The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  Five days after the Kern murder, the Los Angeles Times reported that a realtor associate of the victim, "A man cloaked in anonymity, a mystery man, possessing vital information, is aiding police in their investigation." The article said the man, who had "intimate details" about the transaction involving the victim and the sale of the house where she was murdered, had agreed to cooperate only if his identity was kept secret. Further, all the documents and papers relating to the sale of the house had disappeared, along with the victim's "client notebook."

  In exchange for the details and information, LAPD detectives pledged not to reveal the informant's name to the public.

  After what would normally seem to have been many strong potential leads pointing to a suspect — the composite drawing, the unidentified photograph of the man found in her office desk drawer, a confidential informant providing police with the identity of the victim's "secret client," various eyewitnesses providing a detailed physical description of the suspect, and a rambling, handprinted note — the Gladys Kern homicide remains in the LAPD files more than fifty years later as an "open" and unsolved case.

  Kern Physical Evidence: Kern Murder Weapon

  As in many homicide investigations, a critical piece of physical evidence would not be discovered until years, if not decades, after the crime. As if by chance, it would surface from an offhand remark made fifty years later, totally unassociated and unconnected to the actual investigation.

  In July 2001, I called Joe Barrett and we met for lunch in Santa Barbara, where Joe reminisced about his old friend Rowland Brown and the comings and goings at the Franklin House in the late 1940s when he was rooming there. He told me the following story:

  You know, Steve, that your brother Mike took a knife from my room there at the Franklin House, and I never got it back. Mike was only about eight or nine years old then and he told me that he "lost it." That was too bad because it had sentimental value to me. A good friend of mine had given it to me when we were overseas during the war years. Mike took it from my room, then he said he was playing with it in the vacant lot next door and must have lost it. That would have been in 1948.

  His words jarred me and, without trying to sound too anxious or too professional, I asked, "What did the knife look like, Joe?"

  "It was a jungle knife," he said. "A Navy buddy of mine, a machinist mate, had made it for me while we were serving together aboard a destroyer, in early 1945."

  "Would you recognize it if you saw it?" I asked him. Joe gave me a quizzical look. "Sure I would. There's not another like it in the world." We parted, and I told him I would send him a photograph I had, "just for curiosity's sake."

  Recalling the unusual description of the murder weapon used in the Gladys Kern murder in February 1948, I immediately pulled the file and searched for the picture.

  It was there! The homicide detective held it in his hands as the press photographer from the Daily News photographed it for the morning edition: a jungle knife precisely as Joe Barrett had described it. I cut off all references to the Kern murder and mailed the picture to Joe.

  Two days later, he called me back. "It is my knife, Steve. What's this all about?"

  "Are you positive, Joe? How do you know it's your knife? Isn't it just like any other jungle knife?"

  His response was measured and firm:

  I'm sure it's mine because he made it especially for me. If I could see the knife itself I could verify it positively, because he machined the handle. The knife had different-colored washers, which I think he had painted like blue and green and red and yellow and orange. He then put some kind of Plexiglas handle over the colored rings and the paint hadn't dried completely so they were smeared inside, but that was fine with me. I can recognize the knife immediately, even though it's been fifty or more years now. Your picture is black and white and the knife has multicolored inserts, which you can't see in the photo. I will draw you a picture of the knife as I remember it with the colors and everything. But Steve, I'm sure it's my knife. What is this all about? Where is it? Where is the picture from?

  Feeling I could no longer keep him in the dark, I told him the knife in the photograph had been used in a murder back in 1948. And though I couldn't provide him with any more information just then, I promised that "all would be made clear in the near future." He reiterated that he would draw as complete a description of the knife as he could, including the colors on the handle, and mail it to me.

  Exhibit 58 is the drawing Joe sent, which I received on July 26, 2001.

  Exhibit 58

  Joe Barrett drawing

  Kern 1948 murder weapon

  Joe Barrett's notations read:

  Steve . ..

  The knife was made for me by Frank Hudson, machinists mate 2nd or 1st aboard DD66 USS Allen (destroyer) sometime early 1945. Frank made several for different shipmates all in this fashion. Can't remember any of the other's names unfortunately.

  Frank was from Wyoming as I recall and would be in his nineties if he's still with us.

  This is an approximation though in the spirit of it 53 years later.

  Joe

  Hopefully, the Kern murder weapon, or a color photograph, remains in police evidence, so that they can be compared to Barrett's artistic rendering.

  Even before this latest discovery, we had a strong case connecting George Hodel to the murder of Gladys Kern: the matching composite, the handkerchief, the witness descriptions, the bizarre letter writing, not to mention that the Franklin house was only a mile from both the crime scene and the place where Gladys Kern was last seen alive. Now here was a witness who, unaware of the crime, positively identified the murder weapon as his own knife, stolen from him, he believed, by my brother Michael, in 1948.

