Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  Dr. Hodel, who has denied the charges, will seek to show that his daughter is a known "pathological liar" in matters dealing with her alleged relations with men.

  Exhibit 14

  Tamar, age 15 (1950)

  Over the next few days the court saw more prosecution witnesses take the stand. Corrine Tarin testified to being present in the bedroom, but denied she had participated in any way. She told the jurors that she saw Tamar kiss Fred Sexton "very passionately," and then Sexton, in the presence of herself and George Hodel, undressed Tamar, orally copulated with her, and then had sexual intercourse with her. She admitted that after Sexton completed the act, Doctor Hodel pulled him off Tamar, they had heated, angry words, and he ordered Sexton out of the bedroom. Tarin remained in the bedroom while Hodel performed cunnilingus on his daughter and began an act of sexual intercourse. She completed her testimony by saying, "I am the mother of two daughters, and at that point, I became very disturbed, and I walked out of the bedroom."

  Fred Sexton was called and reluctantly testified that the four of them were in the bedroom, that Tamar was undressed, and he "kissed her and attempted to have sex with her, but did not complete the act."

  The third adult present in the bedroom, twenty-two-year-old Barbara Sherman, was called but refused to testify before the jury. Sherman recanted her earlier statements to the police as well as the sworn testimony she had provided at the October 14 preliminary hearing. Prosecutor Ritzi threatened her with arrest if she refused to tell the truth, but still Sherman would not cooperate. She was immediately arrested in the courthouse and charged with perjury and morals violations based on the fact that she had previously provided sworn testimony to having performed sexual acts with Tamar and to having witnessed the sexual acts on Tamar performed by both her father and Sexton. Juvenile officer M. H. Brimson was then called to testify to "finding the pornographic literature and lewd statuary in the mansion at 5121 Franklin Avenue."

  After the prosecution had rested its case, the defense called fourteen witnesses, each of whom testified that Tamar was a "pathological liar" and was not to be believed. The first three witnesses were all family members: her grandmother, her own mother, and her half-brother Duncan, who all hammered home the point that whatever Tamar swore to under oath should not be believed. All of this was exhilarating fodder for the dailies chronicling the testimony with headlines such as "Grandma Calls Tamar Hodel 'Untruthful'" and "Tamar's Ma Calls Her an Awful Liar." What was more, a host of Tamar's friends and acquaintances were flown down from San Francisco, and all repeated the same testimony that her mother and grandmother had given. Each of them in turn admonished the jury not to believe anything Tamar said.

  December 21, the shortest day of the year, was the longest of Dad's life, because on that day the wealthy Hollywood doctor at the center of the media frenzy was called to testify in his own defense. Calm and dignified as he unfolded his version of the events that led to his arrest, he held the jury spellbound with the story of how he was "demonstrating hypnosis to the four adults in his bedroom." Barbara Sherman was the subject, and Sexton and Corrine Tarin watched as he ordered Sherman to raise her hands, suggesting to her they were "bars of steel." He told the jury that when he "turned to the others to have them note the experiment," he saw that Tarin's arms were likewise extended, and then he saw his daughter and Sexton sprawled on the bed. He claimed that Tamar "had her blouse and brassiere off and Sexton was fully clothed." He immediately "pulled Sexton off of her, and ordered him out of the bedroom." After Sexton left he ordered Tarin out of the bedroom and sent Tamar to her room.

  He related to the jury that Tamar was mistaken on her dates, and the hypnosis session was not July 1, but rather June 18, the same night she had come down from San Francisco to live at the house. He informed the jurors how he had asked her mother, Dorothy Anthony Barbe, not to send her down because he had recently suffered a heart attack and was in no position to give his daughter the close supervision that she needed. He concluded his testimony by informing the jury that Tamar's account was "nonsense, and was the fantasy of a vengeful and incorrigible child."

  It was my father's word against Tamar's and the other witnesses', particularly Corrine Tarin and Fred Sexton, as well as against the boxes of evidence retrieved from the Franklin House, all of which pointed to my father's deep interest in sexual fantasy, clearly focusing on the perverse. Despite the attacks on Tamar's credibility by her mother and grandmother, Corrine Tarin's and Fred Sexton's testimony corroborated Tamar's testimony as to the sexual nature of the events that evening and the fact that she had been molested by an adult. It would be up to the defense to get my father off the hook in the face of very damning evidence. If Dad's defense attorneys could not find a way through the maze, my father would go to jail, lose his medical license, and his career would be over.

  In his summation, Neeb directly attacked the testimony of the adult witnesses present in the bedroom by not only assaulting the credibility of the witnesses themselves, but arguing that the jury couldn't even consider their testimony:

  You are instructed that even if you did believe that there was sufficient evidence to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt as to this particular offense, you still cannot convict the defendant upon the testimony of Tamar Hodel, who would be, under the circumstances, if they were true, an accomplice, and you cannot convict any person upon the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice.

  You are further instructed that the witness Corrine Tarin, because of her conduct, would also be an accomplice, and one accomplice cannot corroborate another, and the same rule applies to the testimony of Fred Sexton.

  In his next summary argument, Neeb told the jury:

  According to the testimony in this case, the witness Fred Sexton has by his testimony admitted that he attempted to have intercourse with Tamar Hodel, who is under the age of eighteen years, and as a result the witness Fred Sexton could be charged with an attempted rape, a felony, and you may consider, in determining the weight and credibility to be given to the witness Fred Sexton, the question of whether he has been arrested or charged with an attempted rape as it may bear upon the question of his state of mind while testifying, or any hope which he may have of immunity from prosecution as a result of his testifying for the prosecution and against the defendant in this case.

  And finally:

  You are instructed that if a person aids and abets and encourages another person in the commission of any offense, the person who aids, abets or encourages may be guilty of the same offense of the person who actually commits the act and in this regard you may consider the question of whether or not the witness Corrine Tarin would or would not be in a position of one who was aiding, abetting or encouraging the witness Fred Sexton in an attempted rape, a felony, upon Timar Hodel, and if said Corrine Tarin is found by you to be in such a position, you are instructed that she would then be an accomplice of the said Fred Sexton, and as such could be subject to prosecution as a principal in the offense of attempted rape, a felony; and you may consider this together with the fact that the said Corrine Tarin has not been arrested or charged as an accomplice with the said Fred Sexton in the commission of an attempted rape as such situation may bear upon her credibility and her state of mind while testifying, and any hope of immunity from prosecution that she may have as a result of her testifying for the prosecution in this case.

  Neeb's defense was powerful, instructing the jury that because Tamar Hodel was a partner in the crimes his client was being charged with, the jury couldn't use Tamar's testimony without other corroborating evidence. Therefore, the jury, by law, had to disregard Tamar's testimony. Neeb also argued that the jury should not convict Dr. Hodel on the testimony of either Fred Sexton or Corrine Tarin, because they were both admitted accomplices to felony sex offenses, and both had presumably made deals with the police to tell them what they wanted to hear in exchange for not being charged with crimes and not going to prison.

  In his closing argument to the jury, de
fense attorney Robert Neeb hammered at the fact that Tamar, a "psychopathic liar," should never have been allowed to testily. "She should be in a hospital under treatment as a psychopath," he declared, reminding the panel of eight women and four men of the long parade of defense witnesses who had testified to Tamar's inability to tell the truth.

  After final instructions by Superior Judge Thomas L. Ambrose, the case was given to the jury late in the afternoon of December 24, 1949. After less than four hours of deliberation, the jury returned an acquittal verdict on both felony counts. The morning Mirror headline read, "Jury Declares Dr. Hodel Innocent of Sex Charges," and continued:

  The prominent Hollywood doctor wept when the jury announced its verdict. . .

  Tamar, whose lurid account of a lustful predawn sex circus in her father's bedroom brought the scandal, was not present. She is in Juvenile Hall . . .

  In his closing arguments, Neeb pleaded that Tamar be given psychiatric treatment. It was not learned immediately what disposition would be made of the girl.

  On January 12, 1950, some three weeks after my father's acquittal, Superior Court judge Thomas Ambrose entered an order directing that certain items be released to the district attorney's office investigators. Those items were the pornographic books, the satyr, centaur-piece statue, and the fifteen or more "photographs."1

  Five weeks later, on February 1, 1950, a small article appeared in the Los Angeles Times, under the headline "Probation Given in Morals Case":

  Barbara Shearman, 21, [sic] a central figure in the morals trial of Dr. George Hill Hodel, yesterday was placed on three years' probation after she pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

  Judge Ambrose sentenced Miss Sherman to one year in jail, then suspended the sentence and placed her on probation, ordering her to refrain from any further association with Dr. Hodel or any of his friends.

  The trial was over. My father was acquitted. Tamar was gone. And the late-night parties at the house had stopped. But just when I thought that life for the family would get back to what we had had before the arrest and trial, my brothers and I, without any explanation from our parents, were enrolled in Page Academy, a highly regimented military school in Los Angeles. We had been banished from the castle to a place that was little more than a prison. Worse, Father was gone. Without a word, he simply seemed to have disappeared. Not even our mother, who would occasionally visit us on weekends, would talk about where he had gone. All we knew was that he was selling — or had already sold — Franklin House and was moving away. Out of the country. After a long silence, I later learned that he had moved to Hawaii, where he had remarried.

  In retrospect, I was too young to know what was really going on during the Franklin House years, other than a child's awareness of lots of people, noise, music, laughter, and my mother's mix of joy and sadness. Knowing what I now know about both my parents, I realize she was walking a high wire with no net. The fact was, Mother was living there at his pleasure. They were divorced, so Father's womanizing could and did go unchecked. Her drinking, and most likely drug use, was excessive, and she was dependent upon him for supplying all of her and our material needs. In addition, I know that Mother was bisexual and hedonistic by nature, and I am certain she took a willing and active part with the other adult partygoers. I also know that, unlike Father, she had her limits, which most certainly would not have included sex with Tamar or other minor children. I now see Father's role as panderer — using Mother's weaknesses and addictions to sex, drugs, and alcohol for his own and others' benefit. He controlled her like most pimps control their women, through intimidation and threats. Father's arrest and trial for incest was a last straw, which likely forced Mother to break and run with her cubs. There was no turning back. I expect she and most other family friends and intimates fully anticipated that Father would be convicted and sent to prison.

  I make no moral judgments of my mother. I loved and love her as most sons do — unconditionally. She had great strengths and great weaknesses, but above all she protected and raised her three sons as best she knew how, under the most difficult circumstances.

  A few months after our arrival at Page Academy, Mother visited us with a friend we knew from the Franklin House, screenwriter and director Rowland Brown, a large gray-haired man who looked like a grandfather. Mother told us that she and Father had divorced and my brothers and I were going to live with her in the desert far from Hollywood, near Rowland Brown and his family. While we were still recovering from the dual shock of our sudden release and the news that our father and mother had divorced, we were told to put our belongings into a large truck that Rowland had parked outside the school. Mother was crying, even as she tried to tell us how wonderful life was going to be without Father, and that made the rest of us cry as well. We knew it was a lie, but there was nothing we could do about it except climb inside the back of Rowland's truck and ride out of the city and into the isolation of the California desert and a place we had never seen called Rancho Mirage.

  It was there, Mother kept promising us through her tears, that we would have a whole new life.

  1This seemingly innocuous notation in the court records became a blinking red light for me. Why were investigators from the district attorney's office requesting that the judge release court evidence from an LAPD case to them? Procedurally this was highly unorthodox. Normally only the primary investigators — in this case LAPD Juvenile detectives — would be permitted physical custody of the evidence. It would be many months more before I would learn the answer.

  Gypsies

  IF THE LIVES WE LED in the fairy-tale beauty of the Franklin House, with Father holding court every night, were rich and magical, our lives with Mother, until I left the family to join the Navy, were marked by starkly desperate periods of privation and transiency. At first we settled in the harsh California desert, in a small dusty town forty minutes from Palm Springs inhabited by sidewinder snakes and scorpions.

  We liked the desert because it was different. The night sky was a spread of a million bright stars against a chorus of howling coyotes somewhere in the distance beyond the scrub and chaparral. During the day the hot winds would blow, sending tumbleweeds like an advancing phalanx before them. But amidst all the fragments of memory of those first few months in Rancho Mirage that I can bring to mind — Mom in the real estate office, Mom and our neighbors, Mom in a stupor on the couch as the duties of carrying the empties out to the garbage fell to us — what stands out the most is the brief, few-hour visit from Dad. He came from Hawaii and brought us as a gift a dog named Aloha.

  We loved her, but she quickly ran away and was lost to the desert, where she might have been eaten by a puma. And Dad too had left, returning to his new family and his new life.

  We didn't stay in the desert very long, moving back to Los Angeles in less than a year. We had also discovered Mother's secret drinking problem, only it wasn't a secret anymore. Her binges would last sometimes for days, and after the second or third day she could not work, cook, clean, iron our clothes for school, help us with homework, or even stand up and walk. Although we were only nine, ten, and eleven, the three of us had to figure out how to run a household around our semi-comatose mother. We couldn't even bring anyone home, because we couldn't let anyone see her lying on the couch, unable to get up, unable to do anything. We made a pact to protect her and just make do, all the while hoping that we would be rescued, that this bad dream would end, and we'd be back inside the castle. But it was not to be.

  By 1951 we had become gypsies, always on the move, because every time our mother went on binges she would lose her job, fall behind in the rent, and wind up with an eviction notice pasted on the door. Fortunately, when she did work it was for real estate offices, where she would jump on the rental listings before they became public. That gave her an inside advantage when cheap apartments came up. So we bounced around from town to town throughout Los Angeles County, moving on an average of every three months. In the early 1950s Mother
was arrested several times for child neglect, when neighbors would discover her passed out after she was well into one of her two-week binges. On several occasions, the three of us were taken away from her by social services and placed in county homes, but somehow she would get us back. At which point we would move to another area, another town, and start over again.

  Our nomadic existence lasted for two years before we finally wound up in Pasadena, where Mother managed to stay sober long enough to save some money and rent a large home on Los Robles Avenue on the west side of town. Just as we were allowing ourselves to relax and enjoy our new place, she started drinking again, and before long she lost her job and another "pay or quit" notice was stapled to our door. Desperate for money, having tapped out all her usual sources from her friends, and already having been advanced a month's salary from her real estate manager, Mother chanced to see an article in the newspaper about John Huston's return to Los Angeles for the Academy Awards.

  She may have been drunk most of the time, but if there was an opportunity, Mother knew how to seize it and make her move. She called us into her room, where she dressed us up in wrinkled but clean shirts and pants, then quickly brushed and leashed our boxer dog, Koko. She hurriedly scribbled a note, folded it into an envelope, and pinned it to my shirt. She spoke to us in her accustomed slur, as she dialed for a taxicab: "Now, boys, I want you to be on your best behavior. You're going to see John. Steven, you will give him this note from me, then after your visit come straight home."

  The cab arrived and the driver looked at Mother. "I can't take the dog, lady," he said. She opened the back door of the taxi and motioned for all of us to get inside. "Yes you can. It's all right, take them to the Beverly Hills Hotel, and wait for them, then bring them back here." The cabbie's eyes lit up and he smiled, knowing that it was a twenty-five-mile drive each way.