Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Black Dahlia Murder Pt. 2

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Elizabeth Short’s gruesome murder is the LAPD’s most infamous unsolved case. But there’s one person who thinks he’s cracked it — the alleged killer’s own son. Today, we reopen the case against George Hodel, a certified genius and once-celebrated doctor who rubbed elbows with noted surrealists… and had a vile history of abuse and terror, even against his own family. This episode originally aired August 2022 - to hear more of Vanessa and Carter check out Serial Killers and Conspiracy Theories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa from serial killers, and I'm excited to delve deeper into the story of one of true crime's most infamous mysteries. This week, we're doing things a little differently because this story is anything but straightforward. So with that in mind, Carter from Unsolved Murders is joining me as we sift through this case from Hollywood's Golden Age. The case of the Black Dahlia is an enduring mystery that has fascinated true crime officinados for decades. But while most people know about the iconic murder at the center of the story, few people know about the other unsolved cases that surround it. We're joining forces to explore these crimes, as well as the theory that they weren't a spate of disconnected tragedies,

they were the work of a single serial killer. Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, mutilation, incest, and sexual abuse. of minors. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. The psych ward was never quiet, even at night. The lights were dimmed, but Mary Uncifer could still hear the mumbling of a patient next door, and what sounded like screaming from down the hallway. Mary was no stranger to this place. As a police officer, she'd been tasked with bringing many people here over the years, criminals mostly, whose sanity had to be assessed. But her,

charge tonight was different. Mary looked at the young woman, lying motionless beneath starched sheets. Lillian Lennarack, an aspiring actress and model with everything to live for, had tried to take her own life. The bandages on her forearms concealed a horrifying crisscross of knife wounds. Mary should have left by now. There was no reason for her to be at this girl's bedside. But despite herself, she felt protective of Lillian. She'd spent enough time in L.A. to know how the movie business could chew a young person up and spit them back out. Besides, Lillian's words were haunting her. She'd briefly regained consciousness on their way to the hospital. She'd explained that she hadn't tried to kill herself. The cuts on her arms weren't

her doing. Even now, with Lillian safe in the hospital, Mary wasn't sure what to believe. Maybe the girl was confused. Maybe she had wanted to take her own life. It's just that she'd seemed so sure. And if she was telling the truth, that left Mary with a chilling question. What kind of monster would do this to an innocent woman?

Hi, I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is a special two-part series presented by serial killers and Unsolved Murders. both Spotify originals from Parcast. Today I'm joined by Carter Roy. Great to be here, Vanessa. You can find all episodes of serial killers, unsolved murders, and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free,

exclusively on Spotify. Last time we took a closer look at one of the most notorious unsolved murders of the 20th century, the case known as the Black Dahlia. We explored the discovery of Elizabeth Short's mutilated body, the media frenzy that sprang up around the case and the doomed investigation that followed. Today, we'll focus on a man who's emerged over several decades as the prime suspect in her murder.

George Hodel, a wealthy, well-connected surgeon who catered to the rich and famous. He also harbored an obsession with sex and violence that allegedly drove him to do the unthinkable. We'll explore the reasons why many people People suspect that Hodel killed Elizabeth and the chilling evidence that suggests he may have been a serial killer. We'll also see how Hodel used his power and influence to escape justice until his dying day. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars.

Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamava Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. You survived the Miami weekend, nailed the speech, and maxed out your credit card in the name of friendship.

Now you've got one hangover, four pastel dresses, and zero reasons to wear them again. Sell them on Deepop. Just snap a few photos, and, will take care of the rest. And you at least get some of your dignity, money back. Someone on Deepop wants what you've got. Start selling now.

Deepop where taste recognizes taste. Whatever your thing. It could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing. generate images or videos of your thing,

make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. So many people move to Los Angeles to chase fame and fortune. Even Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, wanted to be a star. Meanwhile, the man who may have killed her seemed to have the world's undivided attention from almost the day he was born.

Born in 1907 in downtown Los Angeles, George Hodel knew that he was special from a very young age. For one thing, he was an only child, and his parents doted on him, but that wasn't all. Early in his childhood, Hodel's test scores showed that he had an IQ of 186, well above, of the genius threshold of 160. He was also a musical prodigy with a particular talent for the piano. Before Hodel was 10 years old, he was playing solo concerts

at L.A.'s prestigious Shrine Auditorium. Over the years, he performed for hundreds of dazzled concert goers and became a local legend. It was clear he was destined for greatness. Vanessa's going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not.

to license psychologist or psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Carter. Being labeled as gifted might sound like a great thing for a child's self-esteem, and it can be. But research indicates that gifted children are also at risk for some less desirable outcomes, including social isolation from their peers. According to a 2014 paper from the University of Queensland, these children can encounter problems like isolation, anxiety, depression, and destructive perfectionism. We don't know anything about Hodel's social life as a child, but it's possible that he grew up feeling fundamentally separate from other kids his age.

But there's another factor to consider here. Serial killers' listeners are used to hearing stories of murderers who were abused and neglected as children, but Hodel's experience was the opposite. His parents worshipped him, and that could have created its own problems. According to Brad Bushman, a psychology professor at Ohio State University, parents who treat their children as exceptionally special can create narcissistic tendencies.

It wasn't just Hodel's parents who singled him out for praise, though. According to his son, Stephen, Hodel's test scores were the highest ever recorded in California's public school system. And just a year later, in 1923, Hodel graduated early from South Pass. Sedina High School. That fall, 15-year-old Hodel enrolled at the California Institute of Technology to study chemical engineering. Just like it is today, Caltech was one of the most prestigious universities in the world, with a reputation for producing groundbreaking research.

Caltech students were all but guaranteed to go on to great things, but Hodel found himself distracted by extracurricular pursuits. During his first year, Hodel became involved with the wife of one of his professors. He got her pregnant, which ultimately led to the breakdown of her marriage. The woman, who will call Martha, went back to her hometown in Massachusetts to have the baby. But Hodel didn't want to let her go. He followed her to the East Coast and told her that he wanted to marry her. In response, Martha laughed at him.

She wasn't trying to be cruel. Hodel was still a child himself, and the idea of starting a family with him was absurd. But Hodel took her rejection personally. It's worth noting here that what Martha did would be considered a crime today since Hodel was a minor. But during the 1920s,

California's statutory rape law only applied when the younger person was female. So while the law didn't recognize him as a victim, Hodel's life was profoundly changed by this affair. He was furious about how casually Martha had dismissed him, and that sense of anger fueled him for years to come. The affair also may have gotten him expelled from Caltech. For an ordinary kid, this would have been a devastating blow.

But not for Hodel. After a lifetime of being treated as exceptional, his self-esteem was bulletproof. He knew he would go on to bigger. and better things. And sure enough, over the next few years, Hodel landed a number of highly respectable jobs. He worked first as a crime reporter

for the Los Angeles Record newspaper reporting on prohibition enforcement. As part of this work, he sometimes went on ride-alongs with LAPD officers as they raided nightclubs and bars. After Haudel's sheltered and privileged upbringing, this view into L.A.'s underworld was a thrill. Soon he started covering homicides.

In his descriptions of murder scenes, Hodel wrote in florid, pseudo-poetic prose that feels bizarre, given the context. Many newbie reporters would feel overwhelmed by having to cover violent crimes, but Hodel was right at home. Still, the novelty of journalism soon faded. Hodel craved attention and recognition, the things he'd found so easily as a young piano prodigy. Being one reporter of many on the newspaper staff just didn't cut it. So he quit after about a year and started working a series of semi-creative jobs. He self-published an art magazine, worked as a radio broadcaster, and turned his hand to photography. He longed to be recognized by the art world but never was.

Instead, he surrounded himself with successful people, including artists Fred Sexton and Man Ray. But by the late 1920s, Hodel was tired of feeling so aimless. He was ready to put his intellect to work again. So when he was around 20, Hodel enrolled as a pre-med student at UC Berkeley, then went on to medical school in San Francisco, where he trained to become a surgeon. During his eight years of education, Hodel was married and fathered two children. First, a son named Duncan, and then a daughter. But Haudel was never much of a family man. He had a single-minded focus on his career.

