The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  Georgette Bauerdorf had graduated from the prestigious West-lake and Marlborough schools for girls. Marlborough, in a wealthy residential section of southern Hollywood, was only a few miles southeast of her apartment. As part of her personal war effort, Georgette had volunteered to serve and entertain servicemen at the Hollywood Canteen, where they came to relax and dance with the pretty girls. Every Wednesday night she served as a junior hostess at the club, where she was well liked, popular, and considered generous and kind to all she met. According to entries found in her diary, Bauerdorf had a boyfriend named Jerry, who was about to graduate from an Army Air Force school in El Paso, Texas. She was planning a surprise flight down to see him graduate.

  Georgette was seen on the evening of Wednesday, October 11, at 10:30 p.m. when she left the Hollywood Canteen for home, a short two-mile drive west of Hollywood. Her girlfriends at the canteen told police she had been dancing as usual with different servicemen that night. Georgette's friend, twenty-year-old June Ziegler, who worked with her at the canteen, told Sheriff's Department homicide detectives what she saw on that Wednesday evening:

  She [Georgette] was seated in her car near the canteen when I arrived about 6:30 P.M. She was knitting and appeared quite nervous. I climbed in the car and we talked for about 30 minutes before we went inside. She told me she was nervous and asked if I would spend the night with her. At the time I did not pay much attention, because I thought she was just nervous about the plane trip, which I knew she had kept secret from everyone but myself.

  In his book Severed, John Gilmore mentions Agness Underwood's belief that the Dahlia and Bauerdorf murders were connected. Gilmore also refers to an anonymous tip that Underwood received about a week after the Bauerdorf murder, in which the informant indicated that a white male had been seen walking away from Bauerdorf's car at 25th and San Pedro. The man was described as tall and thin, wearing what appeared to be a military uniform but without the Army jacket. Underwood speculated that he might have been impersonating a serviceman to pick up girls at the canteen.

  It was also rumored that Bauerdorf may have made some additional entries in her personal diary, recovered at her home by the sheriffs detectives, that related to the friend of a soldier, an older man, with whom she had danced that Wednesday evening. Acquaintances said that Georgette had indicated to others at the canteen that she did not like him because he was aggressive and persisted in dancing with her.

  Unidentified latent fingerprints were found in the bathroom near the body, throughout the apartment, and in her recovered vehicle, and detectives were hopeful at the time that they would eventually lead to the identification of the suspect. A latent print obtained from a light bulb in the foyer, believed removed by the suspect, added speculation that he could have been taller than the average male.

  Blood spots were also found on clothing at the crime scene, and could have been either the victim's or the suspect's. If the clothing was not disposed of, it could still be of potential value for blood typing or DNA evidence.

  In my review of published facts from the investigation, I discovered a most important and unique piece of evidence: the murder weapon. Most accounts simply refer to it as a "gag" or piece of cloth. However, one article in the Los Angeles Herald Express, reporting on the autopsy inquest on October 20, 1944, was more precise:

  DEPUTIES TESTIFY

  Deputy Sheriffs A. M. Hutchingson and Ray Hopkins told of the routine investigation and failure to find, so far, any clue to the girl's slayer.

  Exhibits shown to the jury included the gag, which was stuffed down Miss Bauerdorf's throat. The material in this gag has been identified by medical supply men as elastic cotton knit ace bandage, such as used by athletes to ease sprained muscles and by orthopedic physicians . . .

  Deputy Sheriff Howard Achenbach, acting on a hunch, entered the Orthopedic Supply Co. at 309 South Hill St., where the material was identified as bandage. However, it was learned that the material in this 9" size of the gauge had not been sold in this city for 22 years.

  The killer brought this most unusual weapon with him to the apartment, and after beating the victim suffocated her by forcing it down her throat. Who, other than a medical professional, would be carrying such a "weapon"?

  Exhibit 55

  Above is a photograph of my reconstructed version of how the murder weapon must have appeared, based on the sheriff's deputies' description.

  The Los Angeles daily papers covered the Bauerdorf investigation for several weeks, but the Hearst papers minimized their coverage, probably because of Hearst's close friendship with, and respect for, the victim's father.

  Nearly a year after the murder, an article appeared in the Examiner on September 21, 1945, that read almost like an epitaph. The story included a typed note from someone claiming to be her killer. Below the headline the paper ran Georgette's picture, along with the note, in which the killer taunted the police and promised to revisit the Hollywood Canteen within the month. The note, exactly as the self-proclaimed killer typed it, read:

  To the Los Angeles police--

  Almost a year ago Georgette

  Bauerdorf, age 20, Hollywood

  Canteen hostess was murdered

  in her apartment in West Holly

  -wood-

  Between now and Oct. 11-a year

  after her death-the one who

  murdered her will appear at the

  Hollywood Canteen. The murderer

  will be in uniform. He has since

  he committed the murder been in

  action at Okinawa. The murdernx

  of Georgette Bauerdorf was Divine

  Retribution-

  Let the Los Angeles police arrest

  the murderer if they can-

  An eleven-year-old student named Marilyn Silk had found the note on her way home from school. Written on a sheet of personal notepaper and stuffed inside a dirty envelope, the missive was lying on a stone retaining wall near Fairfax High School in Hollywood. The newspaper also dropped a clue that had not been disclosed to the public at the time of the homicide a year earlier when it reported, "There was the suggestion by friends that she [Bauerdorf] was accompanied home by a man in uniform."

  What struck me in the Bauerdorf case was its obvious similarity to the later Dahlia killing, in which the suspect also taunted police via notes to the newspaper. The Bauerdorf suspect promised police that he would appear at the Hollywood Canteen in uniform by October 11. (Father's birthday was October 10.) The killer's "Let the Los Angeles police arrest the murderer if they can" echoes the words used two years later in the pasted message to the police in the Dahlia case: "We're going to Mexico City — catch us if you can." The killer's need to seek recognition and publicity for his crimes was a way to exert control both over the police and his victim. Announcing that Georgette's murder was not a crime but his dispensation of "Divine Retribution" also bears an eerie resemblance to what Elizabeth Short's killer would say two years later when he called himself the "Black Dahlia Avenger."

  The Bauerdorf Note

  Other similarities in both the Elizabeth Short and Bauerdorf homicides are, in my opinion, striking enough to be considered thought-prints linking the same suspect to the two crimes.

  In both cases, the notes the suspect wrote to the police suggest that he had some experience as a journalist. In the Bauerdorf murder note, the taunting letter opens with a lead paragraph similar in style to the lead paragraph of a morning newspaper in which the "what, when, where, and who" are all answered.

  To the Los Angeles police

  --(when)

  Almost a year ago

  (who)

  Georgette Bauerdorf, age 20,

  (What)

  Hollywood Canteen hostess, was murdered

  (where)

  in her apartment in

  West Hollywood--

  The killer tells us the "why" in his next sentence, where he identifies the crime as an act of retribution, and in so doing identifies himself i
ndirectly as an "avenger."

  In the pasted Dahlia notes, the killer again demonstrates journalistic knowledge, this time as a headline writer, in his two separate taunts to police:

  'GO SLOW'

  MAN KILLER SAYS

  BLACK DAHLIA CASE

  Followed in a few days by:

  DAHLIA'S KILLER CRACKING, WANTS TERMS

  These are not notes from a streetwise thug, but professional headlines. So professional, in fact, that true-crime author and commentator Joseph Wambaugh told television viewers in the Learning Channel's production Case Reopened: The Black Dahlia that:

  Obviously journalists sent the letter. Cutting and pasting newsprint as was done in B-movie cliches of the era. The same cruel and unscrupulous reporters who elicited background information from Mrs. Short, the mother, by claiming her daughter had won a beauty contest. But, at the end of the day, they didn't prevent the case from being solved.

  There exists another clue to the identity of the letter writer in his unique method and manner of typing, seen in six different locations in the Bauerdorf note, in which he unconsciously leaves two dashes (—) at the end of some of his sentences. In the Bauerdorf note these double-dashes follow the words: "police—", "Hollywood—", "Oct. 11--", "death--", "Retribution--", and "can--".

  In the long letter Father sent me on June 4, 1980, referred to here as "The Parable of the Sparrows," which he typed himself rather than giving it to his secretary or wife to type, there are four separate instances where he used his unique double-dash endings:

  Page 2

  "plastic coating--"

  "mirror film--"

  Page 3

  "to her--"

  "Remember--"

  The use of these double-spaced dashes is such a rarity that their appearances in the Bauerdorf note and in my father's letter to me set off a loud alarm.

  Exhibit 56 shows how the original note appeared in the September 21, 1945, Examiner article along with Georgette's photograph. A separate Los Angeles Times article on the same date informed readers that detectives believe red iodine stains visible on the typed paper were placed there by the suspect to represent blood.

  Exhibit 56

  Los Angeles Examiner, September 21, 1945

  Gladys Eugenia Kern (February 14, 1948)

  On February 17, 1948, Los Angeles Times headlines again blared news of the city's latest murder:

  WOMAN SLAIN IN HOLLYWOOD

  MYSTERY; POLICE SEEK ANONYMOUS

  NOTE WRITER

  The victim was fifty-year-old real estate agent Gladys Eugenia Kern, who was stabbed to death while showing a house to a potential buyer. Her body was found two days later at 4217 Cromwell Avenue in the exclusive Los Feliz section of the Hollywood Hills, by another real estate agent who was showing the house to a client.

  The murder weapon, left at the crime scene by the killer and found in the kitchen sink wrapped in a man's bloody handkerchief, was described as an eight-inch jungle knife of a type used by soldiers during the war. Police found unidentified fingerprints at the crime scene, which, if not lost or disposed of, presumably remain as potential evidence in the unsolved homicide.

  A check of Gladys Kern's movements by LAPD detectives revealed she had last been seen the previous Saturday, Valentine's Day, February 14, meeting with a man at her Hollywood real estate office at 1307 North Vermont Avenue. The manager of a drugstore at the corner of Fountain Street and Vermont Avenue, directly across the street from the victim's office, saw her enter the drugstore at approximately 2:00 P.M. accompanied by a man she described as "having very dark curly hair, and wearing a dark blue suit." The two of them sat at a counter, had a soda, and then left the drugstore together.

  Possibly the last person to have seen the victim alive was radar engineer William E. Osborne, whose laboratory was next door to Mrs. Kern's office. Osborne saw the victim talking with a man at her Vermont Avenue office on February 14, 1948, at approximately 4:00 P.M. The witness told police that at that time, "She put her head in the door of my laboratory and told me she was leaving. There was a tall chap in the office with her." Osborne had the impression that she knew him, because, he told police, "They were talking generalities, not business."

  He provided the following description of the man, which was broadcast by the LAPD as an all points bulletin: "Male, approximately 50 years of age, 6' tall, long full face, graying hair, wearing a business suit with a moderate cut, well dressed and neat, with a New York appearance in his dress and manner."

  After their initial press releases, police told reporters that they had the names of live additional witnesses who had seen the victim with a similarly described individual, but the police did not release their names.

  Two additional witnesses, Japanese gardeners working across the street from the murder scene at the hillside mansion, were located by police and told of seeing "two men coming out of the mansion, and down the steps," on Saturday afternoon, the day of the murder. The gardeners saw the two men get into a parked vehicle and drive off, but the police provided no detailed description of these two suspects or their vehicle.

  During their search of the victim's office, police discovered that a "clients' book" containing Mrs. Kern's appointments and clients' names was missing from her desk. During their search of the victim's desk, police also discovered a small snapshot showing the victim standing with an unidentified man, whom they were attempting to identify.

  The strongest lead in the investigation was a bizarre handwritten note the police received that had been left in a downtown mailbox at 5th and Olive, on Sunday, February 15, the day after the victim's murder and a day before her body was discovered. The note, written on "cheap blank paper," was neither addressed nor stamped but had been folded in half, glued closed, marked "Hurry, give to police," and deposited in a mailbox in the same city block as the Biltmore Hotel. Its condition — glued and folded — was strikingly similar to the earlier Dahlia note left in the downtown cab driver's vehicle that said, "Take to Examiner at once. I've got the number of your cab." In the Dahlia murder, we recall, the suspect alternately directed his notes to both police and the press.

  The Kern note was found by the mailman and given to police. The mailbox, only two city blocks from my father's medical office on 7th Street, was on the same block where another 1947 note (exhibit 28) was left by the Black Dahlia Avenger. That Dahlia Avenger note told police to "Ask news man at 5+ Hill for clue. Why not let that nut go I spoke to said man B.D.A."

  LAPD detectives and forensics experts concluded that the Kern note had most probably been written by the suspect, who, they believed, had altered his handwriting and deliberately used odd phrasing and misspelled words. This note was excerpted, precisely as the writer had spelled and punctuated it, in the Los Angeles Examiner on February 17, 1948:

  I made acquaintance of man three weeks ago while in Griffith Park he seemed a great sport we got friendly friday night asked me if I wanted to make about $300. He said he wanted to buy a home for his family but he was a racketeer and no real estater would do business with him he suggested I buy a home for him in my name then he would go with person to look at property to make sure he liked and I was to tell real estater that he was lending me the cash so he had to inspect and I waited outside after while I went up to investigate, there I found her lying on floor, him trying to take ring off fingers he pulled gun on me and told me he just knocked her out he knew I carried money so he took my wallet with all my money tied my hands with my belt let lay down on sink and attached belt to faucet.

  After he left I got free and tried to revive her I turned her over, I was covered with blood pulled knife out then suddenly I came to I washed my hands and knife then I looked in her bag for her home phone and address then left and ran out while inside I found he put small pocket book in my coat pocket and threw it away, also in my pocket was an old leather strap.

  I knew this man as Louis Frazer he has 36 or 37 Pontiac fordor very dark number plates look like 46 plates but with
48 stickers about 5 ft.-10, Jet black curly hair wears blue or tan garbardine suit told me he was a fighter and looks it I won't rest till I find him I know every place we went together I know that man is my only aliby and without him I feel equally guilty.

  The Examiner article stated that the writer of the note "related that he himself was robbed and bound by the slayer, described as tall, dark and Latin."

  On February 17, 1948, an LAPD police artist obtained a composite drawing of the suspect as described by their unnamed witnesses. The sketch (exhibit 57) was published on the front page of the Daily News of February 18, 1948.

  Exhibit 57

  George Hodel, 1946

  1948 LAPD composite

  George Hodel, 1954

  The above two photographs of George Hodel were taken in 1946 and 1954. The only alteration made to the Hodel photos was the airbrushing out of the mustache, for comparison to the police composite sketch.

  The art of composite drawing in criminal investigations is particularly difficult, as the police artist is required to try and reproduce a physical likeness of the suspect from eyewitnesses' subjective and oftentimes varied verbal descriptions. While these composites frequently take on a generic appearance, in the Kern investigation it is obvious the police artist possessed unusual skill and ability. As can be seen, the overall likeness of the murder suspect bears a strong resemblance to that of Dr. Hodel. Of particular note are: the shape of the face, the nose, and left ear, the Asiatic appearance of the eyes, and the hair highlighting and style.