Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  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.

  What those officers and the rest of LAPD did not know, however, was that Stoker was more than an honest cop: he was a crusader, for whom police work — and specifically LAPD police work — was above politics. His zeal for the job and the organization, coupled with a tenacious personality, quickly put him on a collision course with his corrupt superiors all the way up the chain of command to an assistant chief of police and his counterparts in city hall. Stoker's refusal to back down also made him a target of many of the top-echelon politicians in the mayor's and district attorney's offices.

  Stoker's troubles began with the 1949 arrest of Hollywood vice queen Brenda Allen, whom newspapers referred to as "Hollywood Madam" and "the Queen of Hearts." Allen ran a stable of 114 prostitutes and was paying off Hollywood vice officers as well as officers from the centralized Administrative Vice Unit, which conducted city-wide vice investigations.
Hollywood Division needed to be paid off, as that was the division in which Allen lived and from which she based her operation. Brenda's monthly income generated plenty of juice for the policeman's fund and her friends at city hall. Corrupt police and city officials had come to rely on a steady stream of income from graft and payoffs.

  In addition to Stoker's arrest of Allen, the newspapers revealed that LAPD had surreptitiously — and without a court order — listened in on telephone calls coming from gangster Mickey Cohen's Hollywood residence. So brazen was the LAPD command that in 1948 several officers experienced in audio electronics donned old clothing and, posing as construction workers, installed bugging devices at Cohen's home as it was being constructed. For over a year, LAPD officers maintained audio surveillance on Cohen's operations, tape-recording the comings and goings of his henchmen as well as many of his guests, which included state agents, police officers, and investigators and staff from the district attorney's office. After gathering a year's worth of covert "intelligence, " several enterprising LAPD vice officers in 1948 approached Cohen with a shakedown, demanding $20, 000 for some "campaign contributions." All of this would be revealed the following year, and that investigation threatened to topple the entire police department.

  In May 1949, Stoker testified in secret before a grand jury to everything he had discovered about internal LAPD graft and corruption by high-ranking police officers. He blew the whistle, even though he had been told that it would ruin his career and probably the rest of his life. But he persisted. The newspapers picked up the scent of scandal, and for months he and the story made local headlines. Stoker's testimony resulted in indictments and perjury charges against then chief of police Clemence Horrall, his assistant chief Joe Reed, a lieutenant, and several sergeants. Many more were expected to follow, with the prospect that L.A.'s best-known gangster, Mickey Cohen, was rumored ready to talk to the 1949 grand jury. It was anticipated that Cohen would reveal high-level LAPD police corruption, as well as corruption within the ranks of the DA's office and the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which had a shared jurisdiction with the LAPD on Brenda Allen's bordello. Cohen's testimony would confirm all that Stoker had testified to and much more.

  Cohen was persuaded to rethink his position about testifying. At 3:00 a.m. on the morning of July 20, 1949, he and his entourage — which included Neddie Herbert, a New York gangster and Cohen's number one man; state attorney general's investigator Harry Cooper, who had been assigned to bodyguard Cohen after rumors circulated of a planned assassination; newspaper columnist Florabel Muir; and actress Dee David — walked out the front door of Sherry's cocktail lounge onto Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sherry's, a notorious meeting place and hangout for local gangsters, was owned and operated by colorful retired New York detective Barney Ruditsky. As the group was saying its goodnights on the sidewalk in front of the bar, shotgun blasts were fired from across the street into the crowd. Cohen, Neddie Herbert, Harry Cooper, and Miss David were all hit. Agent Cooper and the actress, though seriously wounded, survived. Herbert died two days later. Though Cohen received only a minor wound to his right shoulder, it apparently affected his vocal cords. After the attempted hit, the usually forthcoming Cohen refused to make any statements relating to police corruption and provided no information or fuel for the grand jury investigation.

  When Cohen backed down, anyone else who might have come forward fell silent as well. And with no one at a high level willing to corroborate the charges the outspoken Stoker had made, he stood alone. Now it was his turn to feel the heat. A policewoman, Stoker's former partner, was quickly brought forward to testify that she had been with him when he committed a burglary of an office building. She alleged he stole back a personal check he had written for some construction work. He was arrested, booked, and charged with a felony count of burglary. Fortunately, Stoker had an airtight alibi for the time the policewoman claimed she had been with him, and a jury speedily found him not guilty.

  LAPD regrouped, charging Stoker with "conduct unbecoming a police officer" and secondary allegations of insubordination. The former is an administrative charge so nebulous as to involve almost anything imaginable, a catch-all that permitted the department to get rid of anybody, anytime, for anything — for example, for driving your city car six blocks to your home to share a forty-five-minute lunch with your wife. "Conduct unbecoming" was a ground for dismissal.

