Murder In America - EP. 47 CALIFORNIA - The Black Dahlia Murder: The Most Infamous Killing In Los Angeles

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

The Black Dahlia. A name forever associated with one specific gruesome murder in the heart of Los Angeles. A murder with a brutalized victim, but no killer, no justice... or so you think... join us as we expose the TRUTH behind the case, and potentially who may have murdered Elizabeth Short... you're listening, to MURDER IN AMERICA. - - Sign up for 3 months of language learning NOW and get an additional 3 MONTHS FOR FREE at babbel.com and use our special promo code, "MURDER" !! - Purchase a truly memorable gift for your family and friends this holiday season with STORYWORTH! And to get $10 OFF your PURCHASE, use our special link!! storyworth.com/MIA - Get up to 14 meals for FREE and 3 SPECIAL GIFTS (limited time only) with HELLOFRESH, a company that Courtney and Colin LOVE. Just use our special link to check out!! hellofresh.com/state14 - Additional audio editing done by Joe Pietz. https://www.instagram.com/joepietz/?hl=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Warning, the following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned.

Hollywood is a city full of stars. It's where anyone goes if you want to make it big in the world. And it's been that way for over on. hundred years. Throughout the century, thousands of people from all over the world who have big dreams for themselves move to Hollywood for a chance at stardom. Many of these people, while waiting for their big break, will pick up jobs as waitresses. They'll attend fancy parties, make connections, and hope that someone in the industry will believe in them, and every once in a while, someone out there will make it. They'll have their big break, and before they know it, they're a star.

Back in 1947, a woman named Elizabeth Short experienced just that. Shortly after moving to Hollywood, her name would be mentioned in nearly every household across America. She was on the front page of every newspaper, and she would go on to be a topic of conversation for generations to come. Elizabeth Short had always had big dreams of people knowing her name, and they would, but not in the way that she had hoped. After moving to Hollywood, her body would be found beaten, dismayed. and drained of blood on the side of the road. News of her death would spread quickly throughout the country, and before long everyone knew who she was.

And they called her the black Dahlia. Her case would go unsolved for decades, and it still is to this day. But recent discoveries will reveal likely suspects in a world of corruption in cover-ups. Elizabeth's fame wouldn't come until after her death, but the young woman who always aspired to be a star would go on to be one of America's most famous

unsolved mysteries. This is the murder of the Black Dahlia. I'm Courtney Shannon. And I'm Colin Brown. And you're listening to Murder in America. It's 1945 in the United States of America. The world had been at war for nearly six years at this point, and it was finally nearing its end. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. officially entered World War II. And for the next four years, millions of lives would be lost worldwide, and everyone was ready for the war to end. On December 7th, 1941, Japan, like its infamous Axis partners, struck first and declared war afterwards. Costly to our Navy was the loss of war vessels, airplanes and equipment. But more costly to Japan was the effectiveness of its foul attack in immediately unifying America

in its determination to fight and win the war thrust upon it and to win the peace that will follow. Hickhamfield, northwest of Honolulu, and the Ford Island Naval Plain Base were the first objective of Japan's treachery. Scores of planes were bruised and battered by the Jap's aerial bombs. Many of these were demolished beyond repair. Direct hits were scored on hangars and these were badly shattered. Equipment and airplane supplies were reduced to smoldering ruins. Here at the Naval Air Station is grim and positive evidence of Jap treachery. Here fall blows were struck while Jap diplomats were talking peace in Washington. America lost three destroyers. Here are seen the United States destroyers down and showing

as they rest on the bottom of Pearl Harbor with decks awash after Jap bombers make direct hits on their decks. The once mighty Arizona now rests on Pearl Harbor's muddy bottom, a pitiful relic of its former self, a grim monument to the treachery of Japan. The once mighty Dreadnought's armor plate is twisted and torn, but the great battleships control tower still stands. A defiant beacon that in days to come will cast its shadow upon Nippon's very shores. At Pearl Harbor, at Hickham Field in the bomb-pox streets of Honolulu, ever is written history. History with a tragic, treacherous pen, history that 130 million Americans will never forget. And in days to come, the Japs too will remember Pearl Harbor. Here is a tragic,

unforgettable page in the annals of America. Here the cunning deceit of the Japs will never be forgotten. Here they hoped to score a knockout before the war began. The Arizona's gun crews battered and broken fired to the last. Their guns pointed skyward from whence the enemy appeared. The The Jap sneak blow cost hundreds of military and civilian lives. The treacherous attack cost our Pacific fleet, two battleships outright, another capsized, the loss of three destroyers and a mine layer. Received this afternoon a message from the Japanese government in reply to the message forward to that government by the Secretary of State on August 11th.

I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration, which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply, there is no qualification. Arrangements are now being made for the formal signing of the surrender terms at the earliest possible moment. General Douglas MacArthur has been appointed the Supreme Allied Commander to receive the Japanese surrender. Great Britain, Russia, and China will be represented by high-ranking officers. ranking officers. Meantime, the Allied armed forces have been ordered to suspend offensive action. The proclamation of VJ Day must await upon the formal signing of the surrender terms by Japan.

When President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered, Americans all over the country started filling the streets celebrating that the war was finally over. You'll probably recognize an iconic photo that was taken during this celebration. It's a picture of a sailor kissing a woman in the streets of New York. But they weren't the only ones that shared a kiss that day. People from all over were running up to strangers and kissing them out of excitement. One of these people was a woman named Elizabeth Short. Elizabeth can be seen in a video kissing a random sailor that ran up to her car during this celebration. She too was excited that the war was over and that a sense of normalcy would finally fall back upon America and she would use this time to go to Hollywood

and follow her dreams. Elizabeth Ann Short was often referred to as Betty or Beth. She was born on July 29, 1924, to her parents, Cleo and Phoebe, and she grew up in Medford, Massachusetts with her four other sisters. But life wasn't always easy for her family. When Elizabeth was just five years old, the Great Depression fell upon America, and families all over the country were affected. It was around this time when her father, Cleo, left the family and moved to Vallejo,

California. So Phoebe Elizabeth and her sisters were left to fend for themselves during one of the hardest times in American history. There isn't much information about her upbringing, but as Elizabeth grew up, she really had big dreams for herself. A girl that she used to babysit would later come forward and say that Elizabeth always talked about going to Hollywood to follow her dreams. She was black Irish and gorgeous. She had dark curly hair, perfect skin, and beautiful green eyes. She She definitely had the look for Hollywood. She was also a little bit of a rebel for her time. Her mother said that once she was an adult,

she would take off on these adventures and travel around the country, and she loved to travel to warmer places like Florida. Elizabeth didn't have a steady job or any money, but she would somehow make it work. But when she was about 19 years old, she decided to finally go and follow her dreams. She would leave Massachusetts and go stay with her father in California. Cleo told her that she was welcome to come live there as long as she cooked and cleaned up after herself.

And Elizabeth thought that this was the perfect trade. She would finally be in California and she could start working on her dreams of becoming an actress. But the arrangement between her and her father didn't work out as well as she had planned. You see, once she got there, Elizabeth started to dive deep into the California nightlife scene. She spent a lot of her time socializing, dating different men, and staying out late at various parties. And her father didn't like that. He felt that she wasn't really helping out around the house like she had promised. And so after just three weeks of her living there, he kicked her out.

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learning new languages, you help support the show, so please go check out Babel. Now, let's get back to today's infamous true crime story. But instead of moving back to Massachusetts with her mother, Elizabeth decided to try and make things work in California all by herself. And she found a job at a place called Camp Cook in Lompoc, California. It was a respected job on a military base, so she had to get fingerprinted, and they hired her to work at the base's post exchange. Her manager described her saying, quote, I was won over all at once by her almost childlike charm and beauty.

She was one of the loveliest girls I have ever seen, and the most shy, end quote. Elizabeth was very well liked at this job, especially by the men. They even posted an article about her titled The Camp Cook Cutie. But while she was there, she didn't really have a secure living arrangement. She stayed with various friends and even with an Air Force sergeant at one time, but he was very abusive and beat her on multiple occasions. But Elizabeth never let that get in her way. She continued to party and have fun and make the most out of her situation.

On one occasion, in September of 1943, Elizabeth traveled to a nightclub in Santa Barbara to drink, meet some men, and have a fun night. But she was underage, so when the authorities were, caught her drinking, she got into a lot of trouble. So much trouble that they actually sent her back to Medford, Massachusetts. But as we know, Elizabeth didn't like to stay in one place for too long. Shortly after she was set home, she spent some time in Miami, where she fell in love with a man named Matt Gordon. The two were smitten with each other, and Elizabeth told everyone that they were planning to get married. But Matt was a pilot in World War II, and while he was on duty,

he was killed in a plane crash right before the war ended. Elizabeth was devastated and decided to leave Miami. Afterwards, she spent some time in Atlanta, Boston, Indianapolis, Chicago, and once the war was over, she made her way back to California in 1946. For around six months, she worked as a waitress in L.A., hoping to become an actress, but she never really found any acting jobs. People that knew Elizabeth said that she would just hang out in lavish parties and hope that someone would give her a gig. In December of 1946, for whatever reason, Elizabeth decided to leave L.A. and headed to San Diego for a period of time. She didn't know anyone or have anywhere to stay, so it begs the question of whether or not she was trying to get away from someone. Once she arrived

in San Diego, she found a theater in the city and struck up a conversation with a cashier, a woman named Dorothy French. Elizabeth told Dorothy that she was new to town and didn't have anywhere to stay. So Dorothy told her that she could come stay with her. She didn't anticipate it to be a long stay, but Elizabeth ended up living with Dorothy and her family for about a month. The French family said that while she was there, Elizabeth spent most of her nights out and that she dated a lot of men, including a man named Red Manly, who was a 25-year-old hardware salesman. The two had gone out several times during her stay in San Diego, and when Elizabeth was ready to leave, she asked him if he could take her to Los Angeles.

Red agreed, and on January 9, 1947, the two left San Diego together. According to Red, he dropped Elizabeth off at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, and that was the last he ever saw of her. That night, witnesses say they saw Elizabeth making some phone calls in the hotel lobby, and at around 10 p.m., she walked out of the hotel never to be seen again. Six days later, on the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman named Betty Bursinger went on a walk through her neighborhood with her three-year-old daughter. Along this walk on Norton Avenue in Los Angeles, there were many vacant lots full of weeds

and underbrush. But up ahead, as Betty pushed her daughter in her. the carriage, she could see something lying in the vacant lot. So she walked a little closer, and when she did, she saw what she thought was a mannequin. A broken mannequin at that, because it was cut in half at the waist. Betty looked at it for a few more seconds, and it didn't take long for her to realize that this was no mannequin. It was the nude body of a dismembered female. Betty quickly rushed to the nearest telephone and called the Los Angeles Police Department. When detectives arrived on scene, it was clear that whoever dumped her there wanted her to be found.

It was a busy and nice suburban area with a lot of traffic, and her body lay just feet away from the sidewalk. It was also clear that she wasn't killed at this location because there was no blood at the scene. And when detectives took a closer look at the victim, they were shocked at the amount of mutilation. Her body was cut in half, about an inch above her belly button. The bottom portion of her body was about a foot away from the top portion, and her legs were spread wide open. On her left thigh, someone had cut a triangle into her skin. Another deep cut went from her pubic hair all the way up to her severed waist. After someone had made that cut, they pulled back her skin and took out all of her organs.

But that wasn't the worst part. The top portion of her body was even more mutilated than the bottom. Her arms were positioned over her head, and her right breast had been cut so deeply that it was barely hanging on to her body, and the left breast had deep slashes through the nipple. But the worst of all was the victim's face. Her nose was completely crushed in, and her entire face was purple with bruises. She had deep slashes on her forehead so deep that they grazed her bones. And lastly, whoever killed her had sliced both corners of her mouth all the way back, to her ears, and as the detectives looked down at her body, it almost looked like she was smiling

at them. The body had no identification, so they referred to her as Jane Doe, and brought her to the medical examiner, where they immediately took her fingerprints to see if they could identify her. During her autopsy, the coroner was able to tell that she had been murdered. Sometime within the early hours of that morning, both of her knees had been crushed while she was alive. Her intestines, stomach, liver, and spleen had been removed. She had cross-hatching marks on her body that almost looked like tick-tac-toe. She had ligature marks on her ankles, wrist, and neck, indicating that someone was restraining her during the torture. She wasn't pregnant, and there weren't any signs of semen in or on her body, but her anus was a little more dilated than normal, so someone could have mutilated

