo of the werewolf killer’s I saw him kill her a friend”

  As soon as the photos were printed in connection with the Dahlia story, the teenager and his mother informed the press that the photographs were in Robles’s wallet that had been taken in the assault that occurred on January 10.

  2.15 “That young! I’ll do him like I did the ‘Black Dahlia’ “Black Dahlia Avenger.”

  Mrs. Jeanne French—“The Red Lipstick Murder”

  On February 10, 1947, the Herald Express printed a special edition with this sensational headline:

  WEREWOLF STRIKES AGAIN!

  KILLS L.A. WOMAN, WRITES “B.D.” ON BODY

  Earlier that day, construction workers had discovered the nude body of forty-year-old registered nurse and former actress Jeanne French in a vacant lot seven miles west of the Dahlia site.

  2.16 “Red Lipstick Murder” crime scene, February 10, 1947

  The victim had been brutally bludgeoned with a tire iron and stomped to death. The suspect then wrote a taunting note on the victim’s nude torso with lipstick from her purse:

  FUCK YOU

  B D

  Even though the victim’s stockings and underclothing were missing, the killer had ceremoniously draped her fox-fur coat and red dress over her body and carefully arranged her shoes on either side of her head. A white handkerchief was found nearby.

  Witnesses established that Jeanne French had dined the night before at the Piccadilly Drive-in with “a dark-haired man with a small mustache.” The waitress recalled that although both customers addressed her in English, they conversed with each other in French. Mrs. French was last seen in the restaurant parking lot getting into the man’s “1936-7 dark-colored vehicle.” George Hodel spoke fluent French and drove a black 1936 Packard sedan.

  LAPD homicide captain Jack Donahoe publicly acknowledged in the Los Angeles Examiner the Department’s belief that the Black Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders were connected, under the headline DAHLIA CASE SIMILARITIES CHECKED IN FOURTH BRUTAL DEATH MYSTERY. In that article, the LAPD provided “11 Points of Similarity” linking the murders. According to the LAPD, the crime remains unsolved.

  Mrs. Gladys Eugenia Kern

  The Los Angeles Times headline of February 17, 1948, alerted readers to the latest in a string of mysterious murders:

  WOMAN SLAIN IN HOLLYWOOD MYSTERY;

  POLICE SEEK ANONYMOUS NOTE WRITER

  The victim this time was fifty-year-old real estate agent Gladys Kern, who was stabbed to death while showing a vacant house on Cromwell Avenue in Hollywood to a potential buyer.5 Her body was found two days later by a fellow agent.

  The cause of death: multiple stab wounds to the back. The murder weapon: an eight-inch jungle knife that was found wrapped in a bloody handkerchief in the kitchen sink.

  Witnesses helped investigators piece together a composite drawing of the suspect, who was seen leaving with Mrs. Kern from her office the day of her murder. They described him as:

  Male, approximately 50 years of age, 6 feet tall, long full face, graying hair, wearing a business suit with a moderate cut, well dressed and neat, with a New York appearance in his dress and manner. [A second, separate witness described him as having dark curly hair and wearing a dark blue suit.]6

  2.17 Kern murder suspect composite compared to George Hodel

  The strongest lead in the investigation was a bizarre handwritten note that had been left in a downtown mailbox at Fifth and Olive (two blocks from my father’s medical office) the day after Gladys Kern’s murder and a day before her body was discovered. The mailbox turned out to be the same one used by the Black Dahlia Avenger a year earlier.

  Figure 2.18 is a copy of the note that I obtained from the Los Angeles DA files in 2003.

  2.18 Copy of Kern murder note as found in DA files in 2003

  After examining the letter and comparing it to known samples of my father’s handwriting, questioned document examiner Hannah McFarland concluded that it’s “probable” that Dr. George Hill Hodel was the author.7

  The long and rambling note is peppered with what I believe to be intentional misspellings, mangled syntax, and missing words and punctuation to mislead investigators:8

  I made aquaintance of man three weeks ago while in Griffith Park he seemed a great sport we got friendly friday night asked me if I wanted to make about $300. He said he wanted to buy a home for his family but he was a racketter and no real estater would do business with him he suggested I buy a home for him in my name then he would go with person to look at property to make sure he liked and I was to tell real estater that he was lending me the cash so he had to inspect the property after looking at house she drove me to pick him up and he followe in his car then went in house alone to inspect and I waited outside after while I went up to investigaate, there I found her lying on floor, him trying to take ring off fingers he pulled gun on me and told me he just knocked her out he knew I carried money so he took my wallet with all my money tied my hands with my belt let lay down on sink and attached belt to faucet. after he left I got free and tried to revive her when I turned her over, I was covered with blood pulled knife out then suddenly I came to I washed my hands and knife then I looked in her bag for her home phone and address then left and ran out while outside I found he put small pocket book in my coat pocket and threw it away, also in my pocket was an old leather strap.

  I knew this man as Leuis Frazier he has 36 or 37 Pontiac fordor very dark number plates look like 46 plates but with 48 stickers about 5 ft.-10, Jet black curly hair wears blue or tan garbardine suit told me he was a fighter and looks it I won’t rest till I find him I know every place we went to gether I know that man is my only aliby and without him I feel equally guilty.

  P. [or possibly “rp.”?]

  Mrs. Mimi Boomhower—“The Merry Widow Murder”

  On the night of August 18, 1949, LAPD detectives were summoned to the home of Bel-Air socialite and heiress Mimi Boomhower. They found the lights on, her car in the garage, and her refrigerator filled with fresh food and produce. But Mrs. Boomhower was nowhere to be found.

  Investigators learned from her business manager, Carl Manaugh, that Mrs. Boomhower told him “she was meeting a gentleman at seven p.m. at her home,” whom he believed was a prospective buyer for her residence.

  No crime scene was ever established, and no witnesses ever came forward. However, the victim’s leather purse was found in a telephone booth at a supermarket located at 9331 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. A message was written in large hand-printed letters on the purse.

  2.19 Boomhower purse

  Again, document expert Hannah McFarland compared the handwriting on the Boomhower purse to known samples of Dr. George Hodel’s
handwriting. This time she concluded that it was “highly probable” that the writing on the purse was that of George Hodel.

  Mimi Boomhower’s body was never found, and sixty years later the case remains in LAPD files labeled “unsolved.”

  2.20 “Police Dept—We found this at beach Thursday night”

  Miss Jean Spangler

  The October 11, 1949, issue of the Los Angeles Daily News sounded another alarm:

  FEAR NEW DAHLIA DEATH 200 IN ACTRESS HUNT

  Beautiful twenty-seven-year-old actress Jean Elizabeth Spangler had disappeared. She was last seen seated in a Hollywood restaurant, engaged in a heated argument with two men—one of whom closely fit the description of Dr. George Hodel.

  As in the Boomhower investigation, Jean Spangler’s body was never found. Again, the only evidence was her purse, found lying in the grass in Hollywood’s Fern Dell Park, which happened to be located half a mile from George Hodel’s Franklin Avenue house. A note written by the victim was found inside the purse, which read: