The Courtroom Drama of the Century.

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ABOUT the BOOK

Courtroom Drama of the Century

A vacant, midnight courtroom becomes enlivened by the ethereal and personal testimony of his murder victims.
For the first and last time he will have to face his victims and hear their story as Steve Hodel masterfully gives voice to the murdered.
"George Hill Hodel, how do you plead to the twelve counts, each charging you with murder in the first degree?"
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ABOUT STEVE

Steve Hodel was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He served four years as a medic in the U.S. Navy, and then joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1963. After six years in uniform patrol, he transferred to Hollywood Division Detectives where he worked all of the “tables”: Burglary, Robbery, Auto-Theft, Juvenile, Crimes against Persons and was then permanently assigned to the Homicide Detail.

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Steve Hodel

ABOUT STEVE'S BOOKS

Steve’s first book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder published in 2003 with new updated investigative chapters added to the HarperCollins paperback edition in 2004 and 2006. Black Dahlia Avenger is a New York Times Bestseller, a NYT Most Notable Book and was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for an Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category.

Steve’s sequel, MOST EVIL: The Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel, is scheduled to be published by DUTTON – PENGUIN GROUP on September 21, 2009.

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LATEST BLOG

Famed Surrealist Artist/Photographer Edmund Teske Personal Friend to George Hodel and Man Ray and His Direct Knowledge of the Sowden/Hodel Residence; “Women were tortured for sport there. Murders happened there. It’s an Evil Place.”

By Steve Hodel | April 11, 2025

April 11, 2025 (Revised/Updated from October 16, 2023) Birch Bay, Washington One of George Hodel’s friends who was “in the know” (and apparently by his own words much more than that?) was surrealist photographer EDMUND TESKE. (His artwork is now prominently displayed in the Getty Museum)  Strange that Edmund Teske and my paths never crossed…

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“Los Angeles is the construct of its mythologies good and bad, fact and fiction. The legend of Elizabeth Short is one of the most enduring. Hodel's investigation is thoroughly and completely convincing. So too is this book. As far as I am concerned, this case is closed.”

—MICHAEL CONNELLY, Bestselling author of The Lincoln Lawyer

“From this distance, there is no doubt that George Hodel committed/performed theatrical murders… That a mad doctor’s son grew up to be a detective and solved a master criminal’s surrealist crimes—and it was his father—is mind-blowing.”

—T BONE BURNETT, Oscar, Grammy, and Golden Globe Award-winning musician-songwriter; Music Director, True Detective

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