by Hodel, Steve
The secret DA files documented that Elizabeth was actively investigating those crimes in Chicago in June-July 1946, just a month after George wrote this letter to Lloyd Wright. The DA File went so far as to provide names and addresses of several different Chicago reporters that Elizabeth was sleeping with, apparently, in hopes of obtaining inside information related to the murder investigations.
George Hodel Letter to Lloyd Wright mailed from
China, dated April 20 and postmarked May 5, 1946
A Mixed Bag—More Crime Scene Evidence
“Roll Call, Kuster, O’Steen, Mannocchia, Souza, Jones, Everheart …”
As an occupation, nothing tops police work. It is never routine. Every day brings something new and exciting. Working homicide guarantees that there will always be a new whodunit just around the corner. It may come tonight, tomorrow, or next week. You don’t know when, but you do know it’s coming. (I think my old partner and I still hold the record at Hollywood. We were called in and investigated three separate unrelated murders on one weekend standby.)
It’s especially good when you’re teamed up with a savvy, street-smart partner! During my career, I was luckier than most and had more than my share of “the best.”
Since the publication of BDA, I’ve learned that you don’t have to wear a gun or carry a badge to be a good detective.
In the past ten-years, thanks to the power of the Internet, I’ve heard from scores of “arm chair detectives.” Their real day jobs? Secretary, librarian, bus driver, history professor, medical doctor, and electrician—John and Jane Q. citizens all.
Many of these men and women possess an uncanny ability to think like a veteran detective and have provided invaluable insights into my ongoing investigations. Here is just one more example, an e-mail from Tom Davis, a patent-illustrator with a keen eye and photographic memory.
Tom wrote:
Steve,
…
A photo I have seen clearly shows yet another type of empty bag at the body site.
The bag says BANDINI which is a brand of fertilizer. It is just possible that a bit of garden and lawn repair was done to the Franklin property in addition to any architectural work, and this empty bag was discarded on 39th street along with the cement bags.
Tom goes on to say:
And there is yet another little mystery this fertilizer bag may clear up. The autopsy of Elizabeth’s body noted a mysterious “green granular material” inside her stomach. Could this stuff have been left over steer manure that she was forced to eat as part of an act of sado-humiliation? It’s my personal hunch. Such an ordeal may also have been meant to add a bit of surrealist wit to her death. It was a message: “This woman is was full of bullshit.”
As a former art student I learned that the surrealists sometimes expressed visual puns and this would have been a perfect example.
Tom Davis
After reading my June 11, 2009 blog post [Architect Lloyd Wright Letters at UCLA Links Dr. Hodel to Dahlia Crime Scene] Tom sent me a new e-mail the following day, which in addition to complimenting me on my newly designed website, pointed to what he believed was an important error on my part, having to do with one specific paper-bag. I quote verbatim from Tom’s second e-mail:
“I also found one new exciting detail. On your website you show an enlarged portion of a photograph that you call a cement bag. In fact, if you study this blow-up very carefully you can just make out the letters “URE” as in “MANURE.” If I’m correct, and this bag is indeed a FERTILIZER bag, then you now have ABSOLUTE PROOF that BOTH cement AND fertilizer bags were used in the transport of Bette Short’s body to the dump site. Please look into this as I think it is of extreme importance. No longer can ANYONE pass the existence of these two types of bags at the scene as coincidence. Taken along with your own research into renovations at the Sowden House, it STRONGLY points to Hodel driving directly from the Sowden House to the dump site.”
Let’s now reexamine several of the original crime scene photographs in light of what Tom Davis has pointed out.
First, in the crime scene photos we see what appears to be three separate paper sacks. The one on the extreme left is enlarged and does appear to read “URE” as in MANURE. This is the sack I originally labeled as Lt. Haskin’s “cement sack” which appears to have watery blood stains on it. Based on the evidence before us, it becomes obvious that Tom is correct and this bag contained manure, not cement.
What happened? Reexamination of additional LAPD photographs gave us the answer. The detectives, after photographing the original cement sack lying just inches from Elizabeth Short’s extended right hand, then moved it out of the way [collecting it as evidence] and reshot the crime scene from a different angle. Here are the proofs.
The above photograph was obviously taken first and shot from north to south. It shows a different bag, probably, Lt. Haskin’s “cement bag” left by the suspect just inches from Elizabeth Short’s extended right hand. Seen kneeling on sidewalk are the primary LAPD detectives Finis Brown and Harry Hansen and reporter Will Fowler. [Man on right was not identified. It was possibly criminalist Jones from LAPD Scientific Investigation Division.]
This photo was taken standing south of the body looking north and showed that the original “cement” sack had either been collected as evidence and removed from the scene or was one of the three sacks seen in this photo, which had been moved north, away from the body.
In this third photo, we no longer see three bags above the body, but just two. The third had either been collected or removed from view; or possibly, it was moved eastward and was the sack seen close to the curbside.
Photo above shows an enlarged area to the right of driveway. Clearly visible are the photographer’s equipment box and an empty paper bag which appears to read “BANDINI.” [Rotated in lower photo for easier readability.] I have also inserted in the photo an LA Times display showing a 1947 bag of “Bandini Fertilite.”
Bandini Steer Manure
Bandini Fertilite
The above display ads were copied from the Los Angeles Times newspaper showing pictures of fifty-pound Bandini fertilizer sacks as they appeared for sale in 1947. The Bandini lettering on the side of the bag is similar to the brand labeling seen at the crime scene.
Based on the photographic evidence we can now confirm that both large cement and Bandini Steer Manure paper sacks were found at the crime scene. (By my count, at least three separate sacks, possibly more?)
A Second Paper Trail
Included in the UCLA Lloyd Wright-George Hodel Papers were additional receipts for renovation work completed between 1945-1947. Below, we’ll find an itemized billing list which includes, “Gardening - $230” and “Flower Box & bank planting- $60.00.” [Nearly $300 just for landscaping, a sizable amount equal to approximately $3,000 in today’s dollar value.]
Granted, unlike the cement bag receipts, which connected the cement work to the exact time of Elizabeth Short’s murder, the below receipts were presented a year earlier in December 1945. However, the gardening needs would have been ongoing and the receipts establish that there existed a large demand for fertilizer due to the extensive landscaping.
Lloyd Wright receipts dated November 1945 which include $330.00 for “Landscaping/Planting” expenses at “Dr. Hodel Residence.”
Photos from a 1949-1950 sales brochure prepared by Dr. George Hodel for the sale of his “SHANGRI-LA,” Franklin house. Note the heavily landscaped interior and exterior gardens.
To fully understand the relevancy that in addition to the cement sack (s), George Hodel may have also used empty bags of “Bandini” steer manure to transport the body parts from the Franklin house, we must venture deeper into the absolute horror of this crime.
“LA’S MOST HORRIFIC MURDER EVER”—The Signature of a Master Sadist
The murder of twenty-two-year-old, Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short lives in infamy because IT WAS A TORTURE-MURDER OF THE HIGHEST ORDER. HER KILLER WAS A SOPHISTICATED SADIST
WHO WENT TO EXTREMES TO MAKE SURE THE PUBLIC WOULD BE BOTH HORRIFIED AND OUTRAGED. HER KILLER WANTED TO INSURE THAT HIS CRIME WOULD BE FOREVER REMEMBERED AS A MASTERPIECE OF THE MACABRE. HE SUCCEEDED.
These specific acts of sadism are so extreme and the signatures so unique that they set this killer totally apart from your “average sexual psychopath.”
Below is a list of what we KNOW occurred during the killer’s drawn-out ritualistic torture-slaying of Elizabeth Short in the early morning hours of January 15, 1947:
1. Bound feet and hands with rope or wire ligature
2. Strangulation to neck leaving ligature marks
3. Blunt force trauma to face and head
4. Scalpel lacerations [five distinct incisions to her upper lip]
5. Surgically rounded scalpel lacerations to both sides of mouth
6. Tic-tac-toe scalpel cuttings to the right thigh
7. Scalpel laceration/incision (two inches) near the left nipple
8. Scalpel lacerations and some cutting away of pubic hair and insertion of hair into anus
9. Cigar or cigarette burns to the back [at least eight separate burn marks]
10. Incision from umbilicus to supra pubic in imitation of a hysterectomy [four and a half inches]
11. Scalpel incision and removal of large section of left thigh and insertion of it into vagina
12. Surgical removal of right breast. [Not believed recovered at autopsy. Possibly retained by suspect as “trophy.”]
13. Sexual anal-rape using unknown object. [Sodomy]
14. Surgical bisection of body [hemicorpectomy] by incision through the intervertebral disks between the second and third lumbar vertebrae. [Note: To date, four separate surgeons have viewed the autopsy photographs and provided their expert opinions that “only a highly skilled surgeon could have performed the bisection without leaving any “hacking” marks and would have known that only by dividing between the second and third lumbar vertebrae can a body be bisected without the use of a saw.]
15. Washing and scrub down of the body parts using a coconut fiber brush
The most shocking act of sadism was revealed in the transcripts of Chief Autopsy Surgeon Dr. Frederick Newbarr’s testimony before the coroner’s inquest where he established that the victim was forced to ingest feces. Here is a quote from his testimony at the coroner’s inquest of January 22, 1947:
“The stomach was filled with greenish brown granular material, mostly feces and other particles which could not be identified.”
[SKH Note: Some self-professed “Dahlia experts” have claimed that the feces in the stomach was there “due to natural digestion and as a result of her being bisected.”]
On this point, I went to Dr. Doug Lyle M.D., a recognized forensic expert, and put the question to him. His response:
True feces is produced in the lower portions of the bowel. And the bowel doesn’t move stuff backwards so there is no way feces can get from the colon to the stomach—unless some connection between the two was made at the time of the bisection, but that would be obvious. If the stomach was found intact with feces inside it got there some other way.
Bottom line: Elizabeth Short, during her extended torture, was forced to suffer the ultimate humiliation of having to ingest and swallow feces.
Having reviewed the many acts of known torture, it takes very little imagination to speculatively add to that list the forced feeding of Bandini Steer Manure or Bandini Fertilite from a nearly empty bag of fertilizer—perhaps recently used by the gardener in the inner courtyard landscaping at the Franklin house.
Certainly, this fertilizer would match the coroner’s description of the stomach contents as a “greenish-brown granular material, mostly feces and other particles which could not be identified.”
Based on all the previous evidence, which was supported by the crime scene photographs and the Lloyd Wright documents and receipts, it is my firm belief that Dr. George Hill Hodel, in the hours before her death, drugged and held Elizabeth Short captive at the Franklin house.
[As previously noted, the DA files from 2004 established that father was alone at the house as my mother and we, three sons, were temporarily staying with her brother, our Uncle Gene, some three miles away in the Silver Lake District of East Hollywood.]
Time Line and Crime Scene Reenactment
January 14, 1947 3:00-4:00 p.m. [approximate]
Based on my interview with LAPD policewoman Myrl McBride, we know that she was the last witness to see Elizabeth Short alive. Officer McBride stopped and spoke with Elizabeth Short on two separate occasions in the hours just prior to her disappearance. The first was at approximately 3:00 p.m. when a frightened Elizabeth ran up to her and claimed, “A man, a former suitor just threatened to kill me.” McBride accompanied her back to a bar and the man was gone and Elizabeth retrieved her purse. The second encounter came about one hour later when the officer observed her exit a second bar again in the vicinity of Fifth and Main Street.
Officer McBride informed us that Elizabeth was accompanied by “two men and a woman.” McBride asked Elizabeth, “Are you okay? Elizabeth nodded that she was and told McBride she “was going to the Greyhound Bus station to meet her father.” [Bus depot at that time was just two blocks away.]
It is my belief that these two males and one female were the same three persons who were looking for Elizabeth at the Dorothy French residence in San Diego just one week earlier. A neighbor reported to the police about seeing three individuals, “two males and a female,” on January 7, standing and knocking at Dorothy French’s house. After a few moments, the witness saw them run to their parked car and “hurriedly drove away.” I believe that one of the males was likely George Hodel, possibly accompanied by either Fred Sexton or the man later described on the DA tapes as “The Baron.” So far, we have no clue as to the woman’s identity?
January 14-15, 1947—Sowden/Franklin house
The newly discovered physical evidence [the paper sacks], link the Franklin house to the vacant lot and confirm our earlier suspicions that it was the original crime-scene.
The extended torture and subsequent “surgical operation” (a hemicorpectomy), according to several forensic and medical experts, would probably have required a minimum of three (3) hours to complete.
I suggest that the murder unfolded along the following lines:
Elizabeth Short was initially drugged either by using chloroform and or by Dr. Hodel injecting her with a strong sedative.
She was then bound and trussed with rope, tortured with non-lethal scalpel cuts to the body, sexually assaulted [sodomized with an unknown object], and then subjected to the ultimate sadistic humiliation of being forced fed with Bandini steer-manure.
Franklin House Master Bathroom tub
She was taken to the master bathroom tub, where the torture continued, and she was eventually slain. [Time of death, based on the coroner’s estimate, would have been at approximately 2:00-3:00 a.m. in the early morning hours of January 15, 1947. This time is also substantiated by the fact that officers and the deputy coroner at the crime scene at 10:00 a.m. noted that rigor mortis had not yet begun to set in the body, which normally begins at eight to twelve hours after death.]
The surgical bisection was then performed and the body, drained of blood, was scrubbed with a coconut fiber brush and washed clean. [Fibers from the brush were found on the body during the autopsy.]
The two halves were likely towel-dried and each placed separately on top of a large empty paper sack, which was readily at hand and left over from the recent construction and landscaping work. [Note: Each half, having been drained of fluids, would have weighed no more than approximately fifty-five pounds.]
Franklin House Diagram
[Arrows mark: probable route from master bathroom to car]
The separate victim’s body parts were carried from the master bathtub through the house to the rear garage and placed in George Hodel’s black sedan. They could have been placed either in the trunk or on
the backseat of the car. Additional cement and or fertilizer sacks were likely placed over them to cover and conceal the butchery.
As seen in the above diagram, all of these actions, including placing the body parts in the car, would have been conducted within the privacy of the home and at no time would George Hodel ever have been exposed to public view.
On January 16, 2011, I reenacted the drive from the Franklin house garage to 3815 S. Norton Avenue. Departing from the rear alley at 6:00 a.m., I arrived at the location of the vacant lot at 6:32 a.m., which is the same time that witness Robert Meyer claimed he first saw a black sedan pull up and stop at the curbside.
Meyer observed a lone male get out and indicated that the vehicle remained at the location for approximately four minutes. Due to the darkness and the fact that he was across the lot and nearly one-half block away, and his view was partially blocked by grass, it would have been impossible for Mr. Meyer to determine exactly what the suspect was doing.
After waiting four minutes, I then drove from 3815 S. Norton to the 1100 block of south Crenshaw Boulevard, where the suspect had placed Elizabeth Short’s purse and shoes atop a trashcan outside of a local restaurant. I arrived at 6:50 a.m. and daylight had just begun to break. [This location is approximately halfway between the vacant lot and the Franklin house.] The drive from Crenshaw Boulevard back to the Franklin house added another twenty minutes, and I arrived back at the rear alley at 7:12 a.m.
I offer the foregoing reenactment not as fact but only as a possible scenario.
We will likely never know what exactly occurred. While I suspect that my father was one of the three persons seen leaving the Main Street Bar with Elizabeth, he may not have been. The three could have brought her to the house and then departed.
Another question is: Did George Hodel perform these horrific acts by himself or were others present? Again, we will probably never know the answer. But, in at least one of his taunting mailings to the police after the murder, he did claim to have an accomplice:
