Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  While it did not release the name and address of the suspected murder residence to the public, an article in the Herald Express dated September 13, 1949, under the headline "Black Dahlia Murder Site Found in L.A.," reported on part of the grand jury testimony. The article stated, "It was reported that the room where the murder took place was less than a 15-minute drive and in a bee line from the vacant lot where the nude and bisected body of the girl was discovered January 15, 1947 .. . and the home was on one of Los Angeles' busiest streets."

  In secret testimony, DA investigator Lieutenant Frank Jemison identified this "wealthy Hollywood man" as the same person whom Elizabeth Short had phoned from San Diego on January 8, 1947; the same man, who, four days later, on January 12, using the name "Mr. Barnes," checked into the East Washington Boulevard Hotel with Elizabeth Short as "husband and wife." Moreover, the DA investigators testified, the hotel owners had positively identified "Barnes" from a photograph found in the victim's belongings, and the man, according to the testimony, was "connected to a foreign government."*

  Because of this dramatic new testimony from the DA investigators, the grand jury subpoenaed LAPD detectives to testify how they had investigated the case and what they had found. The jury called seven members of the Gangster Squad, including the head of the unit, Lieutenant William Burns (could Bill Burns be Stoker's "Bill Ball"?), and a Detective J.Jones ("Joe Small"?). The remaining Gangster Squad detectives called were Sergeants James Ahearne, John O'Mara, and Conwell Keller, and Officers Loren K. Waggoner, Archie Case, and Donald Ward.

  Next, the grand jury subpoenaed Deputy Chief Thad Brown, as well as interim police chief William Worton, who had replaced former chief Clemence Horrall. Horrall, one recalls, had resigned shortly after his perjury indictment resulting from Charles Stoker's testimony in the Brenda Allen case. In June 1949, Mayor Bowron had appointed Worton, a retired Marine Corps general, as the LAPD's interim chief. Worton, restricted to one year of service, would remain only until the police commissioners made their final vote between the two top candidates, Brown and Parker.

  The grand jury asked Chief Worton about the overall investigation of the Black Dahlia case and about the possibility that the wealthy Hollywood man was being protected by members of his department's Gangster Squad. A December 7 article published by the Los Angeles Examiner under the headline "Dahlia Motel Angle Probed by Grand Jury" indicated that Worton had personally investigated both matters related to the Hollywood man's meeting the victim at the downtown motel and being protected by the Gangster Squad and said that "Chief Worton does not believe there is a case against the man on either score on the basis of information presently available."

  It was the statement "information presently available" that red-flagged the chief's statement for me. It meant that Worton had left himself a very convenient back door were the Dahlia case ever to blow up in his face.

  After its two-month review of the Dahlia case, the grand jury, whose authority had expired on December 31, 1949, came out with a scathingly critical report of the Los Angeles Police Department and a demand for a complete reinvestigation of the Elizabeth Short murder, as well as of many other unsolved murders of female victims during the previous five-year period. On January 12, 1950, a front-page headline appeared in the Herald Express, "Unsolved L.A. Crimes Ripped By Grand Jury," with an article featuring photographs of seven of the victims, including Elizabeth Short, Jeanne French, Louise Springer, Gladys Kern, Laura Trelstad, Dorothy Montgomery, and Evelyn Winters.

  Exhibit 62

  Herald Express, January 12, 1950

  The article published the grand jury's final report, and enumerated its specific findings, which included LAPD officers receiving bribery payoffs for protecting gangsters, and bookmakers, gamblers, and abortionists being allowed to run free without fear of prosecution. Addressing the grand jury's full report, the article noted, "the report was almost reminiscent of Chicago in its heyday of crime, although perhaps on a smaller scale."

  Sharply criticizing the Black Dahlia investigation, the grand jury intimated a "cover-up" by certain police officers. Below are excerpts directly from the grand jury's report that was summarized in the Express article:

  Testimony given by certain investigation officers working this case was clear and well defined, while other officers showed apparent evasiveness. There was not sufficient time left to the jury to complete this investigation, and this Grand Jury recommends that the 1950 Grand Jury continue the probe.

  This jury has observed indications of pay-offs in connection with protection of vice and crime, and gross misconduct on the part of some law enforcement officers.

  In some cases jurisdictional disputes and jealousies among law enforcement agencies were indicated. In other cases, especially where one or more departments were involved, there seems to have been manifested a lack of co-operation in presenting evidence to the Grand Jury, and a reluctance to investigate or prosecute.

  In addition to its findings and critical report, the 1949 grand jury, in its boldest move, recommended that the Black Dahlia investigation be taken over by the district attorney's office investigators and taken out of the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department. They also requested that those same investigators contact and interview the "wealthy Hollywood man" cited by DA investigator Jemison as a possible prime suspect, regarding his links to the crime.

  On April 1, 1950, a few months after the grand jury closed its investigation, the Los Angeles Times printed a story under the headline "Murder Cases Reopened by District Attorney; Investigators Start Again on Slaying of Nurse and 'Black Dahlia' Brutality," which revealed that the DA investigators were actively "searching for a man they believed to be a 'hot suspect' in the three-year-old murder cases. Investigators Frank Jemison and Walter Morgan told reporters that their office was co-investigating both the Black Dahlia and Jeanne French murders." Further, the article said, "H. Leo Stanley, chief investigator for District Attorney Simpson, said that his investigators remain unconvinced that a bloody shirt and trousers found in the home of an acquaintance of Mrs. French have been fully eliminated as a clue to the murder." Investigators had refused to name the man they were seeking as a prime suspect but said, "He is the owner of the mysterious bloody clothing that has disappeared from LAPD police evidence lockers." The DA investigators planned to "take lengthy statements from two close women friends of the slain nurse" and had been assigned to investigate the two unsolved murder cases at the request of the 1949 grand jury.

  The actual police reports themselves were never released. However, from public disclosures and statements provided by the district attorney's investigators and from my own research, it seems that LAPD had recovered some bloody clothing from the residence of the "wealthy Hollywood man," including pants and a shirt belonging to him, which was booked into evidence and then either "lost" or deliberately disposed of, probably by members of the Gangster Squad. Indications were that investigators believed the clothing possibly related to the Jeanne French murder investigation, since several of French's women friends had identified the wealthy Hollywood man as being acquainted with her.

  Next, and separate from the man's bloody clothing evidence, the independent private investigators located a different set of witnesses, who when interviewed by Lieutenant Jemison told of seeing women's bloody clothing of a size and description similar to those worn by Elizabeth Short as well as bloody bedsheets inside the wealthy Hollywood man's residence.

  There can be no doubt, therefore, that Lieutenant Jemison's "wealthy Hollywood man" was known and identified by both the Los Angeles district attorney and LAPD as the prime suspect in both those murders.

  As noted, the DA's office testified that "the murder site was located on a busy street, 15 minutes from the crime scene." I submit that the murder site was in fact the Franklin House, located on the busy streets of Franklin and Normandie Avenues in what is called the Los Feliz section of Hollywood.

  In October 1999 I conducted a time-and-mileage check by d
riving from 39th and Norton to the Franklin House. In normal Hollywood traffic, the 7.7-mile drive took me seventeen minutes. And the Franklin House garage opens onto a tiny alley. Once inside the closed garage one has direct access to the interior of the residence, where one could easily remove a body from the house in the dead of night and be undetected.

  None of the publicly released documents reveal at what time the LAPD detectives found and recovered the bloody clothing believed to be owned by my father. On what date, and in what year, did they remove this clothing from the Franklin House? The two strongest possibilities are (1) either in February or in the weeks or months immediately following the 1947 murder of Jeanne French, or (2) in the days following George Hodel's arrest for incest on October 6, 1949.

  For the moment, the questions relating to the two separate sets of bloody clothing that connected George Hodel to both Elizabeth Short and Jeanne French must remain unanswered. What is certain, and has been answered, is that in secret testimony the 1949 grand jury received from district attorney's investigator Lieutenant Frank Jemison two startling facts: (1) LAPD detectives were covering up the Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders, and (2) Dr. George Hodel was the prime suspect in both crimes.

  *This public comment made by the Johnsons strongly suggests that the photograph originally shown to them in 1947 by LAPD, then again by DA investigators in 1949, was our exhibit 9 or 10, George Hodel's China photos that "connect him to a foreign government." It is believed he mailed these photographs to Elizabeth Short from his overseas assignment in 1946.

  29

  The Dahlia Myths

  AMONG THE MORE FASCINATING AND DISTURBING aspects of the Black Dahlia murder was the amount of myth that gathered around both victim and assailant as the case aged over the years. Because the case was so much in the headlines in 1947 and in the years since, it has become the subject of a number of books, films, and television movies. Writers and commentators have come up with their own notions of the truth, and all too often their opinions unfortunately become considered fact. Commentators have theorized endlessly about the nature of Elizabeth Short and that of her assailant. In every case, however, the theories about both have been woefully off base. First, there is what I call "the Dahlia myth."

  The brief, tragic life of Elizabeth Short stands apart from the other victims in our investigation for two primary reasons. The first is the way she was murdered and her body disposed of. Second is the name "Black Dahlia," which both horrified and fascinated the public and immediately identified her with this beautiful flower, turning the crime into a piece of lore. Although some of the other victims were more beautiful and more exotic than Elizabeth, it was the name that made her crime stand out.

  As the beloved Los Angeles Tunes columnist Jack Smith said about her in his book Jack Smith's L.A.:

  I have always supposed that I was the first one to get "the Black Dahlia" into print, though I didn't make it up. As I remember, one of our reporters picked up a tip that Miss Short had frequented a certain Long Beach drugstore for a time. I looked the number up in the phone book and got the drugstore and talked to the pharmacist.

  Yes, he remembered Elizabeth Short. "She used to hang around with the kids at the soda fountain. They called her the

  Black Dahlia

  — on account of the way she wore her hair."

  The Black Dahlia!

  It was a rewrite man's dream. The fates were sparing of such gifts. I couldn't wait to get it into type.

  From day one, with the birth of that name, her real identity disappeared. Few today can tell you the actual name of the Black Dahlia, but most know her story. Not only was her name forgotten, but also her true character. Truth gave way to fiction almost immediately. Initially, the press was to blame, through insinuation and innuendo.

  Her character assassination started out slowly in the dailies, with one-liners scattered here and there: "Elizabeth was seen at a Hollywood bar with a mannish-looking female." "Elizabeth was seen in a vehicle with a large muscular blonde woman." "Unidentified sources indicated Elizabeth preferred the company of women."

  To LAPD's credit, no confirmations discrediting her reputation came from any detectives assigned to the investigation, at least in those early years. Unfortunately, that would change in later decades.

  But what the cops didn't do, the authors and self-proclaimed "true-crime experts" did quite well. Hank Sterling, in his 1954 book Ten Perfect Murders, comments:

  It's fair to say that her death was the result of her deplorable way of life. Did she go there [Biltmore Hotel] because she hoped to find a pickup, found one and was lured to her death? If so, we can say that the same thing could have happened to a blameless virgin intrigued by a deceptive personality. In that case her death would have nothing to do with her lurid past. In fact, it can be said that a girl with Beth's experience would have been too wise to be trapped that way.

  A few years later Elizabeth Short was mentioned in another book, The Badge, by Jack Webb, who portrayed Detective Sergeant Joe Friday on the television show Dragnet.

  She was a lazy girl and irresponsible; and, when she chose to work, she drifted obscurely from one menial job to another ... To the sociologist, she is the typical, unfortunate depression child who matured too suddenly in her teens into the easy money, easy living, easy loving of wartime America.

  Closing his chapter on the Dahlia, Webb wrote:

  All LAPD can say is that its detectives exonerated every man and woman whom they have talked to. Beyond that you are free to speculate. But do him a favor; don't press your deductions on Finis Brown.

  By the 1980s, Elizabeth's character had reached rock bottom. In Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery, by Marvin Wolf and Katherine Mader, we find this description:

  She hung around radio stations, went on casting calls — and soon descended into the netherworld of the street hustler where scoring a meal, a drink, a new dress, or a little folding money was as easy as finding a willing guy on Sixth Street. For a few months in 1946, she was a fixture of the Hollywood street scene, a pretty girl not too mindful about where or with whom she slept, a girl pretty and desperate enough to pose nude for sleazy pornographers, a pretty girl descending into a private hell.

  She spent a drunken night in a Hollywood hotel with a traveling salesman in return for a bus ticket to San Diego and pocket change.

  Three years later, Steven Nickel, in Torso: The Story of Eliot Ness and the Search for a Psychopathic Killer, made even more startling claims:

  The odyssey of Elizabeth Short was a tragic and progressively sordid story. At age seventeen, she had left her home in Massachusetts and headed west in an attempt to break into motion pictures in Hollywood. But her break never came, and she had drifted among the hustlers and flesh peddlers of Santa Barbara, Long Beach, San Diego, and Los Angeles during the next five years. Her romance with a young pilot ended tragically when he was killed in the war; her lover's death marked a turning point in Elizabeth Short's brief life. For a time, she operated as an expensive call girl with a flashy lifestyle. Some of her clients were Hollywood producers who promised her movie roles, but before long she degenerated into a common street prostitute hooked on alcohol and drugs, posing for nude photos to earn extra cash and occasionally living with a lesbian lover.

  . . . Her blouses, her dresses, her hosiery, her shoes, and her undergarments, as the detectives who searched her apartment found, were exclusively black. It was easy to see how Elizabeth Short had come by her nickname. She apparently realized it; there had been a tattoo of the exotic black dahlia on her left thigh that her killer viciously gouged out.

  In 1993, the editors of Time-Life Books, in their True Crime — Unsolved Crimes, characterized the Black Dahlia as follows:

  Short gravitated to Hollywood, hoping to break into the movies, but the closest she got was a job as a movie-house usherette. Her main line of work was prostitution.

  Years after his 1971 retirement, LAPD detective Harry Hansen dealt the fina
l blow: "She was a bum and a tease."

  From one of the case's lead homicide detectives to the star of television's Dragnet, comments about Elizabeth Short proliferated, resulting in a composite of the victim that, in the end, had nothing whatsoever to do with who she really was. These "profilers," as if scripting a Hollywood B-movie, writing more from their own fantasies or prejudice than from the facts in the case, recreated Elizabeth Short as a gutter whore, an unclean and unkempt woman, turning tricks in dark downtown alleyways to support her alcohol and drug addictions. They described her as a user and manipulator of men who, because of her low intelligence and loose morals, was destined to fall prey to the dark forces that fed on wannabe starlets.

  But none of this is true. Worse, what people had to say about Elizabeth, from Hansen right through to today's commentators, is actually a blame-the-victim rationale for why the case was never solved. In reality it was solved, but then covered up. Elizabeth Short does not deserve to be so maligned. She was, after all, a crime victim, not a perpetrator. If she yearned for the attentions of men or lived in a world of fantasy, that did not make her complicit in her own death. For commentators to make such claims with little or no real knowledge of who Elizabeth Short was and what events drove her to her fateful meeting is, to my mind, the height of unprofessionalism. Writers can say what they want, but for law enforcement people to strike out against a victim is, at the very least, a violation of their ethical responsibility. Whatever she might have been in life, Elizabeth simply did not fit the profile created for her by Hansen, Webb, scores of reporters, and the editors of true-crime anthologies. Those who knew her provide the best evidence about her personality, and it's from them and from Elizabeth's own letters that people should draw their conclusions. We have heard in detail the descriptions of her by those who knew her in life. In their personal composites we find the following: "immaculately dressed," "shy, and sweet," "always well behaved model employee, who didn't smoke or drink," and "good kid."