Kiyo Hodel, Laurel Canyon Astrologer to the Stars and the Black Dahlia Investigation

 April 19, 2016
Los Angeles, California

KIYOKiyo

Q:  Is your ex-wife KIYO still alive?  Do you think she knew about your father and Elizabeth Short?  Why was Kiyo’s picture still in your father’s photo album with Elizabeth Short and other family members?

No, Kiyo died from cancer, in 1978, some thirteen years after our divorce in 1965.

I welcome your question, as it affords me the opportunity to clarify the dynamics of what some readers perceive to have been a Wife-Father-Son “triangle.”  In fact, it was nothing of the sort.

Strange and mysterious—yes.  Adulterous- not really.  It was more like something out of a Greek Tragedy, where the gods needed to have a good laugh. Here is how it unfolded.

In 1941, shortly after the start of the war, Dr. George Hodel approached a beautiful young Eurasian woman on a street corner in Hollywood. She was waiting for a bus. It was Kiyo, age 20. He informed her he was a physician and a photographer and would love to photograph her and naturally pay her well for her modeling. Kiyo an art student happily agreed. George worked his charm and Kiyo fell in love with him and they had an affair. I was one-year-old at the time the affair ended, Kiyo married another man (Brook Cuddy, a photographer.) After the war was over, from 1946-1950, both Brook and Kiyo regularly attended parties at the Franklin House. I have no memory or knowledge of ever meeting her at that time.

In the 1950s, Kiyo became an actress doing bit parts in Hollywood films, including Cecil B. De Mille’s, The Ten Commandments (1956). She divorced Brook Cuddy, and remarried, then divorced her second husband after a few years.

Kiyo clip from Cecil B. DeMille’s – THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956)

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Kiyo as Priestess ,Yul Brynner as Pharaoh    Charlton Heston as Moses
 

In 1961, still in my teens (19) and in the Navy, I met Kiyo at a “Hollywood Party.”  Always attracted to older, intelligent women, I was totally captivated by her exoticness and sophistication. By then, Kiyo was an “astrologer to the stars”, and was teaching both astrology and piano out of her home in Laurel Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills. (She had been an art/music student at Julliard) When we first met, Kiyo told me she was “28” and looked it.  I knew nothing of her “history” other than, “she knew my parents as a young girl.”  I had no reason to question her, and very much liked the fact that she was “ten years my senior.” I would not learn her real age (she was actually 20-years older than I) until after our three-year marriage ended in 1965. The full story of my life with Kiyo is told in Chapter 10 of BDA.

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George Hodel’s private album of loved ones
Photos of Kiyo taken by George Hodel sometime in the 1940s

As to the 1999 discovery of Kiyo’s photo in my father’s private album of loved ones, the “surprise” came not from the fact that they had been lovers, which I learned from my mother, shortly after separating from Kiyo in 1965.

That fact while bizarre in itself had been known by me for 35 years and was no “revelation.” The shock came in discovering that her photo was included in my father’s book of “loved ones.” This indicated that what I had always assumed was his “short fling with a beautiful young woman” was in fact– something much more. To me this indicated- he loved her. Why else would he keep her picture for over fifty years? Like I said, this is the stuff that Greek tragedy is made of.

image004                                                    March 21, 1969

Below is an excerpted quote by Kiyo in TIME MAGAZINE article of 3/21/69, some four years after our divorce.   Described in the article as “a young half-Japanese astrologer” one can see that she certainly looked much younger than her actual age of 48.

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 (Kiyo photographed in Time Magazine with a man identified only as her “client” is  Neil Young who had just broken up with Buffalo Springfield (1966-68) and was just beginning his springboard to fame.

 

Kiyo in Books

When I wrote my Chapter entitled “Kiyo” in Black Dahlia Avenger in 2003, I had assumed that would be her first public introduction. I was wrong.

Come to find out that unbeknownst to me, her “fame” was already talked about in print, all of which I had been unaware and were forwarded from individuals to me post-publication. Let’s examine a few of them.

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David St. Clair, in his book, The Psychic World of California (Double Day & Co. 1972) pages 181- 186, describes Kiyo as, “an Astrologer to the stars … small, fair-skinned and incredibly sexy.”  He then presents a four-page interview on her thoughts and feelings about astrology and metaphysics.

 

These Came Back by Richard Webb

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image011Film and television actor/author Richard Webb aka “Captain Midnight” was interested in metaphysics, reincarnation, and psychic phenomena and wrote a number of books on the subjects.

In his book, These Came Back (Hawthorne Books 1974) Webb wrote a full  biographical chapter describing Kiyo, and her, “sloe eyes, long, dark brown hair, beautiful smile and confident manner.”

In that chapter the author interviews and provides readers with Kiyo’s personal detailed description of what she believed were several of her past lives. (These Came Back Kiyo)

In keeping with Kiyo’s dual personality which was comprised of equal measures of both the Spiritual and the Salacious (she was unquestionably half-priestess and half-pagan)  I happened upon another “Kiyo Chapter.” This one found in the book, Queer Stories for Boys: True Stories from the Gay men’s Storytelling Workshop, (Thunder Mountain Press, Avalon 2004) edited by Douglas McKeown, Kiyo chapter authored by, George Pfiffner.

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The chapter, again simply entitled, “Kiyo” describes the young author’s 1952 chance meeting and introduction to Kiyo, a then co-worker’s ( he uses the pseudonym, “Hunt Carter”, but we know it was Brook Cuddy) wife, due to his interest in astrology.

George Pfiffner describes in detail his infatuation with this “stunning Eurasian” and his hot and heavy, however, short-lived romance. Despite George’s admissions to being homosexual, Kiyo is confident that, with her powers of sexual persuasion she can and will be able to “turn him straight.”  George goes on to describe an initial sexual encounter in his car parked off-road in Malibu, followed by some apparently greenlit rendezvous in the bedroom, with tacit permission from Kiyo’s then husband, “Hunt” (Brook).  After a number of dalliances, the couple’s passionate romance sputtered and apparently was just “not in the stars.”

George closes the chapter by describing a highly emotional, out-of-control breakup with Kiyo, (who he claims had become hysterical and suicidal ) which required several hours of intense effort on his part to calm her down. George was finally able to send her home in a cab and out of his life.

He closes the Kiyo chapter with the following:

Kiyo was the first person I had been true to for any length of time. The first time I picked up a guy afterward, he was someone I didn’t particularly like, who I didn’t find very attractive, and who wasn’t very good in bed. But, it was as though I hadn’t had sex in six months and he was the young Marlon Brando.

Amilda KiyokoTachibana Doe Cuddy Herd Roth Hodel Aurness

While much remains secret and hidden about Kiyo’s personal life, based on some updated public records we do know that during the period from 1943-1973 she was married to at least six separate young men. They included:

John Doe, 1943, Alleged to have married a guard (name unknown) at Manzanar the Japanese Internment Camp in 1942, to gain her freedom from detention.

Brook Cuddy, photographer, cameraman, circa 1948. Became CBS Lighting Director for Game Shows.

Richard T. Herd, 1954. One year marriage. Herd became a leading character actor in film and television with over 147 acting credits.

John Mickey Roth, 1955, a child film star from 1945-1955, including acting in the film, Rhapsody in Blue, where he played George Gershwin as a Boy. Likely met Kiyo on the set of  C.B. Demille’s, The Ten Commandments, as both Mickey and Kiyo had bit parts in the film. (Mickey a Roman soldier and Kiyo was Pharoah’s priestess.)

Steve Hodel,  Married from 1962 -1965.

Rolf C. Aurness, 1973 ( True to her MO of collecting boy-toys, in 1973, wound up marrying Rolf Aurness, 1970 World Surfing Champion.  Rolf is son of actor James Aurness, Gunsmoke’s, “Marshall Matt Dillon.”)  On their marriage certificate Kiyo lists her age as “27” (she was actually 53) and Rolf’s stated age was “21.”

Kiyo (Amilda Kiyoko Aurness) died from cancer in Los Angeles at age, 57, on June 30, 1978. While her death certificate lists her birthdate as “Aug 2, 1935,” her actual birthdate was August 2, 1920.

How many of her other husbands were aware of her real age? You would have to ask each one of them. As for myself, as indicated in BDA, I had no reason to question her stated age of “28” and would not discover her actual age until separating and divorcing her in 1965 after finding her astrological chart which showed her to be, 42 at the time we married.

Kiyo the Leo with a Cougar MO  

Below is a list of the “recorded” marriage certificates ages vs. Kiyo’s real age.

  1. John Doe circa 1942   Kiyo unknown. Likely her real age of 21.
  2. Brook Cuddy  (Unknown, not found file)
  3. Richard Herd 22  Kiyo “25”           (actual age 34)
  4. John Mickey Roth 23, Kiyo “25”    (actual age 35)
  5. Steve Hodel 20, Kiyo “28”             (actual age 42)
  6. Rolf Aurness 21, Kiyo “27”            (actual age 52)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26 Comments

  1. John Ayers on April 20, 2016 at 12:28 am

    Wasn’t it Kiyo who suggested that you pursue a law enforcement career? It’s that training that led you to connect all the dots, Black Dahlia, Zodiac, and more.

    • Steve Hodel on April 20, 2016 at 12:55 am

      Hi John: Yep. She convinced me to switch my job as an orderly at Kaiser Hospital and join LAPD.
      I now know she knew or strongly suspected (along with a lot of other “insiders” at the Sowden/Franklin House, that her former lover, George Hodel had killed Elizabeth Short. She was there a lot of the time up until dad split in 1950. Karma City.

      • Niteflyte on June 4, 2022 at 10:04 pm

        This may have been mentioned by you somewhere, but can you explain how so many of the “insiders” knew about Elizabeth Short and that your father was the likely killer? Did they know this from the official investigation and him being a suspect, or was there other talk that led to this knowledge? Was Elizabeth Short at the house parties? I’m trying to wrap my mind around the possible knowledge of others that George knew Elizabeth, to them considering and suspecting him capable of a sadistic, despicable, psychopathic murder.

        I don’t know a lot about how people of that time thought (their mindset and what have you), but it seems to me that there is a huge distance between perverse sex and sex parties, and psychopathic murdering. To consider that Kio suspected him as this evil murderer, and still had this infatuation with him when she deceived you just to be able to get a glimpse of him later… well I know that some girls have a weird infatuation of serial killers but that seems more like just the thrill of writing someone crazy in jail. That seems different than an actual real-life infatuation with someone whom you suspect is capable of such horror.

        Is it just me?

        • Steve Hodel on June 5, 2022 at 2:15 pm

          Niteflyte:
          My belief is that MANY of his inner circle KNEW or at the very least suspected he killed Elizabeth Short. Some of these would include the screenwriters: Ben Hecht (who printed an article in the newspaper saying “he knew the killers name and believed he would soon be arrested”. Screenwriter Steve Fisher, also said he knew the killer’s name. Dorothy “Dorero” Hodel, Lillian Lenorak, Mattie Comfort, Tamar Hodel (who named him in court in the 1949 Incest trial and was told by LAPD they suspected him of killing Short. I think the main reason none of them went public with his name was simply out of fear of reprisal. George was a “High Jingo” an untouchable and they all knew he was connected with corrupt politicians and cops. Kiyo’s “infatuation” with George occurred in the early Forties when she was just 21 and trying to hide out from being interned in the Japanese prison camps. She and George and Dorero were passing her off an American Indian, but she was found out and placed for a time in a camp. Apparently she married one of the guards to get herself out? (According to a later boyfriend who contacted me.) In 1947 Kiyo had to have known or suspected George’s involvement in the murder like many other “insiders”. Her later marrying me and suggesting I join LAPD may have been related to her need for “revenge” or maybe not? Hard to know, but my guess is yes, the former. She also had so friends that were active on LAPD whose names she gave me to use as references on my application. So, who knows what other “connections” she had prior to meeting me with LAPD?

  2. Francois Houle on April 20, 2016 at 11:19 am

    March 1969

    Her moment of fame

    Zodiac active in SFO

  3. Karen on April 21, 2016 at 1:13 am

    During Elizabeth Short’s so-called “Missing Week” just before her murder, wasn’t she seen with a woman described being in her late 20s with long dark hair? Could the mystery lady have been Kiyo?

    • Steve Hodel on April 21, 2016 at 2:05 am

      Karen: Could have been, but we will never know. Lots of possibilities. Could have been the maid Ellen. or????

  4. Patricia Urdea on April 21, 2016 at 10:23 am

    God works in mysterious way indeed! A child born from an immoral father,choosing to deliver justice in his professional life.Thankfully you only inherited his intelligence,but not his proclivity and taint!

    I’ve been wondering a lot about if you have ever tried to find the ironic correlation between the choice of your vocation and the fact your father was a murderer (still at large at the time you joined LAPD) ?
    Do you think it is really an irony that the son of a big time serial killer felt a calling for solving murders?
    But as I said,unfathomable are the ways of Karma …

    And a more personal question,can you actually recall your father’s reaction on learning that you joined the same police department which was investigating against him.

    I really appreciate any answer you can provide.

    Patricia

    • Steve Hodel on April 21, 2016 at 11:04 am

      Patricia: As detailed in my “Kiyo” Chapter in BDA, I had never really thought of or considered becoming a cop. Probably the last thing from my 20-year-old mind. Kiyo suggested it one morning at breakfast. She threw a copy of the LA Times on the table and said, “Look, LAPD is hiring and it pays $100 a month more than you are making at Kaiser Hospital. (I was an orderly after being a medic in the Navy.) She kept pushing it for a month or so and convinced me to try for the academy. I took the exam, then the police oral, then the psych test, then found myself in the academy, and next thing I knew I was working patrol wearing a gun and a badge. So, seemingly, it all came because of her urging me to become a police officer.
      And, I would not discover my father’s connection to any LAPD criminal investigation until his death in 1999 after I had been retired from LAPD for thirteen years. (I did, of course, know about the 1949 arrest and trial for incest, in which he was acquited.)
      Best Regards, Steve

      No, don’t recall my father’s initial reaction or when he first was informed of my joining LAPD? Probably notified him in writing shortly after joining in 1963, but I do document in BDA his initial discovery of my marriage to Kiyo at our face to face meeting at the Biltmore lobby in ’65. His surprise reaction in learning that my new Eurasian wife was Kiyo. (Of course, at that time I had no clue that they were former lovers, and would not discover the truth until I separated and was informed by my mother.)

      I have since wondered if there was something else, subconscious that may have influenced my career choice? Did I hear something as a child that connected my father to a crime or crimes that I buried deep and had no conscious memory of? Did my half-sister Tamar, make some comment that I overheard and was long forgotten? Certainly, possible, but I tend to think not.
      More likely it was Kiyo’s secret “payback” to my father for seducing then dumping her for another. “Look George, I’ve married your son and convinced him to join the LAPD.”

      • Luigi Warren on February 6, 2018 at 12:10 pm

        Steve: A Greek Tragedy adapted by Gilbert and Sullivan, perhaps? Kiyo Kiyoko Ko-Ko Kiki Yum-Yum Peep-Bo Peek-a-Boo… Doesn’t seem like GHH liked to lose. What was George’s secret “payback?” How did he medicate his wounded ego after the “red dress” meeting at the Biltmore in ’65? Doesn’t it seem that there are quite a few coincidences here? -LW

        • Steve Hodel on February 6, 2018 at 12:51 pm

          LW: He never really discussed KIYO with me. It remained one of those awkward unspokens. Neither one of us had any desire to discuss it. A few days after dad’s death when I was with June one of the photos she handed me was a 8×10 glossy of a young Kiyo taken by dad. (Not the ones in the small album) I looked at the photo then at June then shook my head and just ripped it in half, saying something like, “Well no need to keep that.” Rash emotional reaction. Now, obviously wish I hadn’t done that, but who knew?

  5. Rich Martin on July 12, 2017 at 1:00 am

    I rented from Kiyo the house at 1950 Weepah Way just below her house on Ridpath in Laurel Canyon 1971-ish. 3 questions: 1. Did she own the Weepah Way house? 2. I was told that Steven Stills once lived in the Weepah way house. Do you know if that’s true? 3. I was told that Neil Young lived at her Ridpath house for a while?
    Thanks so much.

    • Steve Hodel on July 12, 2017 at 2:14 am

      Rich M. Hi Rich. As to your questions. 1. I’m not really sure about the Weepah Way house. We bought the Utica property in ’63 which included the separate several rental homes. I was gone by ’65 and gave her the properties. Not sure if she bought that property or not? 2. Don’t know about Stills renting it? But, likely true, since he was part of Buffalo Springfield and connected to Neil Young. 3. Yes, Neil Young rented from Kiyo, but my impression was it was not the Ridpath house, but a small cabin on the Utica Dr property separate and above the street level property. Again, would have been after I split in ’65. Best Regards, Steve

      • Wayne on June 3, 2018 at 6:33 am

        I can verify that Neil rented the small cabin next to the main house on Utica Drive. From 1967-69 I rented the garage apartment at the street level. I had to sleep on the couch in the main house for a few weeks, waiting for John Densmore (The Doors) to move out of the garage apartment. All tenants at the property shared the same mail box at the bottom of the stairs. Saw lots of utility bills addressed to a Steven Hodel.

        • Steve Hodel on June 3, 2018 at 9:14 am

          Wayne: Thanks. Yes, my years with Kiyo spanned from 1960-1965 (Married in July ’62 then divorced her in Nov ’65). I think we bought the Utica Drive house in 64 or early 65? Divorce final in ’66. So, The Doors and Neil came several years later. I cut off all contact with her so was unaware of those connections until much later. Best, Steve

  6. B E Brasher on February 24, 2019 at 11:18 pm

    Steve, Many years ago when I first heard of the Black Dahlia murder. I found the case fascinating, couldn’t understand why someone would do that. Then the I am The Night show can out and I started reading everything I could find. Honestly, I think the movie doesn’t do the true story any justice and departs from the real story.
    That being said, I believe Man Ray was more involved in the Dahlia murder than what as been stated. Finally, I do believe that Tamar was in a incestious relationship but I also believe she lied about having sex with all those neighborhood boys while living with GHH. Her stories and her actions later as an adult shows she was not a victim but a participant and loved to make GHH happy.

    • Steve Hodel on February 24, 2019 at 11:29 pm

      Hi B.E. Brasher: I’m not watching the TNT miniseries. I saw one of the trailers and it’s 95% fiction. Fauna Hodel never met George in life and she never was at the Sowden/Franklin House. All made up. I had no part in the production and didn’t know it was being made until it was out with the trailers. As far as Tamar, no the sex with the high school boys was true. Nineteen boys taken in and interviewed. She actually got pregnant by Joe Barrett at the Franklin House and went to dad for an abortion. Yes, George did have sexual relations with her, but was not the father.
      Regards, Steve

  7. Monjenl on March 15, 2019 at 4:18 am

    Steve, have you ever considered that the Jane Doe photo 2 from your father’s album is kiyo? When I saw the picture of her on the left, I was struck by how much it seems to fit her features and the personality she exudes.

    The lower forehead and lack of wild curls, and the sort of sneer in the Jane Doe pic seem to me much more indicative of kiyo. Just my humble opinion.

    I also have to respond to B E Brasher’s comment above about Tamar being a willing participant. I find it a disgusting way to characterize an abused child who had been groomed by a pedophile since before she could have known what sex was. Much of what Tamar did and said in her adult life was indicative of the horrific treatment she received at the hands of her own father. Hers was a sad and tragic life and a story that brought me to tears more than once. I pray her untarnished soul is at peace.

    • Steve Hodel on March 15, 2019 at 7:41 am

      Monjenl: Photo No. 2, the woman standing by the horse statue is not Kiyo. I have identified her and eliminated her. She is Marya Marco, a friend of my father’s and actress from the 1940s. I have written a whole chapter “Maganda” on her in BDA II. Yes, no question Tamar was terribly abused and sexualized by my father at a very young age which spun her out of control her whole life.

    • Nora on October 13, 2020 at 5:33 pm

      I totally agree with Monjeni regarding the Jane Doe pic, (not the one standing by the horse, the seductive pic with her eyes closed) looking like it is Kiyo!! The features are more than similar especially the nose and like she said the forehead and hair.

      I also agree with Monjeni regarding Tamar!! I work in the prison system and so many inmates are a product of their upbringing. All I can think is that Tamar spent most of her life remembering all the horrible things that were said about her and how she was marked a liar while he was exonerated. I believe she named her sons Peace, Joy and Love because she yearned for inner peace, joy and love.

  8. B. Bishop on October 26, 2020 at 5:53 pm

    In late 69 (as best I can recall), a friend and I went to Laurel Canyon to the home of this woman (an astrologist) named Kiyo. We went because he had found that Neil Young (we were both fans) had lived on her property in one of a few small bungalows (maybe 16’X20′) just a room, unsure if any toilet, on her property for a time. We had a Buffalo Springfield steam roller sign we had taken from a steam roller and offered to nail it up to the bungalow in his honor, and we did. While there we met this Magician (visiting her, I think) who told us about working on making really large things disappear. His name was David something. Heard about him years later, Copperfield was the last name. Jim Messina was living there at the time, I think, but he wasn’t home. And, the reason I wrote this. Another lodger with Kiyo at that time was one of the members of the Doors, but not Morrison.

    I was at website on FB, and this memory came up, and I posted the above there. I started looking, trying to refresh my memory about that episode, and I came across this site. Densmore was the Door–couldn’t recall for sure, didn’t meet him as he was out. But was living in the same bungalow Young had. If it hadn’t been for Copperfield disappearing the Statue of Liberty I never would have remembered his name. But I also recalled that he was there talking with Kiyo about Harry Houdini. I thought I remembered her saying she’d known him, but was in her teens when he died, so she knew his home and him, some. I think Copperfield had a lot of interest in the house, and she knew that some too. Sorry to see she passed from Cancer in ’78.

    Thinking about this more, it was probably late 1970, or early ’71 when we went. I had lived in Mexico from Sept–Dec. of 70, and had no working knowledge of Spanish until coming back from there. I had taken one class, but it didn’t provide me with the ability to understand accents within the country. Living there did, or I’d have never understood Neil’s housekeeper.

    When my friend and I met Kiyo and nailed up the Buffalo Springfield sign on the bungalow, she was VERY personable, treating us like honored guests. She provided us with another address for Neil Young in Topanga Canyon that turned out to be good. We went to it, but Neil wasn’t home. His housekeeper spoke only Spanish, and I had a working knowledge at the time to communicate with her, having lived in Mexico. My friend went again several months later, and missed Neil again but left a sign for him at that Topanga home.

    Anyway, I thought you might want to hear about my encounter with Kiyo. She was very kind and informative. She did seem older to me than she looked, because she spoke about so many things that had occurred so long ago, and with authority, exactly like she was pulling them from memory. I would have guessed late 20s to early 30s. Certainly not late 40s. Had she been born in 1935, she couldn’t have “known” Houdini, because she would have been 1 year or less old. When we spoke she certainly seemed tuned in to a lot of action going on in the Hollywood scene with actors and others. In later years, seeing Copperfield and the Statue of Liberty, I thought of her again, and realized that “seemed tuned in” was clearly a real thing, to some extent, anyway. She was very nice, and a memorable person, all around. Glad to have met her. Thought you might enjoy hearing. I never knew anything of her connection to the Black Dahlia case or the rather eerie connection to the Zodiac killer, with her being an astrologer to the stars. Never would have imagined that.

    • Steve Hodel on October 26, 2020 at 6:12 pm

      B. Bishop: Thank you for the interesting information on your “meet” with Kiyo back in 1970. At that time she would have been age 50, as she was born in 1920. (You can see why when I date/married her in 1962 I had no reason to question her stated age of “28”. (Later, I would discover she was actually 41.) I doubt that she actually talked with Harry Houdini as he died in 1926 so she would have only been a child of six.
      But, meeting and talking with the magician David Copperfield is believable as many of the up and coming entertainment talents came to her to “have their astrological charts prepared and read (delineated) by her. As mentioned above Jane Russell was a regular at her classes. And yes, the singers and band members you referenced did live on the property. This was in the years after I divorced her in 1965. Best Regards, Steve

  9. L. Arnold on December 13, 2020 at 2:03 pm

    Having looked at the horoscope of G. Hodel, there is no question in my mind that he could very well have been a serial killer. It has been years since I read your books, but I recall he had a “partner in crime” earlier on. I also checked his horoscope, and like George, there is no doubt, from it, that he too was inclined to violence and murder. It is also an observable phenomenon that two people with similar inclinations can “catalyze” each other and become even worse “in tandem” than separately. There is also another thing: Your father was into the trafficking of Oriental antiquities and statues. There is a photo of him with one such thing in his hands, that under the circumstances is entirely TOO apt: that statue of “Yamantaka”, the bull-headed Tibetan Lord of Death- and this rang a LARGE bell with me! It is well known to occultists that objects like this may well have powerful elemental spirits/demonic entities attached to them through them being used in human sacrificial rituals, and it is entirely possible to be “haunted/possessed” by such entities. I refer you to “Psychic Self-Defense” by Dion Fortune (a well-known and eminently qualified occultist of the early 20th century), who talks about methods for determining the nature of “hauntings” and psychic attacks, and she states plainly that part of any such investigation should include enquiries as to whether or not the “haunted” place contains any foreign statues or tools (ritual daggers, wands, crystal balls) that may have been used in sinister rituals, and recounts an experience of her own with one such object. So, there’s another significant tidbit, perhaps unorthodox, to “add to the pile”.

    • Kimberly on January 13, 2021 at 12:12 pm

      I find your comments on the occultic nature of the GHH statue quite fascinating. It hadn’t occurred to me before that occult rituals may have been part of the program of killing.

      Steve, it’s been a while since I read your books and I’ve just purchased BDA III to catch up on the details. Did you encounter evidence that would suggest your father practiced such rituals as part of his murders?

      • Steve Hodel on January 13, 2021 at 12:24 pm

        Kimberly:
        I have always believed that NO, he never really was into Occultism, but I could be wrong on this? He was never a “joiner” and I believe for the most part avoided any organized belief systems. That said, he was certainly a believer and practitioner of Sadism, so? Also, most “experts” have indicated that the torture of Elizabeth Short and subsequent bisection likely would have taken 3-4 hours. She was bound hands and feet. While initially believing GHH did the crime alone and by himself, I now question whether others were present? Fred Sexton and ??
        We have Edmund Teske’s statement that the Sowden House “was a place of Evil. Women were tortured and murdered there.” So, could add a whole new dimension to the crime(s).

        • Kimberly on January 14, 2021 at 10:21 am

          Thanks for the quick reply Steve! While I try to stay far away from the topic of occult worship because spending time on researching it can really seep into a person’s soul, I have become aware that occult/satanic rituals are more common in certain circles than I ever would have thought. You obviously have the insider’s knowledge of your father’s though processes and crime profile but evil certainly visited Sowden House many times. Interesting that you are now entertaining the idea that he might have had a partner in the murder of Beth.

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