  Unlike Joe Barrett, we can speculate what really happened. Father doubtless found his eight-year-old son in possession of Joe's knife, took it from him, and kept it. Just weeks, or perhaps only days later, he used it in the Kern homicide. Confident that the knife could never be linked to him, he simply left it at the crime scene in the sink after washing off the blood with water and wiping it clean of prints with his white handkerchief.

  Does the LAPD still have the Kern murder weapon in evidence? They should, inasmuch as it is LAPD's policy that "all unsolved homicides remain open until they are solved." If not still in physical evidence, is there a photograph of the knife in the murder book file? Is there a color picture? If not, the evidence reports should detail the color descriptions on the unique handle, as Joe had drawn them for me. Finally, is the knife in police custody handmade, a "one-of-a-kind" due to the smeared colors? If so, it would be distinct from the thousands of factory-tooled jungle knives issued during the war years.

  These are all questions to be answered by LAPD, along with the dozens of others that this investigation has raised. For now, it is enough to know that one witness has corroborated the identity and provided a highly detailed description of what is believed to be the murder weapon. Further, he has traced it to the Franklin House, and linked it to George Hodel.

  The Kern Handkerchief

  In the summaries of the crimes in this chapter, we have been forced to rely on what was reported in the newspapers at the time. But there were facts never reported to the newspapers by the police because it was, and still is, routine for the assigned investigators to withhold many findings from the public, because they often use them later in interviewing suspects and witnesses. Police often reserve information so that it can be used in developing key questions that can be used in polygraph examinations to exclude those who come forward and falsely confess to a crime. The Dahlia murder brought out many such people, most of whom were mentally disturbed or simply seeking momentary celebrity.

  In both the Jeanne French and the Gladys Kern homicides, white handkerchiefs were found near the bodies, which is highly unusual. In my experience — which includes the investigation of more than three hundred homicides — I have never encountered a case in which a suspect left a handkerchief at the sc
ene of his crime. It is as if this was a "calling card," like dropping an ace of spades on the body. Such information would not normally be released to the public, and if the killer had left his "calling card" at his other crime scenes, it could have been withheld by detectives in many of L.A.'s other unsolved murders.

  Of special interest are the comments about the handkerchief found at the Gladys Kern murder scene. According to the Los Angeles Times of February 21,1948:

  HANDKERCHIEF IN MURDER

  FAILS TO YIELD CLUE

  Only one shred of new information was turned up yesterday at the inquest into the murder of Mrs. Gladys Kern — the killer probably is a man whose laundry is done at home. This deduction was made from testimony given by Police Det. A.W. Hubka.

  Hubka said that when he and Det. Sgt. C.C. Forbes investigated the slaying in the six-room vacant home at 4217 Cromwell Ave., in the Los Feliz district, a balled-up man's handkerchief was found in the kitchen sink near the body. No laundry marks were on it.

  Dr. Hodel did not send his laundry outside to be done because he had a full-time live-in maid, Ellen Taylor, who did all his cleaning and laundering. Like the handkerchief found at the Kern crime scene, and possibly the French and later Newton homicides, his handkerchiefs would be without a laundry mark to aid in any tracing.

  The Murray, Kern, and Bauerdorf homicides are only three of the murders that took place during roughly the same period as the Black Dahlia that, in my opinion, are linked by the same suspect behavior and descriptions, as well as by victim profile.

  Just as compelling are the murders of Mimi Boomhower and Jean Spangler, which also occurred in Los Angeles during the key Dahlia years. Like the above three, they too bear distinctive, perhaps unique, thoughtprints.

  24

  The Boomhower-Spangler

  Kidnap-Murders

  Mimi Boomhower (August 18, 1949)

  THE STORY OF MIMI BOOMHOWER'S disappearance broke on August 24, 1949, in the morning editions of the Los Angeles papers. The Bel Air socialite and "prominent heiress" had apparently vanished from her mansion six days earlier. Mimi, referred to by her friends as "the Merry Widow" because of her fondness for "going out on the town" and partying at various Hollywood nightclubs, had lived alone since the death of her husband in 1943. LAPD police detectives, who responded to the Boomhower home in Bel Air, discovered that all the house lights had been left on, her car was in the garage, the refrigerator was filled with fresh food and produce, and items recently ordered by her from stores had been delivered the day after her disappearance. Deputy Chief of Detectives Thad Brown issued a statement to the press in which he said, "We simply do not know what happened to her."

  An unidentified witness found Boomhower's white purse in a telephone booth at a supermarket located at 9331 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, with a note written directly onto the purse in large handprinted letters that read:

  POLICE DEPT. —

  WE FOUND THIS AT BEACH THURSDAY NIGHT

  In retracing her movements, the police learned that the last known person to have seen her was her business manager, Carl Manaugh, who had spoken with her at his Hollywood office on Thursday afternoon, August 18. Manaugh told the police that Mrs. Boomhower had informed him "she was meeting a gentleman at 7:00 p.m. at her home," whom he believed may have been a prospective buyer for the mansion. An article in the Mirror revealed, "The police were discounting rumors that a scar faced gambler was angry at Mrs. Boomhower for not selling him the place for a gambling palace."