her in that way. They could also tell that some of her wounds were older than the others, and they estimated that she had been beaten for days before her murder. The doctor told detectives exactly what he thought had happened to her. He said that somebody had most likely tied her down from anywhere between 36 to 48 hours, and they tortured her by breaking her legs with a smooth object, most likely a bat. Then they tortured her with a knife, cutting off her breast, making deep cuts all throughout her body, and lastly slicing the corners of her mouth. Based on the bruising in her face, she experienced all of this, the beating, the knife torture,

and the broken legs, all while she was alive. Her last days on earth were filled with fear and unimaginable pain. The doctors ended up determining that she died from hemorrhaging after repeated blows to her head and face, most likely from the bat. After her death, the killer surgically bisected her at the waist and removed her organs. Then he drained all of her blood and bathed her body before dumping her in the vacant lot. Based on the way her organs were removed and her body was cut, the doctor suspected that her killer had medical training, and whoever he was, it was clear that he was deranged. But before they could find the killer, they needed to identify their victim. It wouldn't be long

until her fingerprints would prove that it was 22-year-old Elizabeth Ann Short. You see, when Elizabeth was arrested for underage drinking in Santa Barbara, she had to give up her fingerprints. And she also had to give them up when she worked at the military base. So luckily, they were able to quickly identify her, but it still didn't give them any ideas on who killed her. And news was spreading quickly about the beautiful aspiring actress found dismembered in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

Wanted information on Elizabeth Short between dates January 9th and 15th, 1947. Description. Female, American, 22 years old, 5 foot 6 inches, 118 pounds, black hair, green eyes, very attractive, bad lower teeth, fingernails chewed to quick. The subject was found brutally murdered, body severed, and mutilated January 15th, 1947 at 39th in Norton. Subject on whom information wanted last seen January 9th, 1947, when she got out of a car at Biltmore Hotel. At that time, she was wearing black suit, no collar on coat, probably Codigan style, white fluffy blouse, black suede, high-heeled shoes, nylon stockings, white gloves, full-length beige coat, carried black plastic handbag, two handles, 12 by 8, in which she had a black address book. Subject readily makes friends with both sexes and frequented cocktail bars and night spots. On leaving cars, she went into lobby of the Biltmore and was last seen there. Inquiries should be made at all hotels, motels, apartment houses, cocktail bars, lounges, and nightclubs to ascertain the whereabouts of victim between.

dates mentioned. In conversation, subject readily identified herself as Elizabeth or Beth. After this, Elizabeth's shoes and purse were found in a trash can outside of a local cafe. But unfortunately, no one saw anyone throw it in the trash, and there weren't any fingerprints, so it still didn't provide any information about her killer. And soon enough, every reporter in the city was covering her case and trying to get the best story. Some sources say that one A reporter even called Elizabeth's mother in Massachusetts before she even knew of her daughter's death. When Phoebe answered the phone, the reporter told her that Elizabeth had won a beauty contest and that they were seeking some information about her to run in the paper. It wasn't until

the end of the phone call when they informed Phoebe that Elizabeth had been murdered, and that's apparently how she found out. It's crazy what people will do for a good story. But behind the scenes, detectives were working hard to try and get some leads, and they decided to pay Elizabeth's father a visit to see if he knew anything. When Cleo answered the door to the detectives, he didn't react the way that most fathers would. He wasn't sad or angry, and he kind of didn't care that his daughter was murdered. He was more interested in giving detectives his alibi than he was with helping with the investigation.

Cleo went on to say that he was at work and that his boss could vouch for him, and that the last time he saw Elizabeth was when he kicked her out for her, bad housework. Detectives then asked about the men in Elizabeth's life. Cleo mentioned the soldier at Camp Cook that beat her up and then went on to say that Elizabeth had a lot of men in her life. When she lived with him, she was constantly out on dates, which was part of the reason he kicked her out. The detectives left Cleo's house that day with more questions than answers. Their potential suspect list was growing, and it was then when the media started to get word of Elizabeth's love life. They used this opportunity to drag her name through the dirt and paint her out to be

a whore who loved men. People have always loved to demean sex positive and independent women, especially in the 1940s. And it was around this time when the media started referring to her as the Black Dahlia. The name came from a movie called The Blue Dahlia that was popular around the time of Elizabeth's death. It was a movie about a naval officer who comes home from the war to find that his wife had cheated on him with two other men in the military, and later on in the story, the wife is found to be murdered. The media called Elizabeth the Black Dahlia, because she was known. for wearing black clothing and her dark hair and because of her affinity for military men,

just like the woman in that movie. Reporters also named this case the werewolf murder because Elizabeth's body was so mutilated it looked like a werewolf had attacked her, but soon enough the black dahlia was in every newspaper across the city. One even said, authorities today were searching into the love life of 22-year-old Elizabeth Schwartz, whose romances had changed her, according to friends, from an innocent girl to a black-clad, man crazy delinquent known as the black dog. This holiday season, I want to give a gift to my loved ones that makes them feel special and unique, just like the relationship that we all share.

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That's storyworth.com slash MIA to save $10 on your first purchase. Let's get back to the story of the Black Dahlia, everybody. In the meantime, detectives were hard at work checking alibis and all of the men that Elizabeth was involved with. They were able to rule out her father as a suspect, seeing that his alibi did check out, and they were also able to eliminate all of the soldiers at Camp Cook, including the one that beat her. Apparently, they were all overseas during Elizabeth's murder. Detectives also talked to Dorothy French, who Elizabeth lived with right before her death, and Dorothy told them all about the men that Elizabeth dated, but one man in particular caught their interest.

Red Manly, the man who gave Elizabeth a ride to Los Angeles. From what they could tell, he was the last person to see Elizabeth alive. So they put an APB out on Red, but they had a hard time tracking him down, which was very suspicious to them, considering Elizabeth had been. been on the front page of every newspaper in the city. Detectives would end up finding Red at a friend's house in Southgate, California, and they quickly brought him in for questioning. When detectives asked Red about his involvement with Elizabeth, he admits that they did go on a few dates after meeting at a bar shortly before Christmas. Red was in San Diego for work at the

time, and he said that he took her to dinner, and afterwards they went dancing at the Sky Room in the El Cortez Hotel. Red claimed that they had never had sex, but that they were friendly with one another. When the detectives asked him why he never came forward after her death, he said that he didn't want his wife to know that he and Elizabeth had been seeing each other. He admitted that he was infatuated with Elizabeth, but he would have never hurt her. He didn't have any reason to. After their second date, he didn't hear from her again until January 8th when she asked him to drive her to L.A. Red wanted to help her out, so he dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel and never saw her again. And detectives didn't have any proof that Red was involved, so they had to let him go. Over the

next few weeks, the media continued to cover her case and there was a lot of pressure for law enforcement to solve it. Women were terrified that they would become the next victim found dismembered in L.A., but detectives didn't have any suspects. And believe it or not, with the massive news coverage surrounding this case, around 60 people came forward claiming to have killed Elizabeth Short, but it was clear that these people had wanted their 15 minutes of fame because none of these confessions panned out. And it seemed like investigators weren't making much progress in the case. That was until the city editor, a man named James Richardson, received a phone call. The man on the other end asked James if he was the city editor, and when James confirmed, the caller told him.

Well, Mr. Richardson, I must congratulate you on what the examiner has done in the Black Dahlia case. I'll send you some of the things she had with her when she, shall we say, disappeared? See how far you can get with them. And now I must say goodbye. You may be trying to trace this call. James said that he felt a shiver down his spine after this phone call. Did he just speak to the Black Dahlia killer? Or was it another nobody trying to include themselves in this infamous investigation?

And soon enough, those questions would be answered. James did speak to Elizabeth's killer because the very next day, a Manila envelope came in addressed to the Los Angeles Medical Examiner. On it was cut and pasted clippings of different words from various newspapers. that read, here is Dahlia's belongings. Letter to follow. Detectives were shocked when they opened up the envelope because inside was Elizabeth's social security card, her birth certificate, pictures of her with different men, and her address book. They noticed that multiple pages had been ripped out inside of it, almost as if the killer didn't want his name inside.

And just two days later, the killer would send the follow-up letter, but this was written in his own handwriting. And the letter read, quote, here it is, turning in Wednesday, January 29th at 10 a.m. Had my fun with police, Black Dahlia Avenger. When the police read this letter, they were excited. The killer was finally going to turn himself in, and they could put the entire case behind them. Captain Jack Donahoe of the LAPD Homicide Unit would later say, We believe this postcard is from the killer and is legitimate and is the letter to follow. The fact this postcard was printed rather than letter with words cut out of newspapers also supports the story that the killer intends to turn himself into the police

and no longer needs to take pains to conceal his identity. According to Steve Hodel on his website and research of this case, quote, LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division analyzed the note in handwriting and determined that it had been written with a ballpoint pen with blue ink. In 1947, ballpoint pins had only been on the market for one year, and were both rare and expensive. They sold for around $12.50, equal to $125 today. So they were primarily used by doctors, physicians, business executives, and military officers.

Captain Donahoe responded with a public message aimed directly at the killer, printed in all of the LA Dailies. If you want to surrender, as indicated by the postcard now in our hands, I will meet you at any public location at any time or at the homicide detail office in the city, All. Communicate immediately by telephoning, MI-221, extension 2521, or by mail. But by Wednesday, no one had come in to make a confession. Instead, more cut and pasted letters would come into the police station reading, I will give up in Dahlia Killing if I get 10 years. Don't try to find me. And another one that read, have changed my mind. You would not give me a

square deal. Dalia killing justified. No one is positive that these letters came from the actual killer. It could have been someone from the press trying to keep her story alive, or it could have been someone toying with the police wanting to involve themselves in the investigation. But one thing that is for certain is that the Manila envelope with Elizabeth's belongings definitely was sent by her killer, and the search for that person would last for decades. The year 1947 would come and go, and then the 1950s and 60s, and the killer continued to day in the shadows, where he remains to this day. Everyone assumed that the case would eventually get solved, but there are still no real answers, and it's one of the biggest unsolved murders

in American history. But over the years, dozens and dozens of suspects were considered. We aren't going to go through all of them, but we are going to walk you through some of the primary suspects, and the people that we think are most likely to be Elizabeth's killer. All right, everybody, you know how much we love Hello Fresh here at the podcast, but I got to tell you guys, we really love Hello Fresh. But what is Hello Fresh? With Hello Fresh, you get fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun, and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. Hello Fresh offers 50 menu and market items to choose from every week, including vegetarian, calorie smart, and gourmet options, providing plenty of

of variety. Ingredients travel from farm to your door within a week, so you get the convenience without skimping on the quality. Plus, you can skip trips to the grocery store and avoid the long holiday lines. You can even get holiday meals on HelloFresh. Courtney and I have used HelloFresh for a very long time now, and I cannot endorse the company and the service enough. It helps around the holidays, especially when you're trying to get that turkey, those mashed potatoes, whatever you're out there eating. Because with Hello Fresh, all of those ingredients are shipped right to your front door right on time. They have recipes like balsamic and fig beef tenderloin or pecan-crusted salmon. They make holiday meals feel special

without the high cost of dining out or delivery. I got to tell all of you online, the balsamic and fig beef tenderloid is Courtney and I's favorite. We love spending time in the kitchen together cooking meals, especially around the holidays. So we cannot recommend HelloFresh enough. Go to hellofresh.com slash state 14 and use code state 14 for up to 14 free meals and three free gift. This is a limited time off for y'all, so go check out HelloFresh now. Let's get back to today's story. Now, throughout the investigation, there were a few main suspects that law enforcement were looking into. The first one was Red Manly, the last person to have communicated with Elizabeth before her death. And he was actually arrested at one point for her murder, but they eventually

had to release him because there just wasn't enough evidence. We aren't going to get into his story because we already mentioned it, but Red was married at the time, and some people have suggested that Elizabeth may have wanted him to leave his wife, or that she threatened to tell her about their relationship, which ended in him killing her. But the two had only known each other for a few weeks, so we aren't 100% convinced that Red could be the killer. Another interesting part of this case was that several women confessed to killing Elizabeth, including a woman named Christine Reynolds. She claimed that she and Elizabeth were romantically involved. Police actually had suspicions that Elizabeth was a lesbian, but these claims,

were never substantiated. Christine Reynolds, however, said that they had been dating for weeks when Elizabeth told her that she was leaving her for another woman, and she essentially snapped and killed her. Now, some of the details of her story didn't align with the facts of the case, but then she revealed something that caught investigators' attention. She said that after she killed Elizabeth, she cut off some of her hair and shoved it into her vagina, a fact that was never released to the media. A lot of times in investigations, the police won't reveal certain evidence so that when they do catch their killer, they will know those hidden details. So how did Christine Reynolds know this?

