The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  Very Truly yours,

  P. B. Hood (Special Agent, Los Angeles)

  The Bureau's Washington Fingerprint Section responded to Agent Hood in Los Angeles on February 15, 1947.

  Reference is made to your letter of January 31, 1947, submitting three photographs of latent fingerprints for examination in connection with the above entitled matter, your file #62-2928. You are advised that the four latent fingerprints appearing in the photographs were searched through the single fingerprint file, but no identifications were effected. The photographs are being retained for any future comparisons, which might be desired.

  Left: Esther Leov Hodel, George Hodel's mother and the author's grandmother, circa 1912.

  Below: This Hodel family photograph was taken circa 1917 at the Hodel residence in South Pasadena. It depicts composer Sergei Rachmaninov seated between the Russian minister of culture and his wife (possibly the Zelenkos).

  LOS ANGELES EVENING

  * * *

  BOY OF NINE CHIEF

  SOLOIST AT SHRINE

  HOLIDAY EXERCISES

  * * *

  George Hodel, age nine. Photograph from the Los Angeles Evening Herald of July 17, 1917. George, a musical prodigy, was selected to play a piano concert at the L.A. Shrine Auditorium in honor of Bastille Day.

  Dorothy Harvey Huston and John Huston arriving in Los Angeles, circa 1926, shortly after their marriage. They are being met at the train by Johns father, Walter Huston (left).

  This remarkable photograph, dated July 29, 1942, was discovered by the author in 2002. Dr. George Hill Hodel lectures police recruits and vice detectives at the Los Angeles Police Academy on the newly enacted "May Act," which temporarily established prostitution as a federal offense. Though his son was an LAPD officer for nearly twenty-four years, Dr. Hodel never mentioned the fact that he had once lectured to police officers, obviously at the request and invitation of the department brass.

  (Photograph courtesy of the Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA)

  Dorothy Harvey Hodel, circa 1943, in front of the Valentine Street home, with her two sons, Steven (left) and Kelvin.

  Dorothy Hodel, in the courtyard of the Franklin House, circa 1946-47.

  "The Three Musketeers," Franklin House, circa 1948. From left to right: Steven, Michael, and Kelvin.

  Dr. George Hill Hodel in the living room of the Franklin House, in early 1950, just months before he left the United States.

  Joe Barrett, U.S. Navy, circa 1945. From 1948to 1950, he was a boarder in the Franklin House, and privy to many of its secrets.

  The author, age 18. Photograph taken in Manila, Phillipines, while he was visiting his father from his naval base in Subic Bay.

  Rookie LAPD officer Steve Hodel and Chief Thad Brown, 1966. Why would the chief insist on having his picture taken with the raw rookie? This photograph would later prove to be an important clue in the Black Dahlia investigation.

  LAPD Detective II Steve Hodel, Hollywood Division, 1983.

  Tamar Hodel, the author's half-sister, circa 2000. Her information would unwittingly play a major role in helping the author solve the Black Dahlia and other Los Angeles area murders.

  Los Angeles County Head Deputy District Attorney Stephen R. Kay. Kay has prosecuted many of Los Angeles's most notorious murderers, most notably Charles Manson and the rest of the Manson Family.

  (Photograph courtesy of David Fairchild Studio)

  Silhouette of George and June Hodel, taken by the author in 1998 from their 38th-floor, penthouse suite in downtown San Francisco.

  advised that the four latent fingerprints appearing in the photographs were searched through the single fingerprint file, but no identifications were effected. The photographs are being retained for any future comparisons, which might be desired.

  Documents reveal that fingerprint comparisons were being conducted as late as January 19, 1949, which means that these unidentified prints were not those of the postal inspectors, whose prints would already have been on file. Whether these were actual suspect prints or not and whether they yet remain in existence for comparison is not known.

  The file also contains extensive memorandums between LAPD and the FBI verifying that they were in fact looking for a suspect with surgical knowledge. LAPD obtained the names of three hundred students from the University of Southern California Medical School, and requested they all be compared by the FBI against the lifts obtained from Avenger notes. LAPD further advised the Bureau that their own experts were in the process of conducting handwriting comparisons of some of these students to Avenger notes. Additional memorandums from J. Edgar Hoover show that he was attempting to utilize the high-profile status of the Black Dahlia case as a means of accessing Social Security Administration files on private citizens. His request to SSA to obtain information on Elizabeth Short's associates was denied. The director of SSA reminded Hoover that the files on private citizens were sacrosanct, the only exception being wartime, where the national security was at risk.

  The Voice

  Los Angeles Examiner city editor James Richardson was the only person ever to hear the voice of the person who identified himself as Elizabeth Short's killer. He described the voice as that "of an egomaniac, that had a soft sly sound I will never forget."

  After the intense interest in the Dahlia case had faded away, Richardson said it was still his dream and hope that one day the Dahlia killer would pick up the telephone, dial his city desk number, and again ask for him.

  That never happened, but from the description of other people who heard a voice that matched Richardson's description, I believe it is one that I know very well — my father's educated and professionally trained voice.

  Various witnesses in separate crimes have described the killer's voice as "suave and cultured." Even in his youth, his colleagues and friends had mentioned the distinctiveness of his voice when they were describing him to the drama critic Ted Le Berthon, who wrote the 1925 "Clouded Past of a Poet" article in the Evening Herald. What had they told Le Berthon?

  "It's not George's gloom, his preference for Huysmanns, De Gourmont, Poe, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and Hecht that pains us," these friends said, "but his stilted elegance, his meticulous speech!" Le Berthon himself commented on "the voice" later in the same article, a voice that due to its distinctiveness, allowed him to recognize the speaker even before he turned and saw Father in his taxi uniform.

  Knowing my father's voice, from its resonance at the Franklin House dinner table, from his authoritative manner in his executive offices in Manila, and even during his final years in San Francisco, I can recognize both Le Berthon's and Richardson's descriptions as being more than just reminiscent of how my father sounded. They and I heard the same voice.

  22

  Handwriting Analysis

  DURING THE COURSE OF MY INVESTIGATION I recognized my father's unique handwriting on two separate occasions, the first being on the promise-to-surrender note. The original note mailed to the press from downtown Los Angeles on January 26, 1947, by the Black Dahlia Avenger (as seen on page0 169 as exhibit 18) was confirmed by LAPD as having been written using a new, expensive, and at the time, relatively uncommon writing instrument, a ballpoint pen. In that note, the suspect promised he would surrender to the police three days later.

  I recognized this undisguised handwriting as my father's unique style of printing, and I here formally and unequivocally identify that printing as his.

  Unlike some of the other notes mailed to the police and the press, in this note the killer made no attempt to distort or conceal his handwriting. I suspect that, at the time he wrote it, he fully intended to turn himself in, until at the last moment he reversed his decision. In the later notes, where he attempted to barter and "make a deal" with the police, he disguised his handwriting.

  Returning to his early days as a journalist, he sent several headline-like messages to the papers such as: "Dahlia's Killer Cracking, Wants Terms."

  The
second time I recognized Father's handwriting was when I saw it written in lipstick across the naked body of Jeanne French, in a photo published for the first time in LAPD homicide detective Huddleston's morbid collection, Death Scenes. Although I was sure it was my father's handwriting in both instances, I still needed independent corroboration — solid physical evidence clearly connecting Father to both the killings.

  As an associate member of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Seattle, I contacted them for a referral to a handwriting expert. They recommended Ms. Hannah McFarland, a member of both the National Association of Document Examiners and the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation. I learned she was highly skilled in both questioned-document examination relating to authenticity and authorship, and graphology relating to personality evaluation. Her experience included the analysis of hundreds of handwriting documents, and she had testified and was an accepted, certified expert before Washington state courts.

  In engaging Ms. McFarland, I did not reveal to her, nor did she know, the connections between, or the names of, any victims. Nor did she know the name of the suspect or his connection to me. All she knew was that the crime had occurred during the mid-1940s somewhere in California and that it involved the suspect writing on the body of the victim using lipstick. I did not inform her that the samples were from two separate crimes. I did not tell her that some of the documents had been previously analyzed by questioned-document experts at the time of the crimes. I wanted her opinions to stand alone.

  I asked Ms. McFarland to compare and analyze some known handwriting documents to the questioned documents. These included several of the notes mailed to the press, as well as a portion of the death-scene photograph showing the printed letters on the body: "FUCK YOU, B.D."

  In the samples I submitted to her, all the "Black Dahlia Avenger" signatures were excluded, to avoid identifying the specific crime. There were enough writing samples on the many notes to make a comparison to known samples without having to identify the actual cases. The known samples came from a range of Father's handwriting/handprinting spanning almost seventy-five years, including examples from the years 1924, 1943, 1949, 1953, 1974, 1997, and 1998.1 also asked Ms. McFarland to simplify the terminology of her technical analysis and present her information and findings in layman's language.

  I presented her with nine "knowns" (K) and nine "questioned documents" (Q), all of which she examined and microscopically compared. The questioned documents were first compared to each other in an attempt to determine if the same writer wrote them. Then they were cross-compared to all the known documents. Sample K-10 is also included, and will be discussed after the analysis is presented.

  The Knowns

  K-l Handwritten notes prepared by George Hodel 10/15/98 for "conference" with his wife, "JH," in preparation for his contemplated suicide. The "conference" never took place; however, the note was found with his personal papers after his death.

  K-2 "DAD," printed signature, signed and mailed to me in 1997.

  K-3 "Love To Dorero, December, 1974."

  K-4 "Love and Aloha To Father and Alice, Honolulu, 9/25/53."

  K-5 "Chinese Chicken" drawing, handwriting by George Hodel, April 1949.

  K-6 Handwriting of George Hodel written in 1943, medical calendar book: "Genius and Disease," "Poisons," etc.

  K-7 Handwriting of George Hodel written in 1924 on the back of a self-portrait photograph, "portrait of a chap suddenly aware of the words of Sigmund Freud."

  K-8 Handwriting of George Hodel written in 1924 on the back of a self-portrait photograph, "Merlin gazes at cracked mirrors."

  K-9 Enlargement of sample K-5, focusing on Father's writing of the name "STEVEN" (1949).

  The Questioned Documents (all samples are from the year 1947)

  Q-l Postcard mailed to Los Angeles Examiner (reverse — addressed side of Q-5).

  Q-2 Postcard mailed to Herald Express.

  Q-3 Postcard mailed to Herald Express (reverse-addressed side of Q-2).

  Q-4 Postcard mailed to Herald Express.

  Q-5 Postcard mailed to Los Angeles Examiner promising to surrender on Jan. 29. Q -6 Postcard mailed to L.A. press. Q-7 Postcard mailed to Herald Express.

  Q-8 "FUCK YOU, B.D." written in lipstick on body of victim Jeanne French.

  Q-9 Postcard addressed to Herald Express.

  In her letter of April 6, 2000, Hannah McFarland detailed the comparisons.

  RE: Handwriting Examination

  Dear Mr. Hodel:

  You have advised me that the printing on nine scanned computer prints is under investigation regarding authorship. You informed me that all of these printing samples hereinafter referred to as Q1 through Q9, were originally printed on paper, except for Q8 which was printed on a human body using lipstick. These printing samples were represented to me as having been authored in 1947.

  Exemplars (Knowns)

  For the purpose of comparison, I have examined eight printing samples on scanned computer prints, which were represented to me as being of known authorship. These exemplars are hereinafter referred to as K1 through K8. The dates of these exemplars range from 1924 to 1998.

  Assignment

  You have requested an evaluation of Q1 through Q8 in an attempt to determine if they had been printed by the same printer of K1 through K8.

  Findings from Examination

  After careful detailed study I have formed opinions regarding the printing in question. My opinion is expressed without bias or liability in so far as legal action is concerned.

  The unique printing features in the following questioned printing samples are compellingly present in the known printing. I identified 4 individual characteristics that are present in the Known and Questioned samples. Individual characteristics are evident in the letters B, O, D, S, E & P. There are no unexplainable differences between the Known and Questioned samples. Therefore, it is my opinion that it is highly probable that the printer of Q8 (the printing on the body) also authored the printing of K1 through K8. Also, I think it is highly probable that the printer of Q2, Q4, Q7, and Q9 printed K1 through K8.

  There is an indication that the printer of Q3 & Q6 could have authored the known printing, but the evidence falls far short of a stronger opinion. My opinion regarding authorship of Q1 and Q5 is inconclusive due to a lack of identifying characteristics in these samples.

  Please contact me if you need additional information regarding my conclusions.

  Sincerely,

  Hannah McFarland

  Simply put, after carefully comparing all of the known and questioned handwriting samples, Ms. McFarland arrived at the expert opinion that it is highly probable the same person who wrote at least four of the postcards in the Black Dahlia case also wrote the lipstick message "FUCK YOU B.D." on the body of Jeanne French, and that person is the same person who wrote all ten of the known handwriting samples submitted. Her analysis, independent and confidential from my own identification of my father's handwriting, forensically substantiates that Dr. George Hill Hodel in fact wrote the messages mailed to the press in the murder of Elizabeth Short and also the taunting message on the body of Jeanne French.

  In making her authorship identification, Ms. McFarland used the term "highly probable" because, she explained, "absent the examination of the actual original documents, due to having to work with photocopies and scans, which would allow for the possibility of cut and paste, and alterations, it is standard practice that a positive opinion cannot be given." Her "highly probable" finding, she said, is the same as her being "virtually certain that the questioned and known writings were written by the same person." Her opinion was based on my assurance to her that the submitted samples represented accurate copies of the originals, and that none of the documents presented for comparison were altered, cross-scanned, or tampered with in any fashion.

  Here are the document samples and examples that Ms. McFarland prepared for her examination along with her written explanation of the separate docu
ments. I believe it proves to a legal standard the specific points of identification and unique characteristics that identify George Hodel as the author of the writings, calling himself the "Black Dahlia Avenger."

  As requested, Hannah McFarland provided me with the following summarized verbatim report of her analysis in lay language:

  Handwriting identification (or in this case printing) is done by identifying the unique features in a sample of writing or printing, and then seeing if the individual characteristics appear in both known and questioned printing. If the same individual characteristics are seen in both known and questioned printing, and there are no unexplainable differences, then it is likely that they were executed by the same person.

  Below is a reproduction enlargement of Q8, the questioned printing sample written on a human body in 1947. It reads, "FU . . YOU BD." Two letters in the first word are not readable. There are 3 individual characteristics in this printing sample:

  The letter "O" in "YOU" slants dramatically to the left, whereas, the other letters are vertical or slant slightly to the left.