Original 1948 True Detective Magazine Confirms the Press, the DA’s Office, and the LAPD Detectives All Believed the 1947 “Black Dahlia Murders” Suspect was a Serial Killer
November 7, 2024
Birch Bay, Washington
In recent weeks, the Los Angeles Times has attempted to revive the 1997 theory coming from its own long-retired copyboy editor, wannabe detective, and self-appointed “Black Dahlia Expert” who has been claiming for twenty-six years that an aged man, “Dr. Walter Bayley,” who had lived a block south of the body dump vacant lot (but, not a resident at the time of the crime in January 1947)-“DID IT.”
The LAT copyeditor (cross your T’s and dot your I’s) came up with his “theory on whodunit” in time for a Los Angeles Times article marking the fiftieth anniversary of the January 15, 1947, infamous murder of Elizabeth Short, known to the world as “The Black Dahlia.” Further, he promised to “reveal all” in a book he began writing back then and is still working on some twenty-six years later.
Setting aside the many problems that he and other “wannabe detectives” present in their separate “theories” (all of whom to date have had zero law enforcement experience in criminal investigations), let me today just focus on their (this includes the LAT copyeditor) insistance that the Black Dahlia murder “was a standalone; a onetime murder, unconnected to any other murders.” (The copyeditor’s insistence comes from the fact that a serial killer would immediately and permanently eliminate his aged Dr. Walter Bayley as the actual killer.)
This assertion ALONE immediately disqualifies his and others “theories.” Law Enforcement agencies, including the assigned detectives, all believed that many of the L.A. Lone Women murders were connected and that an active serial killer was committing the crimes. (In 1947, the term “serial killer” was unknown, and LE’s term was “chain murders.”)
This FAQ (t.3) originally posted circa 2006:
Here, I have reproduced an October 1948 True Detective Magazine lengthy article supporting what LE suspected–that five or more of the crimes were committed by the suspect, calling himself the “Black Dahlia Avenger.”
