Murder: True Crime Stories - UNSOLVED: The Black Dahlia 2

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

For decades, the murder of Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, went unsolved. But in 1999, a retired LAPD detective made a shocking announcement. He believed he knew who murdered Elizabeth: his father. Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original. For more, follow us on Tiktok and Instagram @crimehouse To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. In the 1940s, cities like Los Angeles were deceivingly glamorous. Sure, there was sunshine, shoreline, and nightlife, but that was just what people saw on the surface. shoreline and nightlife, but that was just what people saw on the surface. In reality, that facade was upheld by conmen, conspirators, and killers. Hollywood explored its own seedy underbelly through a new genre called film noir. And while these black and white crime thrillers were mostly fiction, they drew inspiration from real life. When 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was found murdered in Hollywood in 1947, she was dubbed the Black Dahlia for her ink-black hair and all-black clothes. The investigation into Elizabeth's

death unearthed details that were so shocking, they seem like a film noir movie. The fact that they were true only made Elizabeth's death all the more horrifying. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. You don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories,

a Crime House original. And this is Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original. Every Tuesday, I'll explore the story of a notorious murder or murders. At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And for ad-free and early access to murder true crime stories, plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. Please be advised that this episode includes graphic descriptions of death and murder, including bodily mutilation and sexual exploitation.

Listener discretion is advised. This is our second and final episode on the Black Dahlia murder, an unsolved case that has haunted America for 77 years. Last week, we told the story of Elizabeth Short's journey to the City of Angels, where her big dreams were cut short. Today, we'll follow the investigation into her murder and the surprising person who revived her case decades later. Hey everyone, it's Carter. I have a favor to ask you. If you are enjoying Murder True Crime Stories,

I would be honored if you took a moment to rate and review us on Apple and Spotify. Your valuable feedback helps us improve and expand our reach so other true crime fans can find us too. Your support means everything. On the morning of January 15th, 1947, Will Fowler, a reporter for the Los Angeles Examiner, was driving back to his office with a staff photographer. They'd just finished covering an assignment nearby. Always ready for the next story, Fowler's shortwave radio rested on the dashboard set to the police channel. Suddenly, the two men heard chatter. The officer on the radio said there was a Code 2 between 39th and Coliseum streets.

The men knew Code 2 meant officers should head to the scene as quickly as possible without lights or sirens. They usually did this to prevent drawing attention to public intoxication or indecent exposure. Fowler and his co-worker rushed to the scene. They were surprised to find they were there before law enforcement. They scanned the vacant lots next to the intersection, expecting to spot someone stumbling around drunk. As Fowler paced outside his vehicle, he noticed something in the grass near the sidewalk. He looked closer and realized it was a woman. She was naked and appeared to be dead.

Fowler took a step closer, then stopped in his tracks. The woman wasn't just dead. She'd been cut in half. The woman was so badly mutilated she was unrecognizable. It looked like someone had beaten her to a pulp, cut her in half at the waist, and slashed the corners of her mouth. Then they positioned her body. Her bottom half was carefully aligned with her torso and her arms were raised

above her head, both slightly bent but symmetrical to each other. Fowler and his colleagues got as close to the body as possible, quickly taking notes and photographs. Soon officers and other reporters swarmed the scene. Amid the chaos, Fowler slipped to a nearby payphone and called his editor, Jim Richardson. He told Richardson everything he knew. Then he and the photographer rushed back to the examiner offices, where the newsroom was already abuzz. They got to work on their breaking story. already abuzz. They got to work on their breaking story. Meanwhile, Captain Jack Donahoe, the chief of homicide, sent Detective Harry Hansen to the crime scene. Hansen joined the LAPD in 1926 and now in 1947, supervised most homicide investigations in his district.

Hansen considered murder scenes to be sacred ground and thought they should be treated as such. This included refraining from touching the body or the area around it. When he arrived at the heavily disturbed crime scene, he was livid, especially when he saw the state of the victim's body. Immediately, Hansen could tell this was an extremely violent murder. Yet whoever left this woman here had posed her intentionally. Based on the level of dismemberment, Hansen knew this was a rage killing. But most rage killers dumped their victims' bodies carelessly. Not this one.

Hansen's next step was getting a forensic assessment before the crowd of reporters and other officers compromised things further. He called the head of the crime lab, Ray Pinker. He called the head of the crime lab, Ray Pinker. Pinker showed up around noon and quickly determined that the victim had been dead for at least 10 hours. He noted the surgical precision of her dismemberment, most notably the clean and even spinal bisection. Based on this detail, Pinker believed that only a trained surgeon could have murdered her. In addition, there were rope marks around her neck and signs of blunt force trauma to her head. It appeared she had been tortured for hours before she died, and not just physically, but psychologically.

This next detail is pretty disturbing if you want to skip ahead 15 seconds. As well as the beatings, Pinker found evidence that the killer had forced the woman to eat feces before she died. The only identifying feature he could discern was a small amount of wax the woman had used to conceal her dental cavities. This told investigators that she didn't have a lot of money. With hardly anything to go on, investigators now faced the challenge of identifying the woman who had been labeled Jane Doe. Hansen believed her extensive facial injuries were the killer's way of preventing anyone from recognizing her. It didn't help that her fingerprints were too wrinkled to get an accurate record. Pinker determined that her entire body was immersed in water for an extended period

of time at some point before her murder. But there was no other way to ID her, so Pinker applied some ink to Jane Doe's fingertips and transferred her prints onto a card. But at the time, the LAPD didn't have a way to cross-analyze the prints, so Pinker mailed the car to the FBI. Meanwhile, just one hour after Jane Doe's body was taken to the morgue, a special edition of the Los Angeles Examiner came hot off the press. It included a front-page photo of the crime scene, retouched to conceal the gruesome injuries. By the next morning, every paper in the city had the story plastered across their front pages. For the Examiner, this was just the beginning. Examiner editor Jim Richardson somehow caught wind that the LAPD had mailed Jane Doe's prints to Washington.

On January 16th, he contacted Captain Donahoe and said the paper could help. Richardson knew there were snowstorms on the East Coast and it would be a while before the FBI received the prints. So he offered to let Donahoe wire a copy of Jane Doe's prints to the FBI using the paper's sound photo machine. This was the newest, fastest way to wire images. Think of it like a fax machine. Donahoe took Richardson up on his offer. Once the FBI received a clear image of the prints, it only took them one hour to identify the victim. Back in 1943, a young woman had been caught drinking underage on an army base just outside Santa Barbara, and her fingerprints were shared with the FBI. When the FBI received Jane Doe's prints from the LAPD, they found a match. The victim's name was Elizabeth Short.

Detectives tried to keep this under wraps, especially now that they were trying to find Elizabeth's family. The news of her death would be excruciating, and they wanted to handle the matter with care. Unfortunately, examiner reporters were also on the case, and they worked faster than detectives. On January 17th or 18th, just a few days after Elizabeth's body was found, a reporter named Wayne Sutton used Elizabeth's arrest record to learn she was from Medford, Massachusetts. Then, he used the Medford information line to get her mother's phone number. Jim Richardson brought Wayne into an office and instructed him to call Elizabeth's mother, Phoebe.

But he wanted him to lie to her and say he was calling because Elizabeth had won a beauty pageant. That way, they could get as much information out of her as possible before telling her the truth. It was a disgusting strategy that completely ignored how traumatic Elizabeth's murder was for her family. It also showed a total lack of respect for Elizabeth, even in death. Elizabeth Short's murder was making waves across the country, but newspapers were referring to her as the Black Dahlia. She got the nickname because of her ink black hair, the all black clothes she wore, and the fact that the film The Blue Dahlia was popular at the time. Even if Phoebe had seen reports of the Black Dahlia murder because of the nickname She may not have realized the woman in question was her daughter So when she found out the truth from Wayne, she was in shock She might have been trying to piece things together out loud

Because she told him that on January 8th A man her daughter referred to as Red picked her up in San Diego and drove her back to Los Angeles. Richardson wasted no time. He enlisted two reporters to drive south to San Diego. It didn't take long for them to make a game-changing discovery. What sets Mind of a Serial Killer apart is its focus on the twisted psychology of the world's most notorious serial killers. Names like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, the Night Stalker, featuring expert psychological analysis from licensed clinical and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristan Engels. Mind of a Serial Killer will take you into their stories like never before.

So get ready to uncover what drives someone to commit the unimaginable. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original. New episodes drop every Monday. Just search Mind of a Serial Killer and follow wherever you listen to podcasts. you listen to podcasts. If you're fascinated by the darker sides of humanity, join us every week on our podcast, Serial Killers, where we go deep into notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree.

Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts and get new episodes every Monday. On January 18th, 1947, two reporters from the Los Angeles Examiner drove from LA to San Diego in pursuit of a man named Red. They'd just gotten a tip that this person knew Elizabeth Short, and they wondered if he was involved in her murder. The reporters stopped at motels along the route, checking the guest registers in case Elizabeth and Red had stopped off at one. In those days, the police gave some reporters badges from the sheriff's office to help smooth over any scuffles with the law or gain access to restricted crime scenes. And since the examiner reporters had those badges, motel clerks easily handed over their registers. When reporters gave the clerk at the Mecca Motel a description of Elizabeth, he remembered her. But not from January 8th.

He recalled Elizabeth coming in with a man back in mid-December. Elizabeth Short had checked in with a man named Robert Morris Manley on December 16th, 1946, a little over a month before she was killed. To top it off, Manley had provided his home address. The reporters hopped back into their car and raced to Manley's house in San Diego. While they were on the road, their colleagues interviewed some of Elizabeth's acquaintances. That's how they learned she had checked luggage at a bus station at some point. The examiner contacted Captain Jack Donahoe, the chief of homicide, and told him what they learned. For the most part, they said they would tell him where the luggage was, but only if officers opened the bags in the newsroom so reporters could document everything.

Donahoe was indignant, but the luggage could be a huge break, so he caved. Inside, there were some of her clothes, photos of her, and letters from several boyfriends. But the letters were mostly romantic musings. Nothing in them shed new light on Elizabeth's life. Investigators spoke to the man Elizabeth wrote to, but it doesn't seem they learned anything groundbreaking. But maybe the reporters in San Diego would. Later that day on January 18th, the examiner's staff arrived at Robert Manley's house.

Manley wasn't home, but his wife was. She informed them that her husband was on a business trip and would return the next day. The reporters knew Donahoe would want to know what they'd learned, so they called him up and gave him the rundown, including his address. Then they phoned their colleagues at the examiner. They told them they could name Manley as a suspect in Elizabeth Short's murder. The following day, January 19th, LAPD detectives pulled up to Manley's house in San Diego. He still wasn't back from his business trip, so they waited outside until he

returned. Then they ambushed him. Manley maintained his innocence, but agreed to go to the station for questioning. But once Manley was in the interrogation room, he suddenly clammed up. Detective Harry Hansen and Captain Donahoe seemed to think only one person had a shot at getting Manley to tell his side of the story. That person was Aggie Underwood, a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Express. Not only was Aggie an excellent reporter, but she was a woman. Donahoe figured she could use her feminine charm to coax Manley to talk. Apparently, the idea wasn't as silly as it might sound. Author Donald Wolfe wrote that Aggie used a motherly angle to make Manley feel comfortable with her. And it worked. Manley told her everything. He said he met Elizabeth about a month prior when he was in San Diego on business.

He was driving around one day when he saw her standing alone on a street corner. He was driving around one day when he saw her standing alone on a street corner. He pulled up and asked if he could drive her home. Elizabeth declined, but Manley was persistent and eventually she accepted. They chatted casually in the car, and when they arrived at the house where Elizabeth was staying, he asked her out. When talking to police, Manley was forthright about the fact that he was unfaithful to his wife. Elizabeth said yes, and they hung out a few times after that, but Manley never mentioned if things progressed beyond friendship. However, the fact that they checked into a motel together suggests it was possible.

And we do know that on January 8th, Elizabeth asked Manley to take her back to LA. He agreed, and they arrived there on the 9th. He dropped her off at the Biltmore, a luxurious hotel that hosted the Academy Awards up until 1943. Elizabeth told Manley she was meeting her sister there. At 6.30 p.m., Manley left and drove back home to San Diego, about two hours away. Elizabeth's body was found on January 15th. According to Manley, between January 9th and 14th, he carried on as usual, working during the day and going home at night. Things went on this way until the cops came

knocking, and that was that. Manley was adamant that he didn't kill Elizabeth. Detectives looked into his story, and everything checked out. The hotel staff placed him there on the 9th and his wife and colleagues corroborated the next few days. Robert Manley was cleared. Elizabeth's next known sighting was in LA on January 14th, just one day before her body was found. L.A. on January 14th, just one day before her body was found. LAPD officer Mereel McBride was patrolling the downtown area on foot when Elizabeth came running out of a nearby bar. She was sobbing and looked scared. McBride tried to calm her down. Through tears, the young woman said that one of her former suitors had just threatened to kill her. McBride took Elizabeth back into the bar to find the man, but he was gone.

After that, Elizabeth and McBride parted ways. McBride never knew Elizabeth's name until it was on the front page of every newspaper, and no one ever learned who the man was that had scared her so badly. From there, Elizabeth's movements were a mystery. Detectives waited for more information and sure enough, on January 25th, they received key evidence. Someone mailed a suspicious envelope to the examiner. Inside, they found Elizabeth's birth certificate, social security card, and an address book with contact information for 75 men. As usual, reporters documented everything before handing the items over to the LAPD. everything before handing the items over to the LAPD. The examiner had inserted itself into Elizabeth's investigation from the very beginning. Captain Donahoe had tried to get them to back

down, but the reporters were insistent. Plus, they had given his department an important lead with Manley, but the FBI was also involved and they were growing tired of the examiner tampering with evidence. The reporter's fingerprints were all over the envelope. On top of that, federal investigators suspected officers from the LAPD were leaking information to the press. The contaminated envelope was the last straw for the FBI. After that, the FBI ordered LA authorities to stop giving reporters access to the investigation. It was crazy to think how much damage the examiner and other papers had already done when it came to Elizabeth's case. It's possible the FBI could have put a stop to it if they'd gotten involved earlier.

But when it came to the envelope, it didn't matter in the end. Whoever sent the envelope had soaked everything in gasoline, meaning they couldn't ID the fingerprints. However, the cover of the address book had a name spelled out in gold letters. Mark Hansen. Not to be confused with Detective Harry Hansen, Mark Hansen was a well-known LA nightclub owner. He was also good friends with another homicide detective. One day after Elizabeth's body was found, Mark Hansen came into the station to give a statement. He told police that he and Elizabeth were friends.

She'd even stayed at his house before. But detectives had no reasonable cause to keep Mark at the station, so they let him go. It's not clear whether the police questioned Mark again after they saw the address book. It's possible his friends on the force protected him. Over the next year, investigators questioned hundreds of potential suspects, including the men listed in the address book, but none were charged. Detective Hansen also tracked down Elizabeth's father, Cleo Short, but didn't get anything useful out of him.

In October 1948, over a year since Elizabeth's murder, the LAPD decided to change tactics. Dr. Paul D. River, a psychiatrist consultant to the LAPD, wrote a cover story for the pulp crime magazine True Detective. The article was based on Elizabeth Short's murder, but it wasn't completely factual. D. River intentionally baited the killer by describing them as studious and scientific. Not long after, D. River received a letter from a reader who knew gruesome details about the murder that hadn't been revealed to the public. D. River and this person wrote back and forth for a while. River and this person wrote back and forth for a while. Over time, he managed to gather enough personal information for the LAPD to determine the reader was a 27-year-old man named Leslie Dillon. Detectives started searching for Dillon. They questioned Elizabeth's friends and associates

about him. At least one person remembered seeing them together at the Astor Motel in LA. The motel had a seedy reputation. The owner, Henry Hoffman, had a history of evading the law, but when they showed up to ask him about Elizabeth and Dylan, he had no problem talking. Little did they know, it would topple the entire investigation. In late 1949, LAPD investigators spoke with the owner of the Astor Motel, Henry Hoffman. They wanted to know if Elizabeth Short had ever visited the motel with Leslie Dillon, their latest suspect. Detectives asked Hoffman to think back to mid-January 1947 when Elizabeth was killed. Hoffman didn't have to think long.

He explained that he would never forget what he saw the day she was killed. Hoffman didn't have to think long. He explained that he would never forget what he saw the day she was murdered. This next detail is also pretty disturbing if you want to skip ahead 15 seconds. He told them that on January 15th, he opened the door to room three. It was covered in blood and fecal matter. If you recall, the LAPD crime lab had determined that Elizabeth was forced to eat feces before she was killed. Hoffman explained that he didn't call the police because he was in trouble over a domestic dispute with his wife, but he was certainly shocked. We don't know whether Elizabeth and Dylan checked into this room. The Astor was a popular place to solicit illegal sex work, so it's possible Hoffman didn't keep records. Even though there was no guest log to reference,

the scene Hoffman described sounded exactly like the way detectives imagined Elizabeth's murder. Without any other leads to follow, they devised a way to apprehend Dylan. Dr. Paul D. River, the LAPD's psychiatric consultant, wrote to Dylan again. He said he wanted to pick Dylan's brain about the case, and the two agreed to meet in person. In January 1949, D. River hopped into a car with an officer to pick Dylan up. Dylan may have expected they'd go to a coffee shop or somewhere private to talk. Instead, they drove around for hours. D. River sat in the back seat with Dylan and asked him everything he

knew about the case, even though they'd already written to each other about it. At first, Dylan was happy to run through it all again, but then things got weird. D. River suggested that whoever murdered Elizabeth would have to be strong enough to dismember and relocate her body. He wondered aloud how strong Dylan was. Dylan surely knew what the psychiatrist was getting at. Maybe Dylan was nervous, because when D. River asked him to take his clothes off so he could examine his body, Dylan agreed. take his clothes off so he could examine his body, Dylan agreed. And by now, Dylan knew D. River wasn't consulting with him. He was questioning him. He got anxious and said he wanted to leave the car, but D. River wouldn't let him. They kept driving around while D. River asked leading

questions. Eventually, it became clear that he wouldn't get anything more out of Dylan, so he let him go. The LAPD didn't realize it then, but they just ruined their chances of getting a confession from Dylan. He was furious. He filed a $100,000 damage claim against the city and won. Because of this, the LAPD came under harsh scrutiny. That same year, a grand jury had begun investigating police corruption in the city. Public outrage had grown over the high rates of crime and violence. Things were so bad that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover mentioned it in a speech. He said that the big city rackets and the level of criminal impunity in LA was proof

that city officials were receiving payoffs. One example was the assassination of a notorious mobster in his Beverly Hills home. No one was ever charged, and afterward, mob warfare continued to rage. People couldn't walk down the street without fear of gang shootings or bombings. There were also revelations that the leader of a prostitution ring bribed LAPD officers in exchange for impunity, and that officers had also helped operate an illegal abortion ring. That was all on top of numerous unsolved murders of young women, including Elizabeth Short. Because of these unsolved murders, the grand jury had always planned to look into Elizabeth's investigation. They had a lot on their plate, but when Leslie Dillon filed his civil complaint, they bumped Elizabeth's case up on their agenda. Throughout their probe, the grand jury questioned countless LAPD officers, including

Captain Donahoe and Detective Hanson. Surprisingly, Detective Hansen didn't know about Leslie Dillon before all of this, which was a very bad look for the LAPD. In addition, the grand jury's questioning revealed a connection between Leslie Dillon and Mark Hansen, Queen Leslie Dillon, and Mark Hansen, the nightclub owner whose name was on the cover of Elizabeth's address book. Mark Hansen was brought in for questioning again, but just like before, he was let go. Which was shocking, considering the grand jury was determined to get to the bottom of things. But remember, Mark Hansen was good friends with an LAPD detective. On top of that, as a wealthy nightclub owner, he was rumored to have ties to the mob.

Maybe someone destroyed any evidence that suggested Mark's guilt, and that's why the grand jury had no grounds to charge him. Whether Leslie Dillon and Mark Hanson knew each other is still a mystery. In any case, when 1949 came to a close, a new grand jury was set to take over and all the unresolved cases would be tossed out. But before the current panel adjourned, the foreman requested a continuation of the investigation into Elizabeth Short's murder. It's not clear why, but the request was denied. Maybe this was because of the very corruption the grand jury was investigating in the first place. Either way, their files were hauled off to a warehouse. The grand jury did get one last word

In their final report, they wrote that they observed indications of payoffs And gross misconduct on the part of some law enforcement officers By 1950, Elizabeth's case went cold It stayed that way for 50 years, but in May 1999, a former LAPD detective named Steve Hodel made a shocking discovery that brought him back to the past. During the same time as the grand jury, During the same time as the grand jury, renowned physician Dr. George Hodel ran an STD clinic and served as the county's public health administrator. George was a prominent member of LA society, but others have speculated that he lied about his qualifications to open the clinic and gain access to people's darkest secrets.

It was also rumored that George performed illegal abortions. The doctor's life was marred by scandal in other ways too. He hosted sex and drug-fueled parties. People say he forced women to engage in sexual activity at these parties while others watched. George was friends with celebrities, government officials, and members of the LAPD. So if those rumors were true, So if those rumors were true, his connections were probably why he never faced consequences. The first time George faced any type of justice was thanks to his daughter. In 1949, two years after Elizabeth Short's murder, George's daughter Tamar testified against her father.

She claimed he raped and impregnated her. When she told him about the pregnancy, he laughed and said he would take care of it. Later, she said George gave her an abortion. During that trial, Tamar also connected George to Elizabeth Short. Tamar had once told a friend that George's mansion had secret passageways. Allegedly, Tamar said George used the passageways for evil deeds, namely as a hidden place to torture and kill Elizabeth Short. Tamar was quoted accusing her father of murdering Elizabeth and saying he was going to, quote, kill me and the rest of the family because he has a lust for blood. Multiple witnesses corroborated seeing Elizabeth at George's parties. You might think this would make George look bad. Instead, George's lawyer

convinced the public that Tamar told sensational stories for fun. This strategy worked, and in the end, George was acquitted. George's son, Steve O'Dell, was only about eight years old when this all went down, so he probably didn't know about Tamar's accusation at the time. But later, he started piecing things together. Steve Hodel was born in 1941 and raised in Los Angeles. He had a successful career as an LAPD homicide detective, working on over 300 high-profile cases. He had one of the department's highest solve rates and achieved the highest rank for a detective before retiring in 1986. After George died in 1999, Steve discovered a collection of photographs among his father's belongings. Two pictures stood out to Steve. Both featured the same young woman with thick dark hair and porcelain skin. Her gaze was

downcast, but even so, Steve thought she resembled Elizabeth Short. It seemed like Elizabeth crossed Steve's mind simply because her murder was so infamous, but this was the first time Steve thought his father might have had anything to do with it. After he found these photos, Steve discovered court documents from Tamar's 1949 lawsuit against George. These documents not only contained witness testimonies corroborating Tamar's rape accusation, but multiple claims that George Hodel killed Elizabeth Short. Steve may have been retired, but his investigator mindset hit high gear. He read witness interviews and newspaper archives, sent the photos he found to facial recognition experts, and even filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the old case files on Elizabeth Short's murder. Some facial recognition experts agreed it was Elizabeth

in the photos, but Steve encountered other roadblocks. Now that he was a civilian, he could no longer access the original police files. Even if he did have access, an officer he spoke to admitted that most of the evidence was lost. But Steve had another option. When the grand jury investigated city officials in 1949, they decided that the LAPD was too corrupt to handle Elizabeth's case, so they enlisted the DA's office to conduct a separate, secret investigation. Now, Steve had access to those files. He learned that investigators from the DA's office went to George's home and asked to speak with him about Tamar's accusations. But the DA wasn't there to talk

about Tamar at all. Unbeknownst to George, he was actually a suspect in Elizabeth Short's murder. While some of the investigators spoke with George, others bugged his mansion. And in February 1950, investigators heard something terrifying on one of those recordings. One of the bugs was planted in a large, echoey room, like the foyer or a parlor. wee room, like the foyer or a parlor. On the recording, investigators heard a woman screaming. Then suddenly, she stopped. A few minutes later, George entered the room. He began speaking to someone, but it wasn't clear who. He said, quote, there was nothing I could do. Put a pillow over her head and cover her with a blanket. Killed her. There was a brief pause before George continued. Suppose I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary because she's dead.

because she's dead. The DA's office was stunned. But investigators never followed up on these recordings. They never brought George in for questioning or went back to his mansion. Like so many times before, people think George had help from friends in high places. In 2001, Steve Hodel got his hands on the transcripts of the recordings. He was just as floored, but he also had questions.

Namely, what secretary was George referring to? Steve continued rifling through the box of evidence and learned that George was talking about a woman named Ruth Spalding. She was George's secretary at the STD clinic. In 1945, two years before Elizabeth Short was murdered, she had apparently died by suicide. At some point before her death, Ruth wrote to a friend accusing George of intentionally misdiagnosing patients for the money. Based on the details of Ruth's death, Steve surmised that when George learned about Ruth's accusation, he forcibly drugged her and

staged it to look like suicide. If Steve was correct, it would be all the more reason to think George could have murdered Elizabeth too. And there's one more damning detail. George Hodel was mainly an internist and administrator, but on Steve's website, he explains that George's med school records showed he completed about 800 hours of surgical training. If you recall, Elizabeth's spine was bisected with such precision, investigators believed only a trained surgeon could have murdered her. But George's medical background is still circumstantial, and concrete evidence against him has been impossible to find. Steve believes that someone destroyed evidence to protect his father, and as of this recording, he's still trying to get Elizabeth's case reopened. Steve appeared on an episode of Cold Case Files in 2006. Host Bill Curtis suggested

using DNA technology to identify the killer, but he learned the same harsh reality. The evidence needed to conduct DNA analysis is gone. Steve's argument is a lot to take in. It's also compelling. He outlines everything in his 2003 book Black Dahlia Avenger, The True Story. He also regularly updates his website with new evidence. So far, it hasn't been enough to convince the LAPD to reopen the case. It's fair to think it'll never happen. But we can still do our part to honor Elizabeth and remember her story.

Elizabeth's family chose to have her laid to rest in California. She is immortalized by numerous movies, books, and podcasts, including a series made by Tamar Hodel's granddaughters. Another notable example is a 2006 film starring Scarlett Johansson. It's strange and a little sad to think that this is how Elizabeth finally ended up on the big screen, but we don't have to remember her that way. Because before Elizabeth Short became known as the Black Dahlia, before she ever stepped foot on Hollywood Boulevard, she was a little girl playing dress-up with her sisters

and looking starry-eyed at the silver screen. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next week for another episode. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on Instagram,

at Crime House Studios on TikTok, and at Crime House Media on X. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. We'll be back next Tuesday. Murder True Crime Stories, a CrimeHouse original,

is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Murder True Crime Stories was sound designed by Ron Shapiro, written by Sarah Batchelor, edited by Natalie Pertzofsky, fact-checked by Sheila Patterson, and included production assistance from Paul Libeskin and Sarah Carroll. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by Carter Roy. hosted by Carter Roy. You may know a serial killer's crimes.

Now, uncover the psychology behind them. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original. New episodes drop every Monday. Just search Mind of a Serial Killer and follow wherever you listen to podcasts. to notorious true crime cases. With significant research and careful analysis, we examine the psyche of a killer, their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Follow Serial Killers wherever you get your podcasts

and get new episodes every Monday.