  The hearing board, comprised of LAPD captains and above — the senior chair being held by Deputy Chief of Detectives Thad Brown — quickly convened, refusing to allow Stoker's case to be continued until after the burglary trial could be heard. The board found him guilty of administrative violations, and the case was then submitted to the newly appointed chief of police, W. A. Worton, who would decide the penalty, which could range anywhere from a one-day suspension in pay to termination. Chief Worton reviewed the case and immediately fired Stoker. After Stoker's acquittal on the false and perjured burglary charge in the criminal case, in which most jury members concluded he had been framed, Stoker attempted to be reappointed as a police officer, but his request was denied.

  Immediately before he was fired, and three months prior to my father's arrest for incest, Sergeant Charles Stoker was subpoenaed by the sitting 1949 grand jury to testify about all aspects of police corruption that he had discovered while assigned as a Hollywood vice operator. His revelations included firsthand information that went beyond the Brenda Allen scandal and the wiretapping and attempted extortion of monies from gangster Mickey Cohen.

  Sergeant Stoker's secret testimony, some of which was leaked to the press, also included his discovery of an abortion ring within the City of Los Angeles, run by medical doctors who were paying protection money to members of the LAPD Gangster Squad, the specialized unit within the Homicide Division.* Stoker learned that this ring of abortionists included only M.D.s; each member paid regular "dues, " which entitled him or her to operate freely and conduct abortions without fear of arrest.

  Stoker became aware of the activities of the abortion ring when he was approached by a retired LAPD lieutenant, now an inspector for the California State Medical Board, who informed him he had heard about Stoker's good work and ability, admired his courage, and needed to talk to him. In checking out the inspector's reputation, Stoker learned that he had a solid reputation for honesty and would not connive, play ball, or cut corners.

  The investigator told Stoker that he and others in his unit believed that members of LAPD's Gangster Squad, the unit responsible for making the arrests on the referrals from the medical board investigators, were protecting the abortionists, either by informing the medical doctors that they were under investigation, or if an arrest was actually made, smothering it before any charges could be formally filed with the DA. This occurred only in the cases of those doctors suspected of being within the ring of protection of the Gangster Squad detectives. All others — non-M.D.s, midwives, and chiropractors — were arrested and successfully prosecuted.

  The inspector told Stoker that the suspected leader of the abortion ring was a Dr. Audrain, whose office was located in downtown Los Angeles at 6th and St. Paul. The investigators had an informant who had received an abortion from Dr. Audrain, and they wanted Stoker to conduct an undercover operation, using a policewoman as an operative. Stoker was informed that the medical board investigators' supervisor, who was also on the take, was on vacation; with him away, it was unlikely the LAPD Gangster Squad would receive word about the planned investigation and forewarn Dr. Audrain. The medical board inspectors asked Stoker to investigate the doctor in secret, which would circumvent the standard operating procedure of notifying the Gangster Squad detectives.

  Stoker went to Lieutenant Ed Blair, his vice-supervisor, told him what he wanted to do, and explained that he had learned that the state investigators had requested his assistance because they suspected the Gangster Squad detectives of taking payoffs and protecting doctors performing illegal abortions. Lieutenant Blair, recognizing that the
operation was far afield of Stoker's normal assignment as a vice squad officer, still approved Stoker's request, but ordered him to "take it easy and keep me out of it."

  A policewoman posing as a "girl in trouble" made an appointment at Dr. Audrain's office, located at 1052 West 6th Street. She was examined and told by the nurse the "test came back positive for pregnancy.1An appointment was scheduled late the following week. The policewoman was advised to bring $250 in cash and return to the office at 7:30 in the morning the day of the operation. Normal abortionist working hours were from midnight until 9:00 A.M.

  The day before the scheduled appointment, Stoker was contacted by the medical board investigators, who were, in Stoker's words, "down in the mouth." They advised him that their supervisor had returned from his scheduled vacation early, and they were left with no choice but to inform him of Stoker's pending investigation. Although their supervisor had told them to go forward with the plan, they were sure he would warn the Gangster Squad, who would in turn warn the doctor.

  Ever confident and optimistic, Stoker decided to go ahead with the plan anyway, and the following morning the policewoman, backed up by Stoker and his partner, Officer Ruggles, went to Audrain's office. The state investigators had surmised correctly. The doctor had indeed been tipped off; the office was locked tight and remained closed for a full week following the anticipated arrest. The investigation having ended in failure, Stoker returned to his normal duties, putting the abortion ring concerns out of his mind.

  In the spring of 1949, the subject of this protected abortion ring resurfaced. This time, the same medical board inspector approached Stoker with a new case, involving a female M.D. (her name was never revealed by Stoker) believed to be connected with the abortion ring, who was performing abortions to well-recommended customers out of her expensive office in the movie colony district on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks.