The Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

by Steve Hodel

  RosendaJosephine Mondragon (July 8, 1947)

  On July 8, 1947, another victim was found at 129 East Elmyra Street, near downtown city hall.

  Rosenda Josephine Mondragon's nude body was found with a silk stocking wrapped around her neck. The twenty-year-old had been strangled, her right breast slashed, and her body thrown from an automobile.

  Separated from her husband in April, she had purportedly been driven to his residence by an unknown male, and after a brief argument with her husband, she had served him with divorce papers at about 2:30 a.m. on the morning of her murder. "She was very drunk and mentioned something about having a date," her husband told police. He followed her outside and saw her run over to a waiting vehicle, where she was driven away by an unknown male.

  Prior to the early-morning meeting with her husband, the victim had been seen by an operator of an all-night vegetable market at Mission and Main Streets. The merchant told police that she had telephoned for a taxicab from his business between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m., and while she was waiting for the taxi to arrive, a male in a darkcolored coupe drove up and spoke with her. She then canceled her cab and left with the man.

  The day after her nude body was found, police located her dress at the corner of 26th and Griffin. Police told reporters, "The dress had been ripped from her body and was undergoing examination at the police lab." Her body was found just one mile from the Winters crime scene, and within two miles of both my father's medical office and Fred Sexton's 1947 address. Mondragon's murder was never solved and remains "open" in LAPD case files.

  Marian Davidson Newton (July 16, 1947)

  Marian Newton, age thirty-six, was an attractive divorcee from Vancouver, British Columbia, who was vacationing in San Diego.

  On the afternoon of Thursday, July 17, 1947, her body was discovered by a young married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Ward Robbins, who were on an outing to Torrey Pines Mesa just north of San Diego. While hiking in the afternoon, they discovered her body lying at the side of an isolated dirt road near some high brush.

  San Diego homicide detectives responded to the crime scene and discovered that Marian Newton had been strangled to death with a thin wire or cord.

  Bruises were found on her body, and she had been forcibly raped. Tire tracks were visible nearby, and a coroner's examination estimated the time of death to be between midnight and 4:00 a.m. that day. Two men's handkerchiefs were found nearby the body. One of them had stains, the other did not.*

  The victim's purse and identification were later discovered on the sidewalk at University and Albatross Streets, near the downtown area of San Diego. The suspect had apparently thrown her purse out of his vehicle after he had disposed of the body.

  Upon checking the last known movements and sightings of the victim, authorities were able to establish a description on the probable suspect and piece together the last hours of her life. Incredibly, her story would mimic — in details, actions, and words — the circumstances of Ora Murray's murder in 1943. From newspaper accounts and public records, here is a summary of what was known of her murder.

  On Wednesday, July 16, 1947, the victim, accompanied by Miss Edna Mitchell, whom she had met at the hotel where she was vacationing, decided to go to Sherman's nightclub. Sherman's was a popular military men's club and tourist attraction, famed for having nine different bars and the largest indoor dance floors in the world.

  During the evening, the two women met and danced with a number of military men. Miss Mitchell told detectives that at one point a civilian male began dancing with the victim. She described him as "tall, over six foot, thin, possibly in his thirties, with dark hair, wearing a tan sport coat and slacks, and a bright colored tie."

  The victim introduced him to Miss Mitchell, who could not recall his name for the detectives. When the suspect left momentarily, Mitchell told Marian Newton that she "didn't like the look of the guy," and warned her "not to get into any car with any man she met at the club." Edna left the nightclub at 11:45 p.m. Witnesses there later confirmed that Marian Newton was seen leaving with a man who matched the description provided by Edna Mitchell.

  Working in conjunction with San Diego FBI agents, homicide detectives discovered that the description of this suspect closely matched that of someone previously known by them who had been frequenting downtown San Diego dance halls and nightclubs in the weeks and months preceding the murder of Marian Newton. The suspect was believed to be using various names and aliases, including "Michael Vincent Martin." Representing himself at different nightspots both as an FBI agent and as a naval officer, the suspect was known to have used stolen and false identification in San Diego, and had rented a vehicle using fake ID. A Wanted Special Bulletin was circulated within the law enforcement communities requesting information on the suspect.

  Authors Janice Knowlton and Michael Newton (no relation to the victim) make reference to an interview, purported to have been conducted by Knowlton, of a retired sheriffs deputy, Thad Stefan, on July 12, 1993, during which Stefan referred to his original field notes dating from 1947. Stefan had documented an unusual incident that had occurred in Hollywood, at the Hub Bar and Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard, in the sheriffs department territory. The incident was reported to him on January 26, 1947, and included a statement by a waitress, Dorothy Perfect, who reported that a man identifying himself as "George" came to the cafe and initially propositioned her, telling her, "I can fix you up with your own apartment on the Sunset Strip."

  Ms. Perfect described "George" as "a male Caucasian in his early forties, with wavy hair and glasses." She indicated "that while he did not appear drunk, he may have been under the influence of narcotics." "George" identified himself as "an FBI agent assigned to work the Black Dahlia investigation," and informed Perfect that "I can tell you who killed Elizabeth Short." Deputy Stefan's notes included the fact that this same "George" had first come to the Hub Cafe on January 21, only six days after the discovery of Elizabeth Short's body. At that time he had stayed in the bar area and was very talkative, informing the bartender he was an "FBI agent working on the Dahlia investigation." The bartender asked to see his agent's badge, at which point "George" mumbled something about "not being afraid of guns," and left the bar. Other employees at the Hub confirmed that "George" had returned again on January 25, but left after only a few minutes, then returned one last time, on January 26, and was recognized by Ms. Perfect from the prior contact, and she immediately summoned sheriffs deputies, but "George" left the bar before they arrived.

  Initially, San Diego detectives considered the possibility of a connection between their victim and the Los Angeles wave of killings of lone women, including that of Elizabeth Short, but again LAPD discounted and denied any connection.

  Though the first known to occur outside of Los Angeles County, this crime is identical in M.O. to the Ora Murray killing. Coupled with physical description of the suspect, it must be included with the rest of George Hodel's suspected serial killings.

  Viola Norton (February 14, 1948)

  The headline of the Saturday morning Herald Express of February 14, 1948, read, "Woman Beaten Near 'Black Dahlia' Scene; Alhambra Woman Near Death after Beating by 2 Men."

  At approximately 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, Mrs. Viola Norton, thirty-six, left a cocktail lounge in Alhambra, a community immediately east-southeast of the Los Angeles city limits. "Two men, both appearing to be approximately 40 years of age, approached her in a car and asked her to get in." She informed the two men that "she was walking home."

  Both men exited their vehicle, dragged her inside, and drove off. The victim stated she "remembered a tussle, but nothing else."

  Viola was beaten savagely about the face and head, her skull was fractured with a tire iron, and the two men left her for dead in an isolated area just four blocks from where the body of Elizabeth Short had been found thirteen months earlier. A neighbor discovered the victim unconscious and summoned an ambulance. The information regarding any follow-up investigation was sketch
y, but it is believed the victim, though in critical condition, survived. The Norton kidnapping occurred only six miles east of where the bodies of victims Mondragon and Winters were dumped.

  This crime occurred just twelve hours before the two suspects would commit another murder in Hollywood. Their next victim would be the real estate agent Mrs. Gladys Kern, previously summarized.

  Louise Margaret Springer (June 13, 1949)

  On June 17, 1949, the Los Angeles Examiner morning headlines read:

  Exhibit 63

  Four days earlier, on June 13, twenty-eight-year-old Louise Springer, married with a two-year-old son, had been reported kidnapped. Her frantic husband had called the police minutes after her disappearance.

  Louise's husband, Laurence Springer, a hairstylist of wide reputation, worked at a salon on Wilshire Boulevard. His wife worked at a beauty parlor in a department store at Santa Barbara and Crenshaw, just two blocks from where the Black Dahlia's body had been found two and a half years earlier. The couple had been living in Hollywood for a year, after relocating to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay area.

  On Monday evening, June 13, at 9:05 p.m., Springer had left his wife seated in the passenger seat of their brand-new 1949 green Studebaker convertible in the parking lot while he ran inside to retrieve her eyeglasses, which she had left at work. He returned within ten minutes, but both his wife and their car were missing. Springer desperately searched the parking lot, then summoned LAPD.

  After a search of the area by University Division patrol officers, the police reluctantly documented the husband's account on a missing persons report, but told him she probably "just decided to take off and would likely return in a day or two."

  On the morning of June 16, Mrs. Lois Harris, a resident of 102 West 38th Street, having observed a new green Studebaker parked across from her home for three days, called the police to report an "abandoned vehicle." Police ran a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) check and, discovering the car was registered in the Springers' name, dispatched detectives to the location.

  Louise Springer's body was found in the backseat, draped and covered with a white cape-type material, which belonged to the victim and which, as a beautician, she used to cover and protect her customers.

  A later autopsy revealed that she had suffered blows to the head, possibly rendering her unconscious, after which she was strangled to death with a white sash cord that, the police said, the suspect had carried with him.

  Robbery was not a motive, since the victim's purse and expensive jewelry and money were not taken. The autopsy surgeons and police detectives released two details relating to the condition of the body First, the suspect was unusually strong, because the sash cord he had placed around the victim's neck had been constricted so tightly as to leave only a two-and-a-half-inch-diameter space in the knotted noose.

  The second piece of information, in the Los Angeles Examiner of June 17, read:

  BODY VIOLATED

  And with a 14-inch length of finger-thick tree branch, ripped from some small tree, the killer had violated her body in such manner as to stamp this crime at once and indelibly in the same category as the killing of Elizabeth Short, "the Black Dahlia."

  Police located witnesses in the 38th Street neighborhood, who provided a limited description of the murder suspect and additional information relating to the time he drove to the location and parked the car. The Springer vehicle at 38th and Broadway was only a mile from where Georgette Bauerdorf's vehicle had been found, also abandoned, at 25th and San Pedro.

