Maureen O’Hara Heroine of 1943 "White Rose Murders" CBS Radio Broadcast Dies at Age 95- Radio Drama Inspired Dr. George Hodel to Commit Real Life Murder

Dr. George Hill Hodel “LA Lone Woman Murders” serial killer reenacted Cornell Woolrich’s “White Rose Murders” script “ by committing a real life “White Gardenia Murder” just twenty days after Miss O’Hara’s CBS performance.

 

Maureen O’Hara 1942

CBS “Suspense Theatre” Radio Show was the Inspiration for George Hodel’s murder of victim, Ora Murray,  labeled by the press in 1943 as:

 “The White Gardenia Murder” 

In 2010, sixty-seven years after the crime was committed, I believe I found a signature link to the brutal murder of Mrs. Ora Murray, one of the eight “Category I  (definites) “L.A. Lone Woman Murders”, which was  originally summarized in my 2003 publication of Black Dahlia Avenger:

Ora Murray, The White Gardenia Murder

Below is a brief summary of the crime M.O. (For those wanting a fuller description read BDA Chapter 23, pages 294-306)
On the evening of July 26, 1943,  Mrs.Ora Murray, age 42, accompanied by her sister, Latona Leinann, went out for a night of dancing at the Zenda Ballroom, located in downtown Los Angeles at 7th & Figueroa. (One block from Dr. Hodel’s medical office at 7th & Flower.) The victim, married to an Army sergeant stationed in Mississippi was temporarily visiting her sister in L.A. At the dancehall the two women met and danced with a man described as: “Paul.”  The sister would later describe “Paul” as being “tall and thin, very dapper and a very good dancer. He was wearing a dark double-breasted suit and a dark fedora.”  Paul claimed to be from San Francisco, “just down to L.A. for a few days.” Paul, after a number of dances, offered to drive Ora Murray to Hollywood and show her the sights. Mrs. Murray accepted and Paul after driving and dropping her sister, Latona off at her home,  then left with Ora to show her Hollywood.

Some eight hours later, Ora Murray’s partially nude body was found on the grass at the Fox Hill Golf Course in West Los Angeles. She had been severely beaten about the face and body and the cause of death was found to be, “constriction of the larynx by strangulation.” Ora’s killer had ceremoniously wrapped her dress around her body like a sarong and then carefully placed a white gardenia under her right shoulder. Based on this unusual M.O. the press dubbed the crime, THE WHITE GARDENIA MURDER. The investigation was handled by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Homicide as it was just outside of the city limits.

1943 Copycat Crime to CBS Suspense Theatre “White Rose Murders”
Radio Broadcast Goes Unnoticed

During my free time, one of my favorite pastimes is listening to OTR (Old Time Radio) programs. A few days ago, I was reviewing an on-line index of the old CBS Suspense Theatre dramatizations,   and one of the titles caught my eye. It was called, THE WHITE ROSE MURDERS. The show was broadcast from CBS’s then relatively new COLUMBIA SQUARE PLAYHOUSE STUDIO located at Sunset and Gower. (Just 1.5 miles and a five minute drive from George Hodel’s Franklin House.) The radio dramatization starred the beautiful 22-year-old actress,  Maureen O’Hara and was broadcast from Hollywood on- JULY 6, 1943, just twenty days before the commission of the “White Gardenia Murder” of Ora Murray.

The radio mystery-play, written by the then popular mystery novelist/screenwriter,  Cornell Woolrich runs 30 minutes. It tells the story of a “homicidal maniac” who frequents downtown dance halls in his city, where he meets, dances with and charms women and then lures them out into the night and beats and strangles them to death. As a signature to his kill, he leaves a carefully placed “white rose” next to the dead body. In the vernacular of the day, the police detective describes him as “a chain killer” and as the story opens the city is in terror as the unidentified suspect has just slain his 4th victim.

For your listening pleasure, here is a link to the complete WHITE ROSE MURDERS radio broadcast as it originally aired from the Columbia Square Playhouse, in July 1943.

Frankly, because of the huge popularity of the Suspense Theatre shows,  introduced by, “The Man In Black,”  I am surprised that neither the public nor apparently anyone in law enforcement made the obvious connection between the radio dramatization and the Ora Murray murder that followed, just three weeks later. Suspense Theatre’s,”The Man In Black” introduces the story as, “A study in homicidal mania.”  Click below to hear the full half-hour radio performance:

Those of you who have read my sequel,  Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel will have a fuller understanding of the importance of this newly discovered link to the 1940s. Why?  Because, in my father’s later serial killings it becomes an important and recurring theme that he uses as part of his murder-signature. In the crimes of the 1960s, he expands his Murder As A Fine Art from the surrealistic plagiarism of Man Ray’s photography as seen in his Black Dahlia Murder and places it on a much broader canvas. As detailed in Most Evil George Hodel expands his killings, his “masterpieces,”  beyond Modern Art and into the world of Music, Film and Literature. This is why this new discovery,  demonstrating another example of his early plagiarism of Cornell Woolrich’s short story, adapted to radio, is so important. It reinforces the theory that George Hodel in his 1940s killings was not just adapting Man Ray’s art to murder but shows he was adapting, copying and committing his murders within weeks after the public presentation as a macabre murder mystery. Within two weeks of the fictional White Rose Murders broadcast to the public, I submit, George Hill Hodel made it REAL.  By following the script and selecting as his dancehall partner, Ora Murray, whom he would dance with, charm and then beat and strangle to death on an isolated golf course as his own plagiarized- White Gardenia Murder.

In Most Evil we examine several different murders that I believe my father “adapted from film,” and used in his real life killings. Richard Connell’s,  The Most Dangerous Game was unquestioningly used by the Zodiac Killer as part of his signature M.O. and subsequently included in his letter writing campaign to the press and police.

The Most Dangerous Game is listed as being performed at the CBS Theatre. Starring Joseph Conrad, it aired on February 1, 1945. How many more of these “fictional” stories might George Hodel have adapted to real life and real death?
Elizabeth “Black Dahlia”  Short and George Hodel positively identified as attending CBS’ Columbia Square Playhouse in 1946-7. Retired BHPD Chief of Detectives identifies George Hodel as, “the dapper man who showed him a Chicago police officer’s badge.”

 In my 2009 sequel,  MOST EVIL, Jack Egger, a former DA investigator assigned to the Black Dahlia investigation, who later became a Beverly Hills Police Captain and then the Head of Security to a major Hollywood film studio, makes a positive ID of George Hodel as the man he saw with victim Elizabeth Short just days before her murder.

Jack Egger, as a young man, before entering law-enforcement originally worked as the head usher at CBS Columbia Square Radio Playhouse at Sunset & Gower. He worked there seven years, from 1941 to 1948. (With a break in employment when he joined the service in June 1945, returning to CBS in October 1946.) Bizarrely, this establishes that Jack Egger was working at the radio theater in July 1943 when Maureen O’Hara performed, “The White Rose Murders” broadcast.

On February 7, 1950, DA Lt. Frank Jemison and LAPD Sgt. Finis Brown interviewed Jack Egger at the L.A. DA’s Office, Hall of Justice, Los Angeles. (I am in possession of the complete interview as found in the DA Hodel-Black Dahlia Files.)

In that interview, Jack Egger informs the detectives that he had seen Elizabeth Short attend CBS radio show programs, “at least twenty times and she was usually alone.” He then goes on to describe the last time he saw Elizabeth Short, which he believes, was on a Wednesday, and was either, January 1st or January 8th, 1947. (Just days before her murder.) Egger informed detectives that Elizabeth  was with a man in his, “early Forties, 5-10, 180, penetrating eyes.” They came to the front of the line of people waiting to see the popular, Jack Carson Radio Show. The man presented a “Chicago police officer’s badge” and Egger, acknowledging that it was common practice to show courtesy to police officers, and assuming that the man was, in fact, a legitimate police detective, and then escorted both Elizabeth Short and the man to Studio A to see the show.

In December 2003, some eight months after the publication of BDA, I located and met with retired Beverly Hills Police Department Captain Jack Eggers.  Eggers positively identified George Hodel as the man he saw accompanying Elizabeth Short to the CBS radio show and as the same man who presented a police badge and identified himself as a Chicago, police officer. See MOST EVIL pages 46-50 for a complete summary of the Egger investigation.  (Attached below as PDF)

Also, contained in these same DA Files are the reports documenting Elizabeth Short’s travel to Chicago and her personal investigation into the Chicago Red Lipstick Murders in June 1946 while George Hodel was temporarily stationed as a UN doctor in China. Additional DA investigation and documents in my possession show that the LA DA was actively corresponding with Chicago PD and investigating and attempting to identify the “Unknown Chicago Police Officer” as a suspect in the Black Dahlia Murder. (Obviously, they were unaware that George Hodel was in possession of the Chicago police badge and representing himself as an officer in Hollywood.)

Maureen O’Hara Laist obituary

Black Dahlia Avenger Ora Murray Summary BDA Ch. 23