Black Dahlia Week: Solved?

 

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.

Black Dahlia Week: Bugsy Siegel Under Suspicion

 

One potential Black Dahlia suspect was Bugsy Siegel, though it may have just been wishful thinking on the part of the LAPD. Bugsy was not known to socialize in the same circles as Beth Short and he was not known to be so sadistic as to inflict the type of horrific injuries visited upon Ms. Short.

He was apparently cleared, though the 'suspicions' were probably a sham ginned up by the LAPD to come up with an excuse to look into his business dealings.

Black Dahlia Week: Woody Guthrie Under Suspicion

 

One of the more famous persons suspected of murdering Elizabeth Short was folk singer Woody Guthrie. Guthrie came under suspicion after he sent some gruesome letters to a woman he was allegedly stalking. Some felt that the letters mirrored those sent to the newspapers by the killer, who called himself the 'Black Dahlia Avenger'. While law enforcement was able to clear Woody, they still tried- unsuccessfully- to find something to charge him with. His socialist views weren't popular with the powers that be at the time, but they were unable to make anything stick. One thing is certain- Woody was not the murderer.

Black Dahlia Week: The Real Beth Short

 

We often try to reconcile the bad things that happen to other people by trying to make them "The Other". Calamities that befall others are explained away by suggesting that the victim brought the menace onto themselves. When someone with a plain life dies in a grisly manner, the press will often look for something- anything- that differentiates the victim from the every day Citizens who read or view their reports.

Thus did Elizabeth Short's life become muddied. They claimed she was a prostitute (she wasn't). They tried to say she was a loose woman who loved thrills (Not really). They said she was a con artist (Possibly). The truth was less interesting.

Beth Short wasn't too different from other young girls her age. While the press tried to make her appear like a scheming tramp who might have gotten what she deserved, she actually led quite a plain life. She appeared to be merely trying to find a nice young man to settle down and raise a family with. Her family life may have been a bit more itinerant than was normal at the time, but had she not died in such a horrific way, nobody would have thought her to be out of the ordinary. 

When her murderer began taunting the people of Los Angeles with terrifying missives, he slandered her with ridiculous claims and suggested that she deserved to be murdered. Sadly, the press would take these accusations and run with them, turning the public against her. While most decent people believed that nobody deserved the brutality she suffered, there was always a suspicion that maybe she wasn't entirely innocent after all; a belief that victimized her memory to this day.