Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 601: The Black Dahlia Murder Part II - The Gangster Squad

Episode Date: December 21, 2024

The boys dive deeper into the case of the Black Dahlia Murder this week taking a close look at some of the key players and suspects involved in the investigation. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to ad-free new episodes and get exclusive access to bonus content.

Do you want to listen to last podcast on the left without ads? Do you want extra content? Do you want to see what it's like behind the scenes? Patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that?

Oh, those murky murky waters. Murky murky black Dahlia waters. I have been up to my nipples. That's deep. Yeah, black Dahlia man. That's like three feet deep. And he, I'll allow it because it's almost Christmas. It is funny because I've never, I never did the black Dahlia deep dive. Yeah, I didn't either.

It was like one of those true crime things that I kind of thought, I think that's because as we were getting deeper into true crime as a person. Yeah. First of all, I was like more into serial killers. Like then I found the Zodiac and I had seen pictures of the black Dahlia corpse and it wasn't until now that like it's kind of then last podcast got going and I started thinking like, you know, we'll get there. Yeah, eventually, you know, so I don't need to look into it now. And now I realize like, why it's like this. It's very confusing. I am so deep in I'm losing my fucking mind.

I'm doing the thing where I'm seeing her face everywhere. I'm talking about hacking tits off everywhere all the time. It's getting a bit of a verbal tick of mine. And then what I did last night. A verbal tit? Last night, what I did is that I wanted to really get in the headspace So just started waving knives around the kitchen And I was just like trying to measure Natalie of where I'd cut her directly in half

But I went in I looked up the top songs of 1947 just to kind of get in the mood and I listened to a bunch of old pop songs and it was just sitting there and Natalie came back. She had a listen to a bunch of old pop songs and I was just sitting there and Natalie came Back she had a dinner with a bunch of her girlfriends She came in and she just saw like me no shirt in my in my underwear Watching drinking a fucking three fingers of scotch. Yeah listening to Drinking about it being like, We'll never know who killed Elizabeth's short wife.

We never will know, because every mystery unlocks another mystery! And you're like, oh, and then it kind of feels nice to be here again. Yeah, it does. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the in too deep Henry Zabrowski Oh, just a little carriage ride with my sweetheart Can I cut her tits off? Oh, let's go smile, so we are like my baby And the newly traumatized Ed Larson who just saw the Elizabeth Short crime scene photos for the first time just before walking in here

Yeah, you just sent them to me. I asked you to. Yes, you asked me. I never send them to people without permission or direct request. I was like, well, we're doing the show. I might as well see it. And I did not finish my lunch. It was very upsetting. Hey, though, Eddie, you got through most of it. I have. Oh, I definitely had a couple more bites. But I officially I think I have a good theory before we get started on who it was. World's worst magician.

He cut the box in half and then he's just like, oh no. I just honestly, I looked at all the manuals and I just thought if I believed deep enough in my heart that the magic would be real. Oh no! Oh hot water! Now in many ways Los Angeles is the promise of the American West. It's a place of reinvention, the farthest you can run before you hit ocean, a place where there's ample opportunity to become somebody else entirely

if that's what you so choose. But within that rebirth lies great vulnerability. And LA has always been host to parasites constantly on the search for a cocoon to suck dry and throw away without a second thought. Tell us how you really feel. for a cocoon to suck dry and throw away without a second thought. One might even say that much of the entertainment industry has been built on this very principle since day one. I feel nothing. The key is to have a subs inclination to be embarrassed and then the lack of shame to

hold anything back. That's the key is that you got to be able to come to Los Angeles, eat shit and like it. Yeah, but since Los Angeles is known to attract desperate people, or at least people who are apt to become more desperate the longer they're here, it's also attracted criminals of every kind, from gangsters to rapists to murderers. And that was never more true of Los Angeles than it was during the time of the Black Dahlia murder. Because we talk, we've been obviously kind of going over all the theories about the murder. We've, last week we talked a little bit about the Black Dahlia adventure. We brought them in, we know that Black Dolly Avenger we brought them in we know that

At this point in the case when everyone arrives and they are shocked by the body of The of Elizabeth short the conspiracy and the cover-up kicks in immediately now the what we want to do is like we don't know Necessarily Marcus is sure Marcus has a he's likes his suspect I like my, I like my suspect a lot. I really do. The magician. The magician. I went deep into Marcus' Bingo the okay. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't supposed to do this.

I was supposed to be a dentist. But I cast further. I cast a little doubt in my own mind, but really what we're trying to set up in this episode is the atmosphere that caused the Black Dahlia murder. Like without the corruption of Los Angeles police department and show business and all of it put together, this doesn't happen. Yeah.

Well as one mob lawyer put it, in places like Chicago, the gangsters paid off the police, but the gangsters committed the crimes. In Los Angeles, the police were the gangsters paid off the police, but the gangsters committed the crimes. In Los Angeles, the police WERE the gangsters. And since the police were so corrupt, Los Angeles was an attractive place for organized crime figures who were either on the run for the law or looking for new opportunities. This moral ambivalence trickled down into the very fabric of this city and gave all sorts of people tacit permission to be horrible because when you mix a Virtually untouchable group of powerful individuals with a never-ending stream of desperate naive people Shit's gonna get real ugly and real weird real fast

But right before you get your face turned into a hideous clown You know McCall display and get sliced in half, it's a lot of fun. Like, right in those moments before. That's where LA was fun. I think more than more, I think like, days before it was fun. It was fun. No, it's a razor's edge.

That's the thing about Los Angeles. It's a town where you can walk this razor's edge of danger and you never know when you're gonna fucking fall off. Cause one, cause you could either end up Charlie Chaplin, or you could end up Donny Chaplin. And you don't wanna know what happened to Donny Chaplin. And so on today's episode, we're gonna be talking about the disreputable,

disgusting men who thrived in the underbelly of Los Angeles during the time of the Black Dahlia murder. Along the way, we'll also explain how these men gained enough power to possibly cover up their involvement time of the Black Dahlia murder. Along the way, we'll also explain how these men gained enough power to possibly cover up their involvement in one of the most high-profile murders in America's history. While organized crime was certainly a problem, it operated hand-in-hand with the LAPD. And in the time period we're talking about here, the 1930s to the 1950s, it's been said that the LAPD had absolute disregard for both the Constitution and the law itself

What if instead we pause it like like this is very harsh language, right? We and we love the LAPD and we were not trying to remotely criticize the LAPD in any way, right? No, this is a very long time ago. Yes Yes and but I think that more a way to kind of put this more gently is that the LAPD came and were taught improv classes by mafia men. And then what that did was in that play acting in that yes and like scenario, they then ended up committing quite a bit of crimes at the time.

But it really was about staying in character. Yes. There wasn't many checks and balances out here. No. You're right. There absolutely weren't. There really weren't. Now that's not to say that law enforcement during this time period was a paragon of virtue across America, but the LAPD were especially renowned for their lawlessness and brutality. They struck deals with anyone who could line their pockets, from lawyers to snitches to bail bondsmen.

And they created a grift in which the criminals, the cops, and the lawyers were all on the same side trying to squeeze as much money as they could out of the city of Los Angeles. And how long do you think this lasted? Like 15 years? No! To about 2024. I mean there's always going to be police corruption, but obviously at its worst, it was a decades long thing that lasted from the twenties up until around the fifties. Okay. There was no law. Yeah. None. Lots of, you know, lots of good movies and lots of

bad movies made about it. Yes. Well, all this only got worse in 1933 when a man with an actual Hitler mustache named Frank Shaw was elected mayor. Is it still in? It was still in. Yeah, isn't it a Hitler mustache in 1933? Because I don't think it is. I think you'd call it a Lincoln mustache. No, you'd call it a chaplain.

Lincoln didn't have that mustache. The hat. What? The mustache looks like a hat for the lip. No, because there's no brim. The lip. It's a chaplain mustache at this point. But in 1933 though, Hitler was a world renowned figure. So you do know that you have the same mustache as a, it's kind of like now having the same haircut as Elon Musk. Okay. You know, you don't want that. I mean that's easy to

do. You just go to Turkey and you spend $8,000 to get it. Well, Frank Shaw was essentially bought and paid for by organized crime, and his first action in office was to appoint his brother, Sailor Joe Shaw, as a secretary whose sole purpose was to organize and collect bribes. By making an under-the-table payment to Sailor Joe, a police officer or even a firefighter could easily buy a promotion. And Joe is even known to sell the answers to local civil service exams to anyone who wanted them. As one person put it, everything in City Hall from the furniture to the toilet paper was up for sale just so long as you paid cash.

What kind of assholes buying the toilet paper? Hey, how much fun would it be? Like, let's say, yeah, I mean, this is all bad, though, but at the same time, it kind of be fun to go in as a businessman. You were mad at the cops by all the toilet paper now. They all got shit dry Man imagine 1940s toilet paper I'm pretty certain it was made out of hemp What Shaw was in office He was able to flip the tables on organized crime by forcing them to pay him protection

And as long as you stayed up to date on your payments flip the tables on organized crime by forcing them to pay him protection. And as long as you stayed up to date on your payments, you never had to worry about a raid on your brothels or your casinos by the biggest gang in town. That was the LAPD. Nah, see? Yeah, yeah, we're coming for you. We're coming for you guys, see? Listen, nothing Hitler about my mustache.

All right, this is American mustache. This is Frank's mustache. That's what it needs to be called. The Frank's Stache. You know that Hitler apparently shaved the mustache down in order to fit into a gas mask? Alright, this is American mustache, Frank's mustache! That's what it needs to be called! The Frank's Stache! You know that Hitler apparently shaved the mustache down in order to fit into a gas mask? Really?

That's what they said according to him, that's what Hitler said. And if you want to trust him, which I do, why not just shave the whole mustache? Because he needed a little bit of something. Yeah, a little something to make him fun. Hitler! Yeah, a little something to make him fun. Hitler. Yeah, Hitler! Shaw's entire operation however came crashing down when he got involved with the attempted murder of a private investigator in 1938. The investigator was working with a concerned private citizen

to expose the LAPD as essentially a legalized mafia. This private investigator got car bombed for his trouble. The entire operation had been orchestrated by the head of the LAPD intelligence squad. And interestingly, that officer was convicted for his crime partly due to testimony from Jack Parsons. That's wow! Holy fucking shit! Another connection!

Yeah, that's actually, this case is actually how Jack Parsons made his name. That's how Jack Parsons got famous was by being an expert witness in this case. That's fascinating. I didn't even realize that that's where he shows up and wow. Yeah yeah yeah because when I was reading about I know this case from somewhere. Yeah it was Jack Parsons and after the intelligence officer was convicted Mayor Frank Shaw resigned along with the LAPD chief James Tugun Davis and dozens of LAPD officers quote-unquote retired to Mexico soon after to escape further scrutiny.

Frank's going down to his house, see? He's gonna take his mustache to Mexico, see? Gonna get my mustache, taste of Al Pastor, see? Come on now, I'm going down there, come on buddies. Soon after, another 200 cops were demoted or fired, and the administration that followed Mayor Shaw's corrupt regime appointed an elite group of cops dedicated to removing mobsters and the corrupt officials from within. That group was called the Gangster Squad. And the Gangster Squad is interesting because a lot of them pretty fat.

Which actually, I like a fat cop. I think a fat cop is great because it means they think a lot. Yeah, and you can get away from them. Oh yeah, but these guys weren't the runners. They weren't first responders, they were like third and fourth responders. They were call me when you get them responders. We respond from the office and my toilet. These guys were very, it's going to get deep into the murky worlds because these were now

supposed to be the new good guys. Yeah. These are the new good guys. These are handpicked recruits. These are like, this is like Gotham City. This is, this is commissioner Gordon combing the ranks of the fucking police department to find the few guys who are paying Oswald Cobblepot Yeah, who's not on the take? Yeah, but then it turns out a lot of those guys

What is the terms that you have to be careful when fighting monsters? So not to become one yourself, of course And so the gangster squad would then go to bend quite a bit of the rules Yeah to do this very honest work. They had that horrible movie that came out like 10 years ago, called Gangster Squad. Oh, was it like Jeremy Renner in it? He plays like the fluid in it or something? I think Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohen or something like that. But then they had to halt the release of it because they had this scene where it was in the preview where they came out and they just shot everyone in a movie theater and then the Batman thing happened Yeah, so they're like, okay, I guess this movie's coming out in winter instead of summer

And they had to go like reshoot a bunch of shit Jesus. It's just them handing out gum to a bunch of people in the theater being like don't say we didn't give them anything you see There you go. Enjoy some sugar-free gum. I won't hurt you, see? No, Mickey Cohen hated the gangster squad. He called them, eh, more like the stupidity squad. The mobsters aren't super clever when it comes to names. Especially not them. Yeah. Working deep undercover, the seven-man gangster squad operated solely out of two unmarked

sedans. They had no offices, and they began making a name for themselves as crack investigators who were just as unconcerned with the Constitution as the men they were hunting. As such, the gangster squad was sometimes given special assignments outside of their purview, which is how they came to be involved in the investigation into the Black Dahlia murder. It's kind of like using a dental dam, right?

When you want to get at that pussy, man? You brought it back up into my mind You brought it, but that's all the Constitution is yeah, right cuz the pussy Yeah, America's the pussy and the crime is the clip Dental dam is the Constitution get it between them We have to remove the Constitution never to get right up inside of the pussy hole of America and at the clit of criminality. Perfect. Perfect analogy. Thank you.

Now, the seven men of the gangster squad could only do so much to root out police corruption. Because they kept arresting themselves. So in 1947, when the Black Dahlia murder occurred, there were still plenty of LAPD officers on the take at every level. Unfortunately for Elizabeth Short, it just so happened that the two homicide detectives in charge of her case, Finnis Brown and Harry the Hat Hanson, were just about as corrupt as they come. Oh, we so we may think!

Around the offices of Los Angeles Held Express, Finnis and Hanson were called the Ego Stoops, which was a portmanteau meaning they were a combination of egotistical, arrogant, and stupid. Hey, I'm not arrogant! Lieutenant Harry Hanson was described by author Pugh Eatwell as a tall balding redhead with a basset hound face, Mickey Mouse ears, and sleepy eyes. Sorry about that y'all. I won't make a comment about it. Along with his pinstripe suit and loud ties, Hanson also never took off his fedora for

anything, which is why they called him The Hat. You don't want me to take my hat off, because then unfortunately you would see my brain. I lost the top of my eyebrows in World War I. Unfortunately, you would see my brain So the hot is unfortunately my head Yeah medicinal hats my medicinal Away from the wind what some people get half a face, you know We give it after they get blown off in the war. He got a hat. I got a scalp get blown off in the war. He got a hatchet. I got a scalp that I have to screw off. A nearly 20-year veteran of the LAPD by the time of the Black Dahlia murder, Hanson was known as a brute who beat suspects mercilessly and would pressure newspaper

photographers to edit photos of suspects' faces to remove the blood produced by his enhanced interrogation techniques. Hanson was particularly proud of what he called his Third Street Bridge Confessions, where he dangled suspects over the Third Street Bridge if they didn't cooperate. Hanson was also known to call a suspect's bluff, often dropping them to the concrete below if they didn't tell him what he wanted to hear. I'm sorry I got slipped. I had that slip on my hands from earlier today. So he's like a serial killer. I'm more of a mass murderer kind of,

we don't know how many people Harry the Hat killed or if he killed anybody in particular. You just said he dropped people off the fucking bridge all the time. It wasn't that tall of a bridge. Oh, so they lived? Yeah. Cops also, we know, they don't ever tell fishermen's tales

of the things that they've done in the past and have Exaggerated how powerful and masculine they are they never do that Harry Hansen's partner though finnish brown was Hansen's polar opposite in both looks and demeanor while handsome was a smooth talker Finnis Brown was clumsy and strange a squat and swarthy cop with heavy jowls and rumpled suits. That picture of the two of them looking at the bodies like so, they're just like, why are you even crouching like that? You obviously can't crouch. On a hill, it's a sloped hill, you're going to fall over.

They both look like rumpty-dumpties. While Harry Hansen got the relatively flattering nickname of The Hat, Finnis Brown, the other guy in charge of investigating Elizabeth Short's murder, was called F.A. or Fatass. I don't think he approved of the nickname and I don't know if people said it out loud. It might have been more accepting to be called Fat back then. Oh sure, it was. I think it was considered a compliment. It was a compliment because it meant you were rich, charismatic, you were healthy, you were safe. Charismatic. Yeah.

In addition to being corrupt, Finnis Brown also moonlit as a bookie and a bag man for the mob, collecting money from shakedowns and protection rackets throughout Los Angeles Finis's brother Thaddeus however was known as a cop's cop Thaddeus was a beloved figure in the department who didn't have much regard for the Constitution either due to his obsessive hatred of communists and his Obsessive love for cops. It's just a very good It's like a combo of like Thaddeus is the good son, right? That that is is the son quote-unquote goods. I mean, he's like he's like lawful evil. I that's how I view him I view him as the he's the face. He's the front-facing one. He's the one that are murdering Cowboys Yes, he is the political

Sweetheart of the LAPD. That's why they like him is because politically he makes he looks good The LAPD that's why they like him is because politically he makes he looks good He is much more handsome than his brother and because of the his report with all the police and the fact that he's here to firmly establish what he believes is a lawful boys club and I think that Thaddeus Brown had a problem with Finnis Brown because Finnis Brown is To be honest. He's a fucking mystery. This man is an unfathomable mystery. And his name is Finnis Brown. It's very interesting, but he's a fucking, we don't know really what this man's agenda was and what he had to gain from jamming up the process of the Black Dahlia murder. We

also know that he might have been on the take, he also might have been deeply undercover. He was definitely on the take. They're also saying that he was undercover, telling people who he was taking the take from. And this is this game, this is what happened in JFK, this is why JFK is like the way it is, this is why, because once assets become an asset,

once a cop becomes an informant for themselves and like once they are Corrupt and then double teaming and everybody's on two separate teams They're on their own team and somebody else's team. It doesn't begin to muddy the waters very significant. You can pay twice. Yeah And that's what makes black Dahlia so interesting and so What makes Black Dahlia so interesting and so confusing is because every person in this story is running a game within a game within a game because it is so corrupt and there is so much crime going on here from the top to the bottom. There are a million games being played at all times and nobody trusts each other. Next episode we are going to go into this idea of like I think truly what's going on

here is like it's there's like seven mafias of different industries all fighting at once. Yeah. Because if you are committing crimes, you weren't able to get anything done. Exactly. You literally it's like Layton Armstrong. He wasn't cheating. He was competing. Now who did their mother love more though?

That's what I want to know. Fadius. Finnis. No, the mother always loves the fuck up more. I guess they're forced to. They're for Sue. Thaddeus Brown, he was such a looming figure in Los Angeles that on the radio version of Dragnet, Joe Friday referenced Tad Brown as his boss, and Orson Welles based the character

of Hank Quinlan in the film noir classic Touch of Evil off Tad Brown as well. Which is not a compliment. No, it's not. And so, with Finnis Brown working directly with organized crime, and Tad Brown as well. Which is not a compliment! No! It's not! And so, with Finnis Brown working directly with organized crime, and Tad Brown working solely for the interests of the cops, they made an extremely powerful pair that were difficult to stand against if you thought they might not be doing their job correctly. And, it's probably not a coincidence that they were tossed

on one of the most high-profile cases to ever hit the city, and they- Well, at least Finnis was tossed on. Thaddeus was doing his own thing. That's what I mean. He was tossed because of his connection to Thaddeus was he was tossed on the case, but why? And who's involved? And now that's what we're trained for. Were they the first people to show up? They were the cops that show up. They were told to go take care of this body we put there.

Well, they don't know. Yeah, we don't know. Like it might have just been their turn in the rotation and it just so happened. That's the thing is that there is the room for coincidence in this case is astronomical. There really is so much room for coincidence. Because the world is kind of small. Yeah, it was much smaller. Yeah, LA at this point was half the size that it is now. It's half the population that it is now.

Yeah, and it's just a bunch of vacant lots. At least in places like Leimert Park. Yeah. Fly from your grave. Now to the press, it seemed like the cops really weren't trying all that hard when it came to investigating the Black Dahlia murder, because as we established last episode,

all the most important aspects of the case have been uncovered by journalists like Jimmy Richardson and Aggie Underwood. Jimmy's people had discovered all the weird shit that had gone down in San Diego just before Elizabeth's death, for example, and Aggie Underwood, who put together a clear timeline of Elizabeth's last days during her interview with Red Manly. The cops hadn't done any of this shit. Therefore, rumors that the Black Dahlia investigation was being shut down and covered up were being spread as early as late January 1947, about a week or two after the murder.

Well it sounds like also partially was the issue of all the confessing Sams is that they got this influx we talked about last week of all of these people wanting to jump in and insert themselves into this case because, I think that where Los Angeles comes into play is that you have the, because everybody's an actor in the population, there's a lot of people looking to be like, I put my mark on this case. Oh, I can get my picture on the PayPal, which I do think is true. I think there's a little bit of the beginnings of this idea of like any publicity is good publicity.

Everyone thinks they're living in Chicago. The play. You know, the musical. Yes! And so now they're calling in and so everything got gummed up. They have no specific forensics because at the time it was a backward science, the body was completely washed clean, they can't figure out what to do, and so now it's... I think that's where we're at. Also, when a murder is this elaborate, it's probably easier to solve.

And so I imagine when you go two weeks without no fucking clues or no answers, people are definitely asking questions. You think it'd be easier to solve, but what we've talked about on the show time and time again, if it's not somebody that knows the persons directly, it's extremely difficult to figure out. Which is most murder, right?

Most murder is done by somebody that you know. Yeah. Most of it, like 95% of the time. In one way or another, like you're associated with them or a lot of times it is someone you know personally that kills you. That's why it's always the husband. It's always the wife. They always do, they, that's what they look for.

But when it's a problem, which is in this case, probably true, close to a complete stranger. It's hard to figure it out. Jimmy Richardson in particular began to believe that the investigation was being purposefully stalled, and it was his theory that the LAPD wanted it gone because of its possible connections to organized crime and the Los Angeles political elite. Furthermore, the LAPD were trying their best to distance themselves from even putting work into the investigation, going so far as to say that the murder had probably taken place outside the LA city limits and was therefore none of their business.

The Chief Homicide Detective in the city, Captain Jack Donahoe, was likewise drawing criticism because of his ridiculous public statements, like his assertion that Elizabeth Short was cut in half solely so the body could be carried more easily despite the fact that Elizabeth Short only weighed 123 pounds But I do think that there's a theory that holds of that She was cut for transport because of where she was dumped specifically because she was in a high populous area There were people lived around yes there were vacant lots But she was discovered by people just walking through people walk through Limerick Park all the time So there is I do think that there might actually be reason that she was cut in half

And that's why my main theory is that it was done by several people, but we'll get there We'll get we'll get yeah, but I could have just put straps on her and carry. That's what I do a Rambo Julie get you into the bath I put these straps on them. But how does Julie get you into the bath? Oh my god, that's a pulley system. That's a... But the problem with that though is the clean surgical nature of the cut. Is that if they're just cutting her in half solely to transport her body,

why did they take so much care in cutting the body? Because of the guy they brought her to. But that doesn't make sense because why are they bringing her to a guy to cut her in half so they can transport her somewhere else? They're transporting her to transport her? Guy went to her. It was, yeah, like a doctor. I think that one connection could be to the legal abortion circuit and that they have

a guy, if this is a mafia hit, which I do think that is correct, I think that it is involving the mafia on some level, is that they bring in an abortion doctor to a citizen who's also in the cut to being like how the fuck do we got the psychopath did this to her we need to get rid of this right now we need to do it right now and his first thing is like we put her in two burlap sacks and we take we go drop her off somewhere sure, but let's not get too Yes, it was like the spine was cut very cleanly and very deliberately. Specifically cut very nicely. But yeah, and that's the thing, is that we're gonna try really hard in this episode. There's so many different lines of questioning.

We really have to stay like fucking laser focused. Alright. And the investigative lines that Don Ho pushed were even more ludicrous. The Hawaiian guy, Don Ho? No! Are you not listening? Jack! Eddie! Don Ho! Listen! Don Ho! Not Don Ho! As Don Ho, he had become a big proponent of the homicidal lesbian angle. This was a line of investigation that was sure to go nowhere except to the harassment of LA's LGBT community,

which was at the time a target of the LAPD anyway. Now you may ask why the head of homicide would be so invested in derailing the murder investigation of one young woman especially when leaving the case unsolved made his department look that much more incompetent because people were getting killed every fucking day in Los Angeles it was a bloodbath out here fucking innocent citizens were getting caught in the crossfire of all these fucking gang wars. Women were getting killed. Hell, we talked about two murders last week that occurred just after Elizabeth Short that also went unsolved.

Oh yeah, because we all say what? The werewolf murders, which we don't have it even really factored into any of this. That's a whole book about the black doll that we not even get to about the werewolf murders and about and then how it connected back to the three They were the doctor Frankenstein The answer is that captain Jack Donahoe was one of the men who arranged bribes for the organized crime syndicate that had Los Angeles in a stranglehold in the late 1940s, and the more that investigators looked into Elizabeth Short's death, the more

it led them to organized crime figures. Organized crime was such a fact of life in Los Angeles during the time of the Black Dahlia murder that mobsters were hired as consultants on noir movies for accuracy, And in some cases, they even got producer credits. That's kind of amazing. I mean, it still happens, especially with military movies. Oh yeah, I mean, we had to deal with them on Wolf of Wall Street, where they had to keep Jordan Belfort off set because he kept trying to show up.

Yeah. Mobster Johnny Rosselli, for example, produced a prison break movie called Cannon City. And this was in addition to Johnny being responsible for getting Marilyn Monroe some of her first roles as well as Johnny being involved in CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro and he was also quite possibly the man in the sewer at Dilley Plaza when JFK was killed. Hey, hey, hey, hey, that's just where I was.

Okay, it had nothing to do with it. I love JFK my own. You know, I love Jesus Christ. It's the only Catholic president I would never kill a Catholic president. I'd never do that. Okay, I was down there because I like slime. Yeah Well, that is true Johnny Rosselli. He was responsible for getting Marilyn Monroe some of her first roles He was in the business and he was Heavily involved in a CIA plot to assassinate Fidel Castro In other words people like Johnny Rosselli the ones involved in both organized crime and the movies, they had connections to the government on both a local and national level, and they

had the power to pull strings if they wanted something covered up. Remember, I guess we always want to say this, these what we consider to be big cover-ups, my belief will always be that they're small and that the what we're looking at is human. It's like this makes me wonder whether or not Marilyn Monroe was actually killed just because of the fact that she was connected to like it's human. It's a lady that is a famous kind of like a mess at this point. Like she seems to be kind of like an out-of-pocket person that you'd want to get Whacked just like Elizabeth short and then she's been shooping to president president and his brother And she may be probably been around a bunch of different shit and probably was popping off saying all the stuff that she was

Gonna say about the time when she was fucking the president fucking his brother at the same time But she's out of pocket because they were filling her full of drugs. It's not her fault You're right, but still you get whacked for it. Yeah, it really is. And the things about these conspiracies is that I think it really does start with like one guy telling another guy, take care of it. And it's like, and then another guy tells another guy, why don't you take care of it? And then the first guy's like, I didn't say killer. That's the problem. You didn't want it, then you're going to get her a fucking bus ticket! Now bombings, shootings, and murder of all stripes were committed by the mob with near impunity during this time period,

giving Los Angeles the reputation as the gang capital of the nation, in addition to being the center of the world's entertainment industry. Such was the prominence of mob violence in Los Angeles that coverage of the Black Dahlia murder shared headlines with a gang war that ultimately culminated in the assassination of infamous gangster Bugsy Siegel just five months after Elizabeth Schwartz body was found. Have you ever heard about how Bugsy Siegel was fucking assassinated? We have to do all we got to do this series buddy. He was sitting in his house and some guy from outside shot him in the head with such accuracy that the bullet ricocheted off his house and some guy from outside shot him in the head with such

accuracy that the bullet ricocheted off his nose and blew Bugsy Seagull's eye across the room. Whoa. This is like, you say you don't like mafia stuff, but then some of these things are really fun. I like the mafia murders, I just don't like the, hey we gotta go check out the numbers. Yeah, it's all so very nice. Go check out the numbers game.

He's got a guy, he's gonna do a thing. Well they bet that the numbers is the lottery. Yeah, it's also very nice. Go check out the numbers game. He's got it, guys. He's got a bull thing in the name. Well, they invented the numbers. It's the lottery. There's too many names. I know, but Bugsy Seagull's fascinating, because this is the... You just like him because he invented Vegas.

Dude, these are our real forefathers. You know what I mean, Mike? Out West, yeah. Well, Los Angeles was one of America's newest cities, and a lot of mafiosi came to California to escape either the law or previous associations with crime families mainly on the East Coast. The other big crime cities, New York and Chicago, thought of the LA mob as a bunch of country bumpkins, and that's if they thought of them at all.

And you're not wrong. That is a, basically a lot of these guys came out to LA really because they couldn't hack it in New York and Chicago. Or because they'd gotten into trouble or they'd, you know, some, a lot of these guys came out to LA really because they couldn't hack it in New York and Chicago Or because they've gotten into trouble or they you know There's some a lot of them came out because they were too hot-headed Yeah, they're out there and they had done something like they'd beaten the shit out of the wrong guy It's like okay. You got to go to fucking California now. Yeah, and it's an open territory Yes, and then you come out here too. It's like and they were also they would also send people out. They'd be like alright

Oh, you know like old sloppy Fred no Mickey Cohen Mickey Cohen was a guy they said I was like okay Yeah, now you got to deal with Mickey Cohen like and that and then he ended up becoming one of the biggest gangsters in the city's History and that shows that anything's possible in this town. Yeah But what Los Angeles had that no one else did was Hollywood with all the new opportunities that the movie business brought. The motion picture industry was essentially contained within a 20 square mile grid with supply chains that could be manipulated and squeezed at any point, and its workforce was

almost fully controlled by unions. At one point, gangster Bugsy Siegel had complete control of the Screen Extras Union of all things. Well, I think Screen Extras Union is a really good way to hire people very quickly and then you get people that are in dire straits under your control. Also, it's a good way to go make sure that people are on set taking a look at the director and having informants getting back to you and what's going on on set. And it's also a good way to get hot new desperate ladies

Mm-hmm. Also you think about this because it's actually serves a lot of great Hollywood New York had Broadway and that's why LA and New York are better than Chicago because Chicago just got the Cubs You also out here had a lot of rich and famous people with shall we say Predilections so we talked about predilections Uh-huh and those predilections could be exploited and used for extortion Should a movie star or producer or director needs some help getting rid of a dirty little secret and movie stars and directors haven't changed All that much And movie stars and directors haven't changed all that much. No.

And I've had them all over the world! Hahahaha! And when it comes to dirty little secrets, Elizabeth Short may have gotten herself involved with a shady, publicity-phobic Hollywood businessman heavily involved with both organized crime and the LAPD, a man named Mark Hanson, and she just may have gotten killed as a

result. The man from Batavia. Hansen's great-grandfather. Oh wow yeah I love those little girls. God damn I just want to break off a piece of some of them handsome women. Everyone was always talking about the Olsen twins when we were grown up. I was thinking about the Hansen sisters. Now, if you'll remember when the LAPD received the package from the man who had claimed to have murdered Elizabeth Short, included with that package was an address book with the name Mark Hansen printed on the front.

I believe whoever sent the package is the only person who knows who killed Elizabeth Short. Hanson claimed that he barely knew Elizabeth and that she'd stolen this book from him to use herself. She was always trying to use it. She was jealous of my contacts. And that was the extent of their relationship. It is, however, almost positive that Elizabeth Short and Mark Hanson were involved in an

affair shortly before the Black Dahlia murder. Or did he want to be in an affair with Elizabeth Short? Yes. When I say affair, I use that term loosely. Like there was definitely some sort of relationship between the two of them, although it's very murky as to what that relationship really was. I'm sure it was completely innocent. His story is quite interesting. Mark Hanson was involved in motion pictures, but his business was on the distribution side. He owned movie theaters, and he'd gotten his start in Minneapolis, where he opened a chain of theaters that were successful enough to necessitate a move to Hollywood.

Once in Los Angeles, Hanson opened a nightclub called the Florentine Gardens where you could find an aging Errol Flynn or a young Marilyn Monroe hanging out if you went on the right night. But the big secret at Florentine Gardens was that it was also a mob casino and a big part of the reason why Hanson and his mob associates were able to operate Florentine Gardens so successfully was because they worked hand-in-hand with the LAPD. Mark Hansen, his whole storyline is that he was an immigrant. He was Danish. Yeah, he came in, he was desperate to get in the movies.

The way he got in the movies was by distribution, which happens a lot. He got in and what he found, according to people who knew Mark Hansen, he was a family man. He had wife and kids. And when he started, he, he considered himself a very honest business man. Like he was trying to set up a way for him in LAPD in LA, that would be successful for forever. And what then happened is that he ran into what happens to anybody that tried to run into any one of these businesses in Los Angeles at the time. You had to speak with various mafia members that would also be members of the police force and all this kind of stuff.

And it just seems kind of perfunctory and it seemed to be a part of business. A lot of people mark the Florentine Gardens gambling group as to actually be kind of small and kind of low level. And it was considered just to be sort of like Casual in terms of what they were doing there. He was really trying to get into show business That's what he wanted Well and well and make money in show business and then what happened is that he got addicted to ladies Yep, and there was also actual mobsters involved. Oh

Yeah, Jimmy the little giant Utley was his mob contact. The little giant. But remember you know these guys like no matter how much like there are these huge syndicates that are operating out of Los Angeles that involve Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen but then there are also these small ones that work directly with the police because Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel fucking hated the cops. They hated anyone who worked with the cops. They came from New York. Yeah, yeah, they were New York guys.

But these guys, guys like Mark Hanson and the mob associates he had, they worked directly with the police. Because if you'll remember, I mentioned earlier that one of the homicide detectives in charge of the Black Dollyum murder, Finnis Brown, was a bag man for an organized crime figure. With the organized crime figure, Finnis Brown was a bagman for an organized crime figure.

With the organized crime figure Finis Brown worked for was Mark Hanson. And one has to ask how much of a coincidence it is that while Finis Brown was investigating Elizabeth Short's murder, a package should arrive from the killer that has an address book with his boss's name on it and the investigation stalls soon after. I think that's quite possible. Yeah. But also why would he be incriminating himself? He wasn't incriminating. He's not incriminating. He's saying by receiving the package that he's eliminating himself as a suspect. But no. Mark Hanson didn't send the package. No. Mark Hanson had no idea that the package was being sent. All this was happening outside of Mark Hanson's purview, and that's the problem here.

Now as far as how Mark Hansen came to be involved with Elizabeth Short, we really are looking at a very Laura Palmer-esque plot straight out of David Lynch's creative universe. Just go and turn on some Count Basie. Go get some... I love this, the new song I like was near you this is like it's a very kind of well Like what we talked about how every song for the 1940s in the right context is truly frightening Because it's just I was just looking at with these it just like I was looking at pictures of Elizabeth short over and over again Just remember that it's all like I want to sing But it's like filled with serial rapists, yeah, and all the songs are about trains Yeah But it's like filled with serial rapists. Yeah, and all the songs are about trains. Yeah. See, in the 1940s, Mark Hanson had a sort of casting couch situation going on in which he would recruit young girls for his nightclubs.

And these girls were found and recruited by a man named Nils Thor Grandland. And they called him Granny for short, N-T-G. Nils Thor had actually pioneered the New York City nightclub scene of the 1920s. Heard about the Charles Shinnite invented the Louisville. So his name is Thor and they called him Granny? Yeah, Nils Thor's name is Granland. Because his last name is Granland. Well he was the one who kind of pioneered the concept of the girl in the G string wearing high heels.

Thank you. concept of the girl in the G-string wearing high heels. He was a very particular flavor piece of shit. He would travel to rodeo shows across the country where he would find jail bait that he could lure to LA for Mark Hanson. But from the girls that worked for him, Mark Hanson would choose a sort of harem for his own home, which was located just behind the Florentine Gardens Club. Not all the girls who stayed at his home, however, worked for Mark Hanson. According to well-placed sources, one of the girls

that came in and out of Hanson's home who fit that bill, didn't work for him, was Elizabeth Short. So he was married, the wife left him. So now he is- Why? I don't know. It seems that, and we have a lot of friends that have run night clubs, but it seems that when you run a night club-

We do? I mean, back in the day, we've known people that have. I know people that have run night clubs. And it does seem to hurt your relationships because what happened was is that he fell in love again with the biz, which is always like the worst thing for a business owner, especially in show business where he became really into this idea of, oh, I can control all of these young

women. They have to they're being really nice to me and they're flirting with me because being really nice to me and they're flirting with me because I have something to give them. And then he started renting his own apartment right behind the place and his wife had left him. And then eventually, because they were there with him and when the family left, he's like, oh, I'll just bring the chicks in here.

So they started hanging around and now what we know, because what about we know about Elizabeth Short, she pretended to want to be an actress. She, she did not actually talked about she talked about it But you didn't actually want to be one so Mark Hansen was sold originally on this idea that well, this is Beth She's here. She wants to be a dancer and Mark Hansen fell so But deep in love with her. Yep Now Elizabeth had been introduced to Mark Hansen's world

through a friend named Marjorie Graham. Graham, a heavyset girl who was also from Massachusetts, like Elizabeth, she had a weakness for the sauce and often found herself- Nara nara? Yeah. Hey, baby. Hey, baby.

And she often found herself in bad situations as a result. Well, Elizabeth and Marjorie had been staying together at the Hawthorne Hotel in Los Angeles during the summer of 1946. This was shortly after Elizabeth's relationship with Major Matt Gordon had ended. Remember him? He was the guy that Gordon had ended, Elizabeth and Marjorie were running out of money. But they could, according to Marjorie, stay for free at the home of a club owner named

Mark Hansen. Although it's unclear if Marjorie told Elizabeth what was expected of her if she did choose to stay at Hansen's home. Technically Mark Hansen was doing the more of the Romeo, what they call Romeo grift or Romeo con for pimps versus the versus coercive. Where they they come on baby do this for me yeah well he it's more like of all the girls which seemed to happen to Beth short quite a bit is that he chose her specially like the other girls he was just trying to fuck yeah but then when and turn out yes but when he met

Elizabeth short he fell in love Yes, like it was something else like he became obsessed with her guys like that It probably happens to him like once a month yes But then they don't turn to the black Dahlia, which is the you know always the kind of issue with all of these stories in This episode yeah, but mark again mark Hansen didn't turn into the black Dahlia now while mark Hansen did have sex with the young Women stayed at his home Elizabeth was said to be different from all the other girls According to a friend of Elizabeth's who lived there mark tried having sex with Elizabeth on many occasions

But she was always able to get out of it which only made him want her more Because remember there was also one of the theory it's because Elizabeth short said that her pussy was destroyed Well, that was just proven. Yeah. Yeah, of course Yeah But it was one of the weird lines that she gave us So one was that she was a virgin and the other one was just like my vagina doesn't work. Yes Well, this yearning was only made stronger by the steady stream of dates Elizabeth would go on while staying at Mark's house now Elizabeth was well aware of Hanson's jealousy

So she would always make sure her dates picked her up and dropped her off on a corner a block away so Hanson would never see her with another man. But in early December 1946, about a month and a half before Elizabeth was found dead, Elizabeth and Mark Hanson had some sort of disagreement and he kicked her out of the house. Briefly, Elizabeth lived in an apartment where each room had eight young women crammed together in bunk beds costing just a dollar a night. But since Elizabeth didn't even have a dollar, she skipped out on paying the landlady and disappeared. A few days later, she reappeared in the Aztec theater in San

Diego, where she was found by the aforementioned Dorothy French. Soon after, you had the mysterious couple knocking on the French's door looking for Elizabeth. You had the ride back to LA with Red Manly, the disappearance that night, and her body being found six days later. So this is the final run. This is the story of Fire Walk with me, like literally. So she...

And right now we just have flashes. There are so many fucking characters. Yes. Well, it's because she really was... She was hitting the town. She was homeless. She basically was homeless. And at this point, what they truly say is that once the soldier storyline for her ended,

she really was kind of left to the winds. So that's a part of what they say that she was probably doing when she was making all the phone calls in the hotel, was that she was calling every old soldier that she had known from back in the day Can you send me money? Can we do this? And she was really kind of speed running toward the end of her life But it sounds like the the conflict that got her kicked out of the house was also kind of indicative of why Beth Short was considered to be an intense Sometimes people with a difficult person, because

she kind of wanted it both ways a little bit. So she wanted Mark Hansen to be in love with her. So she'd play that angle up for a while and then hold out, which is, is her right? She's allowed to do it. Made Mark Hansen angry. Eventually he's like, all right, fuck it. He tried to move on. New girl comes in, new object of Mark Hansen's affections. She flips out saying all of this stuff, being like, she's going through my bags, she's trying to steal my stuff, and he's all like, why don't you just go?

And then that's when she, that is like, apparently when it started a bunch of drama, because that's what happens when you put all of the showgirls that you're having sex with in one apartment. Yeah. And that's just like, I'm just gonna say this as a producer Don't do that. Well, there's also I mean half of the houses that are like a million five in Hollywood right now We just hold actresses for producers

If you go up and down I always think about on rampart when you go up to like they used to have these furnished housing And that's like where all of this shit kind of happened They have actors housing where they used to kind of put him weirdly like in tenements where they were just all hanging out Oh, yeah I'm like a three or five picture deal and you'd live there and as soon as your deal was up or they fired you you Would lose your home and your clothes just very three amigos. It was real Yeah, it's also kind of got though in a way though that contract system must have been kind of fun Like you hear like all those earners borg-9 types could show up. You have no idea what car what part you're playing

You're like, I guess I'm a farmer today and like oh, I guess I'm a coal miner today Funny than you're an alien and then you're something else You know, it's like you improv class. Yeah Now Mark Hanson was able to evade investigation for a long time after his former address book showed up at the Los Angeles Examiner offices along with Elizabeth Short's other belongings. But that was because he was in cahoots with one of the homicide detectives. Hanson, however, almost got a dose of street justice in July of 1949, a year and a half

after Elizabeth's murder that month a dancer at his club named Lola Titus Shot him in the back after an argument accusing him being quote a goddamn cop lover. Yeah Lola Titus you research into her at all. Mm-hmm bucks a moment She was his Ruben Esca fair like he was like super into this lady and she was known for like She'd get naked at the drop of a hat. She was like she's fun lady. Yeah a lot of energy Hanson however survived the gunshot to the back and when he arrived at the hospital the first thing he said was Get me Brown. Get me Brown. He did not however mean Finnis Brown

was, get me Brown, get me Brown. He did not however mean Finnis Brown. He wanted Finnis's brother, Thaddeus Brown, the cop's cop, and Thaddeus Brown quickly rushed to Hanson's side, I suppose to make sure that Lola Titus got what was coming to her. No one really knows what went on between Thaddeus Brown and Mark Hanson during that conversation. All they know is he said get me Brown and Thaddeus Brown fucking jumped. Just understand that this is why this case is so difficult because it's just, everybody's a villain.

No one's telling the truth. It's like dealing with the CIA. No one is, you don't know what anybody's actual story is. So was Hanson dying and he just wanted to get Thaddeus some information? I don't know. I think he want, I think what he wanted to do is bring Thaddeus and say, get the bitch who did this to me, get her. It was lolatitis. Get her.

Make sure she goes down. This really probably has nothing to do with the black Dahlia directly. It's more just showing that Mark Hanson had definitely had a relationship with the police, which means that he was more than, more than probably an informant Which would mean that if finnis brown work for Mark Hansen or was like a bag man for Mark Hansen It's like he was then conversely working for a gangster that was also working for the police Yes, you're making things purposefully confusing for people

confusing for people. It's the truth! This is what we're in the middle of! This is what I'm trying to explain! But Mark Hanson's close relationship with the police wasn't the only reason why she shot him. Allegedly, Lola Titus and Elizabeth Short were friends, and Lola had accused Hanson of being involved in Elizabeth Short's murder. I knew you were trying to cut me in half! I knew what you were trying to do! You drew that line above my belly button and you said you were trying to make measurements for the new pool. And I know that's not what was happening. Hocus Pocus yourself. Oh Mr. Magic Man, you're not kidding me. Because I'm a free lady. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna go take my dancers out. I'm gonna put a banana up her pussy. What did the guy say who killed Elizabeth Short after he killed her? What? Abracadabra? Marcus liked it

The magician theory has not proven out did you think it was crocus pocus Unfortunately though Lola was not the most stable witness. After she was arrested and taken to the Hall of Justice, the officer in charge of taking her to the courtroom opened the door to the room where she was being held to find her nude and spread-eagled lying on the floor. Want to check me for a gun? Hey! Or do you want to go get some flowers and make me a vase? The officer ordered her to get dressed, which she did.

All right, how about you, what way do you want me to get dressed? One sock, one glove? The whole everything. Oh, you want me to cover my pussy, huh? Can you smell it? Yes. Quite fragrant. It's quite fragrant.

You're welcome. I wasn't sure what it was, but once you said pussy, I knew exactly what it was. I also brought this pot of beef stroganoff from home. But after her picture was taken by court photographers, she got nude again, remarking, my god, it's hot in here. I can't believe how hot it's in here. I got to show my butt to the air conditioner

Hey son, your new name is air conditioner But when it came time to finally make arguments Lola's attorney said that according to Lola Markhansson's game was to scoop up young girls and make a lot of promises about opening doors in Hollywood If only they did a little something for him first. And that's fucking honestly, what a fucking lie. I have never heard a producer say anything like that to anybody I know. Like that's just like... That's never, that ploy has never been used in this city ever. They're just slandering. Who do they think we are here?

I am so sick of my cherished art form being slammed in this way. How fucking dare you? Because I was never given the opportunity. Yeah, you were. Yes, actually, the one time I was. But it wasn't how I wanted it. It was never some big busty MILF saying, well, you know, these tits aren't going to suck themselves.

No, it wasn't. How should I say? Oh, what else? Mr. Babe Ruth, like I'm auditioning for Babe Ruth. No, it was a man. You know these tits aren't gonna suck themselves. Oh should I say oh? Mr.. Babe Ruth like I'm a No, it was a man. Yeah, yeah And you said no yep, and look where you are now. I made the error of having taste and and pride And I'll never do it again. Lolatitis was one of those girls, and in her exact word she said, quote,

I made up my mind that he was either going to love me, marry me, or take care of me, or I was going to kill him. Not that statement amongst many others. Lolatitis was convicted of attempted murder and sent to the Patton State Hospital for the insane. What do you mean? I just thought I had moxie. I thought I was going to go to the Southern California state hospital for the big tinnit. She died there 10 years later at the age of 30.

Isn't that fucking something happened? That's also I feel like it's really weird. I don't just fucking shock their brains and give them crazy experimental drugs. I don't have any checks and balances on these places. She was probably lobotomized, I would imagine. They just put her away into a thing. It just really kind of... I thought it's interesting that she went to a state hospital instead of jail.

Yeah, specifically a state hospital where she could be shut the fuck up and never listened to ever again. Because she's legally crazy. Yep, and with Lola put away, even considering her unstable nature, a possible window into Mark Hanson and Elizabeth Short's relationship was closed, although Lola's perspective was far from the last vantage point, as we'll soon see. There have been many people who have made connections between Elizabeth Short's death

and organized crime, chief among them, author Donald Wolf. In his theory, Elizabeth Short was a high-end call girl who worked at a mob-owned brothel and had become pregnant by the owner of the Los Angeles Times, a man who also happened to be from one of the most powerful families in Los Angeles. This, some people say, is why the Los Angeles Times had relatively scant coverage on the Black Dahlia murder and had begrudgingly covered it only after seeing how well the story was doing in the other city Papers this story feels too much like the perfect arc. Yes to me It feels like it's too much of a on a writerly version of what they wish kind of what they way that they can explain

It's a very pulp fiction novel type way to tie all the story up She was like if I'm if what I'm catching here is she was like the hottest chick in town and she was being sold to the most powerful men in town and she probably slept with a lot of the most powerful men in town. See I actually- And so a lot of people could have been connected to her when she found out, when she turned up dead, everyone just like let's sweep this under the rug whether it had something to do with it or not.

I think that what you're saying is half right. I think that it's the second half is right I think that they would like to portray her as This interconnected high-end call girl that was super sophisticated. I don't think she was a call girl at all No, I don't think so either. I think that she never did it for money I think she was just surviving and I think that she really just had a taste for dangerous people. And it got her quite a lot of trouble. You know, she could have been an escort, not a sex worker, but someone to be seen with. I think she just like guys.

Yeah, I think she just like I think she was nice things. Yeah, she like guys and nice things. Do you like nice clothes? She wore her perfume. She I think that it wasn't she didn't have highfalutin ideas in that way I think that she will literally just try to survive. I think it's how you know, Jimmy Richardson put it it lost Like just not really know she's in her early 20s She doesn't know what the fuck she wants all she knows is that she doesn't want the life that has been laid out for her You know as society demanded it She's trying to find something and she just keeps coming up with goose eggs every time.

But as far as why Elizabeth was killed, it's theorized that she may have refused to get an abortion after being impregnated by such a high-powered client, which is why she was hiding out in San Diego and became disturbed anytime someone came looking for her. And why she had her body hollowed out after she was killed. According to the theory, she was finally captured when she returned to Los Angeles and was killed brutally and publicly so as to send a message to any other girls who may have been thinking of stepping out of line. But, while this theory has the right idea, I think it comes to the wrong conclusions.

I do believe that Elizabeth Short's death was directly related to organized crime. Yes. But I think it had a lot more to do with her associating with dangerous people than it did with her participating in risky activities like sex work in a mob-owned brothel. I think that the organized crime figure responsible for Elizabeth Short's death was Mark Hanson, and he had a lot of help from the LAPD to make sure the Black Dahlia murder was never solved. But notice I said, responsible for her death.

I do not believe that Mark Hanson was the one who actually killed Elizabeth Short. Thank you, Mr. Hanson's fake lawyer. Thank you for pointing this out. Yeah, it's because his cuttin' hand does this. Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky. You know what, I think what you're pointing this out. Yeah, it's because his cutting hand does this. Shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky, shaky. You know what, I think what you're saying is correct. The answer is in this situation.

Yes. That's where the answer is, is here. It's somewhere in this miasma of dudes that she met during her time around Mark Hansen, the Florentine Gardens, and all of this stuff that is connected around it. And that's where I think that we're stumbling into, is that these places are just where a lot of guys that no one wants to talk about,

that are in the same room, and they don't want people to know that they're all in the same room. And it's like, she just was a big old, like, tying everybody together. She was the rug that tied the room together. Yeah. And I think that all of this happened within a span of months. I think Elizabeth Short's life fell apart very, very quickly.

And I think she found herself involved in some really bad shit. Very fast, like faster than she even knew what was happening. She turned down Hanson, probably. Well, think about, you know, like they're the way the city opens up to the the right star You know Scarlett Johansson arrived. I think about it in that way. We're like they these people I mean most of them were industry plants, but when someone just shows up right? That's just a simply very beautiful charismatic woman Especially in these businesses Things can go really far for you very quickly

And I think that's kind of is what happened to her in a businesses, things can go really far for you very quickly. And I think that's kind of is what happened to her in a way too. I think because she was so hot and so desirable and to many men, like that also just kind of fired up everything around everywhere she go. It's like everywhere she went, she started a fire. Yeah. Now it's important to note that for almost two years, there was very little to no movement on the Black Dahlia murder investigation. A lot of people have been questioned and a lot of theories have been put forth, and more clues had even been found.

Elizabeth Short's purse and shoes, for example, had been found in a trash can outside of a cafe four miles from LeMarritt Park. But none of these clues had led anywhere meaningful because Finison Hanson had made sure, especially after Mark Hanson's name came into play, that the investigation had stalled. See, now they found the purse and stuff four miles away in a trash can outside of a diner. Someone had to have been tipped off, like, because that shit's just getting picked up and thrown in the dump.

No one's searching every trash can within four miles of her body. Yeah, it just happened. It just happened upon it. I mean, that's another just happened upon it fucking story here. Reporters later uncovered that Finnis was in debt to Hanson for $5,000, 70 grand in today's money. And it's speculated that Mark Hanson used Finnis Brown to shut down any lines of investigation that led towards him in exchange for forgiveness on his debt. That by itself is not proof that he killed Elizabeth Short or that he was responsible for the death of Elizabeth Short.

But a person was just about to be discovered that was going to lead towards Mark Hanson. The one man in the LAPD who just couldn't let it go, the man who tried to fight the tide of corruption and cover-ups was the aforementioned Dr. Joseph Paul Deriver, which I mispronounced in the last episode as Deriver. Deriver! Now as we said last week, Deriver was in charge of screening all the confessing Sams who either arrived at the police station claiming they'd killed Elizabeth Short or were sending weird shit through the mail. After a year and a half of sifting through the muck however, Deriver finally decided to get proactive. I got a copy of his out of print book,

the sexual criminal. It is very, it's dated. Yeah. But it is very, very interesting. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Dr. Deriver is a fucking hero here. No. No, he behaved like a monster much of the time. This next section of this whole story is so fascinating. I just find this all so fascinating. But the breakdown of Dr. Deriver is because right now this is the rise and fall of Dr. Deriver.

Yes. See, Deriver had a theory that the killer both craved attention and was most likely a true crime fan so he planted an article about the black dolly of murder in true detective magazine to try and lure the killer out from hiding and he did have some approval but very little approval for what he was doing so deriver was hired by the LAPD you know he ran his the sexual offenders unit he was like putting the registration yeah he was doing. So Deriver was hired by the LAPD, you know, he ran his, the sexual offenders unit. He was like putting the registration. Yeah. He was putting this all together and eventually they just kind of like, he was just going to off road. And so eventually

he was like, I know exactly how it kind of gets his criminal. And the first thing he did was like, we must beat him. We must encourage a tethered.tet! You know that the Black Dahlia Avenger will have no way to not respond if we tell everybody we think he's a dumb-dumb. It's a trap. The article described the Black Dahlia killer as a sadomasochistic type with at least half a dozen victims already, a cunning studious scientific type who would be compelled to boast about the details of the crime. And sure enough, soon after the article was published, Deriver received a letter from Miami Beach signed with the obviously fake name of

Jack Sand. Jack Sand wrote that he'd read the article about the Black Dahlia murder and he believed that a friend of his was the killer. Intrigued, the rival and the mysterious Jack Sand began exchanging letters, and Jack eventually said that his friend was a guy named Jeff. Jeff. Jeff. Jeff did it.

He killed the Black Dahlia. You have never met a man as sinister as Jeff. Jeff! The worst man I've ever met, my best friend, Jeff. Allegedly this guy said that he'd spent six weeks in San Francisco with Jeff just after the Black Dahlia murder. Jeff, Jack San wrote, had bragged that he'd gone to the same bars as Elizabeth Short, but had fled Los Angeles before the cops could question him.

He went to the same hot dog stand she frequented, my friend. Jeff. Jeff! Jeff also liked to draw. Yes, he did. And in one last... Dogs, horses, airplanes, octopuses, anything you can draw. Jeff was addicted to it.

Dangerously so. Well in one letter, Jack included a sketch that he claimed had been drawn by Jeff. As you can see here, these two round lobes might just be a butt drawn by my best friend and enemy. Jeff! Jeff! Now while the contents of the letters themselves were interesting, the sketch really was the sort of wow moment for Dr. Derivere.

It featured a fair amount of cross-hatching that was very similar to some of the extensive mutilation inflicted on Elizabeth Short's body, namely the crisscross lacerations that have been found on her pubic bone and right hip. Only a serial killer could shade in this way! Yeah, I've never seen shading like this before! Truly nefarious! I must investigate! Jack Sand also wrote a letter that speculated on the motive behind the killing, saying that Elizabeth may have threatened exposure of something, an affair not considered proper, as he put it.

With a horse. With a fish. Many things can be made love to that are inappropriate, depending on where you're from. Where are you from? Downtown. Downtown where? Jephthyn. Where are you from? Where are you from? Downtown. Downtown where? Jephton.

Have you ever been to Jephton? My best friend was from there. His name is Josh. Jack Sand also said that the killer may have experienced a new sensation by accident during the murder, thus leading to the Black Dahlia's complete annihilation. The letter also showed many of the same spelling, grammar, and syntax peculiarities as the letter sent to Jimmy Richardson at the Examiner, and Jack Sand also referred to the victim

as simply Elizabeth, rather than Elizabeth Short or the Black Dahlia, inferring that this person may have known or felt like he had known Elizabeth Short intimately. And the beginning of this was just letters. So he opened this up and he started writing back and forth with Jack Sand and he's like literally is like, yes, we ought to put it. This is the answer I have been looking for. I can hear him saying the game is afoot over and over again. He had that perfect little mustache. He had that perfect mustache for it.

Now, when he was calling her Elizabeth, was she known as Elizabeth? Because you called her Beth earlier. She was Beth to her friends. Okay. Now, since Finnis Brown and Harry the Hat Hanson had all but given up on the case, the aforementioned gangster squad was tapped to pick up where they left off. Because not everyone at the LAPD, nor everyone in the mayor's office was on the take.

There were some people who wanted this fucking thing solved. I do kind of believe, it's kind of funny idea of being like, gangsta squad, and you go out there and solve this case. And they're all like, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes

sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, They're all just like trying to get in the elevator. They're all like, hey, hey, hey. They all try to get in the same car. Tommy got shit in the ground. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, We're making the siren. We need to get organized. Gangster Squad's on it. So Deriver told the Gangster Squad all about this Jack Sands character in Miami Beach, which prompted the squad to send one of their officers to Florida undercover to track Sands

down. Which they denied. They denied they ever sent a cop to go look at them, but you know, it's all who's saying what. Before long, they discovered that Jack Sands was a pseudonym for a career criminal named Leslie Dwayne Dillon. 27 at the time, Dillon was described as tall, lanky, and sloop-shouldered, with a habit of dyeing his hair different colors. Originally from Oklahoma, Dillon had served less than a year in the Navy during World War II before he was dishonorably discharged for stealing watches. Remember that.

A few years later, Dylan was arrested for pimping in San Francisco. Then, after marrying and fathering a child, he became, much like Elizabeth Short, just another drifter in post-World War II America. He was free. Using the aliases of Jack Diamond, Jack Maxim, and Jack San, Dylan wandered between California, Florida, and Oklahoma with his family in tow, working alternately as a bellhop, a rum runner, a bootlegger, a pimp, a professional gambler, a taxi driver, and for a short period of time, a dance instructor. Yeah, take a look at my hips.

A one and a two and a three and a four and a... I'm just buying time to the end of class. Ah, I view him as the... No refunds! No refunds! I view him as the... He's Rob Schneider from Home Alone 2. He's got the bellhop...

We're going to be discovering the bellhop mafia. There's a lot of these things go flying around here. But Laura, it is funny because they all like kind of talk about as soon as the word bellhop comes up and all of these are like, do you know he was a bellhop? And you're like, who's got all the information? Yeah. I just the idea of the like, are every bellhop just like somebody who's like stealing out of bags and like looking through people's purses? I mean, out of all the professions that he had the one that he returned to again and again was bellhop He just liked it and pimp lots of cash. I tell you what I like. It's the little hat

I mean bellhop and pimp that goes hand-in-hand you get you're dropping off a guy you say like hey Exactly. Yeah, and then you think the bellhop's getting the bell? No, the bellhop's the one who's telling you like, hey, I got some girls. You're looking for some fun tonight here in San Francisco. He knows the pimp. I would never say the bellhop's the pimp. Well, in this case, it was. Yes, wow, and that's what's nice about it. One stop shop. Yeah, the head bellhop is the pimp. Now, Leslie Dillon's... You wanna fuck, Greg? I need a home. I lost my home in the fire.

I had to become a bellhop in 65. Coming my ass so hard, my hat pops off. If you would please, please use me as a toilet, whatever you need. Alright, I'll take your bags up, I'll suck your dick, I'll play with your balls. That was the difference about 1946 parties. I think played with balls. Yeah There's part of the turndown service I think that's why they were like cuz Mark Hanson got all into the world of like 1946 parties and I really feel like the main difference is just like it's where they learned about sucking balls. Well

Concerning 1946 parties, there is a whole other line of investigation here involving the real Los Angeles sex parties. I think Mark Hanson was just taking, he was just taking a girl here and taking a girl there. There's a whole other line of questioning that involves a man named Hodel, who is actually having horrific orgies at his house all the time. But George Hodel doesn't really fit into this world. Well, we're gonna, we are, you know,

this is a break out of the story. We're gonna come back to Leslie Dillon right now, but just know that we are going to touch upon some of the other subjects. But George Hodel was so fully covered in the Root of Evil podcast, it's kinda hard for us to shoo, hoard him in here, but we will figure it out. Now, Leslie Dillon soon caught on that someone was following him, so he turned himself over

to the FBI, suspiciously telling the authorities that the cops were after him for quote, some offense in Los Angeles. Also remember, his voice, one of the big things too, was that his voice voice sounded just like that's why I'm doing the voice like that He's the caller. Yeah, that's what they said He sounded the smooth modulated tones that had called as the black dolly Avenger that have talked to Jimmy Richardson But since the gangster squad operated totally in secret to protect themselves and to honestly take a shit on the Constitution whenever they wanted dental dam themselves and to honestly take a shit on the Constitution whenever they wanted, the FBI had no idea who Dylan was or what he was talking about, so they told him to get

lost. Later, one of the gangster squad members said that they would have been indicted many times over for the shit they did back then, which meant that the guy who had traveled to Miami Beach to investigate Leslie Dillon had no problem breaking into his house without a warrant to search for clues. Amongst violently torn clothes and piles of books, magazines, and newspapers, the officers found numerous true crime articles cut out and saved. Stories about prison guards being killed in riots.

A lot of stories about girls getting shot in the face. Yeah, there was the one story he's obsessed with apparently that he collected all the articles on of a girl that had gotten her Tooth shot out of her mouth from a BB gun. Yeah, but he's just into the occult, you know, he's in a crime He's not into the occult. He's in true crime. He's in the true crime But like you know back then there weren't like many books on it So you were wanted to read it again the magazines were everywhere True crime was like this is a joke like true crime has been a massive genre forever Yeah back then there were so many detect like they called them detective magazines with the rise of the American gangster like the

Entire you like when we covered Bonnie and Clyde you find out that like you know it had made a whole like Sex-filled industry of true crime where people they were viewed as stars and people loved watching like paying attention. Yeah. Yeah, they'd read anything about these people. The officers also found a treasure trove of short stories that Dylan had written involving situations that usually ended with a woman being raped and murdered. Finally, though, the cop came across the copy of True Detective magazine that featured the article that Dr. Joseph Deriver had planted. On a picture of a telegram Red Manley had sent to Elizabeth Short, Dylan had signed the page with the name Jack Sand

using a ballpoint pen, which appeared to be similar to the pen used to write the printed postcard in which the so-called Black Dahlia Avenger had said he's gonna turn himself in. Now this may not seem like a big sticking point here, but in 1947 ballpoint pens were relatively new, rare, and expensive that cost about $175 in today's money. Whoa! Yeah. Now none of this is of course concrete proof of murder, but it was enough for the undercover officer to call his superiors in LA to say quote This is the man and thus began the effort to lure Dylan back to California Deriver contacted Dylan and asked him to meet which is also so stupid

Like this is the thing it's like on one half It's like this teta-tet between investigator and criminal and the other half it amounts to one of the dumbest series of interactions I've ever seen between two humans. It's like everything the cops do is illegal except they try to get this guy legally back Why don't just hit him over the head and fucking throw him in a train car. Well, that's kind of what Deriver said they did But this is the other side of that story Deriver contacted Dylan and asked him to meet so he could give him more information about this Jeff character that had supposedly killed Elizabeth Short. But while Dylan had been all too ready to help before, he was reluctant to return to California. So Deriver and Dylan agreed to meet in Las Vegas, where the Gangster Squad planned to set up wiretaps to record everything Dylan said.

When they got there, though, Dylan was too nervous to talk and suggested they go to Palm Springs instead, much nicer. But during that drive, Dylan began to talk more about himself. He told Deriver and the Gangster squad member driving them that one of his many jobs had been as a mortuary assistant, where he'd learned the proper way to bleed a corpse. You want to do it all the way, because if you leave some blood in it, it gets stinky. The key is to make her entirely empty.

That's so crazy. Mumums the word from Florida to Vegas Doing time-tested trials to see how quickly it would take for me to saw a woman in half surgically incredibly That's fascinating Dylan also spoke in the same soft modulated voice that had been used when the alleged black dolly, a killer, had called Jimmy Richardson at the Los Angeles Examiner offices. Once they got to a lodge in Palm Springs, the gangster squad wired up a cabin and listened in as Dylan and Deriver talked about his mysterious friend Jeff, the one who had supposedly killed Elizabeth Short.

Yes, Jeff is the worst bastard I've ever met. Do you mind running a bath for me, Dr. Deriver? Absolutely. I would love to run the bubbliest bath you've ever had. Would you like me to first help you undress? Dylan told them that the perpetrator's full name was Jeff Connors. Yes, Connors. And soon after began

to pontificate about Elizabeth Short's murder, starting with speculation on why her body had been cut in half. Just sort of thinking out loud. Dylan, you're sitting in a hotel room together, hanging out, and there's like moment of silence. It's like, why do you think that Black Dahlia was cut in half? Well, Dylan said that the killer might have wanted to physically see how far his penis went into the body of a woman when it was inserted into her vagina. Fascinating. Yes, yes, me too, yes. I as well, I wish I could know. Oh, so curious.

Alright, so I'm gonna have sex with her, you peek in the time! Yes! It is called the old-fashioned prairie dog! Where you see the little head of the dog peek its way out of the bush, which is the insides of a dead woman. Well, cutting her in half, Dylan Appind, would enable the murderer to stick his penis inside the severed bottom half of Elizabeth Short's body and see it poke out the other end. Oh yes, absolutely, of course.

No, wonderful. More details you'd like to know? Yes, more and more, please. How pink it is. Oh, is your penis could poke out that long? You know what's interesting is when you can do this, you can also shake her hand. Have you thought about a ruler my friend

Before we get too far because I do appreciate your curiosity, but you've even thought about maybe putting a banana for sizing reference And that's how you'd know how shallow or deep your penis can be I'm only a doctor. All I can do is tell you what I feel. Feelings of pressure! A bit of pressure! There it is! As far as where the bisection took place, Dylan said she was probably cut in half in

a bed, a bath, or on a floor, and the blood was probably drained by hanging the two halves in a shower. Jeff Connors, Dylan said, would have done all of this on the ground floor of a motel, so he wouldn't have to lug the body down any stairs. As Deriver listened to Dylan, he began to get a hunch, so he asked Dylan to strip naked. Now listen, this might sound like a total non sequitur. We've been talking a period of time, but I'm just looking at you. I wonder.

Now I'm a doctor. Would you pretty please? Get naked for me. It's just us, it's Palm Springs. We've had a seven hour trip. You've taken a 19 hour two plane propeller, two propeller plane flight to Las Vegas we have now driven to Palm Springs for no reason. Can I see them dangles? Can I see you show

me them nipples? My good sir, we gotta get naked together. I'll do too! Well hesitatingly Dylan did as he was asked or so DeRiver says I think it's more likely that a gangster squad member forced Dylan's pants down. See, there's some stories, but then there's the other idea of like, weirdly, which I do actually think is true of him going like, yeah, sure. He was like, we have to remember. So right now we're playing this. We are going to go through this whole... Dylan's playing a game here. Dylan's a fucking weirdo. Yes.

Okay, so the idea of going into this weird lodge with this doctor man and then him just saying like, would you please remove your clothes? And then him just going like, yeah, right? Well, he is a doctor. Yeah, all right, yeah, why not? But either way, Deriver's hunch was correct. He had suspected that Dylan had a micro penis, and sure enough...

Don't tell me why. I don't know how it was. I think it was his choice of music on the way we were driving. And sure enough, when Dylan's dingle was exposed, Deriver, with disturbing accuracy, compared the size of Dylan's penis to one belonging to a boy of exactly eight years of age. I'm not a pedophile, but I have seen many boy corpses. Many, many, many, many boy corpses and sometimes I do seek them out. Penis was larger than a seven year old's boy.

How I know? More than a nine. You know how I know that? The differences are subtle but present. Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, that's how I tell. Flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap. That's how I tell them. Flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap fly back and forth. Tiny back and forth. Tiny penis. Key is, you know how he's a doctor.

This is a lesson to all my people out there that want to interact with penises. A lot of micro penis is that if it's slightly small, you know whatever whatever a micro penis you want to treat that thing with respect Because if you don't that thing that's attached that thing it's gonna fucking kill you The small penis deriver hypothesized was why there was a vertical cut in Elizabeth's pubic region just above her vagina Yeah, the micro penis would not be long enough to reach the bisection, but if the killer did want to see how far his penis went in, he would have to mutilate the body further if his penis was particularly small. For the next time you do this, sir, would I recommend you to use an orange?

Just guessing, Deriver thought that it was possible that Elizabeth Short may have mocked or threatened to expose Dylan's micro penis to his friends, and he had reacted in the most brutal way possible. Which is why the only way I can reveal it is through the newspaper. See what happens then. Gotta tell the whole world. And see what he does then. Well that's why I think his pants were probably pulled down.

Because it didn't seem like Dylan was super pleased with his micropenis. Yeah. Well it's weird, but he's posturing, he is acting to the deriver that he is the person who killed Black Dahlia. He is playing out. Look he's saying, I didn't do it, Jeff did it. Jeff! Yeah. He is playing he's saying I'm I didn't do it Jeff did it Jeff. Yeah, and so he's saying but I think

weirdly though, I think Well, it depends on if you want to go with my theory or not It depends because if in my theory if he's innocent if Leslie Dillon's innocent This is your soul because he's a fucking freak a leak Fucking guy you just you know, that just happened to be just curious enough to be in a Palm Springs lodge with a criminologist that he just met over a letter and he's just down here. I can see you just arrived here to be personally investigated as the Black Dahlia murder.

I don't know if it's that far beyond the pale that you just show them your micro penis and go, what do you think of that? What do you think of that? I'm pretty small, huh? It's very unforgiving. Yeah. Well, to bolster this theory, Deriver noticed that out of the many true crime articles Dylan kept at his home, many were stories in which the perpetrator had taken revenge on the victim for some slight, meaning that the Black Dahlia Avenger moniker may have held some element of truth. Additionally, Dylan knew far more about the exact details of the mutilation than what

was made public. And here's where we're going to get into some of the really fucking horrible shit. Well, this is also deciding whether or not they did have control questions. We don't know whether or not these control questions actually existed. Yes. Dylan knew that Elizabeth Short's pubic hair had been cut off and shoved in her rectum, while the skin on her left thigh featuring her rose tattoo had been carved out and shoved in her vagina.

There was also the little matter of one of the final indignations bestowed upon Elizabeth's corpse, the carving of a single letter on her skin. The letter was D, and it was quite possible that the D was a sort of signature carved by who else but Leslie Dillon. Not Jeff. Not Jeff. No, not Jeff. Not Jeff.

Not a J. Unfortunately, that was supposed to be the smile emoji. As we know from the last episode, some of the details had already been leaked to certain individuals connected to the LAPD, so it's not impossible to think that Leslie Dillon could have heard about them from someone. It is, however, extremely unlikely. But there's also one side of the story that says, well, according to Leslie Dillon, I never said that, and there's supposed to be a recording saying that he never said it, but then there's another thing saying, oh no, it just changed after the fact.

He changed his answers after the fact. Leslie Dillon changed many of his answers after the fact Leslie Dylan changed many of his answers after the fact Yes Now after five days of conversation that only made Dylan look more guilty conversations where he said he liked girls with big mouths Get it, you know Jesus. Yeah Yeah, he also said that he also just regular just straight-up said like yeah, I drug and rape girls all the time It's my thing. Yeah my hobby. Yeah. We should have just killed them for fun then. He was finally driven to San Francisco to track down the mysterious Jeff Connors. Jeff could be behind any corner. But after driving around San

Francisco for a full week to no avail, no nowhere. Visiting dozens of hotels and haunts where this Jeff Connors might have been. Jeff, Jeff! Jeff, where are you? Jeff! No, not you. Not you. Not you. I'm Jeff.

Let me see your license. Not with a G. Idiot! Well, Dylan was taken back to Los Angeles. There he began to realize he had basically been kidnapped by Dr. Deriver and the gangster squad. And he had no way to by dr. Deriver and the gangster squad Oh, yeah, no way to free himself Well, this is the thing he freaked his way into this situation and then he couldn't seem to figure out how to freak his way

Out no So he's now in there and now they're like you've told them a bunch of really Cryptic shit that you are playing some psychological game trying to insert yourself into either You are the black Dahlia murderer or you're trying to insert yourself into the story for some reason But now you're just like you're just allowing them to just own you and it's like oh suddenly realize he's like, oh shit Yeah, this is starting to get more more serious Thanks glad I gave you all this information. See you later back to Miami. Why is this door locked? So Dylan threw a postcard out of his hotel window in LA that said he was being...

True Jeff. Dearest Jeff, please come to my rescue. He plays like a conch shell, like, whooooo. The postcard said that he was being held in room 219 by Dr. J. Paul Deriver in connection with the Black Dahlia murder, and he was requesting legal counsel. Interestingly, especially for a man of such little means as Leslie Dillon, the postcard was addressed to a high-powered attorney, a man who had represented Errol Flynn on statutory rape charges, a man who had represented Robert Mitcham for marijuana possession, and

most importantly had represented mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen on a number of criminal charges. The incredible coincidence here though was that the person who found the postcard was none other than one of Aggie Underwood's reporters for the Herald Express. You can't write this in a movie. If you saw this in a movie you'd be like that's the corniest shit that doesn't happen. But it literally happened. They called their contact at the gangster squad and asked them what was going on here with this Leslie Dillon guy that forced the LAPD to either arrest Leslie or set him free and they

chose arrest. Now when Dillon was taken downtown and his belongings were searched for the first time cops found that Dillon had packed a number of harrowing yet ridiculous items for his trip out West to speak with the police. Can't wait for this one. On one side of it, it's like he's a total absolute madman murderer and then there's the other side of it being like this man is chaos itself. This is a desk clamp. I brought my ping pong paddle. I brought my enema bags. I brought my chess set.

I brought my dog's toothbrush. And for the dog! Well along with 700 phenobarbital pills. I just like to be awake. I just like to enjoy myself. No, phenobarbital is a downer. Yeah, Tootsie's on phenobarbital. Oh nice! Yeah, it's what you use to roofie women. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, I thought it was to roofie yourself. That's why Tootsie sleeps so much. Yeah, phenobarbital is bad. If you're found with a lot of phenobarbital pills, it's a bad person. Really? Yeah.

I'm just blowing away right now. Yeah, that's why they call me the nap man Could have epilepsy he does not have epilepsy. All right good to know Dylan had also brought seven razor blades and a dog leash with a massive leather strap that had appeared as if it had been Thoroughly scrubbed and scraped. It's for the dog! I mean I'm going with a dog theory now! Dog leash? Fetal barbatol? The scrap also showed signs of strain as if a heavy weight had been suspended from it. If you'll remember the way Elizabeth Short's arms have been placed made it look as if she'd been hung from something for a very long period of time.

And he also said that's the best way to drain the blood out of the body is hanging on the shower. Yes. But also he could be using it. I heard one theory, but it's kind of make sense is for auto erotic asphyxiation. He might have. That's a possibility. You can use a belt for lots of stuff.

It's my choking belt. Yeah. All right. There's just so I can relax. Now, when it was announced that a suspect had been arrested in conjunction with the Black Dahlia murder almost two years after it had occurred, the press started looking into Leslie Dillon and they found that his aunt lived on Crenshaw Boulevard. This location was less than four miles from Le Mer at Park, not super close, but not super

far away. But it was only two blocks away from the cafe where Elizabeth Short's purse and shoes have been found in the trash can. At another one of Dylan's Los Angeles addresses, his landlady said that he'd driven a black Ford sedan when he'd lived there, which was the same type of car seen by eyewitnesses on the night that Elizabeth Short's body was dumped in the vacant lot. But when police began interrogating Leslie Dillon directly, he denied ever knowing or even meeting Elizabeth Short. But what the LAPD and the press did discover was that Leslie Dillon had been involved in organized crime when he

lived in Los Angeles. Some of it was disorganized. How so? Bad scheduling, poor catering. I forgot my pants once. I didn't know it's so hard you're just rushing because of the deadlines. Now Dillon was decidedly small-time. He worked as a pimp and a bootlegger, but the kicker was that he had done so in the same territory covered by associates of Elizabeth Short. Namely, he worked in the same territory as Mark Hanson, whose address book was still a big question mark for a lot of people when it came to the murder. Dillon had been arrested but not charged, and time was running out before they had to let him go. Deriver was convinced that Dylan was the killer, but not just because of what Dylan had told him. See, Dylan was still saying that his friend Jeff

Connors was the killer, and Jeff was the one who had told him all the mutilation details. But at one of the hotels where Dylan had worked in San Francisco, Deriver had showed the manager a picture of Leslie Dylan. The manager said, sure, that guy worked here, I know him, but the manager did not call him Leslie Dillon. Rather, the manager identified the man in the picture as Jeff Connors. Obviously Leslie was using Jeff as his alter ego. And this is where Deriver was like, he got so hard. Yeah.

He was just like, yes, multiple personalities. Oh, whoa, the mystery increases. Oh, I just came in my wool. I cannot believe how good I am. Leslie is just one of the man's names. Yeah, for once. Jeff, the most masculine of names. But since there was no hard evidence linking Dylan to the murder just yet, and since there

was little evidence linking him directly to Elizabeth Short, the LAPD was forced to let him go free. But concerning the LAPD was forced to let him go free. But concerning the LAPD... There's so much evidence! All circumstantial and it's all just shit that he shi- It's all shit he said. And like they did take the strap and they sent it off to the lab and they're like, nothing here, it's been scrubbed clean. You know, like it's all circumstantial. It's all just like weird shit.

There are no pictures of Leslie Dillon with Elizabeth Short. There's no evidence, there's no physical evidence that connects him to the scene of the crime. Driver destroyed all ways of making a legitimate investigation by doing this way. It's as why, unfortunately, even though I love that he's a maverick,

and I love his style, and I like the fact that he decided to beg for forgiveness instead of ask for permission. That's my style. I enjoy that. But he legitimately fucked up everything. And so this guy, he also was, I'm going to be fair and say Deriver was also going like, well, you sure you didn't kill the black dolly up? Like he was like pressuring this other psychopath that was like while it was just Deriver and the gangster squad it kind of felt like maybe a game and then they tortured him a bunch. Yeah but concerning the LAPD there was a confluence of events around this time that left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. See as it turned out Jeff Connors did actually exist. He was found in the town of Gilroy

at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. As it turned out, Jeff Connors was a 40-year-old busboy, pulp fiction writer, and failed actor turned cosmetic salesman. Yeah, I'm Jeff. Yeah, I'm a 40-year-old busboy, pulp fiction writer, and I'm a failed actor turned cosmetic salesman. What's going on? You guys got a problem?

What's the big deal here? Why is everybody so angry? And he actually was a friend of Leslie Dillon. Oh yeah, I know Leslie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wishes it was me, you know, half the time, because I'm awesome. But he was questioned at length while Dillon walked free. The LAPD police chief had also made a total reversal on Dylan, where he's just

days prior to Dylan's release it had been publicly said that they had incontrovertible evidence that Dylan was in LA at the time of the murder. The chief now said that Dylan had actually been in San Francisco at the time. My buddy Leslie in trouble or something? Is something going on? Did he take like the wrong hors d'oeuvres or something from a restaurant? What's going on here? I'm Jeff. Just I wanted to be an on here? I'm Jeff. I wanted to be an actor but now I'm a cosmetic salesman so I don't really know what the big deal is.

He didn't cut a woman in half did he? He's been talking about that for years. I was hoping he didn't do it. I just thought it was kind of like a funny story or whatever. I'm Jeff though. The cops also stopped making the point that Dillon knew secret facts about the murder, the mutilation details. So the media was left once again with suspicions that something in the Black Dahlia case was

being covered up by the cops. Dylan, however, began talking himself to the press, and he had a very different story to tell about the treatment he'd received at the hands of Dr. Joseph Paul Deriver in the LAPD, much of which could very well be true. Dylan claimed that Deriver lured him in with the promise of a job as a doctor's secretary. That is true though. That was a part of the hook to get him to come to Vegas. Oh yeah.

Was him being like, yes, of course I'll hire this suspect for the Black Dahlia murder to be my receptionist. Yeah, no, Deriver did all kinds of horrible, weird, illegal shit. But then Dylan said that Deriver handcuffed him and kept him in custody for weeks. Dylan said he'd never claimed that his friend Jeff Connors was the murderer, nor that he'd ever even known who the killer actually was. But that also doesn't explain why the cops went and talked to Jeff Connors. Especially if he's all the way in fucking Gilroy.

Dylan also said, and this part part I believe that the LAPD Handcuffed him to a radiator with the heat turned all the way up during their interrogation Driver meanwhile played good cop saying that if Dylan confessed they'd treat him well like a sick boy Instead of a common criminal who wants some ice cream Hide one a popsicle Fucking heater Listen though. I'll get you a little bit ice cream if you just admit to the murder, if you did the black dolly a murder, okay?

Want some Dippin' Dots? You feeling okay there buddy? It was also uncovered that Dr. Deriver may or may not have been completely upfront about his background. The Los Angeles Daily News discovered that Deriver's real name was Joseph Israel, so a city councilman called for a public hearing to investigate Deriver's credentials. This is often pointed to as something that discredits everything Deriver ever said or did, notwithstanding all the unconstitutional and legal shit that he did. But the hearing did not discuss the Black Dahlia case at all, and Deriver was allowed

to keep his job at the end of the hearing. So that's soft. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that resulted in a $100,000 false arrest lawsuit that was later dropped, some interesting information did come to light as a result. Through Leslie Dillon, the cops did find and question Jeff Connors.

And while it was obvious that Leslie Dillon was using the name Jeff Connors as an alter ego, Connors was not a dead end. See, Connors himself was full of shit. He told police that he'd hung out with Elizabeth Short the night before she'd been murdered. He was kind of his... He's also a busboy. He can't... They never tell the truth. Yeah, man. What are you talking about? You worked in the restaurant industry for

a while. You know busboy. No, no, no. I've hung out with everybody. You know Liz, she came over, we were hanging out. It was us, John Wayne, we were hanging on and we were just having a blast. We took the Hindenburg and we took it to Lenny Dykstra's house who's soon gonna be a Mets player about 40 years from now. Can you cash a check for me? Well Connors was known he was a Walter Mitty type of character you know he would tell people that he'd acted in movies when he never did and he was just known to make up stories to make himself more interesting.

And him and Leslie were very similar. They were like two buddies. Yeah. They're very similar in that way. Yeah. But Jeff Connors was like sort of the fun part of that. He was! He was like, he was the fun guy that, you know, made up like fun stories. And Leslie Dillon was the guy, the very dark side of that.

Who says horrible things like, Supposing you did cut a woman in half that you could maybe stick your penis inside of her and see it stick out of the bottom. Is it bad to say that I feel like that these guys are my two wolves? Like inside of me that I have a Leslie Dillon in me and I have a Jeff Connors in me. I really enjoy your lies. Your lies are fun, your lies are gross. But in checking out Connors alibi, they came across his ex-wife, who had some very interesting actual connections to the case. Jeff's ex-wife knew nightclub owner Mark Hanson, and she had lived with Mark Hanson after her divorce from Jeff.

Leslie Dillon had also showed up to Jeff's ex-wife's house after he was arrested and set free, shouting through a closed door that she better not say shit to the police about anything she knew or else. So, another connection between Leslie Dillon and Mark Hanson, however faint, was made, and the gangster Squad was slowly connecting

the dots as far as what may have really happened to Elizabeth Short. The entire scenario, however, began to come into sharp focus when the Gangster Squad discovered reports of a motel room in Los Angeles that had been found covered in blood and feces just after Elizabeth shorts murder and it's with that Disgusting little room that will return next week for black Dahlia part three pot three We're gonna I still wonder can the killer of Elizabeth short be both the same man That impetuously tortured her beat her to death, in disorganized fashion, right? Ragged face, cuts, all of the weird sexual play, all this like the kind of marks

of a disorganized killer, and can they also be the same person that will surgically put them in half, like literally cut them in half, and dispose of them? And I still don't know if it can be just one man. Well, it seems hard. It does. But you need helping hands. I just put together a bench, you know, and I need another piece, another pair of hands. I bleed when I put together an Ikea like chair. So there's there's a lot left to cover here. Yeah, we got this like

This is right now to me seems like it's clearly fucking Leslie, but There is it's cloudy. It's murky Yes It is very murky and we're gonna come through some couple I've got a couple other suspects under my belt that I want to talk about Eventually too because there's a lot of fucking guys out there because we didn't even get to the butchers. We haven't talked about the werewolf murders. We haven't talked about like, it's kind of crazy, dude. It's getting, it just, this is one of those things that just keeps going.

Yeah. It's a massive story and there are a million different theories. I also feel like, you know, as someone who likes like older movies, I feel like there's like things taken from this story that's in like several different movies. Oh yeah, just like little pieces here and there and so yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, very much So and also I really want to thank our team on this one. Who's done a fantastic job I want to thank Shaw I think Joel I think Carolina for help and editing the script on these last couple episodes It's really been like a bit a nice team LPN effort here for the black dolly a series and I'm loving this I get home. I love the story about this dead woman.

Go to patreon.com slash podcast on the left. To watch us scream, we can flop around. Go to twitch.tv slash LPN TV because we are, I guess it's already past it. We did the LPN Fun House last night. And I'm upset with my choices. I don't even know what I'm doing yet. Cause we're about to go in to do it. Cause it's in the future, but it's in the past. Yeah

Yeah Indeed and also don't forget to go to last podcast on the left comm to check out where we're gonna be playing a show Near you we're gonna be coming to all kinds of fucking places this year this coming year The show's hot right now, by the way guys. We just said New York show was fucking nuts Oh, no, no, no, we're fucking we're rolling on we're firing on all fucking cylinders with this one The show's hot right now, by the way guys. We just said the New York show was fucking nuts. It was incredible. No, no, no. We're fucking, we're rolling on, we're firing on all fucking cylinders with this one. We've got Atlanta, Georgia on January 11th, Dallas, Texas, February 22nd, Nashville, Tennessee,

March 14th, Detroit, Michigan, April 18th. Cannot fucking wait to go to the record stores in Detroit and Toronto, Ontario on May 3rd. Also can't wait to check out the record stores there. Just fantastic record store towns, both of them. Can't wait to see all of you. And hail sweet Satan. And Hagen. Hail, um, who's cool today?

Count Basie. Yeah! That's good.