by Hodel, Steve
George Hodel’s classmates and physician instructors identified above as: [front row left to right] Drs. Glaven Rusk, Edwin Bruck, Leroy Briggs, Herbert Moffit, Salvatore Lucia, and Guido Milani; [back row, left to right] Urriola Goiota, Clayton Mote, and Walter Port. The lecturer was identified as Dr. Jesse I. Carr.
Note from my father to me, circa 1994 that accompanied copy of his 1935 UCSF photograph
After graduating and receiving his M.D. in 1936, George Hodel’s first medical assignment was that of “camp surgeon” at a logging camp in New Mexico. He then went on to attend and treat patients on the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations in Arizona and New Mexico.
George Hodel’s employment application showing he was the Conservation Corp. “camp surgeon” in New Mexico from 1936-1937
1941-1949 Documents listing George Hodel’s occupation as a “Physician & Surgeon.”
Section of author’s 1941 birth certificate listing father’s occupation as, “Physician & Surgeon.”
George Hodel’s 1942 commission as “P.A. Surgeon” [equivalent rank of military lieutenant] in US Public Health Service. Appointment signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on May 18, 1942.
Document above on left is Dorothy Hodel’s 1944 “Affidavit for Divorce” listing husband’s occupation as “Physician and Surgeon.” On the right is Dorothy Hodel’s 1950 DA transcript of interview where she stonewalls Lt. Jemison’s question regarding her ex-husband, George Hodel, “using surgical tools?” While knowing full well he was a highly skilled physician and surgeon, she outright lied, claiming he has “never practiced surgery, his branch of medicine is VD and Administrative Medicine.”
Note that Dorothy Hodel’s Divorce Affidavit was dated and signed by Mother UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY on November 9, 1944. This was six months BEFORE my father fell under LAPD suspicion for the murder of his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, from an overdose of barbiturates (1945), and some two years before the surgical murder of Elizabeth Short.
In her signed affidavit, Dorothy Hodel vs. George Hill Hodel, near the bottom she states the following:
“OCCUPATION OF DEFENDANT: PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON.”
Finally, on page 133 of the DA surveillance tapes, we have George Hodel talking to an unidentified woman and admitting to performing curettage (D&C–Dilation and Curettage) “lots of them” at his downtown First Street Clinic at First Street and Central. This was a surgical procedure, and the 1940s “curettement” was a medical term used and synonymous with performing ABORTIONS.
DA Hodel Electronic surveillance transcript page133 George Hodel informs woman he has done abortions, “lots of them.”
Chapter 15
…Bosch had an idea what was coming. The fixer was here now.
The investigation was about to go through the spin cycle where decisions and public pronouncements would be made based on what best served the department, not the truth.
From Angels Flight by Michael Connelly
DAHLIAGATE—A Cover-up? Why?
Over the years, I have been repeatedly asked by readers about “Dahliagate.” They ask if I truly believe that there was an organized conspiracy to allow George Hodel to go free.
An important question and a fair one.
My short answer is YES, I do believe that there was an LAPD “cover-up” and the 2003 access to the DA “Hodel-Black Dahlia Files” granted me by DA Steve Cooley, has in my opinion—gone a long way to help prove it.
To fully answer the question, we need to ask another. Was there a logical reason why LAPD would do something so inconceivable?
Absolutely, but the answer cannot be found by looking at today’s LAPD, which is a very different department from what it was in1950.
Let’s briefly go back to that time—the spring of 1950. The previous year, 1949, was packed full of dynamite sticks, any one of which could have blown the lid off—its police department and its politicos. Here are just a few of the active fires that surrounded and were burning out of control near city hall:
• Gangster Mickey Cohen had been recently shot on Sunset Boulevard, and was threatening to testify about police corruption, extortions, and payoffs.
• Crime was rampant—murders of lone women and gangland mobsters went unsolved.
• The Brenda Allen Vice scandal with payoffs to LAPD officers was in the headlines.
• Four LAPD officers were indicted for corruption, including LAPD chief of police, Clemence “Cowboy” HORRALL, and his assistant chief, Joe Reed. [Both resigned-retired]
• The grand jury had ordered LAPD’s Black Dahlia investigation taken away from LAPD detectives and turned over to the DA detectives for reinvestigation.
• LAPD Sgt. Charles Stoker, in addition to informing the grand jury about the Brenda Allen payoffs to LAPD command, was also secretly testifying regarding his knowledge of a protected abortion ring involving Los Angeles medical doctors and chiropractors run by LAPD detectives in the Homicide Detail. [By the summer of 1950, ten abortionists would be indicted and arrested on related charges.]
• Dr. George Hodel’s top criminal attorney, Jerry Giesler, had just beat a slam-dunk prosecution put together by the LAPD charging Hodel with child molestation and sexual intercourse with his own fourteen-year-old daughter. With three adult witnesses present who participated in the sex acts and the victim’s testimony, along with pornography recovered from the residence, the case was considered air tight. But the jury acquitted. [Documents found in the 2003 DA file allege that a $15,000 payoff may have gone to someone in the DA’s office to help obtain the acquittal.]
• February 15–March 27, 1950, DA investigator, Lt. Frank Jemison, had Dr. George Hodel’s Franklin Avenue residence bugged and he is placed under both audio and physical surveillance and is the prime-suspect in the Black Dahlia murder. Dr. Hodel makes damning statements and admissions about the Dahlia murder as well as other crimes. “Supposin’ I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my secretary anymore because she’s dead.” “This is the best payoff I’ve seen between Law Enforcement Agencies.” In addition, during this surveillance stakeout, conversations were overheard that strongly suggest an actual murder may have occurred, while police officers listened in! [In the actual transcripts of February 18, 1950, officers document the following: a woman was heard crying, then heard to dial the telephone operator, then screams were heard, then the sound of blows being made with a pipe, more screaming, then silence. Sounds of digging were heard in the basement and George Hodel said to a second male [later identified as Baron Ernst Harringa], something about “not a trace.” Incredibly, though detectives were listening in and were only five minutes away—they took no action! [If arrested, George Hodel’s public admission to this crime, while law enforcement listened in and did nothing, would have, by itself, been enough to end the careers of both DA and LAPD top brass. At the time, George Hodel fled the country. LAPD’s William Parker was just three months away from being appointed the department’s new chief.]
• On March 27, 1950, with Lt. Jemison’s team of eighteen detectives still maintaining a twenty-four-hour audio surveillance on Dr. Hodel, he slipped away. George Hodel left the country and was GONE. After this date, he was never again seen or talked to by any law enforcement agency. [In 2004, today’s LAPD detectives retracted earlier claims that “they cleared Dr. Hodel,” admitting that it was the DA’s office that had been directly involved with the Hodel surveillance, and a check of LAPD files resulted in no information on Dr. Hodel other than “a one-page memo mentioning his name related to some work done at his residence.” The hundreds of pages of investigation and transcripts, as well as the hundreds of hours of tape recordings—all turned over by DA investigator, Lt. Jemison to Thad Brown—were nowhere to be found in LAPD files. All of it just—disappeared.
• In 1950, at the time the electronic surveillance was ongoing at the Hodel residence, LAPD deputy chiefs William Parker [Internal Affairs] and Thad Brown [Chief of Detectives] were involved i
n a power struggle, both wanting to become LAPD’s next chief of police. Thad Brown had the majority of Police Commission votes (three to two) and had been given the nod to become chief in July 1950. Just weeks before the formal vote, one of the police commissioners, Mrs. Curtis Albro, became ill and died unexpectedly. This tipped the scales back to even—and the commission was now divided—two votes for Parker, two votes for Brown.
It is critical to our understanding that we take all of these historically documented events into account.
At that very moment in time (the spring and summer of 1950), surrounded by multiple scandals all threatening to take down the current administration, a new fuse was lit, which, if it became public, would certainly have been a death blow to the administration.