Well, it turns out, after a thorough interrogation, Christine finally admitted that someone in the LAPD had told her that information and that she didn't actually kill Elizabeth Short. Christine Reynolds would soon be another name amongst the dozens of people who falsely confessed to Elizabeth Short's murder. The next suspect was a man named Leslie Dillon, a 27-year-old hotel Bellhop in Los Angeles. The year after Elizabeth's murder in 1948, Leslie wrote a letter to an LAPD psychiatrist using the aliased Jack Sands.

In the letter, he alleged that a man named Jeff Connors killed Elizabeth Short. His reasoning was that he saw them together on multiple occasions and that they frequented the same bars. He also said that Jeff skipped town once the case started getting a lot of publicity. But investigators looked into this Jeff Connors, and they didn't believe. he was a likely suspect. Instead, they got the sense that the writer of these letters was the killer. Leslie mentioned in the letters that he was a sexual sadist, and the police would later search his apartment and find news clippings on stories of violence against women. And interestingly enough, the cafe where Elizabeth's shoes and purse were dumped after the murder was just two blocks

away from Leslie's home. In the vacant lot where her body was dumped was exactly the path, that Leslie would take when he would walk home every day. This information made him a likely suspect. So the doctor convinced Leslie to meet up with him, but little did he know it would be an undercover operation. Detectives were soon able to figure out his real name, Leslie Dillon, and they found out that he had been arrested for being a pimp, he was known to move around a lot,

he went by a ton of different aliases, and he was a former mortician's assistant. If you remember throughout the investigation, authorities always assumed that their killer had some sort of medical experience. Another compelling fact was that Leslie was known to stay at a place called the Astor Motel. And on the morning of January 15, 1947, the same day that Elizabeth was killed, the owners of this motel said that one of their rooms had been covered in blood and fecal matter. And something that hadn't been revealed at the time was that some people suggested that Elizabeth's killer had actually fed her,

feces during the torture. So it would make sense that there would be fecal matter around the room if this is where she was killed. And detectives wanted to know why the owner of the motel never came forward. He would later say that he had recently gone to jail for a domestic dispute with his wife, so he didn't call because he didn't want to get involved with the police. Witnesses would later come forward saying that a black-haired girl was staying in that room for about a week, and she seemed to be drugged and afraid. Then on January 15th, the girl was gone and the room was filled with blood and feces. And these witnesses would later say that the black-haired girl was indeed Elizabeth Short. Why they didn't mention it at the beginning of the investigation, we don't know. Other

witnesses would say that a dark-haired man was coming around the motel at that time too, a man that resembled Leslie's description. And this was pretty damning to detectives because in the letters that Leslie sent to the psychiatrist, he told them that he believed Elizabeth was killed in a hotel room. They also said that Leslie knew information about her death that was not yet released to the public, like the fact that her hair was shoved into her vagina. Police tried to verify Leslie's whereabouts from January 9th to January 15th, but there were no records of him anywhere. Was it because he was in that room with Elizabeth that week?

Torturing her and cutting up her body? It's definitely a possibility. In the book Black Dahlia Red Rose, the crime corruption and cover-up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder, the author and British attorney P.O. Marie Eatwell is convinced that Leslie Dillon was involved in Elizabeth Short's murder. In the book, she points out that Leslie was associated with members of a gang that would rob hotels. In this gang, they would get one of its members to be hired as a bellhop, and as soon as the bellhop figured out where the hotel's safe was, he would quit, tell the gang where the safe was located, and then they would rob it just days later.

There are also several witness accounts of Elizabeth hanging out with members of this gang. Eatwell theorizes that Elizabeth knew too much about this hotel robbery scheme, and that someone in the gang hired Leslie to kill her. Then afterwards, fearing that it would eventually catch up to him, Leslie writes into the police station using an alias to try and point the investigation away from him. Now, we definitely believe Leslie Dillon was a compelling suspect in this case, but the LAPD never had enough to arrest him, so he was never charged with her murder.

After everything, Leslie tried to sue the LAPD for $100,000, but he later dropped the lawsuit because he was wanted in Santa Monica for robbing a hotel safe when he worked there as a bellhop. Now, we definitely think that Leslie could have had something to do with Elizabeth's murder, but we also believe that this next suspect could have been involved too. It was 55-year-old Mark Hansen from Denmark, and he was a suspected member of the hotel robbery gang that we just mentioned. He was also associated with Leslie Dillion

and was involved in prostitution, drugs, illegal abortion clinics, and racketeering. But on paper, Mark worked as a Hollywood nightclub owner and a motion picture theater owner. Detectives started looking into Mark as Elizabeth's killer the moment that they opened the envelope that the killer sent with all of her belongings inside. because on her address book written in gold on the very front was the name Mark Hansen. And authorities were wondering, what is a nightclub owner's address book doing in the possession

of a murdered woman? Well, Mark was very high up in the Los Angeles scene, and he was known for hosting large parties full of drugs, booze, and women. One of the women that regularly attended his parties was Elizabeth Short. The two had met in October of 1946 a few months before Elizabeth left for San Diego. Mark heard that Elizabeth was always behind on rent and that she barely ever had any money, and he thought that she was beautiful, so he offered her a room at one of his places. Mark was obsessed with Elizabeth and had attempted to have sex with her on multiple occasions, but she always turned him down, and he didn't like that too much because, in his mind, sex was a given since he was giving her a place to live. He also didn't like the fact that Elizabeth

was constantly bringing men over, so he ended up kicking her out just after 10 days of her living there, but not long after, Elizabeth ended up back on his porch crying and begging to stay with him, because have anywhere else to go. And Mark agreed. This next time, Elizabeth showed more of an interest in Mark. She would flirt and clean up after him and get jealous when he talked to other women. They both liked each other, but they were also both seeing other people. On one occasion, Mark brought home a woman, and Elizabeth got very angry. She started screaming at the woman, calling her a tramp, and the two even got into a fist fight. Right after, Mark kicked Elizabeth out for good. Over the next few weeks, Elizabeth kind of floated around L.A., staying with different

people trying to make ends meet. And the day that she left for San Diego, witnesses recalled Elizabeth being very anxious about something, almost like she was trying to get out of town, because she was scared of someone. After Elizabeth was found murdered and her address book linked her to Mark Hanson, detectives were definitely suspicious of him. But they were also suspicious because Mark had gone to medical school in Denmark when he was younger. He also had multiple pictures of Elizabeth in his home after her death. But in my opinion, some of the most damning evidence against Mark has to do with the Astor Motel. Remember how the owner said that Elizabeth Short was staying there right before the room was covered in blood? Well, there was another man staying there, and the room right next to hers.

Witnesses said that the man had a lot of luggage with him. He was around 50 years old, and he spoke with some sort of foreign accent. The man had a large nose, dark gray hair, was around 5'9, 160 pounds, and he dressed in nice clothing, which is pretty much the exact description of Mark Hansen. The guest was also visiting different nightclubs throughout his stay and returning with large suitcases, and Mark Hansen owned nightclubs throughout L.A. So two investigators,

it seemed like Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen worked together to kill Elizabeth at the Astor Hotel. The two were known to associate with one another, and according to Eatwell's theory, Mark could have been the person that ordered Leslie to kill her. Mark and Leslie knew Elizabeth. Men matching their descriptions were seen at the motel where Elizabeth was allegedly murdered. And they both had medical experience. This was one of the first promising leads that investigators had in their entire investigation.

And it seemed like Leslie and Mark were their killers. But on the very day that detectives were supposed to take the witness statements, The ones that placed Leslie and Mark at the crime scene, the higher-ups and the LAPD shut it all down. The LAPD is notorious for their corruption, and who knows? Maybe someone in the department realized that they were getting a little too close to the killer, which makes sense, because it was well-known around town that Mark Hansen worked with corrupt Cox, and two in particular were named Finnis Brown and Harry Hansen. Mark and Harry had no relation, but these cops were known to be horrible people.

They were notorious for getting leads and immediately leaking them to the press. They would hang people over the edge of bridges to get them to confess to crimes. They would beat suspects all the time, and they worked with Mark Hansen. Apparently, Mark would let them know who the local drug dealers were, and then the cops would bust them and steal all of their money. These detectives were very close to Mark, and they were often. and seen at his lavish parties. But even more concerning, these two cops were the lead detectives on Dalia's case. According to Buzz Williams, a retired detective with the Long Beach Police Department, Mark Hanson owned a Ford Lincoln car lot in Hollywood. And after this alleged cover-up,

all of the LAPD officers associated with him were driving around in brand-new Lincoln vehicles. And if that doesn't scream guilty to you, then I don't know what, Well, now a lot of people believed that Leslie Dillian and Mark Hansen were involved in Elizabeth's murder, but there are also a good amount of people out there that believe she could have been killed by a serial killer, one that you may have heard of before. He's called the Cleveland Torso Killer, a man who terrorized Cleveland, Ohio, by killing and dismembering at least 12 men and women in the late 1930s. And there are a few striking similarities between his killings in Cleveland and the Black Dahlia murder. They both involved dismemberment, they were both dumped in public places,

and the killers were both suspected to have medical knowledge. The Cleveland torso killings stopped abruptly in the late 1930s, and many people believed he may have relocated out west and that the Black Dahlia was his final victim, but we aren't 100% convinced of this. You see, there is a near 10-year gap between the torso killings and Black Dahlia, and there are more than one discrepancies between the two cases. For instance, the killer and the torso murders always decapitated his victims,

and Elizabeth, though dismembered, wasn't decapitated. The torso killer also targeted drifters, prostitutes, and people in poverty. And because of this, only two of his victims were ever positively identified. The remaining 10 were left as John and Jane Does. He targeted those people because they were easy to lure and law enforcement wouldn't spend a lot of time looking for them. But Elizabeth didn't really fit this victimology. Although she could be considered a drifter and she was poor, she had somewhat of a status in Los Angeles. She hung out frequently with distinguished people, always looked very nice and people noticed when she went missing.

which didn't match the victim's profiles of the torso killings, so we don't believe that they're connected. Now, this next case in the eyes of a law is not connected to the Black Dahlia murder, but it is interesting. On February 10, 1947, less than a month after Elizabeth was killed, another woman named Jean French was found murdered in Los Angeles, and there were a lot of similarities in their cases. For instance, Jean was beautiful with dark black hair,

and she was found nude in a vacant lot, just feet off the main road, and she too had pre- and post-mortem injuries, though she wasn't cut in half. But she did have horrible injuries to her face just like Elizabeth, and the weirdest part of all, whoever killed Jean wrote on her body in red lipstick, fuck you, B.D. Most people assume that the BD meant the Black Dahlia, especially since it was just weeks after her murder. But the police claimed that they didn't have enough evidence to connect the cases. Did the Black Dahlia's killer strike again, or could it have been a copycat killing?

We aren't really sure, but a lot of people do think that they are connected. everybody please this is not an ad this is the final time we are gonna well i guess we have one or two more episodes where i can put this message in here y'all we are so close to two million plays on murder in america and i really want to give courtney this gift of two million plays as a i don't know it's going to be i guess past christmas but a belated christmas gift and she doesn't know that i'm putting these messages into the episode so tell everybody you know about murder in america please shout out our show on your Instagram, on your Twitter, on your Facebook. Wherever you're going, whoever you're saying, be sure to tell them about murder in America.

Also, if you guys don't follow Murder in America on Twitter and Instagram yet, we're also trying to hit 10,000 followers on Instagram. We're almost there. We just hit 8,000 the other day, so we only need 2,000 more of y'all to head there and give us a follow. We cannot thank everybody enough for listening. Seriously, at the beginning of this, year like we mentioned in one of our previous episodes Courtney and I thought if we can hit a

million plays this year we will be happy but we're almost at two million so regardless of how many plays we get we cannot thank all of you enough for joining in on this crazy journey that Courtney and I have been on together the entire year 2021 has been weird and 2020 was very weird but let's make 2022 a bad ass year together anyways y'all thank you so much and uh let's finish this story out. In the years, many people would come forward claiming to have killed Elizabeth, but they were all false confessions. Decades would pass, and although no one ever forgot about the Black Dahlia murder, they

never came any closer to solving it. The main suspects, Red Manly, Leslie Dillon, and Mark Hansen would eventually all pass away, and as the years went on, it seemed like the Black Dahlia murder would never get solved, that it would go on to be one of America's greatest mysteries. But then, in 1999, the death of a 91-year-old man would shed light on a new suspect in the Black Dahlia case. But before we get into that suspect, we have to introduce you to a man named Steve Hodel.

Steve was born in November of 1941, and he was raised in Los Angeles, California. When Steve was 22 years old, he decided to join the LAPD, Like most cops, he started with uniform patrol, then after a few years he was transferred to robbery and theft, and then finally, homicide. Steve loved his job and would work over 300 homicide investigations within his career. Steve was just a young boy when Elizabeth Short was murdered, and when he started working with the LAPD, he was well aware of her case, the case that his department was never able to solve. But Steve is in the main part of the story. His father, George, however, is.

Towards the late 1990s, Steve got word that his father's health was declining, and being that he was in his 90s, he knew that his father wouldn't be around much longer. So, let's take a look into George's life. George Hodel was very respected in the Los Angeles community when Steve was younger. He came from family money, so he was very wealthy all throughout his life. He was also very smart, with an IQ of 186, so when he reached adulthood, he went off to medical school, where he studied to become a surgeon. Afterwards, he opened up a venereal disease clinic in Los Angeles, where he was known to work with the famous people of Hollywood. With his family money and the money from his practice, George started a family, and eventually his son Steve Hodel came along. Steve was just one of George's 11 children from five different women, and he and his siblings all lived in a huge mansion in Hollywood.

The mansion almost looked like a temple and was very unique from all the other houses in the city. Steve Hodel also recalled that his father's mansion was a place where stars, directors, and the big. names of Hollywood would all come to party. It was a kid's dream, having your father as such a respected and powerful man in Hollywood. And to explain a little bit more about the house, it was designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It's a labyrinth, referred to as a Gothic pile in Los Angeles. Its twisting hallways seem to go on forever, and it's massive. But then, in 1999, Steve's father, George, would pass away at 91 years old. After George's death, Steve and his stepmother June spent some time going through his father's things.

June had been married to George for over 30 years, and she and Steve spent one evening looking through his pictures, laughing at memories, and just reminiscing on his life. And randomly, on that day, June pulls out a small little handheld photo album, and she tells Steve, quote, I think your father would want you to have this. End quote. Steve had never seen the album before, so he started flipping through it. And on one of the pages, he sees two pictures of a woman. She's beautiful with dark curly hair, pale skin, and she has a flower in her hair.

She looked familiar, but Steve couldn't remember exactly where he knew her from. So he asks June, who is this woman? To which she replies, I don't know, someone he knew from a long time ago. Steve would study the picture a little longer, and then suddenly it hit him. He was looking at a picture of Elizabeth Short. Not only did it look just like her, but behind her in the picture was a Chinese statue, the same statue that his father used to have in his Hollywood mansion. Steve knew that there was more to this story, and before long he knew he had to get some answers.

What was his father doing with pictures of a woman who was found brutally murdered? So he tapped into his old homicide detective mind, and he started doing some research. He pulled from old newspapers, he talked to people that were knowledgeable on the, the case, and he even started talking to his siblings about the kind of person his father really was. And although George Hodel was respected in his community, some of his children did not think very highly of him, including Steve's sister, Tamar Hodel. She said that when she was just 11 years old, her father, George, brought her into a room

and sexually assaulted her, saying that he just wanted to teach her how to give oral sex. George also had a friend named Man Ray, who was a famous photographer, and he would often come by and take pictures for the Hodel family. But afterwards, he would allegedly undress George's daughter, Tamar, and take nude pictures of her when she was only 12 years old. And George just let it happen. George had another friend named John Houston, who was a big Hollywood movie director, and he was also handsy with Tamar. She said that John would always come over to her father's house, and on one occasion, he lunged at Tamar, pinned her on the ground, and as he was about to rape her, her stepmom came in and stopped it.

Another strange thing about the Hodel's childhood was that their father had a forbidden room inside the mansion, that Steve nor his siblings were ever allowed to go in. Steve and Tamar recall that young and beautiful women were constantly coming in and out of their father's room, and Steve got to wondering, could Elizabeth Short have been one of these women? Tamar would end up telling one of her friends named Michelle Phillips about her father's sexual assault.

And afterwards, when Michelle would come to visit, she said that George would give her this look that would chill her to her core. It was almost as if he knew that she was aware of their dark secret, and he would look at her like he wanted to. to kill her. It wouldn't be long until Tamar decided to run away from home when she was just a teenager. She didn't want to be around her father anymore because, unfortunately, the sexual abuse got worse. George started having intercourse with his daughter, and he would also offer her up to his friends in different orgies that they had at their house. Tamar eventually had enough, so she ran

away and went straight to the police station to tell them about the abuse. The very next day, the police would show up at the Hodel home and arrest George for incest. At his trial, many family members got together in support of George and told the jury that Tamar lied about the sexual abuse. And unfortunately, after just 45 minutes, they came back with a verdict, not guilty. In the eyes of the law, George Hodel was an innocent man. But law enforcement at the time wasn't so sure about that. You see, after George was arrested, a tip was sent in to the L.A.B. PD that George knew Elizabeth Short. Investigators even told Tamar at the time that they were looking into her father for Elizabeth Short's murder. Now, Tamar never told her younger brother Steve about this,

but when he came to her with his suspicions, she told him that she had been asking herself those same questions for decades. And suddenly, the pieces of the puzzle were starting to come together. Steve began looking into everything that had to do with the Black Dahlia case, and one thing immediately stuck out to him. It was the handwritten letter that the killer sent to police that read Turning in Wednesday, January 9th, 10 a.m. Had my fun with the police, Black Dahlia Avenger. When Steve looked at that letter, he couldn't believe his eyes. It was undeniably his father's handwriting, and he knew right then and there that his father was Elizabeth Short's killer. Now, a handwriting expert could not confirm that the handwriting matched, but Steve continued

to look for answers. And he even called up his old friend, District Attorney Stephen K. He told Stephen about everything he had discovered, and Stephen himself was shocked at the amount of compelling evidence against George Hodel. And they decided to open up the Black Dahlia case file. Apparently, it had been sitting away in the DA's office, collecting dust for over 50 years. When Stephen Stevens started to go through it, they immediately find a picture of George Hodel. He had been a suspect the entire time. In fact, just two years after Elizabeth's murder, investigators started zeroing in on Dr. George Hodel as their prime suspect. In the files, they also find a witness account of a woman claiming that George knew Elizabeth very well, so Steve decides to contact a man named

Walter Morgan, who worked for the DA at that time and was in charge of Elizabeth's case, and Walter had a lot to say about Dr. George Hodel. He said that they were so convinced that George was responsible for her murder, that he and some other cops illegally snuck into George's mansion and planted listening devices all throughout the home. They would listen to every single word the doctor said over the next 40 days. And at one point, George stated, "'Suppose, and I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead.'" The secretary that Dr. George mentioned was Ruth Spalding, who died of an overdose while working for the doctor. Many people believe that George Hodel

killed Ruth as well because she simply knew too much. And although it seemed like investigators were getting somewhere in their case against George, randomly, in 1950, even after hearing what George said on those listening devices, investigators dropped him as a suspect, saying that, quote, their evidence tends to eliminate him. But now looking at this, Steve and the DA are wondering why they would have ever eliminated him after hearing what he said. Even further, George is heard saying another thing on those listening devices.

That is pretty damning. He says this. This is the best payoff I've seen between law enforcement agencies. I'd like to get a connection made in the DA's office. This made it very clear that there was some corruption going on in the LAPD at the time and that someone in the force was covering things up for the doctor. Now, an expert ended up comparing the pictures that Steve found in his father's belongings to a picture of Elizabeth, and they weren't able to conclusively say that they were the same people.

But regardless, what Steve uncovered afterwards gave him all of the information he needed. He's confident that his father was responsible for Elizabeth's death. And the chief of police during Elizabeth's murder would even go on to say that Elizabeth's killer was a doctor in Hollywood that lived on Franklin Avenue, the very street where George Hodel lived. but nothing ever came of it. And in 1950, investigators stopped looking for Elizabeth's killer entirely, despite the enormous amount of evidence against the guy they knew was responsible. Dr. George Hodel.

This is a tragic story, a story of a young woman who wanted to go and follow her dreams. She left her hometown after World War II, and she went off to Hollywood to try and make something of herself. And she didn't have an easy journey. Elizabeth struggled with money. She didn't have a secure place to live or a big support system, and someone out there took advantage of that. They saw that she was vulnerable, so they tortured and brutally killed her.

They cut her body in half, and they laid it out for the world to see. But even after her death, Elizabeth Short was victimized. The media portrayed her as a prostitute, a Hollywood wannabe, and a man-crazed delinquent. But the truth is, she was a young woman. young woman trying to make it in this world just like you and I. Elizabeth was not only let down by her killer in the media, but she was heavily let down by the LAPD. The people responsible for finding her killer were more interested in money and status than

they were for getting Elizabeth justice. As we mentioned earlier in our story, many cops at the time in Los Angeles were working with gangsters. Police brutality was at its highest, and you could literally get away with anything if you had enough money. And someone out there did have that kind of money, because as the years passed, all of the physical evidence in Elizabeth Short's case has disappeared. It's nowhere to be found, making it to where we will probably never know just who killed the Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia, a name that haunts the city of Los Angeles. The Black Dahlia has become a symbol.

She's become a myth. The Black Dahlia Elizabeth Short has become a legend. She's been featured in many movies, and this case has been covered in many stories, including recently American Horror Story, if you watch that show. And I actually, a couple years ago, visited the location where Elizabeth Short's body was found in Los Angeles. Nowadays, it's the front yard of a house. It's not a vacant lot anymore.

It's in an average-looking neighborhood, in an average suburb of L.A. And it's eerie to think that so many years ago, somebody who's never really been caught, who's never really been brought to justice, was dumping Elizabeth Short's body right there on the ground. While I was in L.A., I actually stayed in the Biltmore Hotel as well, where Elizabeth Short was last seen. We did some paranormal investigating and tried to contact her spirit. Unfortunately, nothing happened. We received no communication from her spirit. I wonder if she ever does hang out in those old glitzy bars that still.

stand to this day. I actually know of a lot of ghost stories that involve the Black Dahlia. It seems that her unrestful spirit has been cited many times throughout the city of Los Angeles after her murder. And I think that the only way that her spirit, if it's out there, if she is haunting those glamorous bars and hotel lobbies, the only way that spirit could finally rest would be for her killer to finally be brought to justice. But at this point, here at the podcast, we're highly doubtful that that will ever happen. It seems like the Black Dahlia murder will forever be one of America's most notorious and most mysterious murder mysteries.

All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to this week's very important murder in America episode. The Black Dahlia case has been one that has interested Courtney and I since the beginning of our podcast, and it's really crazy that there's no answer because it is such a notorious crime. In fact, we have a photo that has to do with the case on our fridge that we picked up at the Museum of Death in New Orleans. So it's a case that really matters to us. And hopefully one day we can get some sort of an answer for Elizabeth Short.

I feel so bad for her so many years on that nobody has been convicted of the crime. Anyways, I'm doing the outro alone this week because I'm still in Nevada. And Courtney and I had to record this in two different parts. So here I am in my hotel room in Las Vegas at the paranormal convention reading this out to y'all. I want to thank everybody. Actually, Courtney and I want to thank everybody that signed up to become a patron this week, Desiree, Jennifer Lecoacher, Akirs, Rachel, Keena, McLemore, Edwin, Philip Mason, and William Walter. We have that bonus episode on there. And this week's bonus episode, or this month, I should say, is crazy. And next month, I stumbled across an insane story when I was headed to bed that is just, I've never heard of it, and it blew my mind. But thank you all. so much. You can become a patron at Patreon. You can just look up Murder in America. There's tons of bonus content on there and we love interacting with y'all. As a reminder, go follow us on Instagram at Murder in America and be sure to share this episode and this show with everybody you know and love

because we're trying to hit that two million baby. But from Courtney and I, thanks for listening. And as always, just like I stated at the end of this episode, keep asking that same old question. The Dead Don't Talk. Or do it. See on the next one, everybody, for a Christmas holiday special.