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The Case of the Black Dahlia
25 Plays4 months ago
This unsolved case revolves around confusion and speculation. Who was the mysterious woman dubbed the Black Dahlia, and who was her likely killer? Join Siera and Kayley as they delve into these questions and also ponder the roles of journalism and speculation in the world of true crime.
Sources:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-09-me-asdel9-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-21-tm-dahlia47-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-19-me-knowlton19-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jan-09-me-asdel9-story.html
https://www.independent.com/2018/06/07/black-dahlia-never-dies/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-nov-01-me-28619-story.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/black-dahlia-murder-steve-hodel-elizabeth-short
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/elizabeth-short-george-hodel-suspects-clues-13354993.php
https://www.fbi.gov/image-repository/police-bulletin-short.png
Books:
American Detective: Behind the Scenes of Famous Criminal Investigations, Thomas A. Reppetto
Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, Steve Hodel
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Case Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, I'm Cierra. And I'm Kaylee. And this is True Crime and Punishment. On today's episode, Cierra will be telling us the case of the Black Dahlia. Yes, the crux of this case.
00:00:11
Speaker
is confusion and differences in perception. It's a famous unsolved murder, and it's unsolved for a reason, probably several reasons.
Discovery of the Body
00:00:20
Speaker
We're going to start with the facts, which pretty much just entail the murder itself, and then dive into the mess of sloppy speculation, questionable research ethics, and irresponsible reporting that followed. Ooh, color me intrigued.
00:00:34
Speaker
Our story begins on January 15, 1947, so just a couple of years after the end of World War II. A Los Angeles resident, Betty Bursinger, left her house to pick up a pair of shoes for her husband.
00:00:48
Speaker
But she ended up finding something far more sinister and shocking. As she and her three-year-old daughter Anne approached an empty lot on South Norton Avenue, Bursinger saw something that didn't even look real at first. She later told reporters, I glanced to my right and saw this very dead white body.
00:01:07
Speaker
My goodness, it was so white. It didn't look like anything more than perhaps an artificial model. It was so white and separated in the middle. I noticed the dark hair and this white, white form.
Analysis of the Crime Scene
00:01:20
Speaker
That white, white form belonged to 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, a currently unemployed cashier and waitress who was reportedly an aspiring actress. It's actually difficult to know what Short's aspirations were, because the reports that came out after her death spouted conflicting narratives.
00:01:37
Speaker
But we'll get to those later. Authorities determined that Schwartz's body was such a white, white form because she had been drained of blood. Bursinger's description, separated in the middle, refers to the fact that Schwartz's body had been severed in half at the waist. The technical term for this was a hemicorporectomy, a procedure that slices the body beneath the lumbar spine, and this prevents there from being any broken bones.
00:02:03
Speaker
So lumbar spine is at the very base of the spine, so it would have been like hips and down? Yes. So it was a very interesting and precise cut. The precision of the cut led police to speculate that the killer could have a medical background or even a background in maybe like working at a butcher shop, something where you're comfortable and you know how to cut. The lumbar spine, you would have to know to cut between the ribs and the hips. Like you said, there's no floating bone there. So I feel like you'd have to have at least some anatomical knowledge, right? Yeah, for sure.
00:02:33
Speaker
So either maybe a medical background or this wasn't the first time someone had done that. The centered waist was not the only mutilation on the corpse, unfortunately. The body had been me like mutilated in several places and long gashes had been cut into Schwartz's face to create a gruesome smile of sorts. Like a Glasgow smile? Yes, that's what it's called, the Glasgow smile. ah Do you know the origin of that term? I don't believe so. I haven't heard of it though.
00:02:58
Speaker
Okay, I don't know the origin of it either, but I remember that was one of the terms in the articles, Glasgow Smile. Bruises on her head and arms indicated she had been struck multiple times by a blunt
Media Involvement and Impact
00:03:08
Speaker
instrument. The body had been positioned in such a way as to draw attention, with Short's arms above her head and her legs spread out. Some people noted that it kind of mimicked different positions you would see models in in surrealist art, which was becoming more popular at the time.
00:03:23
Speaker
Upon seeing the body, Bursinger immediately called the police. But the police were not the first to arrive on the scene. In his book, American Detective, Behind the Scenes of Famous Criminal Investigations, Thomas A. Rapetto says that reporter Will Fowler and his photographer, who both worked for William Hearst's paper, The L.A. Examiner,
00:03:43
Speaker
quote, heard the call while driving in their radio-equipped car. They arrived to the scene first. and According to one article I read, Fowler actually closed Schwartz's eyes before the police arrived. so they touched the body They touched the body. There was no respecting the crime scene, no respecting the corpse,
00:03:59
Speaker
This was the 1940s and I found it interesting. They worked for the newspaper started by William Hurst, which you remember from journalism classes. Yellow journalism, sensationalism. Sensationalism, exactly. That's going to be a theme here. That sounds like something a journalist would be on scene for. Yep. And like on the one hand, yes, it's respectful to close the victim's eyes, but also the crime scene.
00:04:22
Speaker
ah sometimes treating a crime scene with respect is different than in treating a dead body with respect. Because yes, if someone has passed away in ah like a hospital, you know, close their eyes, cover them with a sheet, treat that person with respect. But I think in terms of a crime scene that the respect is going to look different and you don't touch the body. Yep. But this was not the end of reporters excessive and likely unwise involvement in the case. Of course it's not.
00:04:48
Speaker
Now the next thing Fowler and the examiner team did could be viewed as helpful, but it was done with ulterior motive. The police needed to send the fingerprints of the corpse to the FBI in DC, but for some reason they weren't able to with what they had. So the newspaper office, the examiner, let them use their photo transmission equipment to send the fingerprints over. Of course, this also meant that the examiner would be the first newspaper in l LA to know who the victim was.
00:05:17
Speaker
Of course. But the examiner team was not satisfied with just being the first to know the victim's identity. They wanted to be the first to speak to her mother. So they called her and to get her to talk to them, they actually lied to her, telling her that Schwartz had just won a beauty pageant. Yeah. Oh my goodness. i know They got her talking and then they're like, okay, now you have to tell her the truth.
00:05:43
Speaker
So then they take her from being on cloud nine to, Oh, I'm so proud. My daughter just won this beauty pageant to, yeah, your daughter's been murdered. We don't know who did it. Can we fly you out here and you can help police with the investigation? That's shockingly awful. It's horrible. In what world was that helpful to them? Well, because they got the mom first, they actually did fly her out to l LA and then they were able to keep her for the next couple of days away from any other news agencies.
00:06:12
Speaker
so they were the only ones who had access to Elizabeth Short's mom. I don't know how the beauty pageant part was helpful to them except that it got her like talking to them at first and to stay on the phone but even then I don't know. And like if I found out someone had lied to me I don't know that I would believe them. I mean if you called me and tell told me that my child had worn a beauty pageant and you were contacting me as like her mother and again this one's not in this this decade if anyone calls me and tells me anything i assume they're lying to me but and then switched over to actually she's dead she's been she's been bisected and carved up and it's awful can you come uh give us an exclusive interview the lawsuit i would levy would be historic
00:06:52
Speaker
I guess it's a mark of the times, but then the fact that she actually went to and spoke to them is crazy. But they also told her she would be helping the investigation. Well, they manipulated her regardless. They manipulated her, and they were mostly just using her. like um She identified the body and everything, but I don't think she'd have a pivotal role in the investigation. She would have been traumatized regardless, because she would, have as you said, had to identify her daughter. But yikes, man. That's not what good reporting looks like. Nope. And it gets worse.
00:07:19
Speaker
Oh no. The lies about Short didn't stop with the examiner's lie to her mother about the beauty pageant. Rumors flew, as different newspapers, not just the examiner this time, of course attempted to turn a sad story into a sensation. Short was a naive Hollywood hopeful, while somehow also becoming a worldwide seductress who played with men's affections. According to one variation of the tale, she became impregnated by a man of high importance who forced her to have an abortion. By the way, she was also a lesbian, involved in a sort of love triangle that ultimately led to her death. Wow. All of this. All at once. Elizabeth Short. but According to these different newspapers.
00:08:00
Speaker
The shy, inexperienced, seductress lesbian baby mama. Right. Naturally. Of course. In short, the reporters of the day appeared to believe that an unsolved gruesome murder was not enough of a story to hold the public's attention. So they invented myriad other narratives to keep people buying newspapers.
00:08:19
Speaker
And the speculation surrounding the murder has never stopped. Multiple books, graphic novels, movies, and articles have come out in the years since the murder up to this day, with various explanations and backstories for Elizabeth suggested. According to an article from the LA Times, Short's younger sister Muriel has said she has avoided reading any of the books about the crime. The family has put so much time into trying to get away from it, trying to put it behind us.
00:08:45
Speaker
And every time someone brings it up, it starts all over again. It's just too much to bring up all the old hurts again. Of course, the Black Dahlia is infamous. The fact that people know her as the Black Dahlia and not as Elizabeth Short, I can imagine there's a lot
Origins of the Black Dahlia Name
00:08:58
Speaker
out there. I mean, ah yeah. Speaking of the Black Dahlia, which is the name of this case and the title the newspapers eventually gave to Elizabeth Short, It allegedly came from a nickname she had received. One article said customers in a bar that she frequented gave her the name. Others said that at customers in a Long Island drugstore that she frequented gave it to her. But apparently it was tied to the fact that she wore a lot of black. And then it was also inspired by a film called The Blue Dahlia, which had come out a year or so before, in which a woman is murdered by her husband. And this was a pre-mortem nickname?
00:09:32
Speaker
If that story of the customers is true, it's a pre-mortem nickname. A theory was that she was called that because she would put dahlias in her hair. She did have black hair. The press called her the black dahlia allegedly because she wore sheer black clothing, you know, as part of her naive Hollywood hopeful but worldly wise lesbian seductress persona. Who's also with the rich man. Yes.
00:09:53
Speaker
So in my point of view, at least from what I have seen, we're not exactly sure what inspired her nickname. Either way, once again, the tragic death of a young woman had turned into something sensational and the real details about Short in this case her name.
00:10:09
Speaker
had once more been obscured and washed over by the tide of public intrigue.
00:10:19
Speaker
less important than the headline let's say it that way you know Rumors were not the only issue with the reporters. According to Repetto's book, quote, during the investigation, journalists trampled evidence, withheld information,
00:10:33
Speaker
and roamed freely through the police department's offices, sitting at officers' desks and answering their phones. Many tips were not passed on to the police as the reporters who received them rushed out to get scoops.
00:10:46
Speaker
oh my goodness but the complete i don't know we try not to get too judgy on this podcast because humans people make mistakes we make mistakes and being too judgy is a mistake can you imagine being a I want the listener put yourself in this position you are sitting at a cop's desk you get a tip and your first thought is oh that poor lady who was bisected and left in an alleyway maybe this can help solve her murder instead you're going to run to go put them in a newspaper somewhere because that's where your priorities are at
00:11:20
Speaker
Yeah. No, i'm I am going to be judgy. I know first of all, not to sit at somebody else's desk. Second of all, not to take their phone calls, especially if they're a cop. That's just like, it's just, it's so crazy because this was what, a hundred years ago? Yeah, not quite a hundred.
00:11:35
Speaker
but Yeah, just about. In the 1940s, like 80 some years ago, how different things are. I don't think I can walk into a police station, even see a cop desk, like without being
Investigation Challenges and Theories
00:11:46
Speaker
arrested. Okay, I know I just gave that big speech about I know not to do that. But now part of me wants to try just to see if I could get away with it. Or join the crime beats like yeah just see how long it takes for them to realize that i'm not supposed to be there they probably would notice right away i mean and i don't know if you do something confidently enough like i've seen oceans eight if you have enough confidence yeah that is true it's crazy if you look confident how far you can get into a situation that being said i work in an office and sometimes we have food in our department we're gonna have to cut this out because it's very very terrible to talk with us in the middle of a murder but
00:12:20
Speaker
we have like snacks in the office and people from other departments will come in and we will zero in on them immediately like you don't belong here regardless of how confident they are yeah and that secretary on second floor yeah she's not letting anybody by her desk i had a friend once that was bringing us food from their lower section of that office and she would not let him go back there she even brought her plate that's crazy because um the other day a friend of ours walked into my office and made it up the stairs brought me a smoothie did she have the baby with her yes there you go oh that's like walking to the police station with like your microphone trapped like in like a baby carrier there you go we'll make it But geez, where were the cops? Where were the other deaths? I don't know. Maybe they were out on the street trying to solve the murder, but- We should really hear about 19 police cops. I'm going to be honest. That's true. I did hear eventually from Repetto's book, like I didn't read through the whole thing, but his whole book is covering different police departments all over the US. He did say eventually this police department was restructured or something, that there were corruption charges and stuff. Wait, was this in LA?
00:13:23
Speaker
in LA. Yeah, the LA Police Department infamous and like, and how bad they were. But maybe it's not shocking that they were not at their desks. I love the fact that essentially it's like, you know, that one like dodgy takeout restaurant you have in your hometown, everyone has one that gets an under new management. every Every few months. Oh, goodness. Anyway, just as the intrigue began to wane, despite the reporters best efforts, a package was delivered to the LAPD from an anonymous source. It contains Shorts's purse,
00:13:53
Speaker
Social Security card, and her address book, which had 100 pages ripped out. The source I looked at said 100 pages. That feels like a lot to me, but I don't know how big the address book was. Well, that's like front and back. Oh, could be, yeah. Like so 50 pages, but even then. Yeah. I mean, I've seen address books that are pretty thick though.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yeah, and it apparently had several, like several hundred pages remaining, which the police looked through those and looked up several of the names, but the evidence alone did not reveal the identity of the killer. A few more letters came from the anonymous person who christened themselves the Black Dahlia Avenger, but the police never discovered his identity. The Black Dahlia Avenger, meaning that he's trying to avenge her? No, because he was taking credit for the murder. I keep seeing the term Black Dahlia Avenger.
00:14:40
Speaker
Well if he named himself that, he might just be stupid. Could be. Might not be the actual murderer. I don't know. They weren't able to find his identity from the letters that were sent in. I didn't even clear that he owned or not. Well, he had her her stuff, but could he have robbed her body? Could be, yeah. And he sent the initial package and somebody else sent the letters after the newspapers went crazy with the package. How many of these people stopped writing letters? So he was claiming that he did it, not that he was trying to get the case solved. Yes, which is why I was so confused by the title Avenger. I didn't find anything explaining that.
00:15:13
Speaker
You're not the earth's mightiest heroes this time. So among all of the chaos and rumors, several suspects emerged and were eventually dismissed. One suspect early on was Robert, quote, Red Manly, a married man who had spent a lot of time with Short in the days leading up to her death. Also Mark Hanson, a nightclub owner who also happened to own the address book she had been using, but neither of these leads panned out.
00:15:37
Speaker
So she had his address book. Right. So I don't know if he just gave it to her and then she was using it or how it came into her possession. I wonder if that's why pages were ripped out. Could be. But also, I don't think he would be stupid enough to send in an address book if it were actually his, you know?
00:15:53
Speaker
but I mean, if she got it secondhand, that's why pages tell what I'm saying. Oh, I see. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, maybe they had already been torn out. Speculation, although I think it was wild speculation. Also surrounded movie actor Arthur Lake, who was friends with Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Apparently some people think that she had had an affair with the actor and then he contacted police contacts who put him in touch with Buzzy Siegel.
00:16:20
Speaker
who was a criminal. I was going to say, that's ah wasn't he involved with the mob? Yep, he was a mob man. And apparently it was Bugsy. Also Bugsy. Why? I guess like tough guys, they have to have the dumb names, like Bugsy. Was he like Bug-eyed or something? All I can think of is Bug's Bunny. o you know i think in the mob you don't you don't pick your own nickname obviously ah so maybe it was an insult could be make him stronger it was his christian name and we're mean it was his christian name oh i googled it they called him bugsy because he had a quick and violent temper and he was apparently quote crazy as a bed bug oh a bed bug
00:17:00
Speaker
those are intimidating. Those are not something you want to have around you. Yeah, apparently, Bugsy is a gender neutral name of American origin that means crazy. So he was crazy. Oh, okay. So if someone's called Bugsy. Don't make fun of their names. Well, if he's crazy, now that could that could align with the multiple bruises to her body. But the hemicorporectomy Yeah, that seems well, I remember listening to a podcast where I believe it was detective Paul holes was speaking about specifically like dissection or bisection or basically anything that would be like medical like that and how people tend to look at that and think you have to have extreme medical knowledge, but that's not always the case. Sometimes people just get lucky. Hmm. I think it was a clean cut and she was drained of blood. Yeah. So that speaks to someone who is experienced in some way.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I feel like the mob doesn't really care about draining you. The mob seemed to run wild, so I don't think they would. Hence why they have men whose name literally means crazy. Also, she was a 22-year-old woman who was new in town, or newish in town. I don't think there is any way that she would be and important enough for them to put a hit out on her and treat her like an example in that regard. right Well, apparently they were doing it for a favor for the movie actor oh who was friends with Norman Chandler. So, Bugsy, possibility, but maybe not. It doesn't quite seem the mob style. I think that whole theory was not based off fact. It was more off just like Hollywood speculation, let's just pick somebody yeah that would sounds
Suspects and Confessions
00:18:32
Speaker
sensational. I mean, it's very it is very sensational. The mob killed her, cut her in half and left her in an alley. like yeah
00:18:37
Speaker
And the idea that she'd been fooling around with an actor, like again, implies to the whole she was a seductress thing. Also, I forgot, it I don't know if we mentioned this earlier, there were also theories that she was a prostitute. As far as we can tell, all of these things are false. Yeah. I would imagine. That's very sensational, like woman murdered, and then it comes out like, oh, she was a lady of the night kind of deal. Just just ah and film like a lot of different angles for sure. Yeah, for sure. Then if you also know a lot about like the movie scene during the 40s, like studios essentially owned actors.
00:19:06
Speaker
um like There are some other cases where you see like, oh, this person was a threat to this actor, so it got taken care of, kind of deal or this actor was a threat to this organization, so this actor got taken care of, quote unquote. so I can see why that would be a ah prominent theory. Yeah. It seems very flashy though to me. Now, we did have someone who confessed to the murder. Joseph Dumé, a car thief, and according to an article a carnival roused about,
00:19:33
Speaker
came forward and said that he killed the Black Dahlia. In fact, he was very insistent on it for years, even after he was cleared of the murder and ruled off the suspect list. Just picturing this man in a bar drunk out of his mind, I killed the Black Dahlia. He was insistent on it. He even said that they were married, but the detectives did the math and she would have been 12 years old. So that was most likely not true. Oh, yeah, legal probably. They had a daughter. it It just, he was very insistent, but he was most likely not the guy. So Joseph was a dead end.
00:20:08
Speaker
Now, people weren't just, well, people. Joseph wasn't just turning himself in. We had someone offering to put the blame on someone else. A woman named Janice Knowlton claims that her father, George Knowlton, committed the murder. Apparently, he in short had been having an affair. Knowlton claimed that she witnessed it and she had to go with her father to dispose of the body.
00:20:29
Speaker
She would have been about 10 years old. Knowlton told this story for many years. Whenever like new things came out about the Black Dahlia case or it was revisited, she would call in to reporters or police officers talking about how her father did it. But the police didn't really take her seriously. Her stepsister, Jolene Emerson, said that everything Knowlton said was a lie. So that also proved to be a dead end.
00:20:54
Speaker
Now there are a couple of other suspects that some people think might be more reliable. Ralph Asdell, a detective who had been called in on the original case, was convinced for many years that he had actually interviewed Schwartz's real killer. Really? Apparently a neighbor in that area where the body had been found in that empty lot had reported a man in a light colored sedan in an empty lot on Norton Avenue on the evening of the 14th of January, so the day before the murder. yeah And I didn't mention this before, but it appeared from the crime scene that the body had been placed there from somewhere else. The murder had not occurred there. There wasn't a ton of blood, right? Yeah, there was no blood on the scene.
00:21:32
Speaker
she had to have been moved from somewhere else. A sedan could have done the trick. The man had acted suspicious when the neighbor had seen him and then he drove away. So the neighbor called it in as Dale decided to track down the driver or who he thought was the driver.
00:21:46
Speaker
He saw the car, a sedan, although it was black, and he approached the driver and spoke to him. He learned the man had recently painted his sedan black. oh He found the man to be very suspicious and he returned and he turned in a report of the interview, but they didn't have proof that the man he had detained was the killer. And its there was only one witness putting him at the scene the night before the crime.
Focus on George Hodel
00:22:09
Speaker
right So he had to let him go and the police department didn't really pursue him as a suspect. But for years, as Dell was convinced, he most likely had spoken to the real killer. And he said in one interview, sometimes you just know. So it was a hunch. It was a hunch. With some evidence was circumstantial, not really. Right. Gotcha. But probably more reliable than Joseph Dumé. Another suspect that many people have begun to believe could be the killer is George Hodel, a physician who seems to have had a much darker side.
00:22:42
Speaker
Ah, a doctor. Interestingly enough. Oh, yes, a doctor. Exactly. So bisection. Bisection. Would be something he could do. Hemicorporectomy. That's what I was trying to say. He knows where that lumbar spine is. That's right. He also probably knows how to say that word. He also, interestingly enough, had an interest in surrealist art. Oh, because you said that she'd been posed.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yep. Oh, the plot. Now that does not convict him as the killer at all. I just thought that to be an interesting detail when I was reading the different articles about it. Now the main person accusing Hodel is his son, Steve Hodel. But this is not just a repeat of Janice Knowlton accusing her father. Steve Hodel is actually a police officer. Oh. And he had begun doing research into the case. One article said to clear his father's name and then he was just finding some evidence that seems like it could be pointing toward his father as the guilty part. a Apparently he found a picture of a woman with his father that he believes could be Elizabeth Short. Now it's not proved conclusively beyond a shadow of a doubt. That was interesting. He kept uncovering other evidence the more he was digging into the story. His father definitely did have a dark side. There are some suspicions he actually killed one of his secretaries.
00:23:58
Speaker
It was ruled as suicide, but possible it was not. He was doing a lot of digging and he got into contact with Steve Lopez, who was a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. Lopez was able to find more information for Hodel as he was looking into his case about the murder. Lopez, the reporter, actually talked to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office to find more information. Part of that information included many, ah many valuable notes, but also some information about six suspects that the LAPD had been focusing on in the Black Dahlia investigation. One of those six suspects was
00:24:39
Speaker
George Hodel. They had actually bugged his home. And there's a transcript of that conversation that took place in 1950, so about three years after the incident. to So February 19, 1950, they have this recording of Hodel speaking to the article called the person a confidant, I don't know who whom he was speaking to.
00:25:01
Speaker
But where he talked about an altercation he had had with a woman and he said, realized there was nothing I could do. Put a pillow over her head and cover her with a blanket. Get a taxi. Expired 1259. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. And then later on, he said, supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore.
00:25:25
Speaker
because she's dead. Oh. Now the secretary's death had been ruled a suicide. Do we know how she passed? She died of an overdose of barbiturates. Again, ruled a suicide, but this transcript kind of makes that seem a little bit suspicious. The hotel took all of this evidence to say most likely my father is the killer.
00:25:48
Speaker
see where he came to that conclusion. I tend not to, I don't know, I tend to kind of steer away from when it's children accusing a parent, not because I think, oh, it's their parent, they have some sort of ulterior motive, I think sometimes trauma or abuse can color your view of situations.
00:26:04
Speaker
And also children, I think, are generally unreliable narrator narrators when it comes to like this. But the fact that he's a cop is interesting. Right. So I hope he would have the knowledge and the ability to be more objective. Yeah. Interesting. And the different articles that I looked at, people spoke very highly, like people who had worked with him spoke highly of him and of his professionalism. We'll put the title of his book in the description so people can look it up because he did write a whole book about this.
00:26:27
Speaker
So that goes way more into detail about the details of the case and his belief of his father's involvement. Something else that added to the evidence, um there was a woman who was the granddaughter of a police informant, and she found among his possessions a note where he claimed the Black Dahlia was killed by a man called G.H. George Hodel. So this lady sent it to Steve Hodel after finding it, because he had heard about his book and everything.
00:26:56
Speaker
Well, it's also more realistic that it could have been his father because not only see a cop doing this research, George Hodel was a specific suspect in the initial investigation. And it seems like at the very least he seemed aware. I don't know if he was aware that he was being bugged, but it seems very inflammatory. We'll say I did do it. It couldn't prove it if I did. Exactly. He's very confident. So even if he didn't know he was bugged, or even if he did, again, they had nothing to prove. And again, Repetto's book doesn't address this specifically, but he did talk about how there was corruption going on in the LAPD. So maybe George Hodel did do it, or at least was, again, we know he was a prime suspect, but maybe some of that corruption was why people didn't look into him as much at the time. Right. And if you, I don't know, maybe you had money, he was a doctor. Yeah. We can look at them and think, ah, rich, interesting.
00:27:40
Speaker
So at the end of the day, we do not know who killed Elizabeth Short. And contrary to all of the different articles that were out there at the time, we don't really know who she was. That's true.
Unresolved Case and Media Influence
00:27:50
Speaker
We talk about about journalism a lot. I think it's ah it's a core interest of ours. um Journalism, religion, murder, whoops. But is it's very indicative of the era where you see a lot of sensation above.
00:28:01
Speaker
truth. And it's very important to remember that everything you hear about Elizabeth Short is secondhand. And it doesn't seem like a lot of it came from people who knew her. And it's a bunch of, she was this, no, she was this. And it's, it's conflicting. You're right to point out that we don't really know who she was. So think to to solve a murder, you have to have an understanding of your victim and it doesn't seem like any much about her.
00:28:16
Speaker
I said at the beginning, this case is unsolved, probably for many reasons. And I think the speculation, just people, you know, coming forward about the murder, like Joseph Dumé, or like Janice Hilton, putting forward a potential suspect with no proof to back it up, like all of these different themes. And then of course, tampering with evidence.
00:28:33
Speaker
taking police phone calls, like all of those different things I think contributed to this case not being solved. Right, the disorganization, we touched on that when we did the West Memphis three case, because of how disorganized their police station was, how things were lost, notes were made, communication wasn't good. And this is, you know, that was, you know, in the 80s and 90s, not the 40s. So I can't imagine, like, there's no record of any of this stuff, you know. So I think it was a doomed enterprise from the beginning, because unfortunately, it was so sensational.
00:29:00
Speaker
The way she was murdered was beyond the norm. And this is a time before. I don't want to say murder is commonplace. We live in a very, very digital age where you hear about a lot of things very quickly when it comes to murder and true crime. But back in this day, the term serial killer.
00:29:18
Speaker
wasn't even coined yet. true So murder wasn't something that you really thought of in that regard. It wasn't sensational. It wasn't someone being cut in half. That was yeah the spooky story you heard. You didn't think of people as monsters and animals who could do stuff like that. you know I think it's it was doomed from the beginning because it was so much sensation before it even got even further sensationalized. That's part of the reason. I mean, we use the title Black Dahlia for the episode because that's how the case is known. But I did not want to call her the Dahlia throughout the story because I feel that's really disrespectful to short as a person. Right. With all of these different cases. Like, yes, it can be helpful sometimes to have titles for the serial killers or titles for the victims. But at the end of the day, they are just people who are in a tragic set of circumstances.
00:30:04
Speaker
That's true. Remembering her beyond the sensation, the black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short being the the woman, not the the story. I feel like the black Dahlia is the black Dahlia could be you know a prostitute, a ah lesbian, some seductress, whatever, because that's not really a person. That's an image. Any other thoughts you'd like to add? I do fall into the camp of people that think that George Hodel is most likely responsible just because of some things that I know beyond this case, if he was thought to be a serial killer, that he had had hands and other murders.
00:30:32
Speaker
And then at one point, if I'm thinking of the correct case, was it him who went to Singapore at one point? The Philippines. He went to the Philippines. He was the Philippines. And I can't remember if there was a murder there of a similar nature of a woman. That I don't know. I just know he left the country for a while. I do remember something along those lines. So I think it lines up very well that it's most likely him. I don't know if I think that whoever did it had to have medical knowledge. I do think they had to be very comfortable with anatomy because beyond rage to have to after the fact dissect a person. I do think medical knowledge would be needed. But again, I've never dissected anything in my life. But no, I do think it was most likely George Hodel. No, I want to read his son's book. I do before I come to any conclusions about it because I think it will be helpful to see the evidence that he lays out.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. It feels kind of callous at this point. I don't know that it matters who killed her, just because like George Hodel is dead. The killer at the time, like he's most likely dead now too. Right. like Whoever did this, I don't think they're still with us. Yeah. Because they'd have to be, if we said that they were what, a hundred like 20 years old, when they committed this murder, they'd be like a hundred now. So I think whoever, whoever this was got away with it, unfortunately.
00:31:48
Speaker
But I definitely do recommend that people look into the George Hodel angle more because if anything else, that's the one that will have the most stuff behind it since Steve did all that research. He was also interviewed as a suspect in the murder of Louise Springer, the Green Twig murder.
00:32:03
Speaker
That was it. I know there's more. up Maybe we can do like a follow up episode. I think this case was not about trying to prove that George Hodel did it. right Yeah, was I was talking about it as short. yeah Like Sierra did this wonderfully. This was an unsolved case. She gave us some of the suspects and maybe in the future we can revisit it. Maybe we can both read Steve Hodel's book yeah and do something like a follow up or like a tangent Tuesday kind of thing where we discuss some outside theories. I feel like we talked so much about the case that there's not much to say now. Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, we kind of let our own thoughts weave in throughout it. But I mean, it is an older case. And again, the majority of the facts are around like the death in the corpse. Because beyond that, we don't have anything. We have so much speculation. And we like to talk about things that we're interested in. And we're both very interested in journalism. And when you care more about your story than the people in your story, when you begin to look at people in stories as characters instead of victims or just people.
00:32:53
Speaker
That's when you can say like, oh, I bet she was a prosecutor. Oh, I bet she was ah someone's mistress to say she was an unwed mother or pregnant or that she had an abortion, which and all this stuff. It was so scandalous that it went beyond how terrible her murder was. And now it's like, instead of what happened to her, it became, well, why did somebody do that to her?
00:33:14
Speaker
in what way can we make this make sense? So what then can we give this to make it a bigger story? Like, let's connect the pieces. It's not fun to say, well, we don't know what happened, because we don't know what who this woman was. But it is fun to say like, well, what if she was, you know, dating some rich married man, and she had to be taken care of. She became story instead of a person. Yeah, I think as human beings, we don't like loose ends. And so we do everything we can to tie them up, even if we just make a tangled mess of knots. I think regardless, whenever you look at a famous unsolved case, either the interest will continue on like it has.
Journalism's Role in True Crime Narratives
00:33:49
Speaker
like people still know the Black Dahlia. It was mentioned in one of the the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, Peter Parker by the necklace for MJ, because it's a Black Dahlia necklace because that's her favorite murder. There's even a heavy metal band. I saw that the and it's it's not even called the Black Dahlia, it's called the Black Dahlia murder. It's the band. So it's kind of like, o and I mean, we turn as people, we turn tragedy.
00:34:11
Speaker
into art. Sierra and I went to a concert last night and listened to a Requiem, which is a ah beautiful piece written about grief and death and things like that. So we turn pain into art, but at some points, I'm like, that is not your pain. Put it back. And we live in ah in an age of infamy. And so whenever we have a case where we don't know exactly what happened, you fill in the blank.
00:34:36
Speaker
You give it your own bend. I don't think it's wrong to theorize. If I thought it was wrong to theorize, I would not be on this podcast right now. I think it is wrong when you are in a position of power to theorize. So when you are a journalist, you have a position of power. You cannot just say whatever you want. You can't make up the most sensational headline.
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah. And when you do, that's when you have things like this years later. I think journalists hold a very heavy responsibility. And I think today we don't see it as much in murder cases. But I do think we have a lot of very irresponsible journalists who allow emotions to color their writing too much because they're trying to sway the court of public opinion. They're not just informing them. They're trying to tell people how to feel and how to think.
00:35:16
Speaker
Right. And it's fear mongering. Like we don't see it as much with murder anymore, but we definitely see it in the political climate. You have people who say, regardless of which candidate is going to get elected, it's going to be the worst thing ever. Right.
00:35:27
Speaker
and it's just It's very irresponsible and it's wrong. It's true. We need more honest journalists. Yes, we do. and I know we're coming down pretty hard on them. Rightly so, because if you're going to take the job, you got to do the job. but I also know it is a hard job and that's a lot. It's very hard as human beings to be impartial. so I understand that we're asking a tall order of them and we do need to extend grace in that way. Be honest with yourself. When you take a job, can you be impartial?
00:35:49
Speaker
And I've said it before, we had a professor in college who asked us in a journalism class, could you be impartial? And could you be unbiased? And we all said yes. And the answer was no. Because you will always have a bias. There is very was precious little on this earth that you can say that i don't have an opinion on that and some things it's because there is no opinion to have you can write a bias into any piece the amount of things you can read nowadays to try and sway you in one direction or to give you like this kind of bait and switch tactic it's not okay but we live in an age where it clicks and everything or our currency
00:36:26
Speaker
Anyway, that's my I'm putting my soapbox away. Goodness. All right, so let's switch to our positive thought for the week. Your case, so you get to go first. Oh. I think I do this to you every week. I'm like, oh, it's my case you go first. I don't know. It's just been a good week. I had a good time with my students. I had some good times with friends this week. I feel like this week was a good... It started out super busy and rushed, but the weekend has been just like a nice time. I was spending time with people, and that was very refreshing.
00:36:55
Speaker
That's good. Thankful for friends. Aww. Darn. What is my positive thought of the week? I reread Jane Eyre this week. Ooh. I love Jane Eyre. I think that is something of a shock to people who know me personally, but I do have one. I'm not. It's very like, you know, has the moors and kind of like the creepy vibe. No, I'm not shocked at all, actually. I do not tend to read romance.
00:37:24
Speaker
But I have been in love with the Jane Eyre novel since I was a teenager. There was just, like like you said, the air of that that novel, Jane's thoughts, Mr. Rochester. I love that story. And I've been in a bit of a and a weird place in life for a bit. And I kind of haven't read anything in a while, which is crazy because I love to read. I love to write. I love to read. But something about when you're kind of in a a rough spot, this the things you love tend to be the first things you let go of.
00:37:50
Speaker
And so I haven't really been reading and I haven't really wanted to read a new book because I don't want to be disappointed by a new book. And because I hate getting to the end of a book and thinking that was a waste of my time. And so I reread Jane Eyre, which I try to do every year. I got to read the the lovely dialogue and if I ever get married, my like Instagram caption post is going to be a quote from Jane Eyre, no one can stop me. Oh, that's cute. I like it.
00:38:16
Speaker
Oh, I love that book. so Okay, so just a good week. Good people, good books. but Good thoughts. Be aware. Take care. And we'll see you next week. Goodbye.