The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  But there were doubtless many more; a "secret" like that is quickly passed around within the high-ranking inner circle. If not immediately, then ultimately, Captain Donahoe and Captain Earle Sansing discovered the truth, but were forced to keep it to themselves.* Sansing doubtless wanted to see if I knew the truth about my father when in 1963 he told me bluntly that it would be a waste of time and taxpayers' money for me to enter the L.A. Police Academy. It's also possible that many of today's surviving top brass know this secret, and are expected, like the good soldiers they are, to take it to their graves.

  But why was the cover-up allowed to continue? It's clear that "Ball and Small" were only doing what they were paid to do when they wrapped protection around the doctors in the abortion ring. If my father knew the names of the doctors in the ring, it's likely that the Gangster Squad detectives protected him as well. But when the information about the Dahlia murders reached the higher ranks, someone at the very center of power had to make the decision to suppress it.

  Now, try to imagine what it must have been like in October 1949, when Deputy Chief William H. Parker and Deputy Chief Thaddeus Finis Brown faced off against each other for the top job in the LAPD. Each man realized that the department and its officers had been under constant fire from the press and the public during the past year. Crime was still rampant. Worse, terror was gripping the city's female population as a result of the dozen or more rape-murders that still had not been solved. A crazed sex killer was on the loose — back in 1949 nobody knew what a serial killer was — and no one could stop him. The stigma of the nation's most horrific and sadistic murder, the Black Dahlia, had been burned into the collective psyche of the L.A. public, and the case remained an open wound that would not heal.

  Against this background, either Brown or Parker — or both — in what I suspect was a late-1949 briefing of an Internal Affairs investigation, were told by their subordinates that "there is another problem."t Two years earlier, in the weeks following the murder of Elizabeth Short, several detectives working on the Homicide Division's Gangster Squad were assigned to assist in the investigation due to the fact that the crime may have been gangster-related, as a prominent citizen and friend to known hoodlums — also a boyfriend of the victim — was a possible suspect. The two Gangster Squad detectives (known and friendly to this suspect) informed the regular homicide detectives assigned to the Dahlia case that they had checked him out and were able to eliminate him as a suspect. They likely further minimized his 1947 connections to the crime by informing other detectives that it was simply a mix-up, a case of mistaken identity. Chiefs Brown and Parker, in their 1949 briefing, were likely further informed of the following: two years after the Dahlia murder, in October 1949, the suspect/acquaintance of these same two detectives, a prominent and wealthy Hollywood man, a medical doctor, had been arrested and charged by LAPD Juvenile Division detectives with having committed incest with his fourteen-year-old daughter. Now this guy was going to trial.

  The candidates received more bad news. An independent investigation by Internal Affairs officers had just turned up evidence that the two Gangster Squad detectives who had originally eliminated this suspect had probably destroyed some bloody clothing that may have connected him to another murder shortly after the Dahlia killing. In fact, according to IAD, these detectives might well have done everything they could to cover the doctor's tracks, so that he would not be discovered. What were their motives? Probably financial, because it's known that this Hollywood doctor was not only tied to known gangsters but also might well have either been involved in payoffs to the police or been tied to the abortion ring Charles Stoker testified about before the grand jury. Perhaps both.

  But the worst was yet to come. According to the IAD officers, it was highly likely that many more of the recent murder victims since 1947 were connected to this same man, and he might well have been responsible for a dozen or more sexual homicides over recent years. This killer, whose identity was known to police, was still on the loose.

  Both Parker and Brown — and it was Brown's own brother who had investigated this suspect — knew that they had everything to lose and nothing to gain by putting this guy away and risking a full disclosure. With the elections eight months away, were the truth to become public, each candidate and everything he'd worked for would be swept away in a tidal wave of scandal. The humiliation sure to follow would not only result in each man's total loss of power within the department, but would probably destroy the department as well. The LAPD would never recover.

  Could either Parker or Brown, both of whom were creatures of the system, admit to the public that two of their veteran detectives were running an abortion ring, taking protection money as payoffs, and then covering up Los Angeles's most brutal murder to protect a friend tied to the same gangsters who were paying them off? Finally, as a direct result of their actions, this madman had been allowed to remain free to continue his killing spree for two more years within the city.

  Disclosure was not an option. The liability to the city alone from the lawsuits by relatives would almost certainly bankrupt the city. Two corrupt policemen could not be allowed to destroy the careers of the many. Nor could they be allowed to destroy the reputation of the department. There was only one solution: a cover-up of the Gangster Squad detectives' cover-up. For the good of the entire department, for the good of the city, and probably for their own good as well, the two candidates for chief rationalized and justified their actions and put in place a cover-up.

  So the orders came down: all Dahlia records were to be sealed, entombed at Homicide Division. It was an informational lockdown. No one was to see the investigation. One detective was to be assigned to the case and even his own partner would be restricted from access to the files. Nothing on the Dahlia case was to be shared with any other jurisdiction, and trusted sentinels were to be posted as gatekeepers to the locked files. Maybe even the files themselves were destroyed in an attempt to remove anything that might shed light on the truth. After all, these women were all alone in the world. And they were dead. Nothing would bring them back. Why destroy the department when it would accomplish nothing? Both Brown and Parker were united in the same conclusion — the department could not look back, only forward. Each man, were he to be made chief, doubtless vowed to put reforms into place that would keep a disaster like this from ever happening again. And when Parker became chief, he began just such a decade of reforms.

  These, I believe, were some of the main reasons — and justifications — by a few men in power at the very top to implement a cover-up: to preserve the department, the administration, and the city coffers.

  In 1949 Los Angeles it was business as usual.

  * * *

  1Three weeks later, Chief Parker would suffer a massive heart attack while giving a public speech and die. Thad Brown would then assume command.

  *Daryl Gates, in his autobiography, Chief: My Life in the LAPD, refers to Sansing as LAPD's "greatest captain of all time."

  LAPD's Internal Affairs Division (IAD) was established in 1949, by then interim chief Worton, who promoted Inspector Parker to the rank of deputy chief and placed him in charge of this newly established unit. IAD detectives were (and are to this day) both feared and hated because of their role of investigating and ferreting out crooked cops.

  28

  The Grand Jury

  Even truth itself decays, and lo, from truth's sad ashes pain and falsehood grow.

  — Herman Melville

  WHILE MUCH OF THE INFORMATION that follows is probative and directly supports the fact that George Hodel, the 1949 grand jury's "wealthy Hollywood man," was the prime suspect in both the Black Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders, we need no further proof. We have reviewed the evidence, seen the proof, and now know he was without question the killer.

  But there remains a further truth that needs be addressed. Like myself, many will find this second truth to be as dark as, or darker than, the stark reality of my father's madness.

&
nbsp; That truth has to do with proving my allegation that the Los Angeles Police Department did commit a Dahliagate. The department's two highest officers, Thad Brown and William Parker, in a conscious and deliberate obstruction of justice, aided and abetted a cover-up and, along with their subordinates, were directly responsible for knowingly permitting a psychopathic serial killer to remain free until he was finally forced to leave the country in 1950.

  I make these allegations with the utmost reluctance and a heavy heart. These two leaders, Parker and Brown, were on the job and in command during my watch. Both were my personal heroes and remain unarguably LAPD's two most important legends. But the facts are undeniable.

  Violence was so prevalent on the streets of Los Angeles by 1949 that the public had finally had enough. Each day's headlines featured new stories of kidnapping, rape, and murders of women even in the city's upscale neighborhoods. No one was safe, and the community was outraged over the ineffectiveness of their police department. Worse, the department itself seemed to be no better than the gamblers, hoods, and thugs it was supposed to be getting off the streets.

  First, there were the revelations of graft and corruption that came out of the Administrative Vice Division when Sergeant Stoker went public with the story of the Brenda Allen scandal. Hard on the heels of a public airing of LAPD's dirty laundry came the murder of Louise Springer, whose body was found strangled in her car near downtown. Then came what was to be known as "the Battle of Sunset Boulevard," when famed gangster Mickey Cohen and his entourage were gunned down on the streets of Hollywood. Then people began disappearing under mysterious circumstances, one after the other. First was Mimi Boomhower on August 18. Then on September 2 came the turn of Barney Weiner, a fifty-year-old newspaperman and district manager for the Daily Racing Form. Frank Niccoli, a close friend and business associate of Mickey Cohen, vanished on the same day. Their respective cars were soon located, but no bodies were found. Actress Jean Spangler disappeared on October 7, and three days later Dave "Little Davey" Ogul, another Cohen henchman, also vanished, and his car, like the others, was found abandoned in West Los Angeles. Cohen was quoted as saying about Niccoli and Ogul, "Fm afraid the guys ain't living. They was swallowed up."

  By October, Los Angeles had jokingly become known as "the Port of Missing Persons," but it was no joke and its citizens were not laughing. Not only notorious hoods and gangsters went missing, but ordinary people as well. It was time the district attorney did what he was elected to do and put a stop to it.

  In 1949, a grand jury was empaneled. Very quickly, it became proactive and, led by fiery jury foreman Harry Lawson, seemed determined to get some answers. Conducting its own investigations, and using its subpoena powers, it began with the Brenda Allen case and Stoker's charges of a systemic corruption within the LAPD, reaching all the way to the top.

  After the Brenda Allen case and Charles Stoker, the next item on the grand jury's agenda was the Black Dahlia murder. Why hadn't the case been solved, and, if a fix had been put in, who was behind it?

  Investigators from the district attorney's office, working through their own operatives, interviews with witnesses, and information developed by unnamed private investigators independent of the LAPD, provided dramatic new information to the grand jury.

  The actual testimony itself, as with all grand juries, was secret and, because the case is still technically open, remains secret to this day. However, from articles printed in the dailies, it became clear that DA investigators believed that detectives within the LAPD assigned to the Gangster Squad had orchestrated the cover-up. DA investigators testified before the grand jury with respect to their own investigation and findings, which were the results of having assembled and organized all facts related to the Dahlia investigation during the thirty-four-month period since the murder. They suspected that the Gangster Squad detectives were protecting the identity of "a wealthy Hollywood man" who was a prime suspect. The DA investigators gave the grand jury the name of the suspect and his address, saying they had found witnesses who would testify to having seen bloody clothing of the type and size worn by Elizabeth Short, as well as bloody bedsheets, inside the suspect's home.

  While it did not release the name and address of the suspected murder residence to the public, an article in the Herald Express dated September 13, 1949, under the headline "Black Dahlia Murder Site Found in L.A.," reported on part of the grand jury testimony. The article stated, "It was reported that the room where the murder took place was less than a 15-minute drive and in a bee line from the vacant lot where the nude and bisected body of the girl was discovered January 15, 1947 .. . and the home was on one of Los Angeles' busiest streets."

  In secret testimony, DA investigator Lieutenant Frank Jemison identified this "wealthy Hollywood man" as the same person whom Elizabeth Short had phoned from San Diego on January 8, 1947; the same man, who, four days later, on January 12, using the name "Mr. Barnes," checked into the East Washington Boulevard Hotel with Elizabeth Short as "husband and wife." Moreover, the DA investigators testified, the hotel owners had positively identified "Barnes" from a photograph found in the victim's belongings, and the man, according to the testimony, was "connected to a foreign government."*

  Because of this dramatic new testimony from the DA investigators, the grand jury subpoenaed LAPD detectives to testify how they had investigated the case and what they had found. The jury called seven members of the Gangster Squad, including the head of the unit, Lieutenant William Burns (could Bill Burns be Stoker's "Bill Ball"?), and a Detective J.Jones ("Joe Small"?). The remaining Gangster Squad detectives called were Sergeants James Ahearne, John O'Mara, and Conwell Keller, and Officers Loren K. Waggoner, Archie Case, and Donald Ward.

  Next, the grand jury subpoenaed Deputy Chief Thad Brown, as well as interim police chief William Worton, who had replaced former chief Clemence Horrall. Horrall, one recalls, had resigned shortly after his perjury indictment resulting from Charles Stoker's testimony in the Brenda Allen case. In June 1949, Mayor Bowron had appointed Worton, a retired Marine Corps general, as the LAPD's interim chief. Worton, restricted to one year of service, would remain only until the police commissioners made their final vote between the two top candidates, Brown and Parker.

  The grand jury asked Chief Worton about the overall investigation of the Black Dahlia case and about the possibility that the wealthy Hollywood man was being protected by members of his department's Gangster Squad. A December 7 article published by the Los Angeles Examiner under the headline "Dahlia Motel Angle Probed by Grand Jury" indicated that Worton had personally investigated both matters related to the Hollywood man's meeting the victim at the downtown motel and being protected by the Gangster Squad and said that "Chief Worton does not believe there is a case against the man on either score on the basis of information presently available."

  It was the statement "information presently available" that red-flagged the chief's statement for me. It meant that Worton had left himself a very convenient back door were the Dahlia case ever to blow up in his face.

  After its two-month review of the Dahlia case, the grand jury, whose authority had expired on December 31, 1949, came out with a scathingly critical report of the Los Angeles Police Department and a demand for a complete reinvestigation of the Elizabeth Short murder, as well as of many other unsolved murders of female victims during the previous five-year period. On January 12, 1950, a front-page headline appeared in the Herald Express, "Unsolved L.A. Crimes Ripped By Grand Jury," with an article featuring photographs of seven of the victims, including Elizabeth Short, Jeanne French, Louise Springer, Gladys Kern, Laura Trelstad, Dorothy Montgomery, and Evelyn Winters.

  Exhibit 62

  Herald Express, January 12, 1950

  The article published the grand jury's final report, and enumerated its specific findings, which included LAPD officers receiving bribery payoffs for protecting gangsters, and bookmakers, gamblers, and abortionists being allowed to run free without fear of prosecution. Addres
sing the grand jury's full report, the article noted, "the report was almost reminiscent of Chicago in its heyday of crime, although perhaps on a smaller scale."

  Sharply criticizing the Black Dahlia investigation, the grand jury intimated a "cover-up" by certain police officers. Below are excerpts directly from the grand jury's report that was summarized in the Express article:

  Testimony given by certain investigation officers working this case was clear and well defined, while other officers showed apparent evasiveness. There was not sufficient time left to the jury to complete this investigation, and this Grand Jury recommends that the 1950 Grand Jury continue the probe.

  This jury has observed indications of pay-offs in connection with protection of vice and crime, and gross misconduct on the part of some law enforcement officers.

  In some cases jurisdictional disputes and jealousies among law enforcement agencies were indicated. In other cases, especially where one or more departments were involved, there seems to have been manifested a lack of co-operation in presenting evidence to the Grand Jury, and a reluctance to investigate or prosecute.

  In addition to its findings and critical report, the 1949 grand jury, in its boldest move, recommended that the Black Dahlia investigation be taken over by the district attorney's office investigators and taken out of the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department. They also requested that those same investigators contact and interview the "wealthy Hollywood man" cited by DA investigator Jemison as a possible prime suspect, regarding his links to the crime.