Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder

by Piu Eatwell

  On the next day, December 8, the grand jury held its secret meeting with Willie Burns of the Gangster Squad and Thad Brown, chief of detectives. The contents of the discussion were never divulged. However, the outcome of the meeting was that the grand jury was somehow persuaded by the senior police officers not to issue immediate indictments in the Dahlia case. Instead, the jury issued a final assignment to Frank Jemison. He was to re-interview Mark Hansen and Ann Toth, along with the witnesses at the Aster Motel.

  DA Frank Jemison and Officer Ed Barrett re-interviewed Ann Toth on December 13. The pale Danish actress, who had been Elizabeth’s housemate at Mark Hansen’s Carlos Avenue home, remained as tight-lipped and cagey as when she had been questioned before by Harry Hansen and Finis Brown. Elizabeth and Mark had had a stormy relationship, Toth acknowledged. There was the fight over the other girl who stayed at Carlos Avenue, and the row when Elizabeth threw Mark’s things out of the bathroom cupboard. Mark was given to tantrums and explosive rages. He “had a yen” for Elizabeth, and was jealously possessive of her. Asked about Mark’s alibi for the evening, Ann hedged: Hansen was usually home by 11:00 p.m., but she could not be sure he was home at that time on the night of January 14. She might have been partying herself that evening, so how was she to know? Ann was also evasive over the question as to whether Hansen might have seen Elizabeth over the “missing week”: she had been “occupied with her boyfriend practically all of the time,” so she “didn’t keep up with things.” The Danish actress did recall that when she returned to Carlos Avenue from a visit to her parents on Friday, January 10, Mark was acting “excited and strange.” He told her that Betty had called him from San Diego, and that he had told her she could come and stay in the house at Carlos Avenue for a few days, if she had no other place to go.

  Ann also recalled a strange incident that had taken place at the Carlos Avenue house around Sunday, January 12, 1947. Mark Hansen had been at home at the time. At about midnight, the telephone started ringing. But when Ann picked up the receiver, there was no answer on the line. The telephone must have rung every five minutes for about thirty minutes, between midnight and one o’clock. In the end, Ann had threatened to call the police. Then the calls stopped. Neither Ann nor Mark could figure out from whom the calls had come.†

  Three days after interviewing Ann Toth, Officers Jemison and Barrett interviewed Mark Hansen in his office next to the Florentine Gardens. Whether on the grand jury’s instructions or by the decision of Frank Jemison, it had been decided that Finis Brown was not to be present at the interview.

  No, Hansen claimed, he had never “tried to make” Elizabeth Short.

  “Was she a pretty-looking gal?” Jemison asked.

  “Well, I thought she was fair-looking, average. If it wasn’t for her teeth. She had bad teeth. Other than that she would have been beautiful.”

  Mark repeated his recollection of the man who came to collect Elizabeth a few times, in a ’35 or ’39 Chevrolet or Ford coupe: “He didn’t look too good.” He denied that he had a “yen” for the Short girl. He had never kissed her, or even put his arm around her.

  At first Hansen denied that he had spoken to Elizabeth after she left Los Angeles for San Diego in December ’46. But Jemison pointed out that this was not true: they had evidence that Betty had called Mark from the Biltmore Hotel on the evening of Thursday, January 9, 1947. Hansen then backtracked. Yes, Betty had called him on Thursday night from the Biltmore. He had told her that she could not stay with him, as Ann Toth was not at home, and she would not like it. This did not tie in with what Ann Toth had said to the police. She had told Jemison and Barrett that Hansen had told her Betty could stay for a few days at his house when she got back from San Diego, if she had no other place to stay.

  And so it transpired that Elizabeth Short had called Mark Hansen in one of her last known phone calls, on Thursday, January 9, from the phone booth at the Biltmore Hotel. Had she, in fact, stayed at Hansen’s home on Carlos Avenue on that Thursday night? There was nobody to offer an alibi for Mark on that evening. Ann Toth was away, and did not return until the next day. If Elizabeth had stayed with Mark on that Thursday night, had she been removed, out of the way, to another location when Ann returned the next day? Could that location have been the motel on Flower Street?

  In the dying days of the year, on the grand jury’s final instructions, Jemison and Barrett re-interviewed the people at the Aster Motel. The second anniversary of Elizabeth Short’s murder was fast approaching. The interviews took place in Mark Hansen’s office, next to the Marcal Theatre: a green and purple neon strip-lighted Art Deco extravaganza, set back from the arc lamps of Hollywood Boulevard where the hookers and hustlers patrolled the sidewalks.‡

  Closeted with Jemison and Barrett in Mark Hansen’s office, and confronted by the Hollywood millionaire in person on his own premises, the Hoffmans now completely changed their story from what they had told Officers Waggoner, Case, and Ahern the previous summer. No, they said, the “man from Batavia” who had stayed at the motel was not Mark Hansen.

  Clora Hoffman’s brother and sister-in-law Burt and Betty-Jo Moorman, on the other hand, stood firm on their story. A middle-aged man with a foreign accent had definitely stayed at the Aster Motel sometime during their stay there, between January 11 and 18, 1947.§ The man had asked the Moormans to drive him to a location downtown, where he had collected a large suitcase. Afterward, the man had invited them to his motel room for a drink. They had then gone out for dinner together at a Mexican restaurant on Slauson Avenue. The man was left-handed and “wolfed” his food down greedily. The Moormans could not now recall exactly if he was the “man from Batavia,” but they were certain of one thing. The man who stayed at the motel, who collected a suitcase from downtown, and who took them out to dinner, was Mark Hansen. They were even more positive of this fact now that they saw him in person.

  Jemison made Mrs. Moorman stand face-to-face with Mark Hansen.

  “Are you ready to go into court or not, and testify that this is the man that you went out that day for dinner with, and with whom you went down town and spent six hours? Are you ready to go in and testify, and answer yes or no? We are not kidding.”

  “I know you are not.”

  “It is serious.”

  “Yes, it was him.”

  Burt Moorman was just as certain as his wife that Mark Hansen was the man at the motel.

  “And even though it might mean the gas chamber for Mark Hansen for this murder, you will still go into court and testify he was the man who took you to dinner?” Jemison said to Burt.

  “Yes, I will.”¶

  “Did you ever tell anybody that you thought there was probably a payoff on this?”

  “Well yes, I told the officers that.”

  “Which officers?”

  “Case and Ahern.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that the squabbling in the department and all was a put-up job. In fact, everywhere Case and Ahern went, they so much as told me their hands were tied. When they began to hit a sore spot they were warded off in another direction. They were limited in what they could do, and what they could investigate.”

  As the Moormans left Mark Hansen’s office, Mrs. Moorman was overhead muttering something about a “payoff.” She was immediately recalled by Frank Jemison.

  “I heard you make a remark when you went down the hall a moment ago about a payoff.”

  “Did I?”

  “You never made the remark that you thought there had been a payoff?”

  “Not a payoff, no. I think that Brown stopped the case because he is a friend of Mr. Hansen’s.”

  “How do you know he is a friend of his?”

  “He told us he had dinner with him.”

  “From that you gather he was a friend of Mark Hansen?”

  “That is right.”

  On January 12, 1950, the grand jury issued its final report. The section that dealt with the jury’s investigation into th
e Dahlia affair ran as follows:

  Something is radically wrong with the present system of apprehending the guilty. The alarming increase in the number of unsolved murders reflects ineffectiveness in law enforcement agencies and the courts that should not be tolerated. . . .

  In addition to the sadistic murder and mutilation of Elizabeth Short, the record shows that other victims of unsolved murders included Mary Tate, Mrs. Jeanne French, Evelyn Winters, Rosenda [Mondragon], Mrs. Laura Trelstad, Gladys Kern and Louise Springer. “Mysterious disappearances” are involved in other cases, to which strict law enforcement demands a solution, such as those of Mimi Boomhower and Jean Spangler. This record reveals, in the opinion of the 1949 grand jury, conditions that are appalling and fearsome. Criminals are using varied techniques in writing a record of crime that includes murders, mysterious disappearances of persons and loathsome sex crimes. The criminals, in many cases, have gone unpunished. Because of the character of these murders and sex crimes, women and children are constantly placed in jeopardy and are not safe from attack.

  If the 1949 grand jury has done little else during its term of office, it has, we believe, stirred the public conscience to recognize the seriousness of this situation, which is sapping the moral strength of law-abiding citizens.

  The grand jury also noted the “apparent evasiveness” of some police officers called to give testimony, and the “deplorable conditions indicating corrupt practices and misconduct by some members of the law enforcement agencies of this county.” In many cases, it concluded, “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.” The report concluded with the recommendation that the investigation into the Dahlia murder be continued by the next year’s grand jury.

  On the very day the grand jury’s final report was read to Superior Judge Robert H. Scott, there was a retirement banquet at the police academy “in grateful tribute” to the demoted chief, Clemence Horrall, and his assistant, Joe Reed. In attendance were over five hundred police officers and city luminaries, including Mayor Fletcher Bowron, District Attorney William E. Simpson, Sheriff Eugene W. Biscailuz, and the interim LAPD chief, William Worton. Whatever scathing criticisms Harry Lawson’s jury was making, it was “business as usual” for law enforcement in the City of Angels.

  The final report of Harry Lawson’s “runaway” jury was both an indictment of law enforcement and an admission of defeat. Through its exposure of the Brenda Allen scandal, the jury had succeeded in partially toppling the hierarchy of the LAPD. It had scratched the surface layers of corruption in a police department that was rotten to the core. But the canker at the heart of the department, the blight that crippled the Dahlia case, had withstood the jury’s best efforts to root it out. That task, now, had passed to the grand jury’s successor. Would the 1950 grand jury take up the challenge?

  * “Connected with a foreign government”: i.e., the “man from Batavia” or the “Danish consulate.” (See page 141.)

  † The mysterious calls, if they did indeed happen on Sunday, January 12, would have taken place in the middle of the “missing week,” when Elizabeth Short was likely held trapped or captive. The caller and possible motive are discussed later on page 246.

  ‡ The fact that these key witnesses were re-interviewed in the offices of Mark Hansen, one of the prime suspects in the case, was peculiar to say the least. Regular practice would have been to interview them at the DA’s office or their own homes and arrange a police lineup or a separate meeting for the purpose of identifying Mark Hansen as the “man from Batavia.”

  § For the Moormans’ earlier account of this man given to the Gangster Squad, see page 142.

  ¶ It is difficult to see how one could obtain more unshakable identifications than these by the Moormans.

  19

  DETOUR

  The day the 1949 grand jury left the Hall of Justice forever, all further inquiries into Leslie Dillon stopped. As did the investigation into the Aster Motel. It was as if Dillon, De River, Jeff Connors, the saga of Palm Springs, and the Aster Motel had never existed; they had gone with the hot, dry Santa Ana winds.

  Nevertheless, the mandate from the 1949 grand jury to continue investigation of the Dahlia murder meant that Frank Jemison was obliged to prolong, in some form, his task of research and reporting on the case. And so he continued his review into 1950. This time, still guided by his trusty advisors at the LAPD, Jemison was led to focus on various other, sundry suspects: a medical student named Marvin Margolis, who had dated Elizabeth Short in her final months; a Mexican dishwasher at Brittingham’s Restaurant, who might, or might not, have known her; the shady manager of the Chancellor Apartments. None of these suspects had much in the way of evidence to connect them to the murder. Then, in the fall of 1949, came the perfect sideshow for the LAPD Homicide Division. A drama that would send Jemison off on a wild goose chase to keep him busy, and off Dillon for the rest of his investigation.

  Dr. George Hill Hodel was a brilliant and fashionable Hollywood physician who ran a venereal disease clinic on East First Street in Alameda. He dabbled in mystic Eastern religions, Surrealist art, and the occult. When not performing illegal abortions at his First Street clinic, Hodel held court at his Hollywood residence, a monolithic Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., construction on Franklin Avenue with a front entrance resembling the open jaws of a shark. Here he would hold nude parties and hedonistic orgies under the impassive gaze of statues of nymphs and satyrs, with a bevy of girls in attendance.

  It was at one of George Hodel’s sex parties at the house on Franklin Avenue that his teenage daughter, Tamar, accused her father of molesting her. The resulting trial, which started in October 1949, was a cause célèbre of Tinseltown. “Doctor Faces Accusation in Morals Case,” ran the banner headline of the Los Angeles Times on October 7. Deputy DA William L. Ritzi was quoted as describing how both men and women attended the bizarre sex parties at Hodel’s home, at one of which Tamar had been assaulted. Hodel was also said to be a photography enthusiast, with many “questionable” photographs and pornographic art objects being seized in his home.

  George Hodel’s trial for incest began on December 8, 1949. To defend him, the doctor hired Robert A. Neeb, partner to the celebrity lawyer Jerry “Get Me” Giesler. During his cross-examination of Hodel’s daughter Tamar, Neeb put the following question to the teenage girl:

  “Tamar, do you recall a conversation you had with a roommate at the Franklin House by the name of Joe Barrett? And do you recall, in that conversation, making the following statement to him: ‘This house has secret passages. My father is the murderer of the Black Dahlia. My father is going to kill me and all the rest of the members of this household because he has a lust for blood. He is insane’?”

  The courtroom fell into stunned silence as all eyes focused on Tamar’s response.

  “I don’t remember saying that to Joe.”

  The next day, the newspapers had a field day. “Girl Accused of Trying to Pin Dahlia Murder on Dad,” reported the Daily News on December 17. “Girl’s Story Is Fantasy, Court Hears,” ran the headline in the Los Angeles Mirror. On December 24, the jury acquitted George Hodel on all counts of incest, after less than four hours’ deliberation.

  After Hodel’s acquittal on the incest charges, rumors persisted of a payoff arranged by Jerry Giesler on the doctor’s behalf, to members of the DA’s office. The evidence against Hodel in relation to the charges of molesting his daughter had been compelling, and yet he was set free. Other members of the DA’s office, it was whispered, were not happy with the result. Two DA officers had been demoted because of the trial. People at the DA’s office wanted revenge. Meanwhile, George Hodel was beset with other problems: charges of tax evasion; allegations that he had killed his secretary in order to stop her from blowing the whistl
e on illegal abortions that he was performing; accusations of being a closet Communist. To add to Hodel’s woes, his attorney Robert Neeb’s “clever” strategy—to allude in court to the allegation that Hodel was somehow involved in the Dahlia killing, as an example of his daughter Tamar’s fantastical imagination—now backfired. Even though it had been made as a joke, Neeb’s reference to the Dahlia case during the molestation trial had linked George Hodel, for the first time, to Elizabeth Short’s murder. The DA’s office now had a way to get its revenge on the doctor.

  Throughout the early part of 1950, Frank Jemison and his men diligently pursued George Hodel. They tailed his Packard car around visits to sundry art galleries. They wired the doctor’s Franklin Avenue home, placing a bug in the basement. For a month and a half, from mid-February to the end of March 1950, Jemison’s men listened in on the activities in the Hodel house through the wires placed in the basement. They heard a great deal of noisy sex, loud music on the radio, erotic poetry readings, and the flushing of many lavatories. It was patently clear that George Hodel was fully aware of—even obsessed with—the fact that his house was bugged. His home was under siege, with journalists from the Hollywood Citizen-News parked outside his front door. Every day, the investigators listened in on banging in the basement, the opening and closing of drawers, and Hodel’s loudly barked orders to his harassed housekeeper to keep trying to find the bug that the doctor was rightly convinced was hidden somewhere.