LADA Secret Hodel Black Dahlia Files Reveal 13th Witness Busting the Myth of a “Missing Week”

 

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June 1, 2020
Los Angeles, California

“Connie (Starr) stated that she was invited to dinner at Mark Hansen’s by Ann Toth on Saturday, January 11, 1947. That the three of them (Hansen, Toth and Starr) had dinner together and shortly after dinner about 9 PM, Beth Short, and her boyfriend, a young kid with brown hair, arrived. ”
Lt. Frank Jemison Memo
(Excerpt Connie Starr interview Jan 26, 1950)

Included in the LADA Lt. Jemison secret Black Dahlia files is a Memo documenting an interview conducted by Lt. Frank Jemison with Connie Starr, an actress/friend of victim Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. (Reproduced below in full from secret files.)

Lt. Jemison/Connie Starr Interview
(Connie Starr apartment 4 miles from DA office at Hall of Justice.)

Below is scanned copy of original in DA File

 

Below map shows location of then 1947 residence of Mark Hansen (at the rear of Florentine Gardens which was partially owned by Hansen) where Elizabeth Short and unknown “young date” stopped to visit and spoke with Hansen, Toth and Starr on January 11, 1947 at approximately 9 PM.

Mark Hansen residence, 6024 Carlos Ave, Hollywood. (Behind his club, Florentine Gardens)

JANUARY 11, 1947  9 PM

Connie Starr                      Elizabeth Short            Mark Hansen                    Ann Toth                 “young kid brown hair”?

Miss Connie Starr was a working actress and personal friend of actress Ann Toth who was living at the Mark Hansen residence. Both knew Elizabeth Short who also resided at the same location for several months in late 1946.

This documented 13th sighting is now added to the previous 12  separate sightings of Short during her so-called “Missing Week” and is the thirteenth independent witness confirming Elizabeth Short was alive on 1-11-1947  is further proof that THERE WAS NO MISSING WEEK.  (See excerpt from BDA II (2014) for additional witness statements and sightings during the week of January 9-14, 1947.)

The only credited IMDB entry I have found so far for Connie Starr was as a “waitress” in
Anchor’s Away (1945). 

 

SKH Note updated 6/2/2020:  

Here is the original reference excerpted from BDA II (2014) where I mention the Connie Starr interview, however, it was inadvertently omitted by me in the  “Chronological Witness Sightings of Elizabeth Short’s so-called, “Missing Week” (BDA II page 206).  (Note in my original reportage I mention a link of Connie Starr to Ann Toth and Marion Herwood Keyes (George Hodel’s personal secretary) in the filming of, Arch of Triumph (1948).

BDA II (2014) page 41:

In the secret DA files, I discovered that Lt. Frank Jemison had interviewed two of Elizabeth Short’s personal acquaintances, Ann Toth and Connie Star, both would-be starlets who frequently played bit parts in Hollywood. Ann Toth, a part-time actress, was the girlfriend of Mark Hansen, owner of the Florentine Gardens, a popular restaurant and nightclub with a popular nude revue. I am quite certain that my father both knew and frequented Mark Hansen’s nightclub on a regular basis because (1) he loved burlesque and nude shows [on the DA Bugging Tapes, he bragged about taking some visiting dignitaries from China to a local burlesque house] and (2) Hansen’s Florentine Gardens Club was just one mile from the Franklin house.

In her interview with Lt. Jemison, Connie Star recalled seeing Elizabeth Short with a young boyfriend at Mark Hansen’s home on Carlos Avenue, at the rear of his club, on January 11, 1947, just four days before Short’s body was discovered.

Lt. Jemison determined that both Connie Starr and Ann Toth worked together as studio extras for the film Arch of Triumph. Marion Herwood Keyes, George Hodel’s former personal secretary, was the costume designer on that film, so the three women most certainly would have come in contact with each other during the shoot. Just another example of the seemingly unending one-degrees-of separation.

Updated Witness Sightings of Elizabeth Short: