The Medusa Touch- Acing it with Tamar Hodel and Things That Go Bump in the Night-Synchronicities

May 1, 2023
Birch Bay, Washington
“It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May. Where everythings…” (Camelot)

The Medusa Touch

I received the below ‘comment’ from my good friend and fellow sleuth, Dr. Luigi Warren just a few days ago. As a result, and having a life-long crush on Lee Remick (those eyes) and never having seen “The Medusa Touch” movie, I decided to watch it. (Remick had just co-starred in THE OMEN two years earlier.)

          1976                                                                                                         1978

                                                                                                       Click on poster to see trailer

As a detective with fifty-four years of experience, I have been trained to conduct  “Just the Facts” investigations. Rational and Objective. In my presentation of my findings through the decades, in the many separate homicide investigations, I have done my best to present to you, my readers the same.

That said, there is another part of me.  Not sure if it is my Irish/Druid roots; or my Russian Rasputin Mystic roots) but either way, I am a strong believer in Hamlet’s, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Now that I have entered my Eighties, I tend to favor more of the Jungian thinking. (Pun intended)
Throughout my writings, I have referred to this as “synchronicities”.  Strange events. Unexplainable to the rational mind, but nevertheless-that appear as “door openers” that have led me to discover truths, that without these synchronicities, would forever have remained hidden.  Since I do not believe in “coincidences” then there must be another explanation.  Some sort of mental/metaphysical “more things than in heaven and earth” connection.

Let me give you a real-life example of just one of the many synchronicities.

It is 1998, I am working as a Criminal Defense Investigator and am living in a rented house on Lake Whatcom in Bellingham, Washington. This is prior to my father’s death and I have no clew as to what is about to unfold in my life with my father’s death the following year.

As I step outside the front door, preparing to drive into the city on a case, I look down and see a single playing card on the front steps. It’s apparently been dropped or blown by the wind and laying in the dirt. It is the Queen of Clubs and has a single hole punched in it. (I have the original somewhere in a box in storage, but have reproduced its image below.)

(Simulated reproduction)

I find it curious and for some unknown reason, I picked up the card and kept it.  (Threw it in my desk drawer and forgot about it.)

Fast forward four years to 2002.

My father died the following year (1999) and I am now deep into the weeds of the Black Dahlia and L.A. Lone Woman Murder investigations.

I have conducted an in-depth investigation of my father’s background and early years and have discovered his newspaper articles and writings for the LA Record in 1924 as a young “crime reporter” riding around with LAPD Homicide Detectives and writing his tabloid accounts of the murder investigations.
The following article was written by George Hodel in 1924 and I included it in my 2003 publication, Black Dahlia Avenger.

Excerpt from the above article from Black Dahlia Avenger:

 

Other than the surprising discovery that my father was a young crime reporter riding along with LAPD homicide detectives and reporting the gruesome crime scenes, I merely document a “just the facts” accounting of his biography and let the article speak for itself.

Fast forward to 2005

Steve and half-sister Tamar-Los Angeles 2005

Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder has been published and become a New York Times bestseller and I have conducted numerous interviews for Dateline, 48-Hours, Court TV, etc.
My sister, Tamar has arranged to travel to Los Angeles for an interview and we reunite in person for the first time in about forty-five years!  (Previous to this all my contacts with my sister were by telephone with her at her residence in Oahu, Hawaii.)

My sister has always been a believer in the paranormal and all things psychic; astrology, tarot, hauntings etc.

During her short visit, Tamar informs me she is currently into tarot card reading and tells me, “Steven, my birthdate is March 24, so I am the Queen of Clubs.”

Tamar then asks, “What was our dad’s birthdate?”
I reply, “October 10th” (She looks it up in her book) and replies, “Oh my God. George is also the Queen of Clubs.”
She then asks me my birthdate.  I respond, “November 6th”.
Tamar looks it up, “You are the Ace of Diamonds- That’s a good card.”

 SKH Note- The “Queen of Clubs” and the “Ace of Diamonds’ are the only two playing cards that have ever come up in my now twenty-four-year investigation. And yes, I’m playing with a full deck of cards.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophies.”

Hamlet.