70 years later, people are still fascinated with the Black Dahlia case and countless amateur sleuths still debate who might be the killer. Retired Detective Steve Hodel thinks he knows who the killer was; oddly enough he accuses his father of the killings- George Hill Hodel.
It might sound far fetched at first, but he makes a good case. When Steve began his investigation he didn't realize that his father had actually been under suspicion by the LAPD. In fact, George Hodel was under surveillance and a secret warrant had been obtained to put a bug in his house. Among the many compelling pieces of evidence that implicate George Hodel:
- George Hodel was a doctor who could have performed the grisly bisection of Miss Short. Experts believe that an untrained murderer could not have accomplished this feat easily.
- George Hodel's handwriting appears to match the writing used to defile Miss Short's body and the threatening letters sent to the newspapers.
- George Hodel was known as a doctor who was willing to help hide some of Hollywood's unseemly scandals and pregnancies.
- Jack Webb, while doing research for his legendary show Dragnet, was told by LAPD authorities that the murderer was a doctor who lived on Franklin Avenue. George Hodel was a doctor who lived on Franklin Avenue.
- The surveillance tapes caught George Hodel making the following suspicious statement: "Supposin' I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary because she's dead."
George Hodel died in 1999, but his son still wants to find the truth. There's no statute of limitations on murder, but the LAPD has been reluctant to help anyone trying to bring out the truth. What do we think? Looking at the totality of the evidence (check out http://www.stevehodel.com for all of it) we think George Hodel was indeed the man responsible for killing Beth Short. If we were on a jury, the evidence presented by Steve Hodel would be enough for us to convict.
