Santa Barbara Police Officer Mary Unkefer Heroine–Her QuicK Actions Saves Victim’s Life in Shootout Several Years Before Her 1949 Linking of Dr. George Hodel to Assault/Att. Overdose of Victim Lillian Lenorak and Black Dahlia Investigation
June 1, 2025
Birch Bay, Washington
A big White Hat Shero Award goes to Santa Barbara policewoman Mary Unkefer for her 1940s service to the citizens of that community.
In 1943 we know she assisted then-nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Short by arresting her for “Minor Possession” due to her presence inside a local bar with adult servicemen and allowing her to stay at Unkefer’s residence for five or so days before sending her home to her parents.
Then in January 30, 1950, Officer Unkefer wrote her letter to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office informing them of the reported attempted drug overdose and assault of victim Lillian Lenorak and Unkefer’s being sent to the residence of Dr. George Hill Hodel at the Sowden/Hodel House, 5121 Franklin Ave, Hollywood at the request of Lillian’s mother, a Santa Barbara resident. (Clearly, this letter, written just two weeks prior to LADA picking up Dr. George Hodel and taking him to the downtown Hall of Justice was the impetus for detaining him while fellow officers broke into the Hodel residence and secretly installed the microphones and set up listening equipment at Hollywood Police Station. (They bugged the residence for five weeks with eighteen officers assigned 24/7 for five weeks beginning on Feb. 15, 1950).
Author’s Note- We know from the Glenn Martin Letter that George Hodel was taken in and questioned in the summer of 1949 as a suspect in the Black Dahlia and separate, Louise Springer Murder. (“GH and I both knew her”(Victim Louise Springer)–Glenn Martin.
In Unkefer’s interview with Lillian Lenorak, (Lenorak was a witness in the incest trial just two weeks prior to her drugging and assault by Dr. Hodel who had remorse and and threatened to go to the DA and recant her perjury alibi for Dr. Hodel.) Not only did victim inform Officer Unkefer that she was in fear of her life but also that “Dr. Hodel had threatened to kill her son, John Lenorak (Farrow) if she left the Hodel residence.”
Audio Recording of Article HERE.
Unkefer Letter to LADA reporting drugging and attempted foced overdose by Dr. George Hodel of victim Lillian Lenorak and her rescue of victim from Dr. Hodel’s residence, the Sowden/Hodel House at 5121 Franklin Avenue, in Hollyood.
SEE FULL DETAILS OF SECRET DA OFFICER MARY UNKEFER LETTER FROM 2016 BLOG HERE.
Steve:
I wonder if Unkefer played a much bigger role in the Dahlia case than is apparent at first sight, given all the coincidences involved. Specifically, I wonder if GHH and/or Man Ray and/or their respective spouses were present at the El Paseo when Unkefer arrested ES, and if there was innocuous-seeming contact then which took on a sinister cast in retrospect for Unkefer when she was called to GHH’s house seven years later to rescue Lillian Lenorak.
Some “straws in the wind:”
– The El Paseo arrest took place about the time Man Ray’s one-man show was wrapping up at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, a few minutes walk from the El Paseo.
– The El Paseo was at that time a fancy nightspot with a Flamenco floorshow in what was then a relatively sleepy town. It seems like the kind of place MR or GHH might hang out in after the show. (MR’s oeuvre includes studies of Flamenco dancers.)
– GHH was in 1943 an impressive public official, an expert on VD and a counsellor to “wayward” young women — a quintessential white hat/authority figure with expertise pertinent to ES’s predicament. Unkefer is clearly deferential to him in her 1950 letter to Lt. Jemison, even as she implies that maybe he’s not really the ultrarespectable “good guy” he seems at all — maybe a monster, in fact. I could see her not bringing up 1943 in that letter out of deference, given the shocking but tenuous implication, but then raising it in person later.
– We have evidence suggesting MR used ES as a subject in 1943 (L’Equivoque) — even though there would have been very few opportunities for them to meet in 1943 unless it somehow relates to the El Paseo incident.
– It seems that GHH befriended MR around 1943, and that GHH and Dorero met and became involved with another woman of about ES’s age, Maddie Comfort, around this time, that connection involving a showgirl friend of Comfort who modeled for MR at the suggestion of GHH or Dorero. And, apparently, Comfort had some awareness of a GHH-ES connection.
– It seems that both Dorero and Juliet Man Ray were given to excessive drinking and getting “wild” when dining out. (See Dorero’s interview with Lt. Jemison and the Jules Engel video interview: “Jules Engel – Man Ray; remember to take pictures.”)
– ES would have presumably gone to LA first from Unkefer’s personal “halfway house” before heading back to Massachusetts. It seems possible that if she met GHH or MR in Santa Barbara, she might have stopped over to get checked up or counselled by GHH or to sit for MR — all completely above board and on the level.
– According to Gretchen Wenner’s “The Black Dahlia Never Dies,” Unkefer would “almost certainly” have taken ES’s prints and the famous mugshot in the basement of City Hall after the arrest. MR’s “The Mug Drawing III,” dating from 1943, looks a bit interesting in the light of the ES mugshot.
Best regards,
LW
LW:
There was a good chance MR and GHH did go to the El Paseo restaurant at some point during MR’s exhibition in Santa Barbara. GHH loved Mexican food almost as much as Chinese. I doubt they were there during the arrest, but one never knows. I think GHH was “the unknown doctor” treating ES for her Bartholin Gland cyst in ’43 and likely introduced her to MR or vice versa. We know she modeled for another artist in ’43 in HWD for two paintings, as documented in BDA I. In Unkefer’s letter, I don’t get the sense she had much information about GHH and likely was just responding per Lillian’s mother’s request to mainly get the young boy, John Lenorak Farrow, out of harm’s way. It doesn’t sound like the mother (Mrs. Hamilton) cared much about her daughter but did want the grandson rescued. Fortunately, Unkefer, then retired from the SBPD, was working as a private citizen, continuing her role as “mom” and willing to make the trip south just in time.
Steve:
So, my question is if GHH was the unknown doctor treating ES for female trouble, how did she come to consult him in 1943? IIRC, she was briefly in LA with her no-good father in ’43, then out in the boonies, then in Santa Barbara for about a week before the El Paseo incident, then spent about a week at Unkefer’s place, then headed back east for the rest of the year. If this consultation came out of that week in Santa Barbara, then probably either ES met GHH there on the town and he gave her his card, or GHH met Unkefer and she suggested the consult to ES while “setting her straight.” If Unkefer knew of the (apparently innocent) 1943 link between GHH and ES and it came up in a follow-up conversation with the DA, that could explain why the investigation went into overdrive soon after her letter. Is there anything in the case file apart from relatively nonspecific remarks attributed to Lenorak (and Comfort?) to explain Lt. Jemison’s assertion to Dorero that GHH had a personal connection to ES?
Steve,
Some further observations:
Jemison’s investigative summary of 1950 states that Lenorak “identified the photo of victim Short as a photo of one the doctor’s girlfriends.” Given her rage at GHH and the fact he was publicly implicated as the Dahlia Killer during the 1949 trial, it is a little surprising this explosive claim isn’t reflected in Unkefer’s account of her talks with Lenorak during the ride to Santa Barbara and later in hospital. The only other witness report of a GHH-ES association Jemison mentions, from Maddie Comfort, seems not that solid either — it’s not even clear from the text whether Comfort affirmed or denied knowledge of an association. I propose that Jemison’s most credible lead on a link — albeit “old news” dating back to 1943 — might actually have come from Mary Unkefer.
I see three coincidences which are troubling and which might suggest Unkefer is significant to the GHH theory of the Dahlia murder:
1. Unkefer of all people showing up at GHH’s house in Hollywood in 1950.
2. The DA bugging GHH’s house soon after Unkefer’s letter arrives, long after the Dahlia murder.
3. Circumstantial evidence suggesting that GHH and/or MR might have first met ES at or around the time and place of Unkefer’s El Paseo arrest.
Thinking about it, perhaps we could write the first point off as pure coincidence, if we look at it as a “lucky break” in a wide-ranging probe. On that basis, we know about this piece of good luck because it led to the evidentiary record that supports our current interest in the story. This only works if the 1950 Unkefer connection implicated GHH in the Dahlia murder, which is not really indicated within the four corners of the letter, but might easily have followed from it. The other two “coincidences” cease to be mere coincidences if Unkefer did indeed provide a lead on a 1943 GHH-ES association which is not accessible to us through surviving written materials. That seems perfectly possible — for example, we knew nothing about the Glenn Martin informant story until it was revealed through a recent chance discovery.
In order for me to better follow your comments to each other, could you please inform me what the acronym “HWD” means? It comes from Steve’s sentence: “We know she modeled for another artist in ’43 in HWD for two paintings, as documented in BDA”. Also, do you know what that other artist may have been?
Barry G:
HWD means Hollywood. My error. She met artist Arthur Curtis James, aka Charles Smith, in Hollywood in August, 1944 and posed for him twice. See BDA I “Dahlia Witnesses” page 115 for details.
Mr. Hodel, this comment is not related to this post, but as it is your most recent, I figure this is the place you’ll most likely see it, and seeing how you take the time to respond to your comments here, I thought I would try to ask you a question… In your investigations, have you come across evidence of gh commiting murders in Hawaii? … when I first heard of the case of Lisa au I instantly thought of him, specifically bc of potential similarities with the zodiac… … having asked my question I hope to hear back from you, but regardless, keep up the good work sir, and thank you for your efforts to bring closure to all of the cases you’ve investigated, both on the job and in your retirement.
Ryan S:
Thanks for the kind words. No, I have not discovered any murders in Hawaii during his years there. That said, difficult to research and I suspect there could well be an unsolved or two in what back then was still as U.S. Territory. I am guessing a lot of lone woman murders flew under the wire so to speak during those years so not very public. Best, Steve