Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

There's a ton of reviews here, so I'll cut the plot synopsis to the quick.

The author finds two photographs of Elizabeth Short -- the victim in the Black Dahlia murders -- in his father's possessions. Now, the author is an ex-LAPD detective and launches his own investigation into the crime and comes to the conclusion that his father was the killer.

In order of proof there are a number of conclusions that come to light.

1. There was a cover-up of the crime in terms of distruction of evidence and basically nobody gives a hoot about this case inside the LAPD anymore (This one seems awfully clear to me)

2. His father was a suspect in the case (documents did come to light that showed this)

3. His father was a nasty piece of work -- and had even nnastier friends (again, clear)

4. His father was being "protected" through freinds in the corrupt LA/LAPD at the time (again, fairly clear, if not for this murder for something)

Now his also concludes....

5. His father was the prime suspect in the murder (harder to say since much evidence is missing)

6. His father and an accomplish actually committed the murders (now a LOT of the other reviews take issue with this. I'll say its at least a case where the circumstantial evidence the remained and was also uncovered fits the theory -- along with the outside expertise, such as handwriting analysis, that Hodel was able to bring in)

7. His father was a serial killer of possibly dozens of victims. (on this last one Hodel even admits that some assignments are tenuous. I felt that he threw every murder at his dad and tried to make them stick here).

The book was detailed -- examined the evidence as well as could be -- and the conclusion was plausible enough to me. I found it pursuasive.

Read it yourself for your own opinion though. The block for it being 5 starts to me was the attempt at the end to bring in every unrelated murder.

Even if you aren't convinced of Hodel's father's guilt, you will take away a portrait of LA in the post-WWII era through the image of a very disturbed member of the LA decadent elite.

...is that the author was a detective. This book is such a poor piece of investigation that I wonder how he was able to maintain his job. Imagine how many innocent people may be sitting in jail because of him.

I am currently a Cop working the Hollywood Division of the LAPD. Although I am not a detective and I do not know Steve Hodel, as he retired before my time on duty, his story does hold up.

Even though I'm a "Street Cop" I have seen enough and heard enough stories from people involved in crimes that Hodel has put the pieces together.

Hodel, as the son of George Hodel, had intimate knowledge of certain facts that no one else could possibly have known. Granted the book is an indictment against his father but that's the point. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. Hodel was the "Head" of the Hollywood Homicide so the man

is an experienced investigator. None of these other authors have ever worked as a cop nor did they have inside knowledge about the Hodel family and how dysfunctional those people were.

I have been by the Hodel house on Franklin Ave. in Hollywood. It's still there exactly as it was in 1947. Someone is living there today. The ghosts of these victims and suspects still haunt the Hollywood Division to this day. They won't leave...they never will.

Hodel is a competent and thorough investigator. As I read this book it was like reading a PIR (that's what the LAPD calls a Preliminary Investigation Report). The only difference is that this book brought it to a conclusion. The other authors might be more entertaining but if you want facts that will hold up before a D.A. and a jury then this is the "investigation" you want to read.

Steve Hodel's entire case indicting his father, Dr. George Hodel, of murdering Elizabeth Short rests on these pieces of evidence:

1. Two photos Dr. Hodel took of a dark-haired young woman posing with her eyes closed. Steve Hodel vigorously asserts, several times, that these are photos of Elizabeth Short.

2. Similarities in the handwriting of Dr. Hodel and that on notes that were sent to Los Angeles newspapers in the wake of the death of Elizabeth Short, notes that may have been sent by Short's killer.

3. Steve Hodel also asserts that his father killed Jeanne French, citing similarities between the handwriting of Dr. Hodel and obscenities scrawled on the body of murder victim Jeanne French, words written in the victim's own lipstick.

4. Dr. Hodel was tried for sexually molesting his daughter Tamar. Dr. Hodel was acquitted by a jury.

The probative value of the first three items is very low. Nobody except Steve Hodel who looks at these photos will agree with him that they represent Beth Short. Even a surviving member of Short's family says the photos aren't of Beth Short. Handwriting analysis is not a science. For every expert who says the samples are from the same author, another will say they aren't. That also shows the weakness of #3. Even if the photos are of Short and Dr. Hodel wrote those notes, it only proves he knew Short and that he later wrote to the newspapers, nothing more. Even if the jury that acquitted Dr. Hodel was wrong, it only proves that Hodel was an incestuous creep, not a killer. In a 481-page book (hardcover edition), that's basically it. The rest of this voluminous, poorly structured book consists of a schematic biography of Dr. Hodel, which is the most interesting thing in the book, elements of a personal memoir, a silly chapter drawinbg spurious links between Man Ray's art and photography and aspects of Short's death, lots of rehashing of old details of the Dahlia's life, her movements before her death, people who were suspected but cleared of the crime, witnesses' accounts, accounts of the unsolved deaths of various other women Steve Hodel suspects his father killed, an unpersuasive account of an LAPD cover-up of Dr. Hodel's culpability and just about everything else except the kitchen sink.

As Gary Indiana wrote in his scathing review published in the May 25, 2003 edition of the Los Angeles Times Book Review:

"It is, finally, and not at all sympathetically, appalling that a homicide detective would sell out his professional integrity to produce this piece of meretricious, revolting twaddle, which amounts to evidence manufacturing, litigation-proof slander and chicanery on a fabulous scale and does absolutely nothing to answer the question: Who killed Elizabeth Short?"

OK, so I'm an avid long time reader of true crime, and I accept that the genre (most especially when dealing with famous unsolved crimes) is something of a gamble given that unlike academia those expounding their views are not subject to peer review, and there is often no scrutiny of their credentials...

That said, I came to this book with high hopes. Steve Hodel appears on the surface to have excellent credentials, and I was initially reservedly excited, not so much as if it were John Douglas, but nonetheless... and so I was altogether flabbergasted (no other term seems appropriate) upon reading said book.

If Steve Hodel is serious in his extraordinarily outlandish and desperate observations herein, then I honestly believe every case he's ever worked as an LAPD homicide investigator is compromised, and should be reviewed for potential travesties of justice. This "Detective" (and I use the term loosely) grasps at any disparate straw in a monumental effort to throw his incestuous father (who he seems equally desperate, and creepily proud, to elevate beyond mere common pedophile) under the proverbial bus.

SPOILER ALERT: In brief, after the murder of Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, several contemporary newspapers received correspondence from her supposed killer. Steve Hodel boldly proclaims these communiques genuine (no proof other than his intuition), and then states, as unequivocal fact, that his father wrote them (which as an aside does not in my estimation make his father, George Hodel, the murderer if in fact he did write them. More so just a sad guy who wrote some crank letters), his proof... Steve Hodel recognizes the handwriting (which is block print by the way) as his father's. I would have punctuated that last sentence with an exclamation point if it were not so... frightening. He then goes on to get an independent analysis done by a handwriting "expert" who proclaims his assertions "very likely" correct. That's it, period. This very questionable handwriting analysis (I recognized it as quite possibly my own handwriting as well) constitutes the entirety of his physical "evidence." The rest of Steve's "evidence" lies in his personal psychoanalytic profile of his father. Steve has gathered "thought-prints" (his own sadly sycophantic term) such as the fact that his father enjoyed the work of the misogynistic artist Man Ray hence the murder of the Black Dahlia was obviously a physical manifestation of George Hodel's admiration for Man Ray's paintings and photographs. He even goes so far as to theoretically transpose Man Rays paintings and photographs over the brutalized corpse of Elizabeth Short in a pathetic effort to connect the dots via life imitating art. This is just one of the many gems of Holmesian insight Steve offers, all in kind. Even more unbelievable, all of this then oddly leads Steve to the further conclusion, in his most desperate grasp of all, that his father not only killed Elizabeth Short, but was in fact an active serial sex slayer responsible for multiple unsolved homicides of the period. He again offers nothing but fantastically contrived circumstantial evidence, and all of it in his own highly expressionistic design as he fancies himself (no humble man, he) the Fritz Lang of homicide investigation.

I think not.

If Steve Hodel were not previously, and in fact, an active career homicide investigator with the LAPD it would be decidedly easy to disregard this as the work of a conspiracy theorist oddball (akin to the proponents of Jack the Ripper being Prince Albert, or the Bigfoot UFO connection, etc), but that Steve Hodel has in fact investigated and very likely helped imprison possibly hundreds of people over a 20 year career with the LAPD... Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. Rather than impute George Hodel (a common pedophile, but nothing more), this book ironically serves as a searing indictment of Steve Hodel, his frighteningly baseless investigative procedures, and the obviously grandly defunct LAPD which allowed this man to investigate crimes.

I've just finished Hodel's book, have read Gilmore's book, and have also read Harnisch's web site. I deemed Knowlton a disturbed individual and her book unworthy of my time or money. Wolfe has been so effectively discredited by Harnisch, I similarly dismissed his work.

My strong recommendation to all is to read the same collection I did before passing any judgements.

Each brings a part of a puzzle to the fore. Gilmore does a wonderful job of researching who Elizabeth Short was in life, and paints a picture of her far richer than the other sources. For that alone, he's worth the read. Harnisch interjects an intriguing connection and possibility as the killer, but has yet to adequately research and flesh out that possibility adequately. Hodel's book I found well written, easier to follow than Gilmore's with far better date references and footnotes, and replete with thought provoking connections between evidence, stories, and his father.

Hodel regrettably undercuts his evidence and arguments in several ways, however, that have resulted in a slew of negative reviews here and elsewhere. His opening his book with the two photos from his father's photo album that he insists are Smart immediately undercuts his credibility. As others have stated, it's completely obvious that they are photos of two completely different women, neither of them Short, and that starts Hodel off in a huge credibility hole from which he never recovers in the eyes of many readers.

He compounds his credibility problem by insisting on connecting the Dahlia killing and his father or his friend to nearly every unsolved female homicide of the 40's and 50's in Southern California. He simply swings his net far too wide and stretches credulity to connect many of these to the Dahlia case, although none were as drastically mutilated as Smart.

HOWEVER, if you edit out these sections of the book (as Hodel or his editors SHOULD have), you're left with a pretty compelling case. IMHO more compelling than any of the other authors. That I'm sure, is what the assistant D.A. did that analyzed his findings and wrote that he felt he'd solved the crime.

Read all of these works, and judge for yourself. But when you read Hodel, toss out what seems a stretch to you and see if the remainder doesn't send a chill up YOUR spine!

Every once in awhile I read a book that seems to prove the old adage "Truth is stranger than fiction.". This is one of them.

The horrific murder itself is the main subject but interwoven around the murder are many sub plots and other issues. These include:

1) the author's childhood and other experiences before he became a detective

2) the strange and intimate relationship between law enforcement and the media that existed back then

3) the high level of corruption within the LAPD during that time period

4) the strange cast of characters who were close friends of the killer including Man Ray (who idolized the Marquis de Sade), John Huston, and some mysterious German baron who the author was never able to identify

The author was related to the killer and was also a detective for many years. This unique background gave him the ability, the insights, and the personal experiences to unravel this mystery as nobody else could have.

There's so many strange twists and sub plots in this story that, if it wasn't true, people would never believe all of this could have really happened. For example the author's first wife had years before been the killer's girlfriend and she apparently married Steve Hodel out of spite just to get back at the killer.

When Hodel came up with his theories he did not have access to the official police reports, documents, etc., about the Dahlia murder. This official information has since been released and it matches up exactly with the book. That fact, combined with statements made by people in law enforcement, seems to indicate that the book is true. I believe it is true.

He feels that the high level of corruption in the LAPD back when this event occurred resulted in the destruction of physical evidence and, much more importantly, allowed this mad man to remain free in society and commit many more murders. They did not want the killer to be caught since he knew things that would expose all the corruption about illegal abortion rings, pay offs to district attorneys, etc.. The killer had already paid $ 15,000., a small fortune at that time, to get let off for raping his daughter. That was before the Dahlia murder.

Once people in law enforcement have been corrupted all is lost as far as protecting the public. This was the struggle that was going on behind the scenes as the good cops tried to solve the case but were thwarted at every turn by the bad guys. People died as a result.

The victim herself was a discarded, unwanted person. Throughout the book she was always late with the rent, needing money for cab fare, steeling, lying, having sex with various people, etc.. It doesn't take a genius to realize that trouble was in this girl's future. She found that trouble when she walked into the killer's venereal disease clinic.

This story is the psychological analysis of a criminal genius. A genius intellectually perhaps but not emotionally. Hodel suggests that the killer's intellect advanced far beyond his emotional maturity. This caused feelings of isolation, disdain, and superiority towards peers and ultimately towards everyone else. These are however fancy psychological concepts which are not really necessary to describe what this guy was. Evil. People like this become possessed by a perverse and evil spirit which they can no longer control.

It's interesting where Hodel says one night he could feel the spirits of the victims there with him. They were coming in from the spirit world I guess, crying out for justice.

This is a big book. It's not something that most people could be read and absorb in one night.

Jeff Marzano

Deadly Thrills: The True Story of Chicago's Most Shocking Killers by Jaye Fletcher (Sep 1, 1995)

Slow Death by James Fielder (Jan 1, 2003)

The Men Who Killed Kennedy Starring Hilary Minster, Robert J. Groden, L. Fletcher Prouty, et al. (2011)

Let us, as they say, cut to the chase. If author and former LA cop Steve Hodel's father really did kill Elizabeth Short (`The Black Dahlia'), the discerning reader certainly won't be convinced of it by this book. In laying out his case, Hodel starts with a monumentally flawed premise, then spirals into a chasm of conjecture and supposition which we're expected to accept as evidence. Hardly what one would expect from a retired homicide detective.

And that flawed premise? Well, Hodel believes that a pair of pictures in his father's old photo album are of Elizabeth Short herself. The problem, as so many readers and critics have pointed out, is that they just don't look much like Short. Hell, the women in the two pictures don't even look much like each other!

But as badly as it starts, Hodel's case against his father goes nowhere but downhill from there. Rather than solid evidence, the author conjures wild theories that - perhaps in his mind alone - tie his father to Short's murder. Somehow, for Steve Hodel, his father's friendship with eccentric artist Man Ray adds up to a clue. Somehow a photo by Man Ray of Dr. George Hodel posed beside a bronze sculpture of an ancient god adds up to evidence that Daddy was a murderer. Or there's Hodel's assertion that Short's body was posed where it was found, arms above head to resemble - ready kids? - a famous Man Ray photo. (Isn't this how her arms might naturally have fallen, especially if her killer dragged or carried her by her wrists when he left her?) And, in a glaring inconsistency, Hodel reports that authorities were afraid to go after his father for the Short murder for fear of being exposed in scandal (as a VD clinic doc, Doctor Hodel supposedly had the goods on various local officials), but had no problem at all charging him with molesting his daughter in a high profile case just a couple of years later.

There are other big inconsistencies and questions left dangling in Steve Hodel's book, too. Early on, he's stunned to find a picture of his former wife in the same photo album in which his late father carried the alleged Dahlia photos. But he'd learned YEARS earlier that his father had been in love with this woman. (Of course, he had been stunned then, too.) So why was it such a shocker to find her picture among his late father's belongings? Elsewhere, Hodel claims that he didn't find out his father had been on a list of Dahlia suspects until well after his father's death. But considering that one of the younger Hodel's partners in the LAPD had been assigned to the Dahlia case for a time, well, is this entirely believable?

Whether or not Steve Hodel believes his own story, of course, is open to speculation. But despite the flimsy `clues' he gathers against his father, the author gives us ample evidence regarding the deep hatred he feels for his dad. There's his father's absence and eventual abandonment of his family. The alleged abuse of the author's sister at the hands of Dr. Hodel. The relationship between Dr. Hodel and Steve Hodel's first wife. Given the sheer volume of parental misdeeds reported here, Hodel isn't especially convincing when he writes of having a certain affection for his father later in life. Thus, the likelihood that this book is mere posthumous revenge seems fairly high.

Perhaps some of this could be forgiven if Steve Hodel could at least make it all more compelling. As it sits, "Black Dahlia Avenger" is a meandering mess of a book packed to the gills with confusing side stories, digression and truly awful prose. Consider Hodel's description of his moment of (incorrect) recognition that the pictures in daddy's photo album are Elizabeth Short: "It was she. The Dahlia. The Black Dahlia." It's bad romance novel-level writing at its finest. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is nowhere near that hilarious.

This book details the heinous murder/mutilation of Elizabeth Short, aka The Black Dahlia, and the subsequent investigations of her death. Here, we have what could have been a genuine page-turner of a sordid tale (more on the quality of the story later) and one of the strangest accounts that I've ever read.

The author, Steve Hodel, a retired senior LAPD homicide detective, decided to try and solve this very cold case which occurred on or about 15 January 1947. Short's naked body was found provocatively placed, severed in twain, in a vacant lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. Probably because it was the Hollywood Press who got on to the story, Short soon became known to the world as "The Black Dahlia" which, of course, sensationalized the subsequent publicity of this renowned murder.

WARNING! SPOILER AHEAD!!!

Now, as to the story being a strange one, it's chiefly due to how the facts evolved as Hodel pursued them. As he amassed data he was shocked to learn that his prime suspect turned out to be his own father who happened to be a well-known physician and frequent lecturer on forensics at the Los Angeles Police Academy! This was Dr. George Hodel, an associate of the renowned Russian composer Serge Rachmaninoff, among other notables.

The elder Hodel was a child prodigy who originally attended a Montessori School run by Madame Montessori herself in Paris, France -- Hodel's I.Q. was 186, a point higher than that of Albert Einstein. Dr. Hodel died in 1991.

While Steve Hodel's evidence is incredibly convincing, his conclusions on the case are still called into question by people who are much more well-informed on the case than I am. And I have to confess, as a retired life-long professional law enforcement officer myself, there is something, some niggling incongruity, about Hodel's account which lacked finality; however, I am at a loss as to exactly where to put my finger on the precise spot where Hodel may have missed something as the book is quite long and heavily fact-oriented.

I shorted the author the fifth star on this one as, while his book is a block-buster in terms of sensationalism, he is unfortunately a marginal story-teller and the text suffers somewhat as a result. Still, his resolution is so compelling that I still feel obligated to recommend the book for others to read.

Elizabeth Short. The Black Dahlia. Perhaps the most fascinating Unsolved murder case in history. No, THE most fascinating Unsolved murder case in history. Elizabeth Short. The beautiful 22 years old who was found dead in a vacant lot on January 15, 1947, in Los Angeles. Elizabeth Short, the lost child from the depression era, who simply wanted to love and to be love. Like James Ellroy once wrote:

She was her own blank page. She died before she grew up. Her life was her death transmogrified as a riddle. The "real" her only served to fuel speculation. What did she do to attract such devastation ?

Being fascinated (not obsessed, but....) with the case, I bought this book and finally decided to give it a chance. Very controversial book. Just look at the impressive number of reviews here on Amazon; the impressive number of "5 stars" ratings and the impressive number of "1 star" ratings. Very controversial book, indeed. After reading some of the reviews (both 5 stars and 1 star) I said to myself: "I have to read this book, I simply have to". I wanted to reach my own conclusions. I have read "Severed" by John Gilmore at least 5 times, and I guess I wanted to discover another theory, to discover another suspect, another side of this fascinating case.

The author, Mr. Hodel, is obviously a credible researcher. He spent nearly 25 years with the LAPD and, as a homicide detective, worked on more than 300 cases (and solved a good numbers of them). Well, I mean he WAS credible at the time this book was printed. Mr. Hodel lost a lot of credibility when, a few years ago, he wrote a book about the possibility that his father, the alleged murderer of Elizabeth Short in 1947, was also the Zodiac Killer. With this theory Mr. Hodel became a joke in the eyes of many people. Is it possible that Mr. Hodel's father, George Hodel, was the killer of Elizabeth Short ?? It's possible. I'm not convinced, but there's interesting links between George Hodel and the case, I agree. However I have to say:

- I'm not convinced that the woman in the two pictures found in George Hodel's album is indeed Elizabeth Short. The author tries really hard to prove that the woman is indeed Elizabeth, and I appreciate the effort, but in my opinion it's very unlikely that the woman is indeed Beth Short. The eyebrows, the face, everything about these pictures tells me that the woman is not Elizabeth. I'm no photographic expert, but I really don't see how the author can be 100% convinced that Beth is the girl in the pictures. He needs to find more evidences in my opinion.
- The George Hodel-Elizabeth Short Timeline (chapter 33) is, in my opinion, simply not reliable and seems to be based on fiction rather than facts. For example the author wrote, for the December 6-11 period: " It is LIKELY that during this period of time after she leaves the Chancellor and for the five days that follow, Elizabeth and George are together. SHE COULD be staying at the Franklin house, OR PERHAPS George puts her up in a nearby hotel and she just visits him at his home." You see what I mean ?? The entire Timeline is full of speculation and seems to be based on fiction, this chapter of the book is simply not reliable.

However other chapters are really interesting:
-Chapter 11 "The Dahlia witnesses": Mr. Hodel list the names and detailed descriptions of those who crossed path with Elizabeth, and gives details that John Gilmore was not able to give in "Severed". Very interesting read.
-Chapter 12-13 "The LAPD and the Press": Chapters dedicated to the relationship between LAPD and the press, Timeline of events linking the Press and the investigation, it's a very good read. Chapter 13 is about the "Avenger mailings", letters allegedly sent by the killer, most of them are printed in the book, again it's a very nice touch.
-Chapter 14 "The Red Lipstick Murder": Chapter about the unsolved murder of Jeanne French, in 1947. This is a very interesting case, very "underrated" case, and it's nice to read more about it.
-Chapter 18 "Elizabeth Short's missing week": Controversial chapter, probably based on a lot of speculation, but still a very interesting read. Mr. Hodel claims he have found new witnesses, something John Gilmore was not able to find when he wrote "Severed".
-Chapter 24 "The Boomhower-Spangler kidnap-murders": A look at two interesting unsolved cases, the disappearance of Mimi Boomhower, and the murder of actress Jean Spangler. Both cases are from 1949, and there's interesting similarities between the two.
-Chapter 29 "The Dahlia myths": In this chapter the author shows a lot of respect to Elizabeth, saying that she was not a prostitute, and "bashing" some of the authors who claimed she was nothing more than a bum and a lowlife. Very classy move by Mr. Hodel, I really like this chapter.

One thing I really, really like about this book: The author spend a lot of pages talking about other Unsolved Cases of the 40's and 50's. Chapter 23, "More 1940's LA murdered women cases", is about other Unsolved cases from Los Angeles: The White Gardenia Murder (1943), The Murder of Georgette Bauerdorf (1944, also in "Severed"), and the Murder of Gladys Eugenia Kern (1948). Chapter 31, "forgotten Victims 1940's: the probables", and Chapter 32, "forgotten Victims 1950's: the probables", take a look at other Unsolved Cases, all of them are very interesting; Evelyn Winters (1947), Laura Elizabeth Trelstad (1947), Rosenda Mondragon (1947), Marian Newton (1947), Louise Springer (1949), Geneva Ellroy (1958), and more. Great job by the author, it's nice to know these victims won't be forgotten.

Probably the biggest problem I have with this book is that the author tries really hard to link his suspect, George Hodel, to all these cases, without having any real evidences to back up his theories. He also claims that George Hodel had ties with LA's Underworld ( aka organized crime ), again without having any evidences to back up his claims. He also claims that Fred Sexton, a good friend of George Hodel, was involved in most of the crimes, again without having any evidences to support his claims. Sometimes it seems like the author will do anything to make us believe that his father was evil and a bad man. Too often the author gives his opinion of what might have happened, of what his father might have done, and wants us to believe that his opinion is based on facts. Sometimes I had the feeling that the author was sharing his fantasies instead of sharing the facts. This is wrong, and disappointing, because overall Hodel did a very solid investigation into the Dahlia case.

Overall this is not a bad read. Am I convinced that George Hodel really killed Elizabeth Short ?? Not at all. However I believe this book is a must-read for anybody having an interest in this case. The book is far from being perfect, but overall Mr. Hodel did a solid job. I really like the chapters about other Unsolved Cases from the 1940's and 1950's, Hodel did a wonderful job in these chapters. Sadly other chapters are less interesting or based mostly on speculation or on the author's opinion. Overall I recommend this book to anybody who wants to read another theory, another side of this interesting case.