He knew that a medical degree would open doors and give him the power and attention that he craved. In 1936, 28-year-old Hodel graduated from medical school and wasted no time in finding a suitably prestigious first job. Two years later, he was hired by the L.A. County Health Department and was promoted to the position of chief VD control officer. VD, which stands for venereal disease, was a huge public health concern at the time. Rates of gonorrhea and syphilis were close to epidemic levels in the city. Despite how widespread they were, having a sexually transmitted disease was also extremely taboo. It was the kind of secret that had to be protected at any cost, especially if you had a reputation to uphold.

and, just like today, L.A. was full of people whose careers were built around their public image. Hodel knew all of this. It might even be why he chose to take the postgraduate course in VD control. He knew the specialty would give him access to a lot of people's secrets. The same year Hodel was appointed chief VD control officer, he also opened a private practice in downtown L.A. Although his medical office provided all kinds of care, its focus was the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases. Thanks to Hodel's longstanding ties to the neighborhood, his practice was soon thriving. A lot of elite and wealthy Angelenos came to him. They felt safe with him.

After all, he was a former child prodigy, a high-ranking city official who was well-known in the right social circles. Who wouldn't trust him? But for at least some patients that trust was dangerously misplaced. Though Hodel was surely making excellent money, he wanted more. So he began deliberately misdiagnosing wealthy patients, then charging them hundreds of dollars for unnecessary tests and prescriptions. He also blackmailed some patients, forcing them to pay for his silence. It turned out medical fraud was a lucrative side hustle, but not his own.

only one. Hodel also made extra cash by performing illegal abortions at his clinic, so he was making money hand over fist. That meant he could afford to take some real time off, and he knew exactly who he wanted to spend it with. Around this time, Hodel reunited with a woman he'd first met during his youth. Her name was Dorothy Harvey. There'd always been a spark of attraction between them, and they fell into a whirlwind romance. By the end of 1914, they were married. Hodel's first wife had also been called Dorothy, so to avoid confusion between the two women,

he came up with a nickname for his new wife. He called her Dorero. This name is a combination of two Greek words, Dore meaning gift, and eros meaning sexual desire. It suggests that in Hodel's mind, his wife's primary role was to satisfy him sexually. Hodel saw sex as a kind of foundational force shaping the world like gravity. He used it to seek power in every realm of life he could, at work through his VD clinic and also at home.

Given this, it tracks that the Haudels had an open marriage and often held orgies at their home. But even if the arrangement was mutually agreed upon, Hodel went out of his way to rub his affairs in Dorothy's face, even forcing her to pick up women for him. Unsurprisingly, the marriage soon deteriorated. Hodel was violent towards Dorothy who lived in fear of him. Even still, the couple started a family. By the mid-1940s, Dorothy had given birth to three sons, Michael, Stephen, and Kelvin.

It seems that Hodel had a strange relationship with his sons. Sometimes, when the boys were still young, He took them with him on house calls to local patients, all of them attractive young women. The kids later figured out that these supposed medical visits were actually sexual liaisons. Hodel's utter shamelessness is striking. Having been treated as exceptional ever since childhood, he seemed completely secure in the idea that he was untouchable and entitled to whatever he wanted. But in the spring of 1945,

he hit a roadblock. One of the patients he'd misdiagnosed sought a second opinion from another doctor. When she found out that she did not have gonorrhea, she wrote to Hodel, demanding her money back. Hodel's secretary, Ruth Spalding, received the letter. She'd been keeping her boss's secrets for years and likely knew about the misdiagnoses,

as well as the illegal abortions he performed at his clinic. Perhaps Ruth was done covering for him. or she simply wanted to avoid getting in trouble herself. Either way, in May of 1945, she called Hodel about the letter and told him she was going to the authorities. Thinking quickly, he asked if he could come see her first. She agreed. It's important to point out that the following has never been proven.

It's a theory presented by Steve Hodel, George's son, based on facts that came to light years later. The theory goes that Hodel went to Ruth's apartment that night and drugged her with a lethal dose of barbiturates. He then summoned Dorothy, gave her a pile of incriminating documents Ruth had brought home, and ordered her to burn them. Dorothy obeyed and left Hodel alone with the unconscious Ruth. He watched, monitoring her breathing, until she slipped into a coma.

And then, once he knew she was too far gone to save, he called a cab and had her taken to a hospital. Ruth died less than an hour after being admitted. It's a compelling theory, but the only fact we know for sure is that Ruth died of a barbiturate overdose. The rest is educated guesswork, though it's based on a lot of evidence,

including incriminating statements that Hodel made years later. Since we can't confirm that he killed Ruth, we can only speculate about what Hodel's state of mind may have been afterward, but he may well have felt a sense of relief. The whole thing had been easier than he dared to imagine. He'd always known that he was special and that the rules didn't apply to him. But driving home from the hospital that night, he realized just how easy it was to bend the world to his will. Coming up, we'll explore the theory of how Hodel may have killed Elizabeth Short. Now back to the story.

In the spring of 1945, George Hodel had just gotten away with murder for the first time, at least if you go by his son's theory of the case. It's not clear if he was ever a suspect in the death of his secretary, Ruth Spalding. There are conflicting reports on this subject. Officially, Ruth's death was ruled a suicide, and after his wife apparently burned the documents that implicated him in medical fraud, Hodel was in the clear. He was free to keep enjoying the fruits of his criminal labor.

He'd made so much extra money from defrauding patience that he decided it was time to move his family into a better home. But he wasn't looking for your standard mansion in the Hollywood Hills. No, Hodel wanted to live in a landmark. On a residential stretch of L.A.'s desirable Los Felis neighborhood, the Soudin House was hard to miss. It was built in the 1920s by architect Lloyd Wright, a tall Gothic fortress made of concrete and glass. The house stood out amidst Spanish-style bungalows and modest apartment buildings.

Behind the dramatic metal gates at the front of the property lay a labyrinth of dark, winding passageways and grand reception rooms. Steve Hodel described the house as a cave with secret stone tunnels, within which only the initiated could feel comfortable. All others proceeded with great caution, not knowing which way to turn. Despite its foreboding appearance, the Sauden House was a great place to throw a party. It was originally built for a couple

who wanted a space to entertain and host amateur theatrics, and the Haudels carried on that legacy when they moved in. Hodel began hosting wild hedonistic events, where attendees indulged openly in both drugs and sex. Around this time, he also became increasingly interested in surrealist art and in the mindset behind it. Assault on the female body is a core theme of surrealist art, and so the movement has often been called inherently misogynistic.

It often depicts women in ways that are both sexualizing and dehumanizing. Steve Hodel, who's spent many years, trying to unpick his father's psychology, believes that Hodel's interest in surrealism was directly linked to his violent insanity. According to Steve, George Hodel really believed there was no difference between dream and waking states. He was a nihilist, a misogynist, and a sadist of the highest order. This sadism and misogyny may have been inspired by the works of Man Ray, a surrealist artist in one of Hodel's best friends.

Ray's art depicts women as passive, powerless objects torn apart by violence. Some of his work showed disembodied female forms, torsos lying separate from their heads and legs, which, if you remember from our last episode, sounds eerily like how Elizabeth Short's body was found. The debate over whether art can inspire real-life violence has raged for decades. Today, psychologists and social scientists generally agree that it can't, at least not directly. In a 2018 article for The Guardian, writer Catherine Cross noted that,

while media like video games may influence passive behaviors such as stereotyping, they absolutely do not cause active, violently anti-social behavior like murder. That said, Hodel spent years immersing himself in an art movement that routinely depicts women as anonymous vessels for sex and violence. It's certainly possible that this amplified whatever misogynistic views he already held. And Haudel's fascination with sadistic art certainly mirrored his treatment of his wife Dorothy. Eventually she reached the end of her tether. By 1946, the couple was divorced, but Dorothy and the children continued living in the Saudan house, which was big enough to accommodate plenty of distance.

Though Haudel's marriage had never held him back from indulging, his hedonistic instincts went into overdrive after the divorce. Freed from any sense of responsibility as a husband, something snapped, and his obsession with violence took hold. We've now come to the point where George Hodel and Elizabeth's short stories intersect, but exactly how that might have happened is unclear. It's widely rumored that Hodel knew Elizabeth and that she may have been his girlfriend at some point. However, these rumors are unproven, as is most of what we're about to tell you. The following is a theory about what happened to Elizabeth Short, based largely on years of research by Steve Hodel.

As we discussed last time, Elizabeth was last seen alive on the evening of January 9, 1947. Later that night, it's supposed that she made. met up with George Hodel. She may even have attended one of his infamous parties at the Sauden House. But if she did, she never made it out. Hodel took Elizabeth hostage and held her prisoner in his basement. He drugged her, then tortured and assaulted her, probably for days. Eventually, Elizabeth died of blood loss from the beatings she'd suffered. After she was dead, Hodel drained her body of blood, a process. known as ex-sanguination. He also performed a hemicorporectomy on her.

As a reminder, this was a surgical procedure taught in medical school during the 1930s when Hodel was a student. Curiously, it's the only way to cut a body in half without breaking any bones. Once his surgery was complete, Hodel calmly moved onto the next phase of his plan. He headed into the garage carrying a few empty paper sacks. He laid the sacks down in the trunk of his sedan, then placed the two halves of Elizabeth's body on top of them. Though he drained as much blood as he could, some bleeding was inevitable,

and he couldn't risk any evidence getting on his car. Then in the early hours of January 15th, Hodel drove to La Mert Park, about eight miles due south of his house. There was no particular rhyme or reason to this spot, though maybe he chose it because it was a deserted area where he thought nobody would see him. But as it turned out, somebody did see something in Lamert Park that day. Just before daybreak, a single witness saw a man, possibly Hodel, pull up to the corner of South Norton Avenue, and pause to watch what he was doing. The man got out of his car, opened the trunk, and took out of the trunk, and took out the road.

the two halves of Elizabeth's body. He positioned her torso on the ground, lifting her arms above her head, and then placed her lower body nearby. Steve Hodel believes that in posing the body this way, his father was paying twisted homage to his friend, Man Ray, and specifically a photograph titled The Minotaur. The image shows a woman's disembodied torso, her arms lifted above her head, as though in surrender. In his 20s, Hodel had long to be recognized as an artist and photographer, but two decades on, it seems he'd found a gruesome new outlet for his creative impulses.

He didn't linger for long, working quickly to create the scene he'd envisioned in his mind. Within five minutes, he was driving away with no idea that he'd been observed. We don't have any other information about the witness who, who saw Elizabeth's killer, or at what stage they told the police what they'd seen. But in the days after her body was found, the LAPD was inundated with hundreds of calls from people, many even claiming to be the killer themselves. So it's likely that the one piece of actual eyewitness testimony got lost in the noise. Somehow, Hodel did land on the LAPD's list of suspects, but so did dozens of other people,

and it's unclear how high of a priority he was in the investigation. Hodel's life over the next year or so is largely a mystery, but we know he continued to host orgies and hang out with the surrealists. Then in 1949, there was a major change. Up to this point, Hodel hadn't had much contact with his two eldest children, but that year, his 14-year-old daughter, Tamar, came to live with him. It's not clear why this happened, only that it never should have, because Hodel's monstrous perversion knew no bounds, and he saw his teenage daughter as just another vulnerable girl he could

take advantage of. When he held his so-called cocktail parties at the house, he encouraged Tamar to join in. Even when the evening inevitably descended into debauchery, he made no effort to protect his daughter, allowing her to take drugs. drink alcohol and witness orgies. Eventually, Hodel began allegedly sexually abusing Tamar. He told her that he was, quote, giving her a gift, that she should feel honored, and that after having sex with him, she'd become a woman. And at first, Tamar did feel honored.

After all, she was surrounded by people who worship the ground her father walked on, including a lot of young pretty women. and she told herself she was lucky. But deep down, she knew how wrong it was. She often dissociated during the abuse, feeling as though she was watching herself from above, and things quickly went from bad to worse. Some time in the summer of 1949,

Tamar became pregnant with her own father's baby. According to Tamar's own recollection, Hodel was amused when she told him this horrifying news. After all, given his profession, he knew it would be no problem to get this taken care of. So Hodel took Tamar to get an abortion, which was performed without anesthetic. On top of the emotional and psychological damage he'd already caused her, she was now traumatized by the physical agony of the procedure. And then she returned to a home environment that felt more unsafe than ever.

Hodel's behavior was getting more erratic, and Tumar was terrified to be alone with him. So finally, in October of 1949, she ran away. Hodel called the police, who soon tracked Tamar down, panicked she begged them not to send her home, telling them that her father had raped her and gotten her pregnant. It's possible that Hodel was already known to the LAPD at this stage, since he was on the suspect list for the Black Dahlia case. But either way, the authorities took Tamar seriously enough to bring charges against Hodel. For reasons that aren't clear, Hodel was charged with incest rather than rape.

After that, Tamar became a ward of the court and was housed at a juvenile facility until the trial began two months later. Given Hodel's high-profile clientele and esteemed reputation as a doctor, the case was covered feverishly in the tabloids, and his legal team ran a shameless smear campaign against Tamar, painting her as a promiscuous, pathological liar. And that strategy continued into the trial, which began in December of 1949. Tamar's own mother even testified against her, claiming that her daughter had made false allegations of abuse before. Another key defense witness was an actress named Lillian Lenerack.

Lillian testified that she'd been with Tamar to the doctor's office on the day of the supposed abortion and claimed that the procedure had never happened. But the prosecution had some compelling witnesses of its own. Two people testified in support of Tamar's allegations, surrealist Fred Sexton and Corrine Taryn, both of whom had attended parties at Hodel's house. Hodel was so shameless that he had sexually abused his daughter in front of witnesses, and yet the evidence against him still wasn't enough. Hodel was acquitted on Christmas Eve.

Despite all the evidence against him, his power and influence in L.A., along with a little systemic misogyny, made him untouchable. At least it did for now. Coming up, Hodel tries to silence a witness for good, and detectives lay a trap for the doctor inside his own home. Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney Plus. Let's go! Get ready for a new case.

We're going to crack this case and prove for our decorinous partners of all time. New friends. You are... Gary the snake. And your last name? The snake. Dream team. Hit new habitats.

Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record-breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly. Working at it. Zootopia, too. Now available on Disney Plus-rated PG. Now back to the story. At 42, George Hodel had never felt more festive than he did during the Christmas period of 1949.

His exoneration was the greatest gift he could have asked for. Hodel had won his freedom through intimidation tactics, one of the key witnesses for the defense, Lillian Lenerac, had only testified in Hodel's favor because he'd threatened to have her young son taken away from her. He also told her he could have her committed to a psychiatric institution. But in the weeks after the trial, Lillian was racked with guilt. She couldn't stop thinking about what Tumar Hodel had been through, first abused by her own father, then by the justice system, and Lillian was partly to blame. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.

So one night in January, Lillian confronted Haudel at the Soudon House and told him that she was going to recant her testimony. Hodel was furious and turned on her. As her three-year-old son, John, watched in terror, he hit her hard enough that she fell to the ground. Composing himself, Hodel told Lillian that she needed to calm down and drugged her, perhaps with a drink laced with a powerful sedative. Within minutes, she blacked out.

Once she was unconscious, Hodel executed the next stage of his plan. He used a razor blade to make cuts on Lillian's arms, feigning a suicide attempt. Then he called the police. Officer Mary Uncifer responded to the call. When she arrived, Hodel told her that Lillian was in a bad mental state and had tried to kill herself. He explained that he'd given her a sedative to keep her calm. Hodel helped Mary get Lillian into a police car, accompanied by Little John. He told her that he hoped Lillian could get the help she needed in hospital.

So Mary drove Lillian to a local psychiatric ward, where she was checked in for observation. And when she woke up, Lillian seized the opportunity to confide in the police officer. She told Mary everything that she'd witnessed to Mar's abortion that Hodel had intimidated her into lying for him in court, and that he'd attacked her when she threatened to tell the truth. She even said that Hodel had paid off the DA in order to secure his exoneration. Three-year-old John also confirmed that Hodel had, quote, knocked Mommy down and made her cry hard. Lillian swore that the cuts on her arms were not self-inflicted,

that Hodel had done this to her to try and make her appear insane. Disturbed, Mary wrote a letter to the district attorney's office, laying out everything that Lillian had told her. The letter described Hodel's suspected involvement in a variety of crimes, including assault and subornation of perjury, that is, persuading another person to perjure themselves. And although it didn't directly reference the crime, Mary's letter ended up creating a breakthrough in the Black Dahlia case. It was an unexpected godsend, because by that stage, the long-stalled investigation was in desperate need of new evidence. In the three years that had passed since Elizabeth's murder, the DA's office had become frustrated with the LAPD's lack of progress. They believed the police force was dragging its feet, so the DA ordered a separate grand jury investigation. DA detectives came up with their own group of suspects in Elizabeth's murder.

and Hodel was on the list. Since there had been no solid evidence against him in relation to any crime at that time, he'd been a low priority. But Mary's letter changed all of that. Lillian's story tied him to multiple offenses, including a violent assault against a young woman. And despite his acquittal, the incest trial had also severely damaged Hodel's reputation. It all meant that there were now a lot of reasons to take a close,

or look at the once-celebrated doctor. So in February of 1950, the DA brought Hodel in for questioning. We don't have any details about how that interview went, but it seems the detectives concluded that they weren't going to get anything out of Hodel himself. If they wanted a smoking gun, they'd have to get creative. Later that month, on a night they knew Hodel was out of town, DA investigators broke into the Sauden house. They hid microphones in strategic locations all around the sprawling mansion,

setting them up to feed audio directly back to the Hollywood Police Station a couple miles away. They knew the plan was a long shot. No one knew how long they'd have to wait for Hodel to say something incriminating. As it turned out, it wasn't long at all. On February 18th, one of the microphones picked up a deeply disturbed. series of audio clips from the house. The audio has never been released, but Steve Hodel published the transcript soon after discovering them. If you listen to that recording today, this is what you'd hear. At 4.20 p.m., an unidentified woman seems to be making a phone call. She asks repeatedly

for the operator, and it sounds like she's crying. Three hours later, Hodel is hurt speaking to a man who spoke with a German accent. He complained. that the DA's office is out to get him, and then he says this. Supposing, I did kill the black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead. At 8.20 p.m., Hodel and his companion go into the basement of the house. Indistinct sounds are heard, several thuds, and clanging against a metal pipe.

At 8.25 p.m., a woman screams. Two minutes later, she screams again. The next clear sound comes a few minutes later, when the German man leaves the house for the evening. The mere description of this audio is incredibly disturbing, so you can only imagine what it was like for the detectives listening in. There's no way to know for sure what's happening on the tape, but it sounds very much like a woman is being held against her will,

physically harmed, and possibly even killed. And yet, as far as anyone knows, no action whatsoever was taken. About five weeks later, in late March, a microphone picked up more conversations between Hodel and his German friend. Hodel sounds more agitated in these recordings. It's clear that the pressure on him is mounting, and he feels the walls closing in. He brings up a photograph that the police have of him with a girl and how he, quote, thought he had destroyed them all. During another conversation, the words FBI and passport come up multiple times.

Hodel seems to be talking about leaving the country. For some reason, the authorities didn't think to stop him. Sure enough, just a few days later, Hodel did flee the U.S. After that, D.A. detective Frank Jemison, who led the investigation into Hodel, was ordered to turn. turn over all of his files to the LAPD, including the original audio recordings. He was also told to close the case and never discuss it again. Gemison reluctantly did as he was told, and that, it seemed, would be the end of the investigation.

Except that Gemison also made duplicates of every document. He stored the second set in the DA vaults, where Los Angeles Times reporter Steve Lopez, uncovered them in 2003. Without those copies, the transcripts from Hodel's house and the letter from Mary Unkifer would never have come to light. As for Hodel, he stayed far away from California for most of the next 40 years, spending time in the Philippines, Japan, and Hawaii.