  Four teenagers provided police with further information: on June 13, they were inside a residence at 126 West 38th Street. At approximately 10:00 p.m., hearing a loud squeal of brakes outside, they saw a green Studebaker convertible abruptly turn in and stop at the curb. The driver quickly turned off the car's headlights.

  Seconds later, a black-and-white police vehicle stopped their friend Jack Putney, also a teenager, for a traffic violation. The officers exited their police vehicle and talked to Putney for five or ten minutes by their police vehicle, which was parked just three feet away from the Studebaker. Seated behind the driver's wheel, the murder suspect sat motionless in the dark until finally the police drove off. The teens then saw him turn toward the backseat, lean over, and reach for something. Because of the darkness, the only description they could provide police was that he "was a white man with curly hair."

  After the police pulled away, the witnesses paid no further attention to the man or the parked car, nor did they see him emerge from the vehicle and leave the area on foot. The Studebaker, they told the police, remained there for the next three days.

  On June 18, 1949, the Los Angeles Examiner headline read: "Police Missed Mad Killer, in Auto with Slain Victim, Parked Near Squad Car."

  The Examiner printed a diagram showing the relative positions of the police, the traffic offender, and the murder suspect on 38th Street.

  Exhibit 64

  Los Angeles Examiner, June 18, 1949

  The two LAPD traffic cops were subsequently located and identified as 77th Street Division officers, who admitted being "out of their area," and acknowledged stopping and warning Putney, who appeared to be "driving erratically." Both denied seeing the green Studebaker, but they admitted, "It could have been there."

  In the month following Louise Springer's murder, the usual suspects were questioned, none of whom proved to be the killer. On June 21, a newspaper article appeared under the headline: "Mystery Man Hunted in L.A. Sex Murder." It hinted at a possible jealousy motive, indicating that in the weeks preceding the murder the victim's husband, Laurence Springer, had received six suspicious telephone calls from a male caller to a payphone located inside his office. Tabloidtype references were also made to the fact that police were looking into "the husband's relationship with an as yet unidentified girl."

  Heartbroken, disillusioned, and bitter at the lack of cooperation from local authorities, Laurence Springer took his two-year-old son and moved out of Hollywood. His wife's kidnapping and murder also remains "open" in the police files at LAPD's Parker Center.

  "Jane Doe" (Unknown date, 1947-49)

  Based on the information I received from my sister Tamar, as told to her by my mother and later confirmed in a slightly modified version by Sexton's daughter "Mary Moe," I must include another victim in our list of women believed slain by George Hodel. I have been unable to learn her identity, but if all that Tamar has told is accurate — and I believe it is — then LAPD has already investigated Father as a named murder suspect to the crime, and the victim's name is known to them.

  I shall refer to her as "Jane Doe." Her death likely occurred sometime after the murder of Elizabeth Short, although I cannot be certain, since Mother's story to Tamar could have referred to an earlier murder. One recalls that her death was originally listed as a "suicide" from an overdose of pills, and, according to what Mother told Tamar, Father apparently signed her death certificate. Procedurally this would be dubious and highly suspect. Legally, all suicides occurring within Los Angeles County are required to be assigned as a coroner's case, which requires that an autopsy be performed.

  Based on the possibility that "Gloria," the dark-haired young woman found in Father's photo album, might be this Jane Doe, girlfriend/employee, I have included an enlargement of that photograph to allow for potential identification. Should "Gloria" not be that employee, then perhaps a reader will recognize her as a relative or acquaintance. On the reverse side of her photograph she had written, "George — the teacher, from Gloria. Too little time — No?"

  Exhibit 64

  * * *

  *912 West 6th Street was only two blocks from George Hodel's medical office on 7th Street.

  *As referenced in our earlier investigations, this unusual "calling card" evidence corresponds to handkerchiefs also left at the French and Kern crime scenes.

  32

  Forgotten Victims, 1950s:

  The Probables

  IN THE SUMMER OF
1997 I had finished my investigative work on a high-profile, year-long investigation for a local Northwest attorney. The results had been positive and he was grateful for the many hours of hard work I had put in. Along with my final paycheck, he gave me the gift of a book, saying, "You might find it interesting, since it's about a writer and a retired detective working on an old unsolved murder case from Los Angeles." Having spent the past few years working as a defense investigator on a Japanese/Los Angeles murder investigation, I had little interest in and less curiosity about doing any recreational reading on the subject of murder. I glanced at the dustjacket: the title was My Dark Places, by an author named James Ellroy. I had no desire to read about other people's dark places. Without opening the present, I tossed it into a box in my garage and forgot about it.

  Three years later, the author's name would resurface in connection with my Dahlia investigation, for I learned that he had written a novel entitled The Black Dahlia, a fictionalized account of Elizabeth Short's murder. Though tempted to read it, I also had no desire to confuse fact with fiction and fought off the part of me that was naturally curious. I told myself that Ellroy was probably just another sensationalist, wanting to capitalize on Hollywood noir and the brutality of her story. Besides, I wasn't into whodunit novels. I prided myself in wanting to know things as they are, not as they are imagined.