Just when Chiefs Parker and Brown were about to take over and totally reform and professionalize a previously corrupt LAPD, the shit hits the fan—BIG TIME.
Here is a likely scenario of what I believe happened:
A late night top secret staff meeting of LAPD and DA brass took place in a backroom at Deputy Chief Parker’s newly established Internal Affairs Division.
I’m guessing the date was sometime in early April 1950. Likely present were: (1) Interim LAPD Chief William Worton, (2) Deputy Chief William H. Parker, head of Internal Affairs Division, along with several of his investigators, (3) Chief of Detectives Thad Brown, (4) Lt. Frank B. Jemison, LADA’s Bureau of Investigation, and probably his commanding officer, DA Bureau Chief H. Leo Stanley.
The briefing likely began with Lt. Jemison informing all present of just exactly what they had on Dr. George Hill Hodel as the prime Black Dahlia suspect. Lt. Jemison informing those present of Hodel’s connections to Elizabeth Short, along with his taped admissions as to killing her, as well as overdosing his secretary, Ruth Spaulding in 1945. Lt. Jemison likely concluded his part of the briefing with the fact that just as his men were about to arrest Dr. Hodel, he split and his best information was that Dr. Hodel was out of the country, and, based on taped conversations, had likely fled to either Mexico or Asia—possibly Tibet.
Lt. Jemison would have gone on to inform all present that in addition to those crimes, a murder of an unidentified woman may have occurred during the electronic surveillance of the Franklin house and was possibly “caught on tape.” He would have had the brass’ full attention as he described the dramatic February18, 1950 incident with the woman whom Dr. Hodel questioned about what she knew of the different things (connected to his criminality), and, according to the monitoring detectives, “wrote down her answers.” Jemison could have even “played the tape” as he read the detectives’ log notes reporting the later screaming sounds and blows being struck, digging sounds in the basement, and then Hodel stating to a male, “not to leave a trace” then finally—nothing but silence.
As Chiefs Worton, Parker, and Brown sat in shocked disbelief, LAPD Internal Affairs detectives would have likely continued the briefing with their own separate investigative findings.
This likely included their discovery that Dr. Hodel was known and friendly with two LAPD detectives connected to either the Homicide or the Gangster Squad Details. That there may or may not have existed a relationship between Hodel and the two detectives in regards to a protected abortion ring where the detectives were receiving payoffs from doctors in exchange for not arresting them.
These same two detectives, two years earlier, in 1947, directly assigned to or on loan and assisting in the Black Dahlia investigation, either knowingly or unwittingly misdirected the investigation after discovering that Dr. Hodel and Elizabeth Short were connected as boyfriend and girlfriend.
As a result of these detectives’ 1947 actions, Hodel was given “a clean bill of health.” And now, some three years later, the facts indicate that in addition to admitting to police payoffs and two murders, he could well be responsible for additional Lone Woman Murders all occurring between 1947-1950.
Further, the IAD investigation was ongoing, and the facts may reveal that the two detectives were simply trying to protect Hodel from becoming involved as a suspect, as they initially assumed his only involvement was that he was intimate with the victim prior to her murder and nothing more. In other words, there may have possibly been nothing more sinister than initial poor judgment on the part of the LAPD detectives, which may well have resulted in some terrible consequences.
In closing, Lt. Jemison would have advised the commanders that current intelligence information suggested then that Dr. Hodel had left the country and may never be located. And if located, he may never be able to be extradited back to the US.
Further, if he was located, arrested, and returned, Hodel would probably disclose all that he knew regarding police payoffs. [Statements recorded during the surveillance had Hodel saying, “This is the best payoff between law enforcement agencies I have ever seen. Only I know how all the pieces fit together.”]
If arrested, Dr. Hodel would further inform and make public all that he knew of the protected abortion ring, as well as his personal relationship to city and county officials in connection with his VD clinic. He could very well confess to and identify the female victim of the murder that occurred during the February 1950, DA/LAPD stakeout on his Franklin residence.
So now, we have the WHY. It satisfies both sense and reason. In one word—SURVIVAL.
Chiefs Worton, Parker, and Brown had no other options. This was a MANAGEMENT DECISION. The powers that be reasoned that: (1) it was highly doubtful that George Hodel could ever be located and brought back;(2) if he was located and extradited, there were no guarantees he would be convicted [and he had just beat a major felony beef for incest and presumably would have Attorney Jerry Giesler defending him again]; and (3) if he was prosecuted, he could and likely would take down and destroy everything and everybody with him. This would have included politicians, police authorities, gangsters, doctors, lawyers, and entertainers—literally, the entire heart and core of LA’s power structure.
The city coffers would be emptied from the civilian lawsuits that would follow as a result of the detective’s obstructions of justice, which resulted in many more murders.
Both Parker and Brown would be forced to resign, like their predecessors. If forced to retire, they would become powerless to “move forward to clean up and reform the department.”
It would take decades for the LAPD’s reputation to recover from the scandal.
NO! Attempting to locate and arrest Dr. Hodel was simply not an option. It would be better to sanitize the files, remove anything and everything that connected George Hodel to the crimes, and then seal the remaining files off. Lock them up forever.
And that is what was done. The Hodel friendly detectives were Thad Brown’s men, and the buck stopped with him. The decision was made. Parker would be the next chief of police while Brown would remain chief of detectives. Those involved would quietly retire from the department or be transferred out of harm’s way. And each officer who was present swore to take this horrible secret to their grave.
Parker and Brown were not criminals but rather Machiavellian princes who reasoned that desperate times demanded desperate actions. They fully justified their actions as being the only available choice. They reasoned that these actions were done for “a Higher Good”; for the good of the department, for the good of the city. And naturally, for the good of themselves.
We also have to keep in mind that George Hodel had extensive and longstanding connections with corrupt Los Angeles city officials.
His close friendships and quid pro quos within the LAPD and the DA’s Office led all the way back to 1925 when he was just a young crime reporter riding with LAPD’s vice and homicide detectives. Those same detectives, his former friends and “partners,” were now the top brass and running the department.
I have additional information at hand that will, in time, give much stronger support to the fact that George Hodel had the city, especially its then DA and LAPD leaders, by the short hairs. With the informati
on I possess, which will be explained and expanded on in detail in a future book, he literally was holding a gun to their heads, and the administration HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO COMPLY. HE HAD MADE HIMSELF UNTOUCHABLE.
The Missing Evidence and Hodel Files
PowerPoint Lecture, Pompidou Centre, Paris France
June 1, 2006
Author giving PowerPoint Talk, Paris 2006
In 2004, my book was translated and published in France as, L’ Affaire du Dahlia Noir, and became a national bestseller in that country. That same year, I was invited to Paris by my publisher, Seuil, and did a number of press, radio, and television interviews.
Two years later, in June 2006, I was invited back to Paris to speak at the Pompidou Centre.
My talk included an hour PowerPoint presentation followed by a second hour of audience participation—Q & A. A number of subjects were explored and the entire talk was videotaped.
One of the questions asked dealt with the subject of the LAPD. The questioner wanted to know what exactly they had done as follow-up in the three years since my investigation was made public.
Here is my unedited verbatim transcribed response to her question on the evening of June 1, 2006. Though a bit redundant to what has just been discussed, I will include it since I believe it does add some further insights as to how it all “played out.”
Q: Has the Los Angeles Police Department responded to your Black Dahlia investigation?
SH: Yes, and that response has been, NO RESPONSE. It has been very frustrating.
Because, frankly speaking, I was an honored detective highly respected. And I thought the first thing that would happen…this was going to be a slam dunk case.
You’ve got DNA. They’ve got the envelopes. They’ve got the saliva where he licked the stamps. All of that. You do the DNA. It will be a slam dunk match and there were also some proof sheet papers, if you remember from the reading. Very unique, that I felt we would make to the notes that were mailed in.