  A possible suspect, identified by the newspaper as "Tom E. Evans, ex-host on Tony Cornero's gambling ship and former dope peddler, is to be questioned in West Los Angeles today." An ex ex-LAPD officer phoned in a tip that several days before her disappearance he saw Evans with the victim having drinks at the bar at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood.

  Tom Evans was a gambler, with a criminal record in Los Angeles dating back to the early 1920s. He had prior local arrests for bootlegging and robbery and had convictions for "opium running." As the former associate and employee of Los Angeles vice czar and gambling ship owner Tony Cornero, Evans was well-known to LAPD, who ran him out of town after the shooting and wounding of Cornero in Hollywood in 1948. Cornero's assailant was never identified or arrested.

  Evans told reporters who questioned him after he was identified in the paper, "Sure I was in the bar at the hotel last week — I'm there every day." He was taken to West Los Angeles Division police station and questioned by detectives, but denied knowing the victim. Detectives told the press they believed that Evans was "in the clear, and that someone probably just had a grudge against him," adding that they had been receiving numerous phone calls and tips and had eighty names of possible suspects. In the course of my investigation, I learned that Tom Evans was not only Tony Cornero's bodyguard, but also an acquaintance and associate of my father, dating back to 1925.

  After interviewing Mrs. Boomhower's friends and business associates, police learned that only days before her disappearance she had inadvertendy acknowledged to her furrier William Marco that she "had been secretly married." She said she couldn't give Marco an order for a fur she was contemplating buying, because "I'll have to talk it over with my present husband." Then Marco said that the victim "checked herself" and said, "I'll talk it over with my family and come back."

  The only public clue of substance was the victim's purse, which the police laboratory determined contained no particles of sand that could have substantiated its having been found at the beach. The police believed that the purse had been left at the phone booth by the suspect himself, because the phone booth was only a few miles from her home and the purse appeared only a few hours after her kidnapping. A citizen who anonymously turned in evidence to police would more likely attach a note to it.

  On September 30, 1949, the court declared that Boomhower was dead, but to this day her body has never been recovered and the case remains in LAPD files as another unsolved homicide.

  The Physical Evidence

  As indicated, it is highly unusual that a witness would write a note directly on the victim's purse. People who make such finds usually attach a note to the evidence. Los Angeles's three largest newspapers — the Times, the Herald Express, and the Examiner — all simply reported the text of the message on the purse. Only the Los Angeles Mirror ran a photograph of the purse itself, in order to display the handwritten message as it physically appeared.

  August 25, 1949

  Earlier, I had sent Hannah McFarland the known and questioned documents relating to the Black Dahlia and Jeanne French cases. At this point in my investigation, in September 2000, I sent her a copy of that photograph, informing her only that the questioned-document sample was written in the year 1949 and that the purse was believed to be made of leather. Below is the photograph as it originally appeared, modified by the arrowed markings that were made by McFarland as part of her analysis.

  Exhibit 59

  Boomhower purse — questioned document 10 (Q10)

  Here is her report:

  September 28, 2000

  RE: Analysis of Q10 — Printing on Purse

  Dear Mr. Hodel:

  I am informed that Q10 was printed on a leather purse. This sample, from 1949, has three individual characteristics that are also present in the Known and Questioned printing samples:

  1) The O in police and found on Q10 is slanted to the left. This O is also found in Kl, K5, Q2, Q8, and Q9.

  2) Q10 has letters with horizontal strokes that start far to the left of the body of the letter. This is seen in the letters D and P in dept, and the letter B in beach. This formation is also found in Kl, K2, Q7, and Q8.

  3) The letter S in Thursday on Q10, has a straight stroke in the middle of the letter that forms an angle on each end. This S is also seen in Kl, K5, K6, Q2, Q7, and Q9.

  Due to the three individual characteristics that are common between Q10 and the Known and Questioned printing samples, I concluded it was highly probable that Q10 was pr
inted by the same person who printed the Known and Questioned samples.

  The differences between the printing on Q10 and the Known printing samples can be explained by the disguised appearance (irregularity) on Q10.

  The unusual printing conditions presented by printing on a leather purse may also play a role in some of the differences between Q10 and the Known samples.

  Hannah McFarland's forensic analysis of the handwriting on Boomhower's purse irrefutably connects George Hodel to the kidnap and murder of Mimi Boomhower, one more victim in the skein of lone women murders that took place in the late 1940s.

  One month after Mimi Boomhower disappeared, I believe the Dahlia Avenger struck again.

  The Jean Spangler Kidnap-Murder

  On Tuesday morning, October 11, 1949, the Los Angeles Daily News headline read: