In 1947, California's infamous Black Dahlia murder inspired the largest manhunt in Los Angeles history. Despite an unprecedented allocation of money and manpower, police investigators failed to identify the psychopath responsible for the sadistic murder and mutilation of beautiful twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short. Decades later, former LAPD homicide detective-turned-private investigator Steve Hodel launched his own investigation into the grisly unsolved crime -- and it led him to a shockingly unexpected perpetrator: Hodel's own father.
A spellbinding tour de force of true-crime writing, this newly revised edition includes never-before-published forensic evidence, photos, and previously unreleased documents, definitively closing the case that has often been called "the most notorious unsolved murder of the twentieth century."

Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

History

Hodel, Steve

Americas

Harpercollins

From the New York Times bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel compiles never-before-seen evidence that reveals his father as a serial killer who may have been responsible for some of the most infamous murders of the last century- including the Zodiac killings.

Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel (Berkley True Crime)

Biographies & Memoirs

Pezzullo, Ralph

Historical

Berkley Books

Five New Investigative Chapters added to this 2014 edition:Chapter 23-LAPD Historical Society—The New EvidenceChapter 24-Odor Mortis—The Smell of DeathChapter 25-The KMEX-Univision InterviewsChapter 26-Murder as a Fine Art: The Hodel/Man Ray NexusChapter 27-Biometrics: New Photo ForensicsIn Black Dahlia Avenger II bestselling author and veteran LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel presents his eight-year follow-up investigation [2006-2014] into the Los Angeles Black Dahlia and other serially connected 1940s L.A. Lone Woman Murders. After the 2003 publication of his NYT bestseller and MWA Edgar nominated true-fact crime book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, and receiving a "CASE SOLVED" legal opinion from many of LA's top law enforcement officials-which included a then active Head Deputy District Attorney and LAPD's Chief of Detectives-Hodel didn't stop there. In this investigative sequel he presents his careful deconstruction of the Dahlia Myth-exposing and correcting the Black Dahlia Murder's Three Greatest Urban Myths:Myth No. 1 – “It was a standalone murder"Myth No. 2 – “There was a Missing or Lost Week"Myth No. 3 – “The case was never solved.2006-2014 Investigation Includes:• The obtaining of Dr. George Hodel's full DNA PROFILE which can now be made available for law enforcement testing and comparison to multiple cold case unsolved crimes.• Discovery of the Hollywood residence where the BLACK DAHLIA MURDER was committed along with physical evidence connecting the killer to the house and to the vacant lot where he later transported and posed the victim's surgically bisected body.• Identification of "The Baron," George Hodel's house-guest and accomplice overheard by detectives discussing "crimes and payoffs" on the 1950 DA bugging tapes.• New expert medical testimony and evidence photos proving – “A Doctor did it."• Complete original and unabridged 1950 DA-Hodel Black Dahlia Bugging Transcripts. [146 pages]• THE HUSTON LETTERS - Personal correspondence between famed film director, John Huston and his ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel [the author's mother] covering the years 1948-1957. In these private letters Dorothy shares with John the day to day personal fear and terror she was experiencing living with George Hodel, as the doctor threatened her and the children with physical harm in the months just prior to his fleeing the country.• A World Class Surrealist Photographer reveals his firsthand knowledge of the crimes.• Over 300 photographs and crime exhibits including the 1969 Sowden House 17-Photo Historical Survey.

Black Dahlia Avenger II 2014: Presenting the Follow-Up Investigation and Further Evidence Linking Dr. George Hill Hodel to Los Angeles's Black Dahlia and other 1940s LONE WOMAN MURDERS

Thoughtprint Press

In Black Dahlia Avenger II, bestselling author and veteran homicide detective Steve Hodel presents his six-year follow-up investigation [2006-2011] into Los Angeles's 1947 Black Dahlia and other serially connected 1940s Lone Woman Murders. After the 2003 publication of his NYT bestseller and MWA Edgar nominated true-fact crime book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, and receiving a "CASE SOLVED" legal opinion from many of LA's top law enforcement officials—which included a then active Head Deputy District Attorney and LAPD’s Chief of Detectives—Hodel didn't stop there. In this investigative sequel he presents his careful deconstruction of the Dahlia Legend—exposing and correcting the Black Dahlia Murder’s Three Greatest Urban Myths: Myth No. 1—“It was a standalone murder." Myth No. 2—“There was a 'Missing or Lost Week'" Myth No. 3—“The case was never solved." Some of BDA II’s new investigative findings: The obtaining of the killer’s full DNA PROFILE which can now be made available for law enforcement testing and comparison to multiple Cold Case unsolved crimes. Discovery of the Hollywood residence where the BLACK DAHLIA MURDER was committed along with physical evidence connecting the killer to the house and to the vacant lot where he later transported and posed the victim’s body. Identification of "The Baron,” George Hodel’s house guest and an accomplice overheard and tape-recorded by detectives discussing “crimes and payoffs” on the 1950 DA/LAPD bugging tapes. New expert medical testimony and evidence photos proving—“A Doctor Did It." Complete original and unabridged 1950 DA-Hodel Black Dahlia Bugging Transcripts. [146 pages.] THE HUSTON LETTERS- Personal correspondence between famed film director, John Huston and his ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel [the author’s mother] covering the years 1948-1957. In these private letters Dorothy shared with John the day to day personal fear and terror she was experiencing living with George Hodel, as the doctor threatened her and the children with physical harm in the months just prior to his fleeing the country. A World Class Surrealist Photographer reveals his first-hand knowledge of the murders. Over 300 photographs and crime exhibits including the 1969 Sowden House 17-Photo Historical Survey About the Author: STEVE HODEL is a retired LAPD homicide detective and a licensed P.I.and has specialized in criminal investigations for the past 49-years. During his twenty-four years service with LAPD he was assigned to Hollywood Homicide where for eighteen-years he worked on more than three hundred murder cases and achieved one of the highest “solve rates” on the force. He retired as a Detective III [the highest attainable rank in the Detective Bureau] and resides in his hometown of Los Angeles.

Black Dahlia Avenger II: Presenting the Follow-Up Investigation and Further Evidence Linking Dr. George Hill Hodel to Los Angeles's Black Dahlia and Other 1940s Lone Woman Murders

True Crime

FROM THE PUBLISHERA Genius for Murder: A Play in Three Acts is a dramatization of 1940s Hollywood Noir. The play is a Hollywood Confidential, based on real people and real events taken from the actual newspapers, secret police files, recorded transcripts and courtroom documents of that day.It centers on a five-year timeline (1945-1950) in the life of Dr. George Hill Hodel, then Head Venereal Disease Control Officer for the Los Angeles Health Department and a “prime suspect” in a series of LA Lone Woman Murders the most infamous being the 1947 torture-surgical-murder of twenty-two-year-old, Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short, Did George Hodel actually commit these sadistic murders? Or, because of his skill as a surgeon, was he just rounded up as “one of the usual suspects?” As a member of the seated jury, you will be asked to weigh the evidence, and then vote your mind at the close of Act III. George Hodel, an LA born native, was a sophisticate and bon vivant extraordinaire. Possessed of a high-genius IQ he was a member of Hollywood’s inner-circle of the rich and famous. His personal friends were an eclectic group of actors, artists, and writers who make up the play’s cast. We meet and party with George’s beautiful wife, Dorero, a screenwriter, recently divorced from George's longtime friend, famed film-director John Huston. We are introduced to George's inner-circle of avant garde intimates such as the surreal photographer, Man Ray and his wife and muse, Juliet. We drink and philosophize with writer and fellow Dadaist, Henry Miller, along with George's confidant, the mysterious German Baron, Ernst von Harringa. In the 1940s, George Hodel was the A-List doctor to Hollywood’s A-List stars as well as LA’s downtown politicos and high-ranking officers on both the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff's Departments. As owner of the First Street VD Clinic, Dr. Hodel was the go-to-guy for “a girl with a problem” and was known and recognized inside the police department as a “High Jingo,” one who is well connected, and a man not to be messed with. The play, as a historical drama, takes us back to relive and rediscover the noir-underbelly of Los Angeles, as a—City of Angles. Corrupt police and politics ruled the day. City Hall was surrounded by Machiavellian princes all with their long knives drawn. Nothing was as it appeared. Throughout it all, one highly intelligent and powerful man knew the city’s secrets and “how everything fit together” and that knowledge made him extremely dangerous. It also made him UNTOUCHABLE. This Play in Three Acts is based on that time and that man. A man who unquestionably had—A GENIUS FOR MURDER.The play was written by Steve Hodel, the son of Dr. George Hill Hodel. Steve is a retired LAPD homicide detective and the New York Times bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger. (HarperCollins 2006-Skyhorse e-book 2012) His true-crime book became an international bestseller as well as being nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America in the Best Fact category. The author and his story have been featured extensively both in television and in the print media in interviews on: Dateline, 48 Hours, Court TV, CNN Anderson Cooper, The View, NBC Universal, Newsweek, People Magazine, GQ France, the New York Times as well as dozens of local and national newspapers. "George Hodel, I think, is fit company for some of Noir's most civilized villains--like Waldo Lydecker in "Laura," Harry Lime in "The Third Man" or even Noah Cross in "Chinatown," the man who (thanks to the screenwriter, Robert Towne) warned us, "Most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and right place, they're capable of, anything." And what had Cross done? Rape his daughter, and his city, and lived into old age." David ThomsonNew York Times Book Review excerpt on Black Dahlia AvengerAuthor Website: www.stevehodel.comAuthor Email: steve@stevehodel.com

A Genius For Murder: A Play in Three Acts

Literature & Fiction

Dramas & Plays

LADA Bureau of Investigation Hodel-Black Dahlia Case File No. 30-1268 contains the official unabridged transcripts of the 1950 electronic surveillance stake-out by a joint task force from the LADA Bureau of Investigation and LAPD’s homicide detectives. The wire-recordings capture, Dr. George Hill Hodel’s secret conversations in which he confessed to: police payoffs, performing illegal abortions and admissions to having committed the 1945 murder of his personal secretary, Ruth Spaulding as well as the 1947 torture-murder of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. These transcripts also contain the assault, beating and probable real-time murder of a woman as recorded by detectives during their actual 1950 police stakeout. The on-duty detectives listen in as their prime-suspect, Dr. George Hill Hodel, accompanied by a second man, Baron Ernst Harringa, go downstairs to the residence basement. Detectives listen in and hear sounds of a pipe striking an object, “A woman screams” more blows, “a woman screams again” then silence. The officers, though only minutes away from the residence, TAKE NO ACTION. This is the “smoking gun” that law enforcement cannot allow to be made public. The police and political powers that be—make their decision. The transcripts are sealed and locked away for fifty-four years and are not discovered until the publication of Black Dahlia Avenger, which opens the locked files at the L.A. District Attorney’s Office and ultimately results in these transcripts being made public. In addition to the original 146-page transcripts of the DA/LAPD forty-day stakeout, the book contains a chapter originally published in Black Dahlia Avenger II, (the author’s follow-up investigation 2006-2012) providing background and biographical information on the two law-enforcement heroes of this real life investigation—D.A. Lt. Frank Jemison and his partner, D.A. investigator Walter Morgan. Also included is Lt. Frank Jemison’s original six-page transcribed interview on March 22, 1950, with Dr. George Hill Hodel’s ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel (author’s mother and former wife of famed film director, John Huston). During this interview, conducted at her apartment on the Santa Monica pier, Dorothy stonewalls Lt. Jemison’s attempts at getting to the truth and the following day alerts Dr. Hodel to the evidence that the DA’s investigators have accumulated. Dr. George Hill Hodel, after receiving this information and realizing he is about to be arrested—flees the country just four days later. “We identified the Black Dahlia suspect. He was a doctor.” William H. Parker, LAPD Chief of Police “The Black Dahlia case was solved. He was a doctor who lived on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.” Thad Brown, LAPD Chief of Detectives “The Black Dahlia case was solved, but it will never come out. The suspect was a doctor they [LAPD] all knew in Hollywood, involved in abortions.” James Downey, Undersheriff, LASD “We know who the Black Dahlia killer was. He was a doctor [George Hodel] but we didn’t have enough to put him away.” Lt. Frank Jemison, LADA Bureau of Investigation

Hodel-Black Dahlia Case File No. 30-1268: Official 1950 Law Enforcement Transcripts of Stake-Out and Electronic Recordings of Black Dahlia Murder Confession made by Dr. George Hill Hodel

In Black Dahlia Avenger II, bestselling author and veteran homicide detective Steve Hodel presents his six-year follow-up investigation [2006-2011] into Los Angeles's 1947 Black Dahlia and other serially connected 1940s Lone Woman Murders. After the 2003 publication of his NYT bestseller and MWA Edgar nominated true-fact crime book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, and receiving a "CASE SOLVED" legal opinion from many of LA's top law enforcement officials-which included a then active Head Deputy District Attorney and LAPD's Chief of Detectives-Hodel didn't stop there. In this investigative sequel he presents his careful deconstruction of the Dahlia Legend-exposing and correcting the Black Dahlia Murder's Three Greatest Urban Myths: Myth No. 1-"It was a standalone murder." Myth No. 2-"There was a 'Missing or Lost Week'" Myth No. 3-"The case was never solved." Some of BDA II's new investigative findings: The obtaining of the killer's full DNA PROFILE which can now be made available for law enforcement testing and comparison to multiple Cold Case unsolved crimes. Discovery of the Hollywood residence where the BLACK DAHLIA MURDER was committed along with physical evidence connecting the killer to the house and to the vacant lot where he later transported and posed the victim's body. Identification of "The Baron," George Hodel's house guest and an accomplice overheard and tape-recorded by detectives discussing "crimes and payoffs" on the 1950 DA/LAPD bugging tapes. New expert medical testimony and evidence photos proving-"A Doctor Did It." Complete original and unabridged 1950 DA-Hodel Black Dahlia Bugging Transcripts. [146 pages.] THE HUSTON LETTERS- Personal correspondence between famed film director, John Huston and his ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel [the author's mother] covering the years 1948-1957. In these private letters Dorothy shared with John the day to day personal fear and terror she was experiencing living with George Hodel, as the doctor threatened her and the children with physical harm in the months just prior to his fleeing the country. A World Class Surrealist Photographer reveals his first-hand knowledge of the murders. Over 300 photographs and crime exhibits including the 1969 Sowden House 17-Photo Historical Survey About the Author: STEVE HODEL is a retired LAPD homicide detective and a licensed P.I.and has specialized in criminal investigations for the past 49-years. During his twenty-four years service with LAPD he was assigned to Hollywood Homicide where for eighteen-years he worked on more than three hundred murder cases and achieved one of the highest "solve rates" on the force. He retired as a Detective III [the highest attainable rank in the Detective Bureau] and resides in his hometown of Los Angeles. Show less

Black Dahlia Avenger II

Retired LAPD Homicide Detective III, Steve Hodel, brings over 50 years of law enforcement, homicide, and private investigative experience to bear on what the Texas Rangers said, "Remains the biggest unsolved mystery in the American Southwest." March 1938--The breaking story started out slow, announcing that a mother and daughter, traveling in their touring car, cross country from California to the East Coast, "were missing on a West Texas highway." Within days came a second announcement cautioning that "foul play was suspected." Next, their abandoned car was found, and on the fifth day of the search, the nation's worst fears were realized. August 2019--Eighty-one years later, in what can be considered one of the nation's coldest of cold cases, IN THE MESQUITE carefully reconstructs the chronology of the double-homicide based on original law enforcement documents, newspaper reportage, and eye-witness accounts. As silent passengers in the back seat of Hazel and Nancy Fromes' brand new 1937 Silver Packard, Series-Eight 7-seater touring car we ride along on their journey from California to visit their daughter and sister and family in the East Coast. The identification and naming of the mother and daughter's sadistic killer(s) and the evidence presented offering the solution will satisfy both sense and reason. The author, a highly-skilled former LAPD homicide detective, provides his readers with the answer to the three basic requirements needed to solve this crime: --the MOM--the killer's Motive, his Opportunity, and his Means.

In The Mesquite: The Solving of the 1938 West Texas Kidnap Torture Murders of Hazel and Nancy Frome

The China Letter: My Journal - Chief Regional Medical Officer Assigned to UNRRA-Hankow 1946

Hodel M.D., George Hill

Military

TWENTY YEARS BEFORE SHOCKING THE WORLD IN LOS ANGELES IN 1947 AS “THE BLACK DAHLIA AVENGER” DID GEORGE HODEL TERRORIZE CALIFORNIA BY COMMITTING SOME OF ITS MOST INFAMOUS CRIMES AND SERIAL MURDERS?From the Introduction:In writing George Hill Hodel: “The Early Years,” my original intent was to present all my father’s suspected crimes from the 1920s and 1930s in one edition. I have found this is simply not possible as it would require a book that would dwarf Dostoevsky’s nearly seven-hundred-page opus, Crime and Punishment. Therefore, I will present “The Early Years” in two-parts, two editions. This edition is Part I and presents my investigations of his suspected crimes in the 1920s. Note that I said, “suspected crimes.” I want to be crystal clear on this point. My two-part, “Early Years” investigations are just that—a search out of for the truth. …In the presentation of these crimes from the long ago (the first one goes back one-hundred years), I make no claim to a “solution.” I am not saying that my father, George Hill Hodel, committed any of these crimes, beyond a “Reasonable Doubt”—which would be the legal requirement to find him guilty.Several of these crimes, without the introduction of hard physical evidence, or DNA, are not solvable. Others have been claimed “solved” by law enforcement and are considered “Case Closed.”…To be clear.These crimes from the Twenties and Thirties did not present themselves to me post-Black Dahlia Avenger published in 2003. I was aware of them and his possible involvement in them as early as the year 2000, a full three years before I presented my father to the world as the killer of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short and the other LA Lone Woman Murders.

The Early Years Part 1- 1920s

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