48 Hours - The Black Dahlia Mystery

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

In January of 1947, the mutilated body of young Hollywood actress Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The press gave her the nickname, "The Black Dahlia," stemming from a popular crime film, and her case gripped headlines when the killer sent handwritten notes to the tabloids. Former Los Angeles Detective Steve Hodel believed his father was the killer, but Elizabeth's murder still remains unsolved. “48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 8/29/2006. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today Elizabeth short 22 year old female from Medford, Massachusetts Beautiful girl came out to Hollywood, California to fall in love and live happily ever after. It's LA on VJ Day. Revelers pour down Hollywood Boulevard. Girls lean out of cars. Soldiers and sailors run up and grab kisses. There's a pretty dark-haired girl caught in close up. It's Betty Short. She's young. She's vibrant. She lives. The crime scene looked like this.

We'd covered lots north to south. The body on the west side mid-block. It was a horrific sight. The body was surgically cut in half, bisected. There are people out there who are only aroused when they're killing. She met someone like that. This was a huge story in 1947. It was headlines for 30 days straight. They had a thousand law enforcement officers working on the case. This is Los Angeles' most notorious unsolved murder. My name is Steve Hodell.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Steve Hodell, he grows up to join LAPD. He spent 24 years with the police. Moreover, he becomes a homicide detective. I've had 300 murder investigations in my career, nothing on a level of this kind of horror. He starts investigating his father's life. Dad was a man of mystery.

Obviously, this is somebody dad knew intimately. There's what we know. This is my home. This was the palace. My father was the king. There's what we sense. My mother said, you don't understand. Your father's got a lust for blood,, you don't know anything about your father. And there's how we revise our own memory. I'd

never dreamt that dad could be an actual suspect of this crime. This is Steve O'Dell's journey through his most forbidding memories. For me this is a search for the truth. Searching for the truth of my father and searching for the truth of who killed Elizabeth Short. Black Dahlia, confidential. She's Elizabeth Short. A roamer, a sweet kid. She's a ghost in a blank page to record our fears and desires. To crime writer James Elroy, the brief life and horrific death of Elizabeth Short is a classic American tragedy known as the Black Dahlia case. A post-war Mona Lisa in L.A. quintessential. A story about love and loneliness, murder and madness

played out in the city of dreams Los Angeles. A body in a vacant lot and an apparition called the Black Dahlia. and an apparition called the Black Dahlia. It's the most famous unsolved murder in Los Angeles history. A beautiful young victim, a cunning psychopathic killer, a real-life mystery that's inspired countless movie makers and writers from Double Indemnity to Chinatown to L.A. Confidential. Even the nickname The Black Dahlia is straight out of the movies. The Blue Dahlia was a nightclub in a 1946 crime film.

Newspapers adapted that title to fit the Elizabeth Short case. And the Black Dahlia legend was born. And action. The mystery behind the legend continues to inspire great storytellers. Director Brian De Palma. Cut. And a cast that includes Hillary Swank. What do I have to do to keep my name out of the papers?

Scarlett Johansson. I'm scared. And Josh Hartnett. Once again brings a twisted tail of the black dahlia to the big screen. Screen test, it's a bit short. Say you care, say you're short. This is a very sad scene.

Beautiful Hollywood wannabe. That's the camera that's covering you. Director Brian De Palma. And of course the question's always when something like that, how does that beautiful girl, which you've seen pinup shots of, become this. And who did that to her and why? It's one of these mysteries that will go on forever.

Nothing stays buried forever. Nothing. It's the great L.I. murder. And L.I.'s had some doozies. Well it's up here a ways more. Steve O'Dell was just five years old when Elizabeth Short was murdered. The crime scene. We're just coming up here now. As a cop, he worked the same Hollywood streets Elizabeth once knew.

You know, I had lots of murders where you had young runaways, and within weeks they'd have a needle in their arm and they'd be doing tricks on Hollywood Boulevard. For over 17 years, he investigated 300 murders. The Black Dahlia case was just another cold case. But after he retired, it would come to haunt him. We're standing just at the location where the body would have been placed.

Now this would have been a large vacant lot. The upper torso was juxtaposed just off to the left about 12 inches. Do you have any idea why the body would be left here? Because the killer was sure that it would be found fairly quickly, as it was. Clearly he wasn't trying to hide it. He wanted the notoriety. The killer got what he wanted. For weeks, a terrified city watched as the search

for the murderer unfolded. There were dozens of false confessions, hundreds of other suspects questioned and cleared. The killer even wrote letters taunting the police and also sent Elizabeth Short's personal address book to a local newspaper. But after the biggest manhunt in LA history, the murder was listed officially unsolved.

It stayed that way for 58 years. That's Elizabeth when she was between 10 and 11. Mary Pasios has never forgotten Elizabeth. Elizabeth was her babysitter and idol in their working class neighborhood of Medford, Massachusetts outside Boston. She was black-eyed. She had the dark hair, the translucence, blue-green eyes, and a flawless complexion. She had beautiful skin. A vibrant young woman growing up in a dark, drab time, the height of the Depression. Did she ever talk about her dreams to you? Just that she was going to Hollywood.

And this is Hollywood Boulevard, the business and theater center of the film capital. Post-war Los Angeles was a boon town, overrun with ex-servicemen, star-struck wannabes, Here's a gorgeous number in blue knitted wool. And hustlers. Then, as now, a place where pretty faces were a dime a dozen, and life could be tough. Most of the girls are applauded, thanked, and then quickly forgotten till the next contest comes along. She was broke, and she was borrowing money. Elizabeth became a Hollywood hanger on,

going out on the town each night, usually with a different guy, to places like the frolic room, which looks pretty much the same now as it did back then. Friends said they would get her a date so that she'd eat. It was pretty common for women to do that. Dating for dinner.

Dating for dinner. Her last night on Earth was January 14, 1947. It's a Wonderful Life was playing at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. Around dawn the next day, a mysterious black car was seen at the spot where Elizabeth's body was later found. A black car very similar to the 1936 Packard owned by Steve Hodell's father, Dr. George Hodell. Here's a photograph of me sitting on Father's lap. That's you here?

Yeah. And that's your father? Right. George Hodel was a brilliant man with an IQ of 186, a point higher, he would say, than Einstein's. He began as a child musical prodigy, studying in Paris with Madame Montessori. After a stint as a newspaper reporter at the age of 16, he sailed through medical school studying surgery.

He settled in Los Angeles, running the county's venereal disease clinic, where it was rumored he treated some of L.A.'s top brass. A man with family money, who lived in an exotic house in the middle of Los Angeles that was as eccentric as its owner. I would describe it as looking like a Mayan temple. It really did. It was a fortress from the world. Tamar Hodel was one of 11 children the doctor had by five different women.

She and her half brother Steve remember their father's house as a place where artists and movie people came for flamboyant parties presided over by the dynamic George Hodel. Anyone that's ever met this man will tell you the kind of charm and power that he had. George Hodel's charm was certainly not lost on his son Steve. The two remained close until 1999, when the doctor died in his high-rise apartment in

San Francisco at the age of 91. I flew to San Francisco at the age of 91. I flew to San Francisco. I'm sitting there with June, my stepmother, who had been with my father for 30 years. And June said, I think your father would want you to have this. And she handed me this small album. I looked at it, and I said to June, June, who is this?

And June said, I don't know. Somebody your father knew from a long time ago. I was trying to pull it in. Where do I know this picture? Why do I know this woman? Somewhere deep within me, I made the connection. The Black Dahlia. We bet you didn't know. Our new train's panoramic windows are ideal for contemplating whether texting them back

so soon was the best decision. Get on board. Via Rail. Love the way. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. Shame! Shame! But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone.

We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. ["The Black Dahlia"] The Black Dahlia. I knew that it was a famous, unsolved case from long ago, but I didn't know any of the details.

I didn't even know her name. To this day, Steve O'Dell isn't sure what it was that made him compare pictures of the Black Dahlia to snapshots his father had saved of a mystery woman. Maybe it was because the Black Dahlia always wore a flower in her hair and looked like that. Maybe that was the connection. The search for answers became an obsession. Steve spent months combing through newspaper accounts, talking to old timers, and traveling back to his childhood.

This is our backyard. Steve revisited the exotic house on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood. The three of us were standing right about here. Where he and his brothers lived off and on with their father in the late 1940s. When we were living here, there was nothing but a large white polar bear rug in here. He suspects one of the pictures from his father's album was taken here. There's a Chinese statuary that you can see in the picture.

And it looks very much like the statuary that dad had here at the house. It was literally a house of secrets. Off in this direction, we have what was dad's study. It was literally a house of secrets. Off in this direction we have what was dad's study. Complete with a secret room where the children were never allowed to go. Lo and behold. What did your father use this room for?

We just assumed storage. And the truth was far different and far more terrible. It was in this fortress of a house, Steve says, that his father could do what he wanted, no matter how immoral or illegal. I have seen my father's cruelty when I was 11. He won't teach me oral sex. When you were 11? 11. Your own father? Grandfather. Assured that sex between father and daughter was normal, Tamar had anything but a normal childhood. She remembers the doctor's friends, among them, famous photographer Man Ray. He was a dirty old man.

He took pictures of everybody. Man Ray became the family photographer, a perverse family photographer. He took pictures of me and they were nudes. But how old were you when he was taking these pictures of you? Maybe 12. Maybe 12. A frequent house guest was John Huston, the famous movie director. I had an experience with him.

He came after me and he lunged and put me down on the floor and was definitely going to rape me. And my stepmother came in and she pulled him off saying, John, John, stop it. And there were always women. Tamar remembers a constant stream of young, beautiful women. There were always a line of beautiful women waiting to see my father, or to go into his quarters, into the golden bedroom. I met Tamar when I was 14 and she was 23.

On a winter's day. Michelle Phillips, former singer with the mamas and the papas, has been Tamar's friend since 1958. This is how she had grown up, in this crazy environment with her father, and she had obviously been used as a sexual object with him and his friends. He was all amazing to me. It wasn't until some years later, after one of her concerts,

that Michelle Phillips met George Hodel for herself. I felt a chill. And a lot of it was because I knew that he knew that she had told me. And I recently started thinking about the way he looked at me. I think he wanted to kill me. Tamar Hodel must have felt a similar chill

when as a teenager in 1949, she ran away from her father's home. She told police what had been going on there. Within the next day there's a knock on the door at the Franklin house, LAPD juvenile detectives, Dr. George Hodel, you're under arrest for incest. The well-known doctor was put on trial, charged with offering his 14-year-old daughter to several of his friends at an orgy. My father had intercourse with me.

It wasn't loving. He acted guilt-ridden. That's how he acted. Ashamed. It was very bad. But in the courtroom, a parade of family members testified that Tamar made up the story. No one wanted George Hodel to go to jail because George Hodel was the one who was making all the money, first of all, and he was supporting all the people surrounding this tale. They parade all of these witnesses.

The jury comes back in a kind of an OJ decision real quick in 45 minutes. supporting all the people surrounding this tale. They parade all of these witnesses. The jury comes back in a kind of an OJ decision real quick in 45 minutes. It's not guilty. What was your reaction when the verdict was acquittal? I didn't know what to think. I didn't do anything, but I became the criminal after my father was acquitted.

I didn't do anything, but I became the criminal after my father was acquitted. But George Hodel's troubles with the law were far from over. During the incest investigation, police got a tip that Hodel had known Elizabeth Shor before her murder. Tamar believes her father knew he had become a suspect. He said we were being investigated or watched.

When all of this was going on, Steve was just a kid. But as an adult, it began to make sense. It's when he began sorting out the details of his father's past and the Black Dahlia case that he found the two stories merging. I see strong similarities in the mouth and the nose, the hair. Steve Hodel was convinced the photos in his father's album were indeed of the Black Dahlia. It wasn't all that surprising that my father knew Elizabeth Short. She was hanging out in Hollywood at the same time,

going to parties. Dad was famous for throwing these parties. But what did catch Steve Hodel by surprise was one of the many taunting cards and letters the killer sent to newspapers. It was this one, written by hand. Turning in Wednesday, January 29th. Had my fun with police. Black Dahlia Avenger.

That's my father's handwriting. I know my father's handwriting. There was no question about it. So at that point I thought, oh my god, this is the real deal. Steve Hodel took his suspicions to an old friend, Deputy District Attorney Stephen K. suspicions to an old friend, Deputy District Attorney Stephen K. Steve K. speaking. When Steve called me and told me what he had concluded, you could have knocked me off my chair. It was just, wow. K tracked down the black Dahlia file in the DA's office,

a box of investigative notes and transcripts that no one had touched for over half a century. I sit down and I open the box, and I start going through it, and out falls a picture of George Hodel. This is the smoking guns. This is the proof that I've been looking for. The first thing they said to me was, Dr. Hodel's daughter. Oh yes, we know all about Dr. Hodel.

When investigators for the Los Angeles DA's office began questioning Tamar Hodel about her father, it was clear there was more than the 1949 orgy on their minds. They also suspected that he had committed the murder of the Black Dahlia. They told you that? They told me that. of the Black Dahlia. They told you that? They told me that. But she never told her younger half-brother, Steve.

So years later, when going through the DA's file on the Black Dahlia case, Steve Hodel got the shock of his life. In 1949, two years after Elizabeth Short was murdered, the district attorney had begun to zero in on a suspect. You could just tell by the wealth of material that Dr. Hodel was their prime suspect. Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay says that in the file is information from a female witness who told authorities that George Hodel definitely knew Elizabeth Short. Do you remember the Black Dahlia case? Yes, I do.

Yes, I remember it. And then there's Walter Morgan. He's 90 years old now, but back in the day, he was a young investigator working for the L.A. district attorney who took over the Black Dahlia investigation in 1949. We tailed Dr. George Hodel, but I never did get to see his face. I only saw the back of him. But that's not all he did.

In fact, he did something then he couldn't do today, at least not legally. Morgan, along with police detectives, came here to the Franklin house using a plastic identification card to open the door. The cops slipped into the house and surreptitiously planted eavesdropping devices in here. For the next 40 days, 24 hours a day,

detectives listened to hundreds of Dr. Hodel's private conversations. This was actually live microphones hidden in the house. How unusual was that? That was very unusual. While the recordings no longer exist, the transcripts are in the DA's file. Sometimes you'd have a DA investigator in the basement of the Hollywood Division Police Station and sometimes it would be LAPD. At one point, George Hodel is heard saying,

Supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead. I just can't believe that an innocent man would say that. The secretary was Ruth Spaulding. Her death certificate blames a drug overdose. Despite the statements captured on wire recordings, in the spring of 1950, the DA abruptly stopped investigating George Hodel.

Even more surprising, the chief investigator of the case, Frank Jemison, summed up the evidence saying it tends to eliminate this suspect. Do you believe that at least the lieutenant in charge, Jemison, really thought that George Hodel should have been eliminated as a suspect? No, I don't believe that. How can you say that those tapes clear Dr. Hodel? If anything, I think they sound like a guilty man who is ready to take it on the lam.

So why did the DA stop looking at George Hodel? Perhaps the answer is also in those secret recordings. At one point, George Hodel is heard saying, This is the best payoff I've seen between law enforcement agencies. I'd like to get a connection made in the DA's office. What do you think he's referring to there? Paying off?

Yeah. Someone in the DA's office? That's what he would like to do, yeah. And obviously, I can take from this this that he's done it before. The only thing I can think is some money must have transpired between people. But it sounds like you think there may have been a cover-up of some sort. Well, everybody thought that. In fact, 48 Hours has learned that in 1950 both the D. the DA and the LAPD stopped pursuing

the Black Dahlia case, even though several investigators later told their relatives that they knew who the killer was. This is the city, Los Angeles, California. An actor, Jack Webb... My name's Friday. ...who played a cop on television and had close friends on the force, told an acquaintance that the chief of detectives had specifically described the Black Dahlia killer as a doctor in Hollywood who lived on Franklin Avenue.

The very street where George Hodel lived. And it's important to remember that back in 1949, the LAPD was a dirty department rocked by scandals involving cops and gangsters, prostitutes and payoffs. A time and a place, crime writer James Elroy knows well. Reports recommending whether or not to file charges to the district attorney were on sale for 500 bucks a pop. The Detective Bureau was a repository of drunks and cronies of high ranking LAPD officers. At the time of Elizabeth Short's death, it was a very corrupt institution. Did the LAPD allow a killer to go free?

I'm sure that the powers that be said, you got to get out of Dodge. Can modern technology help with the mystery of the black dahlia? The hairline is the same. I think the nose is the same. is the same. I think the nose is the same. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Raden was found dead in a canyon near LA in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death.

The last person seen with him was Laney Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder

on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. He was hip hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk Cafe, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and live the life most people only dream about. I know a no party like a did he party so. But just as quickly as his empire rose it came crashing

down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a 3 count indictment charging Sean combs with racketeering conspiracy sex trafficking interstate transportation for prostitution. I was. I made no excuses. Disgusting so sorry. Until you're wearing orange jumpsuit it's not real now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace from

law and crime this is the rise and fall of getting listen to the rise and fall of getting exclusively with one degree plus. I'm going to come one of its. This is Cherokee Avenue in the heart of Hollywood. We're just a block north of Hollywood Boulevard. And Elizabeth, during 46, lived in this apartment building here, which is the Chancellor Apartments. Before she was known only as the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short was just another struggling young woman.

And she actually lived at the top floor. She shared an apartment there with six other girls. So there were seven girls, each paying a buck for rent. Hollywood's motion picture industry beckoning thousands with stars in their eyes. She was, says Steve Hodel, like so many dreamers before her who had come to post-war Los Angeles. ...the willingness to do almost anything to crash the movies.

How did she support herself? Well, basically, she lived off her friends. Didn't have a job. She'd go out on dates with men, but she wasn't a prostitute, and she didn't drink. But that clean-cut image of Elizabeth Short did not sell newspapers. Crime novelist James Elroy. How was Elizabeth Short portrayed in these years since she was killed?

Portrayed as a prostitute. It isn't true. Portrayed as a movie mad girl who got parts in a lot of movies of the time including Casablanca it certainly isn't true. I believe she's been victimized twice, brutally murdered and then the person who was murdered was so badly smeared. That would be how I'd first remember her smiling. She smiled a great deal. Mary Pasios was a neighbor of Short's back in her hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.

I want people to know she was a very nice person. She was not just beautiful outside. She was beautiful inside. Her beauty certainly entranced men. After Short was murdered, a lot of the men she knew became suspects. Among them, Mark Hanson, a nightclub owner, reportedly obsessed with Elizabeth Short. And Glenn Wolf, one of Short's landlords, described to police as a sexual maniac.

But they can be eliminated, says Hodel, for one simple reason. The condition of Elizabeth Short's body. I started looking at the crime itself. And what I discovered, to my surprise surprise was that the killer was a surgeon. Not a meat cutter, not a butcher, a skilled professional surgeon. 48 hours decided to put the theories of Steve Hodel, the former homicide detective, to the test. The person who committed this horrible crime cut across the bone in order to separate one half of her body

from the other half of her body. We asked Dr. Mark Wallach, chief of surgery at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York, to look at the crime scene photos as well as the autopsy. You don't get this kind of training where you can actually invade a human body unless you've had some surgical experience, in my opinion. So you're saying you think it must have been a doctor?

In my opinion, yes. While Steve Hodel's father didn't actually practice surgery, he excelled at it in medical school. He was a surgeon, she was killed by a surgeon. That really is a limiting pool of suspects. There are other pieces of the puzzle that convince Steve Hodel his father was the killer. Take the handwritten notes the killer sent newspapers right after Elizabeth Short's murder. I'm not saying it's similar.

I'm saying this is my father's handwriting. Let's take a look at the upper case forms of the letter N. We then asked John Osborne, one of the most respected document examiners in the field, to compare letters that Killers sent to the newspapers with examples of handwriting from Dr. George Hodel. In this example, you'll note that the N's are written almost in a technical printing style. However, if you take a look at the N's that appear in the questioned writing,

you'll note that it's a narrow form of the letter. There is simply not enough evidence to prove one way or the other whether his father was the writer or not the writer. Then I came to these two pictures. And what about the photographs of the mystery woman found in the album, the ones that started Steve Hodel on his investigation in the first place. The diamond-shaped face, the high forehead, the thick hair. Is this, in fact, Elizabeth Short?

Initially, I did think that they were very, very close. Suni Chapman is a forensic artist who uses and distributes e-fit, facial identification software, that helps create detailed sketches of suspects for police investigations. eFIT was actually developed for Scotland Yard. Chapman was able to compare one of the photos

of the mystery woman to a picture of Elizabeth Short, and initially saw a lot of similarities. The hairline is the same. I think the nose tip is the same. I think the nostrils have a strong likeness. But upon closer examination... Where I don't think there is a strong similarity is in the bridge of the nose. And then there's the chin.

Elizabeth Short's photograph, although she has quite a long chin, the photograph of the other woman has a very, very strong sort of half moon shape and a much shorter chin. After measuring the facial features in both photos, Chapman says, I'm 85% sure that these two photographs are not of the same woman. But none of these expert opinions changes Steve's. Even if those are not Elizabeth Short. You mean you actually entertain the possibility that those two pictures that started you on this investigation might not be Elizabeth Short?

A lot of people look at them and say, I don't see it. But you still then, even if you started for the wrong reason, you ended with the right result. Exactly. That's because Steve Hodel says he's uncovered yet another clue that points to his father as the killer. This photo done by Dr. Hodel's close friend, the artist Man Ray. He wanted to be like Man Ray.

He wanted to be an artist. And I think this was his masterpiece. The body was positioned north to south, so this is north. It was carefully placed. You're not going to get this positioning. The hands were positioned over the head as if almost to form horns. Steve believes his father posed Elizabeth Short's body to mimic this classic art photo titled the Minotaur, the mythical beast that devoured young maidens.

Her arms were positioned like the horns. The way her arms were up like this at the same angle above her head. Now, I've tried lots of murder cases, and I've only had one other case where the victim has been posed. Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay not only agrees with Steve Hodel's theory, he thinks

the cuts found across the victim's mouth and face were meant to mimic another man Ray work, the lovers. I know that that is a bizarre thing, but this was a bizarre man. After Steve Hodel published a book, the LAPD was willing to hear his theories, but not to open the original police files on the case, until now. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it.

Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness,

and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondry Show American Scandal.

We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondry+.

You can join Wondry+, in the Wondry app, Apple podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. Unknown Elizabeth Short compared to the My Father's Picture. Again, we all see through different lenses. Steve Hodel's theory continues to fascinate and intrigue readers, despite the questions raised by 48 Hours. There is simply not enough evidence to prove one way or the other, whether his father was the writer or not the writer. I'm 85% sure that these two photographs are not of the same woman. Hodel still has powerful allies. Assistant District Attorney Stephen Kay

believes Hodel's father was the killer. He was a despicable human being. I mean the way he treated women it was like a piece of Kleenex that he would blow his nose and throw it away in the trash. In the DA's office then. Crime novelist James Elroy is also convinced. I think Steve Hodel is a good and noble guy. I think he solved the Black Dyer murder case. But there are also plenty of skeptics.

Do you believe that Steve Hodel has solved the murder of Elizabeth Short? No. You don't? No. Mary Pasios believes that Hodel relies too much on speculation in the case against his father. He could probably go in a list of about half a dozen good suspects. And the Los Angeles Police Department agrees. A year and a half after the district attorney

opened his files, the LAPD finally revealed in an off-camera briefing the secrets of its own Black Dahlia investigation. No surprise, Dr. George Hodel was at one point a major suspect, but police say he was only one of 22 major suspects, seven of whom were doctors. Police also contradicted Steve Hodel and claimed there was no proof that his father even knew Elizabeth Short. But the Los Angeles Police Department has its own credibility problems. The LAPD now admits that in the years since Elizabeth Short's murder,

virtually all the physical evidence in this case has disappeared. The police aren't sure how, but it has simply vanished from the files. The bottom line? L.A.'s most famous unsolved murder may never be solved. How can you lose all of the physical evidence in the most important crime that LAPD's ever had? And it's not just the physical evidence, it's the interviews, it's the wire recordings of my father. Everything has disappeared. Shocked and angered by the LAPD's response,

Steve O'Dell also dismisses the findings of two handwriting experts, our own and the LAPD's, who both said they were not convinced that the handwriting in the killer's letters matched Dr. George Hodel's. It is my father's handwriting. I don't have to be convinced. I don't need an expert to tell me I know it is a fact. Most people would be happy to hear that the LAPD doubts that his father is a killer. Why aren't you? Why are you so determined to prove that he was, in fact, the black Dahlia killer?

Because it's the truth. Whatever the truth about Dr. George Hodel, he is still causing pain for the people closest to him. There is Steve, the son struggling with conflicting emotions for the man he believes is both a monster and his father. This hasn't been an easy thing. People saying, oh, this is just a son who hates his father and stuff. This is a daddy dearest thing.

Was there any sense of revenge against your father by publishing this? None at all. No. I mean, I love my father. I love him to this day. I loved him too, even though I was very hurt by him and kept waiting for him to be a good guy. And there is Tamar, Steve's half-sister,

who never got over the trauma of being molested at age 14 by her father, Tamar's old friend, Michelle Phillips. The relationship was just so monstrous and sad for her. And if Steve Hodel is correct, the ultimate victim of his father was Elizabeth Short. She was missed. That's why I like people to understand. She was gorgeous inside and out. You miss her even 57 years afterwards. Yeah. I mean, I never know when it will creep up. Great test, Elizabeth Short.

I'm told that I'm very photogenic. And again, almost six decades after her brutal killing, the Black Dahlia, the feature film, is set to play upon a mystery. What happened? In the imaginations of millions of Americans. And now real movie stars like Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank. You know, not being able to solve a murder of that caliber, I think was a pretty big

deal and I think that was the infatuation that people have. Okay, stand by please. We'll shoot this one. And Josh Hartnett... Anybody who was around California area at that time knew, you know, the whole saga. It was in the newspapers every day. It was a big deal. I guess you're kind of liken it to maybe the, you know, Jean-Béné Ramsey case. And action. They will become part of a new story

that's already a Hollywood legend. She was young and beautiful, determined to be famous, but destined to be infamous. We may never know for sure who killed Elizabeth Short or whether George Hodel was the Black Dahlia killer, he fled the United States just days after the district attorney stopped investigating him in 1950, not to return until 40 years later, when the search for the killer had long gone cold. This case, this investigation has been described as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an

enigma and I can't think of a more perfect description than that. A mystery, but to crime writer James Elroy, one with a perfect ending. It's divine providence that the mad doctor spawns a son who becomes an LAPD homicide detective who sees photographs that are not even of Elizabeth Short and it turns out that his old man did the job anyway. I dig it. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at Wondery.com slash survey.