Steve Hodel believes it's likely that his father bribed and bullied his way to freedom. He had enough dirt on powerful people. people by this point that he was able to leverage an LAPD cover-up. Corruption was rife in the police force at the time of the murders, and it doesn't seem implausible that a man like George Hodel could be above the law. In fact, it wasn't until he died that his buried secrets began to emerge. In May of 1999, Hodel took a lethal dose of medication at the age of 91 and left a note instructing his wife to destroy all of his possessions.

One of the only things she kept was a photo album, which she gave to his son, Steve. Steve was now a homicide detective for the LAPD, and although he spent decades at the department, he never had any idea that his father had been a suspect in the Black Dahlia murder. The crime had become the stuff of legend. at the LAPD, it was the department's most famous unsolved case and was discussed often in training. Steve had never felt any particular investment in the case, but when he looked through his father's photo album, he stopped at one photograph, an uneasy chill settling over him. It was a picture of George Hodel with a beautiful, dark-haired woman who looked a lot like Elizabeth

short, and once he began asking around, Steve soon discovered that his father had been a suspect in her murder. Astonished, Steve started digging deeper, hoping to clear his father's name. But instead, to his horror, he found a devastating trail of evidence, which ultimately convinced him that Hodel was guilty. Steve was able to get a hold of the taunting letter that Elizabeth's killer had sent to a Los Angeles newspaper, along with her possessions. He sent the letter away for handwriting analysis alongside several written communications from his father. They came back as a probable match.

What's more, the way Elizabeth's body was so cleanly bisected suggested that her killer was a surgeon. Finally, Steve delved into Hodel's obsession with surrealist art, noting the parallels between Man Ray's work in the Black Dahlia crime scene. Ultimately, he became convinced that his father had killed not only Elizabeth Short, but also Jean French, the red lipstick murder victim. And Steve isn't alone in believing this. Former Los Angeles deputy DA, Steve K., told the L.A. Times that if Hodel were still alive, he would move forward with both murder charges.

In 2003, four years after coming out of retirement to a investigate this cold case, Steve published his findings in a book titled Black Dahlia Avenger. Almost a decade later, he published a follow-up detailing even more new evidence that had emerged. Steve now believes his father may be responsible for a string of other murders. Maybe dozens, he says. Given the sadism and violence he was capable of and the kind of power he had, it's not implausible. But it's also impossible to prove, and in the end, none of Hodel's potential victims ever got justice. For every Black Dahlia case, there could be dozens of anonymous young women whose lives were stolen at the Soudan House. Of course, not everybody believes Steve's theory. Maybe you don't either. But even if George Hodel wasn't a killer, he was indisputably a terrible person.

Because though he's never been conclusively linked to any murder victim, he certainly left behind a lot of living victims, like his daughter, Tamar. At 14, she was allegedly abused, raped, and impregnated by her own father. When she stood up in a courtroom and told her truth, she was painted as a liar and a manipulator. Hodel violated his daughter, destroyed her sense of safety, and then silenced her. So it feels only right to give her the last word on him.

In a 2003 interview with the Los Angeles Times, a 68-year-old Tamar said, George Hodel was pure evil. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers and unsolved murders. We'll be back next time with a brand new story. You can find all episodes of serial killers, Unsolved Murders, and all other spot-of-up. originals from Parcast for free on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Stay safe out there. Serial killers and unsolved murders are Spotify originals from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler. Sound designed by Michael Langsner, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Nick Johnson, Trent Williamson, and Carly Madden. This special episode of serial killers and unsolved murders

was written by Emma Dibden, edited by Joel Callan, fact-checked by Catherine Barner, researched by Brian Petrus, and produced by Aaron Larson. This special episode of serial killers in Unsolved Murders stars Vanessa Richardson and Carter Roy. Welcome to Arco Rewards Orientation. I'm Hannah. Whoa. Is everything okay? That's a code green. Someone just earned at least five cents a gallon in rewards. Wow. Another one? Well, that one's a code gold.

The customer just redeemed savings of up to a dollar a gallon. Impressive. What does that one mean? Oh, that's just piggy. He gets excited when we talk about rewards. Savings of up to $1 per gallon redeemable with $20 rewards dollars in your loyalty account. At participating locations, terms and conditions apply.