Morbid - Episode 648: A Deeper Dive into the Murder of Elizabeth Short (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

On the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman walking with her young daughter spotted something pale and white lying in the weeds of a vacant lot. When the woman walked closer to get a better look, she made a horrifying discovery: the bisected body of a young woman, brutally murdered and like trash in the abandoned overgrown lot. The woman in the lot would soon be identified as twenty-two-year-old aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, who the press nicknamed “The Black Dahlia.” Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesAssociated Press. 1947. "Mrs. Phoebe Short can't believe slain girl hers." Los Angeles Times, Janaury 17: 2.Bartlett, Jim. 2017. The Black Dahlia: Los Angeles' most famous unsolved murder. January 8. Accessed January 14, 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38513320.Daily News. 1947. "Body of girl mutilated by murderer." Daily News (Los Angeles, CA), January 15: 1.Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1947. Correspondence, Identification Division, FBI. Letter from R.B. Hood, SAC to Director Hoover, re: Black Dahlia identification, Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice.Gilmore, John. 1994. Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia. Gardena, CA: Zanja Press.Goffard, Christopher. 2024. "The killing of Elizabeth Short, dubbed the Black Dahlia, has inspired endless theories." Los Angeles Times, October 26: B1.Hodel, Steve. 2003. Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder. New York, NY: Arcade Publishing.Lait, Matt. 1991. "Memories of murder." Los Angeles Times, June 22: B1.—. 1991. "Search fails to turn up evidence of '47 murder." Los Angeles Times, June 23: B1.Los Angeles Times. 1947. "Beth Short slaying suspect jailed after asserted admission of crime." Los Angeles Times, January 29: 2.—. 1947. "'Black Dahlia' knife braggart terroizes girl." Los Angeles Times, February 5: 7.—. 1947. "'Black Dahlia's' love life traced in search for her fiendish murderer." Los Angeles Times, Janaury 18: 3.—. 1947. "'Dahlia' clues fail; inquest conducted." Los Angeles Times, Janaury 23: 2.—. 1947. "Elizabeth Short case slayer baffles police." Los Angeles Times, Janaury 31: 2.—. 1947. "Girl victim of sex fiend found slain." Los Angeles Times, January 16: 2.—. 2004. "Janice Knowlton claimed a link to Black Dahlia murder." Los Angeles Times, December 19: B7.—. 1947. "'Killer' fails to surrender in Elizabeth Short death." Los Angeles Times, January 30: 2.—. 1947. "Mystery envelope sent in 'Dahlia' case; address book gives dozens of fresh leads." Los Angeles Times, January 25: 3.—. 1947. "Police await second 'Dahlia' letter for clue to break murder case." Los Angeles Times, January 27: 2.—. 1947. "Police free red-haired salesman as suspect in 'Black Dahlia' murder." Los Angeles Times, Janaury 21: 2.—. 1947. "Police stumped in beauty killing." Los Angeles Times, February 2: 2.—. 1947. "Soldier's 'Dahlia' date tale newest clue in slaying." Los Angeles Times, February 6: 2.—. 1947. "Soldier's leave time checked in 'Dahlia' murder." Los Angeles Times, February 7: 2.—. 1947. "Suspect detained for questioning in 'Black Dahlia' mutilation murder." Los Angeles Times, January 20: 2.—. 1947. "Tooth cavities clue checked in beauty slaying." Los Angeles Times, February 4: 2.Nightingale, Suzan. 1982. "Author claims to have found 1947 murderer." Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Janaury 17.United Press. 1947. "'Sick' veteran is booked in Dahlia death." Fresno Bee, January 29: 1.—. 1947. "Spurned lover is hunted in murder of 'Black Dahlia'." Fresno Bee, January 17: 1.—. 1947. "L.A. Police hope Dahliua murderer will surrender." Sacramento Bee, January 28: 4.Weller, Sheila. 2015. "The sins of the father." Dujour, June 01.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's r-a-k-u-t-e-n dot c-a. In the depths of an Atlanta forest, a clash between activists and authorities ends in tragedy. I'm Matthew Scherr, and on my new podcast, We Came to the Forest, we expose the hidden truths behind a shootout that left one activist dead and countless lives forever changed. Binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alaina. And this is Morbid.

This is Morbid and it's part two of a tupada. Oh my god. And it's kind of morbid in the morning. It is. That's why you might you might hear sleep in our voices. I know. Honestly, probably not. I woke up with a fucking jolt this morning. Did you? Yeah, I just woke up and I realized. Oh yeah, you were like, ah. Yeah, I was late. What else is new? But I made a good ass coffee. She did. She made a great ass coffee. I wasn't sure if it was good. I thought my beans over extracted, but. No, I think they extracted the correct amount. I think they might've. And then we had like fun girl talk this morning.

We did. We lifted each other up. We did. It was women supporting women in the office this morning. It was. We were like, you're a badass bitch. Yeah. Tell yourself that every day. Yeah.

And you know what? You guys out there, you're a badass bitch. Tell yourself that every day. You know what? You guys out there, you're all badass bitches and you should tell yourselves that every day. Yeah. Don't compare yourself to anybody else. No, don't because you can do that until the end of time. And you'll always find someone that you're like, well, I didn't do this and that person did that. Yeah. Okay. Do you like you? Are you proud of your accomplishments? That's the thing. That's the only thing that matters. You like you. You do. And if you don't like you, I'm sorry about that. And you got to get to a place where you do like you first before you can do anything else. And this is not an ad. No, it's really not. It's just, it's just, it's just the vibes of 2025, especially with all the mayhem surrounding us, with fucking Elon Musk deciding that he's an elected official,

like go fuck yourself. Yeah. So that, with those vibes, you have to get to a place where you like yourself. Yes, it's not for any other reason. If not for any other reason, but because we got to take care of that business. Truly.

But yeah, so yeah, it's just important. And I want everybody to feel that way. I'm not really, I think we've like, this is the year of like social media just kind of being- Crumbling. Not the thing, not the vibe. You know what? I was listening, I'm not going to get like everything completely correct because my memory

is just a vast land, but a vast land of nothing. But I was listening to Aliza Kelly's podcast. Her podcast is so fucking good. And she was talking about, it was like at the beginning of 2025, I think it might've even been before 2025. It was like, here's what, like how I think it's going to go basically. And it's, I think like when, from when social media started, we've done like a full circle, basically, like a full rotation. So it's, I think like from when social media started, we've done like a full circle basically, like a full rotation. So it's almost being flipped on its head now. So there's going to be these like massive shifts

in social media, which could be them crumbling, which it does kind of feel like, and I'm not mad about it. Like I have been off of Instagram for probably two, three weeks now. I am like my insides feel better. Yeah, that's the thing. Like there was no there was no like inciting incident. No, that really did this.

Like, really, like truly, there was no inciting incident. Like there's always like there's always shitheads in the comments everywhere. Like in every comment section. And it wasn't even that. It was honestly just like, for honestly, mind sighting incident was like my account following somebody that I didn't follow, which I think we all know who that is. Yes, that happened to mine too. Don't support that orange man. But I was like, I'm not going to stick around for this when

like my account's being manipulated. And like, just see, you know, I follow like a lot of like news outlets and that kind of thing. And I think it's good to have information for sure but I think there we are living in an age where there's too much fucking information there's too much misinformation and if you have any kind of anxiety at all it will eat you alive it will and it's like and please know that yeah like I know it's hard and it's a very hard line. And we're not going to go too far into this. Don't worry. No, of course not.

We're going to get into that case. But sometimes it feels good just to have a chat. Well, you guys are like our bro-ies. You're our besties. So we want to talk to you about it. Yeah. It's important. And we care about your mental health.

We do. You guys are a fucking rad ass community of awesome bitches. That part. And we want you to be okay. Yes. But it's a hard line to straddle, to be informed, but not be bombarded. Yes, there's a, yes, that is the perfect way to say it.

There's a very fine line and it is, I don't know if I have fully comprehended that line yet. It's hard. It's very hard because of course you wanna be informed, but you don't wanna be over informed to the point where you're, you can't think of anything else or appreciate any kind of happiness in your own life. Well, there's never been a day and age

where you have a fucking thing in your hand 24 seven that you can constantly be connected and constantly know what's going on. Like that is not how we're meant to live. It is pretty fucked up when you think about it. And the internet and social media can be this beautiful place where amazing people It's not how we're meant to live. It is pretty fucked up when you think about it. Yeah. And the internet and social media can be this beautiful place where amazing people can connect. I do miss connecting to you guys.

That's the thing. I miss reading your messages. There's times where I'm like, I love connecting to people, but then it's also the human species is an onion that has some rotten layers to it. And it's like, and no matter what, it's an evil onion with a lot of rotten layers, but there's some great layers, some flavorful layers that will just make... Delicious layers. It'll make your soup delicious.

You know what it is? There's shallots and there's onions. Exactly. There you go. I prefer shallots. I love a shallot. Yeah. Jean shallot.

Jean shallot. I love shallots. I love a shallot. Yeah. Jean shallot. Jean shallot. I love shallots. I love a legume. Oh yeah. Speaking of that, let's take a quick little veer. Are we? Nothing's better than fucking pearl couscous with shallots and veggie broth and some herbs on it. I like the idea of that, but I want chicken broth. The veggie broth gives it some kind of... One thing about me. Some kind of something. I fucking hate veggie broth. Really? When I tried my hand at vegetarianism,

that's what it's called, vegetarianism. Yep, that's it. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I went hard and fast with the veggie broth and I think now... You overdid it. Yeah, it's not for me. So I always do... I always do bone broth. There you go. All right well there's our little tip. Yeah. For a new you. Yeah. Pearl couscous though. You know Drew doesn't like the pearled couscous? He likes the regular couscous. I like both so... I made the pearl couscous and he's like what's this one? I'm like it's just a bigger version. It's just Pearls. He's like, I don't like it. You're strange.

I love that band. Well, you know what? We're all over the place. We're everywhere. And we have some really awesome things coming up that we can't talk to you about yet. But bitches, you're gonna know when they hit. They're hitting soon. I feel like after this case, there's probably only like one or two episodes before we can... Before it's like... Before it hits you in the face. Before it's going to smack you in the face. So don't worry.

You're not going to be waiting months for this or anything like that. No, we wouldn't tease. No. And we feel annoying, but like we genuinely just came outside. But we're so fucking excited because two of these things are happening like pretty much in real time for us next week and then they'll be coming out to you in like a couple weeks after that. Who knows, 38 days later. Someday we'll know. You know how it goes. But we know that like, you know, and we know that can be annoying to be like, something's happening, but it's coming. And you're going to love it. And my God, I'm so excited about it.

It's so exciting because also like the, it's such a variety with these two things. It's such a variety. It's going to fill your cup like in so many different ways. Yeah, in different ways. And the vibes are going to be fucking immaculate. Chef's kiss. Fucking immaculate. So just keep an eye out for that. I promise you, you'll know it's gonna literally punch you in the jaw when it happens.

We'll say it in the intro too, like to whatever we end up talking about. I mean, you're gonna know. You'll know. Just by the titles of everything. Icky-ick, baby. Icky-ick. All right, well, we chatted.

So we chatted. This was a good chat, guys. Remember the moral of the story. Just make sure you like yourself. It's really hard. I get that. It took me a long time. Oh, bitch. I'm still working on it. Took me past the age of 30 to really get to the place. That's what everybody says. It was really past 30 that I got to the place where I was like, no, bitch, I'm me and I like me.

And that's okay. I'm nearing it. And I hope you are too. I hope you are too. If you need help we'll just keep telling you to do it don't worry. Exactly just think of me patting you on the back and being like you're fucking great bitch. Sometimes she genuinely actually does that to me. It's great. So I guess we have to keep talking about this horrific case which is very fascinating and one that needs to be talked about because it is technically still unsolved. We're talking about, I know, we're talking about the Black Dahlia case, the murder of Elizabeth Short.

One thing I find interesting with this case is that the general consensus of the whole thing was like she was going out to Hollywood to become a star and blah, blah, blah. And that was her only, like, but in reality, it's like, yeah, she was, you know, she wanted to be an actress, all that good stuff. But people make it seem like she was, that's it. And that was all that was and blah, blah. It's like, no, she literally was just looking for a new start. Yeah.

Like she was genuinely looking to just start a new and obviously she had dreams of like, you know, being an actress and all that, and she was doing extra work and all that modeling. Yeah. But I think like that emphasis gets put too much on that, not enough on like, she was really going through a lot of shit. Yeah.

And she really just was looking for a place where she felt like she belonged. I think that happens a lot with these kinds of stories, like the kind of stories where like a young girl goes out to Hollywood and she wants to be an actress, but it's like, that's never the only thing going on in somebody's life. Exactly.

And in fact, usually when a young girl is escaping to California, to Hollywood, it's for a whole bunch of other reasons. Yeah, there's a myriad of reasons that are coming with it. And on top of it, she needed, that weather was her, that climate was her, that climate was her ideal climate. Yeah, like how far along. So it's like, there was many layers to this. And I just think they don't get, it doesn't get talked about enough that when it like gets brought up,

I see what you mean. It just hits on like the, she wanted to be a star and it's like, yeah, she did. It's like, that's an overarching. She wanted to breathe too. Like that was part of it. She thought it was pretty sick to have full lung capacity. It was pretty awesome. So when we last talked about this case, we were talking about several of the suspects that seemed like good suspects and then would kind of fall apart at the seams. Robert Manley was a really big suspect and he was the one, he was the red haired man. No soul.

That was testing whether he loved his wife. Yeah. That whole thing. Yeah. Remember that guy? He looked like a good suspect, but he was also very forthcoming with the information. He never really, he never pushed away the investigators or tried to, his story stayed consistent.

Right. He took a polygraph but fell asleep, you know. SONIA DARA GARRETT You know, as one does. literally... Well, they literally were like, yeah, like she said her name was this. And then it ended up not being that at all. So at this point, they were looking only into her love life as a source of where this could be coming from, this killer. And they were now realizing, you know what, the boyfriend angle might not be a good angle. Not panning out. Maybe we got to start like widening our net here. So with their best lead, the red haired man, having turned out to be a dead end, investigators on one of the nation's now most closely watched news stories found themselves in a bad place, which is desperate. That's not where we want

to find our investigators on a case like this, because that's when things get messy. So Detective Harry Hansen told reporters on January 23rd, we're right back where we started, which is also not a good place to be. Nearly 200 officers fanned out across the city looking for new clues, many following up on a lot of false confessions that were happening as well. That was like a wave. That's such a wave. That's such a weird thing.

The amount of men that came forward to be like, me, I did it. It's like... I feel like back then too. Yeah, I'm like, were you all just bored? Like, what is going on here? Yeah. What is the pathology there that makes somebody do that?

The pipeline from boredom to false confession. Yeah, like what is that? But they would be, you know, following up on these many false confessions, just, you know, wasting their time and resources, but they had to. They don't know which one is false and which isn't. Or they were conducting house-to-house searches in hopes of finding any new witnesses. So they really were going hard. Yeah. Meanwhile, the coroner's inquest confirmed the details of the murder, but offered really little else in a way of answers, especially when it came to the gap in time between her disappearance on January 9th and her murder.

That was the hard thing to pinpoint. Investigators finally caught a lucky break on January 25th when a postal clerk spotted a package addressed simply to Los Angeles newspapers. And he looked at it and he said, huh. That's weird. That's weird. That's suspicious. So he immediately turned it over to the police. And inside detectives found Elizabeth's birth certificate. What? Her address book, a baggage check ticket, and other personal papers that belonged to her. Yeah, of course. As well as a note from the sender.

And the note was in letters cut from magazines and newspapers, like the classic ransom note. Oh, I hate that. And the letter wrote, here is Dahlia's belongings, letter to follow. Oh, that's fucking haunting. Yeah. Like that, and they were really her things. So this was absolutely from the killer. Yeah. Now, during his interview with detectives, Robert Manley claimed to have seen Elizabeth's

address book in her purse when he dropped her at the Biltmore. So that was a big thing. That's huge. Yeah. We can at least follow that. And he'd seen the baggage check ticket from the Greyhound station. So given that, detectives concluded that the sender of the package must have seen Elizabeth after she left the Biltmore and could possibly be her killer. One detective told reporters, we have

so many leads, we don't know which to choose first at this point, which is a good place to be. But also a scary place. It's a good place, but like a hairy place. A hairy place, exactly. Investigators theorized that the killer, sensing the case was going cold, had done this, sent the materials to the press to keep his quote unquote work on the front page. He saw that things were cooling off and they weren't getting anywhere. And he said, why don't I help you out?

Yeah. Which is so scary and very BTK. Very BTK. He's like, what if I send you a floppy disk? Exactly. BTK before BTK. He probably looked at this and was like, there it is. And I do wonder if he looked at this and said, well, he never got caught.

But he didn't put into any kind of thought that technology had grown. That was a big part of it. While while several detectives started running down the names in her address book, other officers started combing area dumps looking for Elizabeth's missing clothes and purse. The day before the package was received, someone reported having seen a bag matching the description of her purse in a trash can on Crenshaw Boulevard, not far from a lot where the body was actually discovered.

On January 26th, officers finally located the bag at the trash dump on East 26th Street, which is crazy that they found the bag. Alongside one of the shoes Elizabeth had been wearing on the night she disappeared. Both were positively identified by Robert Manley as belonging to Elizabeth. When you genuinely think of the work that had to have gone into that, think of how

big, like LA is a pretty big place. Look at any dump. Yeah. Tell me how hard that would be to find one bag. Just piles and piles of random shit. Yeah. That is, that really is like- That's detective work.

Detective work right there. Which not as detective work I would not want to have to do. That's definitely not it. The bag was later identified by the cafe owner on Crenshaw Boulevard who'd initially reported it to police. Okay. So the cafe owner was like, yeah, that's the bag I saw. Now although there was still a possibility that the killer had followed Elizabeth to

Los Angeles from San Diego where she had been before. The receipt of the package and the discovery of the purse strongly indicated that the killer was local. Because he was sending it from a local place, he's still around, seems like he's around. Detective Harry Fremont said, I'm still convinced the killer is still in town, and I'm almost certain it is who has mailed us Elizabeth Short's belongings, which I think is pretty safe to say. I'm like, yeah, I'd say so. Having run down all the names in the address book now, investigators ruled out all the men in the book, which is wild. Yeah.

And began hoping the sender would follow another letter just to kind of help them out at this point. Yeah. Because the note... When he said one was to follow. I was gonna say the note did indicate that another one would come and at this point they're like, we kind of need the other one to come. Unfortunately, the news of the package prompted another flood of new anonymous correspondence, most of which were hoaxes. Because again, people are going to people.

Rotten evil onions. It's not great. One letter read, quote, a certain girl is going to get same as E.S. got if she squeals on us. Okay. Get it together, people. Get it to fucking gather. Get a life.

And come on, another letter said, quote, E short got it, Carol Marshall is next. Okay. Okay. Other notes in the letter suggested the killer was going to give themselves up. One of them said, quote, Dahlia killer cracking wants terms. That was a postcard from Pasadena. Fuck off. All of them were just bullshit. Yeah, just people with absolutely no fucking lives.

But among all of these, there was one postcard written in plain block letters that caught investigators' attention among all of them. It said, here it is. It said, turning in Wednesday, January 29th, 10 a.m. Had my fun at police. Black Dahlia Avenger." Unlike the other very obviously false claims, the postcard from the Black Dahlia Avenger seemed as though it could have come from the killer because not only did it lack the grandiosity

of the other ones, the silliness and ridiculousness of the other ones. The investigators thought the phrase, here it is, was referencing the killer's earlier claim that a letter was going to follow the package. Which makes sense, and the other ones didn't say that. The other ones didn't, because they didn't know that's what it said. Yep. But this one says, here it is.

Here it is. And it was also just like, had fun fucking with you, bye. But like, bye. It wasn't really saying like, this person's next, or like, I'm gonna turn myself myself in soon or like something really stupid. Yeah. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We often hear about the red flags that we should avoid, but what if we focused more

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took her for a ride on a Wilshire Boulevard bus and he stopped short of providing any other details about the murder itself. Wait, so he just, he took her for a bus ride? Is that what you told me? Yeah, he said he took her for a ride on the bus. Is that a thing people did? Who knows?

Imagine a man's asking you, I mean like, do you wanna go on a Peter Pan with me? Do you wanna go on a bus with me? What do you think of Greyhound? Yeah, I guess back asking you, like, do you want to go on a Peter Pan with me? Do you want to go on a bus with me? What do you think of Greyhound? Yeah, I guess back then it was like, you want to take a ride on the bus? That's adorable in a way. Not in this scenario. Not with Mr. Voorhees.

No. But according to Mr. Voorhees, the two first met in 1941, and he'd taken her on several dates before they lost touch. But when asked for more details about that meeting, he again refused to say anything else. But nevertheless, Voorhees insisted, quote, I'm sick. I did kill Beth Short. And he was willing to sign any documents confessing to it. So Daniel Voorhees was booked into the county jail that evening on obviously suspicion of murder. There was going to be a polygraph exam planned for the

following day because they wanted him to, they wanted to wait to have him recover from his quote bewildered and befuddled state he was at the time of his arrest. Okay. Which tells you a little bit about what you need to know about like- The state he was in and like his friend of mine. Bewildered and befuddled. I don't know about this. I don't know if I want to believe a confession from. Bewildered and befuddled. I don't know about this. I don't know if I wanna believe a confession from somebody bewildered or befuddled.

Exactly. And while this may have seemed at the time, it did seem at the time, a major break in the case, there were several things about his confession that made detectives unfortunately a little skeptical. They didn't wanna be, but they were. Yeah. In addition to his refusal

to provide virtually any details about the murder or how he'd come to no short at all, investigators also described his story as, quote, generally incoherent. Yeah. We're teetering off the edge here, folks. Yeah. And it was also full of contradictions. Also, when they contacted police in Phoenix, LAPD detectives learned that Voorhees had a long record of petty offenses. And at the time of his arrest, he was not really living anywhere and appeared very confused. Apparently he was from Phoenix. It sounds like he was very mentally ill. It sounds like he was going through it for sure. The next day, Voorhees changed his story, telling detectives he, quote, might have killed

Short, but he couldn't lead police to the scene of the murder. Didn't know where that was. Voorhees was held for a few more days while police looked further into his story, but eventually it became very clear that this was a completely bullshit false confession and he was let go. Because this isn't the kind of thing, again, I think we touched on it in the first part, like somebody was like, you know, I forgot what the, I think it was a newspaper article said something and it was like the killer snapped and like they were in a crazy frame of mind. It's

like, this isn't the kind of murder that you would just like snap and commit and be like, oh, I don't have any recollection of what happened. It's like, this was hours and hours, hours long. Like she was tortured. She was bisected. She fought you off. She was drained for hours. That takes a while. Right. It's like there's at some point you would have come to and remember had some recollection of part of it. Yeah. You don't commit that like whatever that bisection thing was called. and in a state of mind where you're not going to remember doing it. Exactly. Exactly. Now, like their theory about a spurned lover and an ex of some sort, detectives had expressed a great deal of confidence that the letters from the Black Dahlia Avenger

would lead them to Elizabeth Short's killer. But after Daniel Voorhees' confession turned out to be false and the communication with the avenger stopped, they once again found themselves at a dead end. After two weeks of intense investigation involving hundreds of LAPD officers, they had combed through all the leads and clues they had and they had yet to find the murder weapon. They didn't find the crime scene, they didn't find a single suspect that was even remotely viable at this point. The LA Times declared, quote, it appeared almost certain the elusive killer was a stranger to Ms. Short.

And they wrote, as even her closest associates have given not the slightest inkling to police of the identity of the murderer. Chief of Police Jack Donahoe agreed, telling reporters that most likely, quote, the Black Dahlia's nemesis was a pick-up whom she did not previously know. In the earlier days of February, tips continued to come into the LAPD, and each one they ran down. They didn't ignore any of them. They didn't just assume they were stupid. They ran down and pursued all of them. Among them was a woman in Long Beach who claimed to have heard, quote, unearthly screams coming from a, quote, long expensive car on the night Elizabeth disappeared.

Uh-huh. Did you call someone? Call anyone when that was going on? This informant told police she'd been waiting at a bus stop that evening when she saw a man, quote, holding a woman down in the rear seat of the car with a man and a woman on the front seat. And she didn't call anyone. Why are you waiting until now to say anything? Then there was a tip from Elizabeth's friends where they were just trying to like... Think of anything.

They were trying to think of anything that could help. So they said she had recently, quote, plugged cavities in her teeth with wax from candies, which sent investigators back to potential witnesses to ask whether they'd seen anyone caring for their teeth in such a way. We what? She would plug the cavities in her teeth with wax candies. Yeah. And so they were saying like, did you see any, did you see her buying wax candies? Did you see anybody?

Cause like, who knows? Did you see somebody like fiddling with their teeth have like with, you know, sticking something in their teeth, like on a bus, anywhere. They're literally trying anything. Literally anything. Cause these are like unique traits.

You'd remember that. That they're like, okay. Maybe I'd be able to go somewhere with that. Yeah, like maybe that's something if somebody says like, oh, weird, I did see a girl sitting there like sticking something in her tooth on the bus or something like that, that can at least help them figure something out. Right. Well, most of the tips came from the Los Angeles area.

They did receive calls and letters from other parts of the country too, which very unnecessarily taxed agency resources. It just made it even worse. In early February, for example, investigators received a call from officials at Fort Dix in New Jersey, reporting that one of their soldiers, Joseph Dumais, had disclosed to army investigators that he'd been on a date with Elizabeth Short the night she disappeared. Now he's in New Jersey. According to Dumais, he had

gone on a date with Short on the evening of January 9th, but quote, after the date, his mind went blank. And the next thing he remembered, he was in Pennsylvania station, New York. Across the country from where she was. Yeah. Totally. Fort Dix investigators analyzed the uniform Dumais had been wearing that night and found what turned out to be blood stains on one of the pockets of his pants. Creepy. Now, when they began digging into his background, investigators learned that the 29-year-old soldier had been married three times, and on at least one occasion he had been examined by a psychiatrist who recommended he be hospitalized for psychological reasons.

Also, while Duméz claimed to have been in Los Angeles the previous month, there was no record of him having traveled to California recently. It was eventually determined that he had nothing to do with Elizabeth's murder, and the blood stains in his pockets could have quote, come from a bloody handkerchief. But by then, investigators had already wasted several days and precious man hours in this

completely false bullshit lead. Which is really fucking annoying. As the first week of February came to an end, investigators had become so desperate for any new leads and eventually returned to what the press described as quite as quote twice cold clues. So they were doubling back on things. While some members of the team went back to old suspects and witnesses hoping to find anything that could point them in a new direction, several other detectives started following

anything that even resembled a lead, no matter how insignificant, like the cavity thing. Right. This included a report from a young woman in Culver City who told police she'd been waiting for a bus when a man in a 1940 sedan approached her. Isabelle Foster said, quote, the man asked me if I wanted a ride. I refused. He then took out a long butcher knife and ordered me into his car. She started to panic and started to cry and the man told her, shut up or he would give me what he gave the black Dahlia. Okay. Which like, here's the thing.

I don't think he's out here. I could be wrong because he's a fucking asshole, whoever did this. So it's like, whatever. It would be weird to me if he was just out on the street being like, shut up or I'll do to you like I did the Black Dahlia. Like I don't think he's just going to be like the Black Dahlia. Like I don't think I'm going to be out, like I don't think he's going to be running around saying it to everybody out on the streets. Maybe he's saying it to people in his life. Yeah. For sure. I could see this guy being an idiot. Yeah. And who we think it might be.

I think he was talking about it with people in his life. I don't think he's had a random bus stop trying to kidnap somebody and being like, if you don't get in my car, I'm going to do the same thing I did to the black Dahlia to you. And it's also like if I do get in your car, that's when you'll probably do it. And it's like now this girl'sia to you." And it's also like, if I do get in your car, that's when you'll probably do it. And it's like, now this girl's gonna fight even more. Like you can... Yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense. That doesn't make sense.

Yeah. Reports like that of Daniel Voorhees, Joseph Dumais, Isabelle Foster's report of this man with the butcher knife, and all the others, they didn't pan out. And they were so common. Yeah. They were just, they kept coming in. From the moment the body was discovered, the front pages of every major newspaper in the LA area were dominated by the case of the Black Dahlia. So it just kept on coming. Such intense public interest drove equally intense press coverage and led to so many hoaxes, so many false confessions, tons of mistaken

many hoaxes, so many false confessions, tons of mistaken identities, complete lies, just people inserting themselves. While these stories may have been great to read in the paper, very interesting, and they honestly made the case appear very complex and very fast-paced and very like da-da-da-da, you know, we're running down leads and we're doing this. The truth was, this whole thing was indicative of just how little information detectives had to work with. And it soon became apparent to the press and the readers of these papers that the case was growing cold. Because every time these things came out, it was like, no, and we don't have anything

now. By the end of February, investigators were literally grasping at straws at this point, looking for any detail or any clue that could just give a little spark to this case, but they were coming up empty, which is crazy. It is. With how this woman, and it kills me because they had clues at the crime scene. Yeah, that partial footprint entire tracks, massive clues. So to be honest, they fucked themselves from the beginning.

It's real cool that they're running down leads now. You fucked yourself over. You had clues. Which I don't... We'll never understand why they didn't photograph that footprint and the tire tracks. Yeah. Why would you not take photographs, take a mold of it, do whatever you can? Right.

Like that's... To let that crime scene become so contaminated. Contaminated and congested. I just, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, did they ever come out and say, we didn't take the photograph because blah, blah, blah? No, I think they just... It's the same thing as it got lost and they just don't explain it. A few weeks later, investigators acknowledged that they had no leads and that this case was cold.

Now, the story of the Black Dahlia murder had dominated the papers for weeks with stories informed very heavily by people just theorizing and speculating and whatever bits of information the LAPD was willing to parcel out to the public. The latter of these included information about certain arrests and potential suspects who were inevitably and very quickly ruled out. But behind the scenes, there were other suspects whose names weren't immediately released to the press and who were considered way more seriously than the people they were releasing to the press.

Also, in the years since Elizabeth Short's death, a large number of authors and journalists, they've published books and articles naming many suspects, ranging from famous people like Orson Welles and Woody Guthrie, and even notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel. Lots of people have been fingered for this. The suspect list contained more than 20 names, including many doctors and a few women, which I don't know if I, just the pathology of this one, I don't see it, but I could obviously be wrong. Well, some of these theories have been very debunked over the years, like very easily.

There remains a small list of names that many believe contains the killer's identity in there. This girl, I believe it. I definitely think so. So this one is interesting. So in John Gilmour's 1994 book, Severed, The True Story of the Black Delia Murder, the author strongly suspects Jack Anderson Wilson, aka Arnold Smith, as the killer based largely on circumstantial evidence, which

is evidence. Yeah, no matter what. No matter what. That's really all we got at this point. And he bases it on an interview he conducted with Wilson before his death. In the interview, Wilson claimed to have been driven to kill by some supernatural force. He told Gilmore he had to do that when the spirit overtook him. Wilson went on to hint at his participation in the murder saying, quote, you understand the trouble I could get into because

of what he did. If he could somehow make it seem like that he didn't do it, you know what I mean? It's like we're talking about litigation and that sort of thing. Everyone is entitled to go nuts. Everyone is entitled to go nuts. What? Everyone is entitled to go nuts? No. This is like that investigator being like, you know, she probably teased him and he went berserk. And again.

Babes, we're not entitled to that. Like, I don't, it separates us from the animals. You need to like, what are you talking about? We're not entitled to do so. We're not entitled to lose our minds and kill someone. This isn't like the spirit overtook me and I became frenzied. This is not that, this is not a frenzied murder.

That's the thing. This is not a disorganized, frenzied, passionate, moment of crazy anger moment. This is meticulous. Murder. This is hours and hours. And I think it was planned hours of controlled torture. And I think it was planned. Yes.

It's like, are we forgetting that the blood was drained from her body, everyone? That requires a lot. And the bisection. The bisection is so clean. You're not going to convince me that somebody who was overtaken by a spirit and lost their mind was like, yeah, I just figured out how to bisector. I just figured it out. I will not encourage you to look at the crime scene photos because I'll never encourage

you to do that. No. And these have been shared so many times that unfortunately they're everywhere. If you're familiar with this case, you've probably seen them. I looked at them because we were going into this case. It is a remarkably clean bisection. This is not like, I'm sorry to get graphic here, but you're here. It is not like a tearing through somebody kind of thing.

This is not a ragged cut. It's a cut that is so fucking clean. It's clinical is what it is. That is a clinical cut if I ever saw one. You will never convince me that this person is not a doctor or a surgeon. It's the same thing as Jack the Ripper. You're just not going to convince me. It's just the way it is for it. And we will get into that. Don't worry. In the years since the publication of that book, Severed, the True Story of the Black Delia Murder,

Severed has come under a lot of scrutiny for a lot of inaccuracies, mistakes, you know, a lot of that stuff. Among other things, the author Gilmore paid Wilson for the interview. Which does happen. For sure, but in these cases, that makes your eyebrow raise a little.

And the transcript indicates the conversation occurred over the course of many rounds of drinks. Oh, well that's not great. It has also been pointed out that years after Severed was released, Gilmore had advanced to an entirely different theory about the killing. So it kind of taints this original one because you're like, right. In a 1982 interview with the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Gilmore described a suspect he refers to only as Mr. Jones. According to Gilmore, Mr. Jones had confessed the murder to one of Gilmore's contacts. Okay. Now in this version of events,

Gilmore claims that Mr. Jones picked Short up at the Biltmore and quote, She and Jones traveled from an apartment in Hollywood to the Roosevelt Hotel, where he picked up a key to the house at 33rd and Trinity. Jones was angered by Elizabeth Short's behavior and her refusal to give in to his advances. The two quarreled about a phone call she wanted to make. And when she insisted on leaving the wooden house and incensed Jones beat her, raped her,

and then losing all control, nope, tortured her and ultimately killed her. No. In his frenzy to cut the body up for disposal purposes. Nope. That was not why she was cut. No, that was not for disposal purposes. Nope.

She was posed. She was posed. It wasn't like she just dumped posed. If you are trying to dispose of a body, you cut off the limbs. I know this sounds horrible, but if you're doing it for disposal purposes, you are putting it into bags so it isn't found or that it is found in several different places. You are not putting her next to a sidewalk where she is found posed. And honestly, if it was simply only 100% for disposal purposes, this is awful, but you would assume she would be in more pieces.

Exactly. Her limbs are cut off. For an easier disposal. You don't leave limbs on if you're trying to dispose of a body easily. And again, this is a horrible discussion to have, but it's just... It's based in fact. This doesn't make sense. Yeah, like you can't tell me this was for disposal purposes. No. And then... This was tell me this was for disposal purposes. No. And then... This was for, it was for shock factor.

She was posed like she was getting a photo taken. Right. That's not what that was. Don't tell me that was disposal. If it was, she would be in bags. Yep. She would not be laid out on the grass. No. Like, come on. So it says, Jones cut the body in half, then panicked at the prospect of discovery, and he wrapped

each part of Elizabeth's short, there was two, in curtains from the house, nope, there was cement bags found, wrapped the entire bundle in an oil-skin tablecloth and loaded the body in his car. No. And at what point did he decide to drain her of all her blood? Exactly. You didn't mention that. Yeah. We're always skipping that one in these confessions. Where'd you do that? Where'd you do that? How long did it take? How'd you know how to do it?

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app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Redacted early and ad free right now on Wondry+. Gilmore claimed to have tracked Mr. Jones down in 1978 and found him living in Indianapolis. The author went to see the man, however, and when he arrived, he just decided not to talk to him. Gilmore said, quote, I just looked at him.

Now, I'm sorry I didn't talk to him about Elizabeth Short because I didn't know at the time that he had killed her. I didn't have that part of the story. I didn't know there was a situation between my contact and Jones, that there was always an antagonism. What? So it just gets a little messy. It gets pretty messy. And it's a little weird. It's yeah, that's...

So there's that. I don't know about any of that. Those were big suspects that people talked about for a little while. But then in 1991, and this one's, there's a big issue with this one to me. In 1991, another suspect was put forward when 54 year old Westminster resident Janice Nolton went to the press claiming her father, George Knowlton, was Short's killer. Janice had been undergoing psychiatric treatment at the time and claimed she had uncovered repressed memories of witnessing her father kill Elizabeth in their garage.

Now, that was in January, 1947 that she claimed it happened. She claimed that her father, who died in a car accident in 1962, had been dating Elizabeth in 1947 and that short had been staying quote, in a makeshift sleeping room in their garage where she had a miscarriage. For me already, I have like a ding ding ding where his name would have been in her address book if she was dating him.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, precisely. At least in my opinion. There's that, but then there's another big one that to me, I was like, nope. Now, according to Nolten, she quote, remembers the woman Elizabeth Short sitting in a chair under a bright light and her father hitting the woman in the face and head with a claw hammer. Now that's horrible. And she did have lacerations and many

wounds to her head. But did she have like skull fractures? I'm not sure if she had skull fractures, but she had a lot of lacerations to her face and her head. I feel like if you're beaten with a claw hammer, a lot of times you have skull fractures. Here's the thing, because Janice said she witnessed this while hiding in the family's garage. Okay. I think Janice went through some horrible shit in her childhood, very clearly, and I feel for her. Absolutely.

Because to be coming out with this kind of thing, a lot of stuff has happened. Absolutely. And she was going through psychiatric treatment, so she was obviously trying to work through awesome stuff. Yeah. So I'm not saying that I don't believe this because I think she's just straight up lying about anything. I just don't think it was Elizabeth's story.

I think she's gone through a lot, and I think this is kind of a manifestation of some of that and I can't imagine what she did see with her own father. Well, she probably did see this happen to somebody. I just don't think that person was Elizabeth Short. She said, in the garage, she witnessed her father use a power saw to cut the body in half. No. No. That cut is not a power saw cut. A power saw would leave those jagged marks. It is a clean cut. There would be some ragged, unfortunately, again, I'm going to get graphic. There's going to be some ragged edges and some tearing. There's going to be, I mean, she had, there's full organs right at the edge of that cut that are fully intact.

Right. They're not touched, they're not nicked, they're not ragged, they're not destroyed and mangled, they're intact, which means there was something very meticulous used to do this. When you think of a power saw, it's going to be vibrating. Yeah. It's going to... An organ could slip very easily and exactly get mangled. Where she was found, the top half of Elizabeth Short, when she is found, there is very clearly a large organ protruding from the top of her body.

That would have been falling out of there. And it would have been nicked and mangled and destroyed. And it wasn't. With a power saw. A power saw was, I will die on the hill, a power saw was not used to cut her in half. No. It just wasn't.

No. It was a surgical situation. Instrument, yeah. 100%. Yep. So immediately when I heard a power saw in a garage, I said, absolutely not. The following day, she says Janice said her father, quote, took the body to a utility room next to the pier and gutted and cleaned the victim's body.

She wasn't gutted. She was not gutted. Maybe she meant the blood part. Maybe that was her version of being gutted. But this one just doesn't fit for me. Yeah, and I just know. But I do feel for her. I do, I feel for Janice a lot.

Because obviously there's some stuff going on there. And hopefully she was able to work through that. No, he sounds like he was awful. And the thing is in the mid to late 1980s, there was repressed memories had like a moment. Like that was the concept of that. It gained a lot of traction and like a lot of practitioners in mental health fields were like very focused on it for a little while. I believe they exist for sure. Oh, like they absolutely do. I do believe too much was placed on them in the 1980s. It actually, there was a lot of that being the drivers

of a lot of the satanic panic in the later 80s and early 90s. I don't think it's something that you can rely on too heavily because memories are already faulty. Yeah, you can't hang your hat on them. And I'm not saying repressed memories don't exist. I literally have some like I've experienced for memory. But again, it can, they can be wily and a lot of times with repressed memories, even in my own experience, there's missing pieces still within the memories. It's not, it's not always a full picture. Exactly. And our brains are meant, they by design fill in details.

Exactly. And based on experiences, based on what we're consuming, based on so many different things. Feelings, emotions, how you feel that day, what you ate, what you did, you know what I mean? What you watched, what you read. Yeah. And it's like, again, repressed memories? Absolutely. I believe they exist. I believe they can be very helpful. I believe they can be very helpful moving through things and dealing with things. That's the thing.

Wholeheartedly. But I think to hang your hat on a repressed memory is like hanging your hat on an eyewitness. There's got to be more. There's going to be some human error here. And repressed memories can be like a mismatch of different memories that are all smushed into one. Yep. So it's like, that might have happened. She might have saw that. But again, like you said, I don't think it was Elizabeth Short she saw.

I think she's seen Elizabeth Short. She's seen the story. And your brain can marry those two pieces of information. The details don't fit for me, but again, feel for Janice. Big time. Because holy shit, to even think that about your own father, some bad shit has had to happen. Clearly he's capable of a lot of shit.

Nefarious shit. Yeah. It was around the mid-90s, people did start to realize that hanging your hat on repressed memories was not the best course of action, and that, like we said, indeed they exist, but they are fuzzy. Yeah. And a lot of people, when it was all really heightened

in the late 80s, early 90s, when satanic panic was starting to explode. A lot of members of law enforcement took reports of repressed memories very serious. Even if they were out of this world strange and unrealistic, they would take them as fact. It was almost like- Not great. Yeah. Which is not, it's just not fact. It's in someone's mind. You can't rely on that. It's one, it's just as much as circumstantial evidence is real. Reflects memories are real, but they are circumstantial evidence.

You got to have them along with some really concrete shit. Exactly. In this, however, with the LAPD trying to chase anything down, they even had a hard time believing this particular story. Detective John St. John said, we have a lot of people offering up their fathers and various relatives as the Black Dahlia murderer. Which is so sad. Which means there's a lot of shitty dads out there, which is like, get it together. He said the things that she, meaning Janice, is saying are not consistent with the facts

of the case. And they just aren't And it's not. Regardless of whether Detective St. John believed her, Janice remained convinced her father was involved. She told the reporter he was a very sadistic man, which again breaks my heart for her. She claimed that he didn't just kill Elizabeth Short either. She also said she recalled two other murders committed by her father and she believes one of the victims was mutilated and buried in the family's yard in Westminster. Oh damn.

So when she said this, investigators in Los Angeles, although they were suspicious of the claims, members of the Westminster Police Department were like, well, we should fucking look into this. We should probably check that out. Like we didn't just let it go. Westminster Lieutenant Larry Woessner said, "'Repress memories like these do check out sometimes. It's not unusual.'" Which is exactly how I feel. It's like, you can't ignore them.

No, you can't just hang your hat on them. So in the summer of 1991, investigators in Westminster received approval to excavate the empty lot where Nolten's house once stood. Just on the chance that Janice's memories were accurate. He told a report of the detective, or the lieutenant, excuse me, he said, she seems to think that we may find a purse or some other belongings of Elizabeth Short. A few days later when the site was excavated, technicians found, quote, a rusty knife, animal bone fragments, and costume jewelry, among the degree.

Which is fucking weird. But found no conclusive evidence of a murder. That said, was a little strange, because they said the items did appear to be buried on purpose. Yeah. And they did find that unusual. So they said, we don't know how significant this is, but it's definitely interesting. Why would anyone put such things that far underground?

Right. So it is strange. It is. And it sounds like her father was a sadistic fuck and maybe he did do some shit, but they didn't find anything connected to Elizabeth. Now despite the strangeness of the items found under the house, there was nothing indicating a crime even had occurred, just that it was weird. So Westminster police did decline to open an investigation because they were like, yeah, I don't know. We can't do that based on a rusty knife and costume jewelry.

It's like there's nothing here that says somebody was even hurt. Like it's just not. Nevertheless, Janice maintained her belief that her father had killed Elizabeth and actually went on some high profile talk shows like Larry King Live, Sally Jessie Raphael and promoted her story.

Okay. In 1995, she co-published a book with Michael Newton titled Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer. Even after her story and the popularity of her book had passed, Janice remained on that story and convinced that her father was responsible. A Los Angeles Times reporter, Harry Harnish, said, quote, she'd leave long rambling voice messages on my answering machine at the Times. So it sounds like she really, she was going through some stuff. She died, unfortunately, by an intentional drug overdose on March 5th, 2004. So, man. So I feel bad for Janice. That's a tough life.

Because I don't, judging by that story, I don't believe that her father was the killer of Elizabeth Shore, but I feel her dad was a bad man and a sadistic man by her account. And that she went through a lot. Clearly. And that, I just feel bad. Yeah, that's really sad. I feel like that's a lot. And then to die by suicide, it's like obviously she was haunted by a lot. And it's really sad. Again, it's very unlikely that

her father was Elizabeth Short's killer. But in 2003, another person stepped forward to offer up his father as a potential suspect in the case. And this story is the one, is the story, in my opinion. Same. In his 2003 book, Black Dahlia Avenger, a Genius for Murder, former LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel. Who was a good motherfucking guy. A good motherfucking guy. Yeah. You've heard his name. We talked about him on the Rodney Alcala case.

I think we've talked about him even before. We've talked about him a few times. He is known by his colleagues as a good cop and a good guy. He offers a very compelling case for who he believes is the killer, his father, Dr. George Hodel. Dr. Dr. George Hodel.

He was a surgeon, right? Yep, he sure was. He believes he killed Elizabeth Short, and so do I. At the time of Elizabeth Short's disappearance and murder, Dr. Hodel was a well-known and highly respected physician and the one-time head of the country's social hygiene bureau. According to Hodel, quote, he was a hard and cold individual with a huge ego whose demeanor bordered on tyrannical. Wow. He said also he was an experienced physician. He had the skills, tools, and the space necessary to commit this murder without detection.

Because that's the other thing, you need the space for this murder. That is something that in my opinion, none of the other suspects have. They don't have the skills, they don't have the tools, and they do not have the space. You need a lot of space and it needs to be hidden. He had hidden space. She was alive. When her mouth was cut, she was alive. There's going to be, as fucking macabre as that is,

there's a lot of noise that was gonna be happening here. And he needed somewhere he could do this where no one was gonna find him and no one was gonna hear him. And to me, cause you might be thinking like, okay, well that other guy had a garage. That's that's a grown, not enough space to people are going to hear screaming. They're going to hear they're going to hear those tools mixed with the screaming.

If that's the way it happened, it just doesn't make sense for me. No, it doesn't make sense. It really does. He had George Hodel. I want you to look it up because I I know you're all like immediately gonna Google because I also did this. Oh yeah. Get on it. Look at his house.

It's huge. At the time. It's a huge house. Didn't you have like a huge basement? Huge basement. Basement. Huge basement. Correct me if I'm wrong, was there like tunnels and shit? I think there was just like,

it was a labyrinthine kind of basement. Like there was a lot of space, a lot of space, a lot of space away from the rest of the house. A lot of offshoots. There was a lot of people in that house that were willing to do a lot of fucked up shit to save their own shit, to make money, to save their reputations, to get people. And a lot of times when it's wrapped up in money, the craziest, nastiest, out of this world shit happens.

He was also, he made sure to hire people in his house, like, because he was very rich. He was, he had a maid, he had all kinds of shit. I mean, he's a fucking surgeon. He made sure those were people that he was also fucking, by the way. Yeah. So he made sure that everyone was on his side. Like that's like, he was, that none of them were going to talk and he had shit on all of them. Yeah. So this guy relied on blackmail. He relied on it and he was there was so much dirty shit and we're going to get into it. But I encourage you to read the book

by Steve Hodel. I know. Anything I'm just he's convinced me. It is captivating. It's a very captivating case. It's one that has too many coincidences for me. And for me, I'm not a big coincidence person when there's that many. It's too on the nose. Now George Hodel Jr. was born and raised in Los Angeles in the first decade of the 20th century, which was a very big and exciting time for expansion for the city. As a child, he was incredibly intelligent.

He consistently scored the highest on every test. He was very, very smart. And ultimately, he graduated high school early and enrolled in the California Institute of Technology at 15 years old. Wow. One result of his obvious intelligence was that George was treated very differently than his peers, his whole life, and given the impression that he was special and deserving of special treatment at a very young age. But on a bit of a pedestal.

It's not, you know, it can be great. Yeah, but not great for the ego here. Just one year into his education at Caltech, George was expelled. Yikes. According to Steve Hodel, his expulsion was either for being kicked out for engaging in a sexual relationship with a faculty member's wife. Meanwhile, he was 15, right? Or for repeatedly gambling on campus, which was against the school's rules. Maybe both. Yeah.

In the years that followed, George drifted from job to job, including working as a crime reporter with the Los Angeles Record during the Prohibition era. Wow. Before finally enrolling in pre-med at Berkeley in 1929. Which is insane. Insane. From there, he went on to pursue a medical degree at the University of California, and he graduated with a medical degree in 1936. He also went to school at the time

where that specific bisection method was being taught. Coincidence number one. Yeah. Following his graduation, George worked his way up through the state health system, also making very high society friends along the way, friends with lots of Hollywood elites along the way. I think we're learning now that that means

something. Connections. Yeah, I think we're learning that that has something. It was through this social network that he met his first wife, Dorothy Harvey, who was the former wife of director John Houston, with whom Hodel had one child, a daughter named Tamar. Hodel's marriage to Dorothy Harvey didn't last long, but his relationship with his daughter Tamar would prove pivotal, not only to his life, but in Steve's case against his father. On October 1st, 1949, Tamar disappeared from the couple's home on Franklin Street and was nowhere to be seen. I believe at this, she was about 14-ish.

After several hours of contacting friends and neighbors, George Hodel did contact the LAPD and reported her missing. Two days later, she was found to be staying at a friend's house and she was taken into custody by the LAPD. While she talked with a police officer, she explained that she'd run away because, quote, my home life is too depressing because of all those sex parties at the Franklin house. Yeah.

Now, coming from someone so young, the statement was very shocking to the police officer. More shocking, though, was Tamar's confession that not only had she seen the parties, but also, quote, took part in them. By the time the interview ended a few hours later, Tamar had implicated her father and three other adults in a conspiracy of abuse, as well as confessing to having

engaged in various sex acts with several of her male classmates at Hollywood High School. So she was being abused on a galactic level. Yep. That is the only way to describe that. Hey weirdos, if you guys know one thing about us, it's that we love a deep dive. Well, if you're looking for a limited series that will completely consume you, we've got you covered. Those sketchy texts you're always getting? Sometimes there's something way darker behind them.

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You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+. Given the severity of these accusations and the notoriety of the men at the center of the scandal, the authorities moved very quickly, and George Waddell was arrested a few days later and held on $5,000 bail. Guys, get it together. By the time he posted bail a few hours later, the story had reached the press and the once prestigious doctor was now being associated

with sex parties and incest. Not great. In interviews with police and reporters, Tamar claimed that Dr. Hodel had been molesting her since she was 11 years old. This is her father. And that she had been encouraged to participate in sex acts with other adults at various house parties. To which she obviously couldn't consent. Was she was raped. That's what that means. That's the clearer way to say that, not that she was, you know, encouraged to participate. Yeah, she was raped.

She was raped. In early December 1949, George Hodel went on trial for the abuse of his daughter, and the DA presented several witnesses who claimed to have been at the sex parties and verified what she alleged. Even Hodel himself, and this should not be understated, because even Hodel himself stated in depositions that he had been, quote, delving into the mystery of love and the universe with his daughter. Yeah, no, there's no mystery about fucking your own child. It's wrong.

And later he will claim like, no, I didn't do anything. It's like, nope, you said it. You said it because he also suggested that his memory of the events was quote, unclear like a dream. He's fucked. He's disgusting. He's disgusting. Fuck that guy.

The case should have been an easy prosecution for the DA. Close and shut. Open and shut. Had it not been- You said close and shut. Close and shut. Don't even open it. Just shut it.

Just shut it. Yeah. Throw them behind bars. But there was one statement made by Tamar during questioning from the defense that kind of made it, it change a little. Before ending his questioning, defense attorney Robert Neeb asked one last question. He said, Tamar, do you recall a conversation you had with a roommate at the Franklin house by the name of Joe Barrett? And do you recall in that conversation making the following statement to him, quote, this house has secret passages. My father is the murderer of the

Black Dahlia. My father is going to kill me and all the rest of the members of this household because he has a lust for blood. He is insane. The courtroom was fucking stunned by this. I would think. And Tamar tried to explain that she had no recollection of having said that. I mean, of course she She's scared for her fucking life. Yeah. Despite the strength of the case going into the trial, it soon became clear that the defense had intended to make her seem like a petty, vindictive daughter who was willing to lie in order to get revenge on her father. I don't think she was lying.

Who she felt ignored her. That's what they were trying to go with. I think she wished that he ignored her. Honestly, she'd be better off. One defense witness after another took to the stand to call Tamar a liar or worse, to recant their previous statements corroborating her initial accusations. So they had said she was a bully and then they would come back and be like, just kidding. Real nice. She's a child. Steve Hodel later learned that several of those fucking witnesses had been offered large

sums of money by his father to lie on the stand. I think they call that hush money. And I hope you are having the life you deserve or you're having the afterlife that you deserve to all those people. I fully believe in karma. At the end of the trial, George Hodel was found innocent of the charges. Absolutely insane. Even after he said he had been exploring the dream world, whatever the fuck it was, with his child. Yeah, you're fucking gross, dude. Several months later, George relocated to Hawaii where he remarried and cut off communication with all of his children.

Wow, nice. He's a piece of shit. That's good. But they're better off without him. Yeah. Steve Hodel hadn't given that statement about the black Dahlia during the trial much thought, really, until he was going through his father's belongings after he died in 1999. I hope he died a horrible death.

I do too. And he came across a small photo album that not only contained a photo of Steve's ex-wife taken before he'd ever met her, but also a photo of Elizabeth Short. That is insane. Coincidence number two, everyone. Yeah. The photos caught Steve off guard. And he started going through his father's history more closely,

hoping to find out why he had a photo of a notorious murder victim. He also found other photos that he believes could be Elizabeth Short, but they have not been confirmed. OK. Over the course of several years, Steve Hodel combed through old police files and city archives. Remember, he is an LAPD homicide detective. He's a detective. And he talked to anyone who knew his father and could provide any insight into his history. Through that process, he learned that his father's close relationships

with many celebrities, including the artist Man Ray, who is a surrealist artist, would figure prominently in his theory. According to Steve, in the mid-1940s, Dr. George Hodel had become known as a reliable and discreet provider of abortions, whose client list included Elizabeth Short. Meaning he had even more blackmail on people. Exactly. In his interviews, Steve claims to have spoken with at least eight people who, quote, asserted that they knew firsthand that

Hodel had some kind of relationship with Short. At least eight people have said that. That's a lot of people. Yeah. Based on, and that artist, Man Ray, he does a painting, a couple of his paintings are very reminiscent of the crime scene. Based on all the pieces he uncovered while writing his book, Steve Hodel concluded that his father coaxed Elizabeth Short to a party at his house where she was subjected to sexual assault, torture, and eventually murdered. He offers a large amount of circumstantial evidence to support this claim. And again, like I said, circumstantial evidence is good evidence, including the fact that Short's body was found to be positioned in a way that, like I said, recalled two of Man Ray's more famous works of art, which Dr. George Hodel was very interested in.

Now, you can also, he was like very into like surrealist dream shit. You can hear it when he says, oh, I was exploring the dream of the universe and blah, blah, blah. Like he's very into that shit. So that does figure prominently. Despite the circumstantial nature of the evidence, Steve wasn't alone in his suspicions either. Following Hodel's acquittal for assaulting his daughter, LAPD detectives started looking closer at him as a suspect in the Elizabeth Short case. Oh shit. So during that time, they were like, whoa, whoa. What about this guy? Wait a second.

The other officers outside of Steve Hodel. This included Dr. Hodel being followed by investigators for several weeks and having his phones tapped for a period of time. Which when you hear about the phone tapping of it all, I'm like, how did you not continue going into this? Like, how did you not even build more against him? Because I think people got paid off.

During this period, George Hodel had been heard on more than one occasion to vaguely allude to his participation in Elizabeth Short's murder. In one phone conversation, on the first day of being tapped, George tells a friend, "'Suppose and I did kill the Black Dahlia. They can't prove it now because my secretary is dead.'"

Coincidence number three. Who says that? Not me. And ultimately the investigation into George Hodel went nowhere and was ended when he moved to Hawaii in 1950. But let me tell you a little more about why that's insane. So on the very first day after he said that, supposing I killed the black doll, they can't prove it now because my secretary's dead.

And it's also like, why do those two things correlate to each other, George? Exactly. On that same, those first few days, he said that they also got the statement of, they got that statement, they got him bragging about paying off law enforcement. Wow. Having officers demoted. That's good. Who were peeking too quick, too much into his shit. And he taught like anybody who was like looking further into his like the case against you know that his daughter had against him. Anybody who was on that that he was getting demoted paying off people to get like to turn on the stand which they have proof of. Which is how he was ultimately acquitted.

Yeah. And his physician friends were also part of all this, like these conversations. Apparently, so there was a Lieutenant Jemison who was working Hodel's case, and one of his physician friends that he talked to, this Lieutenant Jemison, he was quoted in a report as saying to this Lieutenant, someday I'm going to fix Tamar. I'm going to cut a chunk out of her calf of her leg and fry it and eat it in front of her eyes and then puke it up in front of her face. What? Those are his friends, physician friends,

saying that about his daughter who he is accused and most definitely assaulted. Yeah. Oh, just of note, there is a large portion of flesh removed violently from Elizabeth Short's thigh, by the way, and her right breast was sawed off. So hearing some of his friends say, I would cut a piece of her calf out

and fry it and eat it in front of her, is pretty noteworthy when you look that there are pieces of Elizabeth Short's flesh that have been very obviously and very intentionally removed from her body, in fatty parts of her body as well. Her thigh and one whole breast. Wow. You're telling me that's coincidence that we just happen to have a guy that's saying he's going to do that? I think that's coincidence number four now. Wow.

Holy shit. Yeah. In February when they were tapping his phone, there was one day where they hear George Hodel speaking of his secretary, Ruth Spalding, who he was speaking of before my secretary is dead. And he said she died. She died under suspicious overdose in 1945. And this time he's saying, quote, they thought there was something fishy.

Anyways, now they may have figured it out, killed her. Maybe I did kill my secretary. So he literally just said it. He killed her, maybe I did. He's the jigs. Yeah. Like what do you... You have it.

Of course I killed them. You literally have it. And apparently if he had any relationship with Elizabeth Short, that secretary would, you have it. Of course I killed them. You literally have it. And if he had any, and apparently if he had any relationship with Elizabeth Short, that secretary would have known about it. Of course she would have. Obviously. She organized all the shit. According to Steve Hodel, the LAPD at the time acknowledged that they suspected and investigated Hodel of intentionally overdosing his secretary with secanol, which is a barbiturate

and a sedative. Yeah. They said they looked into him. They thought he did it. They investigated it at the time. There is a lot on these tapes and I urge you to check them out because holy shit, he was a shady dude. And he was just, it's literally proven that he was paying law enforcement officers off. Yes, he was talking about it. And oftentimes he would talk in German to his friends, saying these things. What the fuck? Yeah, it's insane.

Girl. The transcripts of these tapes are bonkers. They're bananas. You almost wonder. I don't know how, if we just fluffed it away and we're like, ah, I don't know, maybe he's a suspect. What? You almost wonder if he did know that they had already attacked him. Oh, he absolutely did. And he was fucking with them.

He absolutely did at one point. It's insane. Now, in the early 2000s, Steve Hodel presented all his materials to the Los Angeles District Attorney. They reviewed the material and ultimately decided not to pursue the case. For why? Mistake. For what? Mistake, in my opinion.

You got, like, what the fuck, you guys? I think it's such a big mistake they didn't pursue it. It's like, dude, he is dead. Yeah. The least you could do is say man. Just look into it and see if it's for real. Steve's done all the fucking legwork. He might as well give it a shot. When it's like you're not getting any more money from this guy.

He's dead. Yeah. Fucking convict him. Yeah, convict him. He can't hurt you anymore. Yeah. Let's go. And also the people that were at that time being paid off by him and all that shit, that's the older LAPD. This is supposed to be a new crop of people that were at that time being paid off by him and all that shit, that's the older LAPD. This is supposed to be a new crop of people that are supposed to be going through this. Prove that you're not those people. And it's like, look into it, man. There's enough here.

Yeah, absolutely. In my opinion, he is absolutely without a doubt the killer. If you look at the transcripts of these tapes, there's also a time where they caught a woman screaming on the tape and then they hear George Hodel talking to another person on the tape saying, leave no trace. That's good. And a woman is screaming. And they didn't go check that out. And even Steve Hodel is like, I don't understand how nobody listening to those at the time, they were tapping him like live. Why nobody made the five minute trip from the state,

the department to go check on what was happening Because they were he was like at the very least there was like at the very least there was Felonious assault of a woman happening clearly and they didn't do anything So that to me tells me everything it's like You didn't want to intervene on that. What the fuck were you gonna intervene on nothing if it cost them money. It's crazy I very much What the fuck were you going to end up being on? Nothing if it cost them money. It's crazy. I very much encourage you to look into that whole part of it. Because it's wild.

Imagine coming to that realization and imagine what his fucking childhood was. Exactly. Like, my God. And it must be frustrating that nobody's fucking listening to you. Yeah. Now, since Elizabeth Short's body was found in that vacant lot in 1947, her murder has fascinated, and I'm one of those people, fascinated the public and generated no small amount of myths, legends, lore, everything associated with it.

By this point, it's entirely likely what's known about the victim in the case is a lot of legend, in fact. We've given you all the facts we can, but a lot of things you'll hear, we were talking about how she went to Hollywood to become a star, that was true. It's a very small piece of it. Yeah, it's like she had a lot more that she wanted to accomplish out there,

like getting her life together and starting over, being healthy, being able to breathe, meeting someone. She had all kinds of aspirations. So it's like a lot of this became, you know, and there's things you'll hear that you can easily debunk. On one hand, the notoriety of the case, you know, it's surprising because there was very little evidence that they had.

And it's not like Elizabeth Short was like a famous actress at the time. She was, you know, a civilian walking around trying to get a job. Right. But when you look at how she was found, what she endured, and the mystery surrounding her, it's easier to understand why this has become such a fascination for everybody. And the pool of suspects. That pool of suspects and just like that crime scene, there's no way this wasn't gonna

fascinate people. Going back to the the Man Ray of it all, like, yeah, you guys got to look at some of those photos and then... It's interesting to say the least. To even just like, don't look at the crime scene photos if you don't want to, but even just to hear them described the way that her body was positioned off center. Yeah. Like, go look at Man Ray's art. Just go look at it.

And this also is like the intersection between Hollywood and murder, which is something that always is going to get everybody's attention. It's just always. It's a fascinating place. It's a dark place. It's a scary place. It's a beautiful place. It's a shimmery place. You know, it's like all- It's layered. It is so layered. Since her death, you know, Elizabeth Short has become a symbol for anyone, you know, hoping to moralize in one direction or the other, because a lot is placed on, you know, how many boyfriends she had and what she was doing with her life.

It doesn't matter. And ba-da-ba-da-ba. Whatever the facts, it seems unlikely that anyone's gonna be really satisfied with an ending to this case, because people have so many different theories. Thoughts and theories. But I think people, I almost think it's like

the Jack the Ripper case, where you don't even know anymore if people want it solved. Or they just wanna keep talking about it. That are not like part of the case, you know what I mean? That they just wanna keep talking about it. That are not part of the case, you know what I mean? That they just want to keep talking about it and keep theorizing. A former LA Times reporter, Larry Harness, who we mentioned earlier, said, people don't want the record set straight. People want this grab bag of noir tropes. Which is not great.

That, honestly, you said it perfectly. It's a bunch of noir tropes. A grab bag of noir tropes. And when you really look at the reality of the case, and this is just our opinion that I think Steve Hodel is onto something here. Absolutely. I think he's a very interesting person to listen to. And a trusted source. A trusted source. Somebody who has a long history of not being a dickhead that I can tell. I think it's an interesting one.

And I think it can be solved. I really do. I think it can. And I think we just need to keep pushing for it. You never know. Like we said, a cold case is never cold. It's never cold. It's never cold. It just gets a little chilly and we just got to give it a blanket. So I think we can do it. Just work. Steve, let's go. Steve's like, I try. Steve's like, but I've done everything I can. He's like, I literally went to everybody I could. Steve, let's go. Steve's like, I try. Steve's like,

but I've done everything I can. He's like, I literally went to everybody I could. Steve, I don't know, I want to help you. He's got to re-approach when there's new people. Exactly. We just got to reignite it, reinvigorate it. Keep it in people's ears. Keep talking about it. Keep bringing new things forward and eventually it's going to happen. I know it. So that is the case of the Black Dahlia, the murder of Elizabeth Short. It's a crazy one. It is. And I'm glad we've revisited it.

Yeah, same. I wanted to give it a little more space. You definitely gave it more. And time and attention. Yeah. Some more details. And look into different things. Yeah, for sure. Very, very interesting case. I think we could probably revisit it again in even like five more years and we would have more.

Absolutely. And thanks to Dave for doing such a good job with this one too. Dave is one of the smartest people I know. He is. He's lovely. You guys should all have a friend like Dave. You should. So we hope that you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird. I, honey. I don't know. Honey. We don't gotta say it. That's how we're the, you know, fill your own cup, bring it full circle. Steve, let's talk. So If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus

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