by Steve Hodel
Santiano, Jose Luis
Sellers, Clark
Sen, Victor
serial killer concept
Sexton, Fred
sexual abuse. See also incest
Shakespeare, William
Shepard, Celia
case description
and dates of attacks
and killer’s motive
and physical evidence
portrait
and Zodiac costume
shoe evidence
Short, Elizabeth (The Black Dahlia)
and author’s Black Dahlia theory
case description
Chicago connection
crime location
and evidence against Hodel
and handwriting analysis
and hemicorpectomy
Herald Examiner photo collection
and Hollywood history
and killer’s motive
and the Lalu murder
letters to newspapers
and map code
and MO comparisons
and photo album
portrait
and posing of body
and street name connections
and surrealist art
and wristwatch
Siegel, Bugsy
Silver, Henry
sketches of suspect
Slaight, Dave
slaves-in-afterlife myth
Slover, Nancy
Society of Connoisseurs in Murder
Sodium Pentothal
Solano County Sheriff’s Department
Southeast Asian culture
Southern California Gas Company’s Music Hour
Spangler, Jean
Spaulding, Ruth
Springer, Louise
star named for Hodel
Stark, Hortensia Hodel
Starkweather, Charles
Stevenson, Robert Louis
Stine, Paul
case description
and clothing evidence
and film connection
and map code
and ongoing investigation
and post office box keys
and street name connections
and suspect descriptions
Stone, Michael H.
Storms, Walter G.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson)
strangulation
and the Bates murder
and the Brown murder
and clothesline cord
and the Degnan murder
and the Jigsaw murder
and MO comparisons
and the Murray murder
Subgrunski, George
Subic Bay, Philippines
suicide
Sullivan’s Island
surrealism
Surrealist Manifesto
surrender offers
surveillance, audio
suspect descriptions
and Blue Rock Springs shootings
and the Brown murder
and case comparisons
and the Degnan murder
education
ego of killer
and the French murder
and Hodel
and the Jigsaw murder
and the Kern murder
and Lake Berryessa attacks
and the Ross murder
and the Short murder
sketches and composites
and the Stine murder
of Zodiac
Symbionese Liberation Army
symbolism. See cultural symbolism
Tagaytay, Philippines
telephone messages from killer
and Blue Rock Springs shootings
and the Degnan murder
and Lake Berryessa attacks
and the Lake Herman Road murders
and MO comparisons
and the Short murder
threats
teletype paper
Themistocles
Theseus
The Thief’s Journal (Genet)
thoughtprint concept
Times 17 (Penn)
Times-Herald (Vallejo)
Toler, Sidney
Toschi, David
Tower of the Sun
Treasure Island
treble clef symbol
Troubetskoy, Paul
Trowbridge, Eve
Tuohy, William
20th Century Fox
typewriters
Unabomber
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA)
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, San Francisco
Vallejo, California
Vallejo Police Department
Vallejo Times-Herald
Vera, Pat
Verburgh, Hector
Verburgh, Mary
vernacular used by suspect
Voigt, Tom
Wagenheim, Charles
Walton, Richard H.
Wark, Jake M.
The Washington News
White Gardenia murder
Williams, John
“Willow, Tit-Willow”
wiretaps
work life. See professional life of Hodel
The World of Sex (Miller)
Wray, Fay
Wright, George
wristwatches
and the Bates murder
Hodel’s watch
and killer profile
military origin
and MO comparisons
and the Short murder
and surrealism
Yellow Cab Company
Yellow Submarine (Beatles)
“Z” signature
Zaroff, Count (fictional)
Zelenko, Alexander
Zelms, Eric
Zodiac. See also circle-and-cross symbol; specific crimes
and Black Dahlia connections
and “Blue Meanies” reference
clothing evidence
codes and puzzles
Jack-the-Ripper connection
letters and handwriting analysis
name
psychiatric profile
Riverside connection
San Francisco Chronicle connection
and serial killer profile
and shoe evidence
and slave motive
and star named for Hodel
and the Stine murder
and suspect descriptions
and timing of crimes
and wristwatch connection
Zodiac, Dr. (character)
Zodiac (2007)
Zodiac Street
“Zodiac—Portrait of a Killer” (Avery)
Zodiaque—The Zodiac Group
Zuni culture
About the Authors
Steve Hodel was born and brought up in Los Angeles. Now a private investigator, he spent almost twenty-four years with the LAPD, most of them as a homicide detective-supervisor. During his tenure, he worked on more than three hundred murder cases, and had one of the highest “solve rates” on the force. He currently resides in the Los Angeles area. His previous book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, published in 2003, became a New York Times bestseller. Visit his Web site at www.stevehodel.com.
Ralph Pezzullo is an award-winning author, playwright, screenwriter, and poet. His other books include the New York Times bestseller Jawbreaker with ex-CIA operative Gary Berntsen, Plunging into Haiti (winner of the 2006 Douglas Dillon Award for American Diplomacy), At the Fall of Somoza, and the novels Eve Missing and The Walk-In.
1
Arcade, 2003; updated by HarperCollins in 2006.
2
John, my older twin brother, entered the world twenty minutes ahead of me. We were both premature, with exceptionally low birth weights (three pounds) and remained in incubators under twenty-four-hour observation. John died two weeks after delivery, due to “failure to thrive.”
3
This, the onl
y undisguised handwritten note sent in by the “Black Dahlia Avenger,” was identified by me in 2001 as being written by my father, Dr. George Hill Hodel. Subsequently, Ms. Hannah McFarland, a court-certified Questioned Document expert, independently comparing known samples, identified this and three additional Avenger notes as being written by George Hodel.
4
While I tend to be somewhat skeptical about graphology (analyzing handwriting to determine personality traits) due to its subjective nature, I must acknowledge that the two experts were correct on four out of four. George Hodel was highly educated, a musician, a highly skilled ballroom dancer, and an egomaniac.
5
The crime scene is less than two miles from George Hodel’s Franklin residence, and the victim’s real estate office was one mile away.
6
Since the composite was prepared without a moustache, I have airbrushed out my father’s. While I suspect my father did have a moustache in 1948, I cannot say with any degree of certainty. Also, witnesses cannot be relied on for accuracy. Normally, with six witnesses, you will get three or four widely varying descriptions.
7
A questioned document examiner (QDE) is a forensic handwriting analyst. In handwriting terminology a “probable” means “The evidence contained in the handwriting points rather strongly toward the questioned and known writings having been written by the same individual; however, it falls short of the ‘virtually certain’ degree of confidence.” [Journal of Forensic Sciences, Letters to the Editor, March 1991]
8
I have bolded the unusual words and misspellings.
9
If they have not been destroyed, this hair evidence could potentially contain usable DNA.
10
This overall description is consistent with how George Hodel appeared in 1946. Though thirty-eight, he could easily pass for a man many years younger.
11
I am including excerpts rather than the entire report because at the time of my original 2003 request, I included additional documents to be examined that had no bearing on the Elizabeth Short investigation but were highly relevant to relating him to later crimes.
12
The 1944 Avenger murder of socialite Georgette Bauerdorf occurred late night on October 11, 1944, which would have made it the same date. In a typed letter to the press, written nearly a year after his crime, the Avenger references the anniversary of his Bauerdorf killing as being “October 11.” Both of these killings are committed the day after George Hodel’s birthday, which is October 10.
13
Zodiac wrote in the left margin between above marked spaces, “Must print in paper-”
14
Zodiac, in a 1969 letter, misspelled this same word, albeit in a different way, when he wrote, “I shall no longer announce to anyone when I comitt my murders.”
15
Dorero was my father’s nickname for my mother—his own contraction of the Greek word dor (gift) and Eros (god of passion).
16
Despite Jennings’s acknowledgment and the fact that it is an almost picture-perfect likeness to George Hodel, I still have some doubts about this third composite. When I attempted to locate editor Dean W. Dickensheet, I discovered that he died in the 1990s. Further attempts to confirm Duffy Jennings’s recollection that this was an official police composite are being made through Dickensheet’s original publisher.
17
In 1978, several months after the receipt of this letter, a controversy arose when it was learned that Inspector Toschi had anonymously written himself some “fan mail” letters and sent them to a friend at the San Francisco Chronicle. This caused some to wonder if the “I am back.” letter was genuine. Toschi adamantly denied writing the Zodiac letter and was backed by command staff on the SFPD. On July 16, 1978, an article appeared in the New York Times headlined POLICE OFFICIALS ON COAST DENY INSP. FORGED ZODIAC LETTERS. I quote in part from that article: “Police officials have emphatically denied reports that Insp. Dave Toschi, who has investigated the Zodiac killer case for nine years, ever was suspected of forging the latest letters attributed to the murder. . . . Mr. Toschi was reassigned from homicide to the pawn shop detail Monday after admitting that he used fake names to write self-flattering fan mail to a former San Francisco Chronicle columnist.”
18
In February 1932, George Hodel also showed a listed residence address of 1627 Oxford Street, Berkeley, California, just a few blocks from his UC Berkeley pre-med campus.
19
CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, 2006, 109.
20
Manifestos of Surrealism. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972, pp. 13-14.
21
Marquis de Sade, “To Libertines,” Philosophy in the Bedroom, 1795.
22
Ibid.
23
On this same day eighty-one years later Dr. George Hodel as Zodiac savagely attacked Cecelia Shepard and Bryan Hartnell at Lake Berryessa with a knife.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
PART ONE - DR. GEORGE HILL HODEL
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
PART TWO - CHICAGO
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
PART THREE - MANILA
Chapter Eight
PART FOUR - ZODIAC
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
PART FIVE - DR. GEORGE HILL HODEL’S SIGNATURE: MURDER AS A FINE ART
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Authors