Well, quite a surprise on this birthday eve — I just discovered a major investigative piece posted today by my friend and super-sleuth, Dr. Luigi Warren.
For those of you who follow my Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac investigations, I highly recommend subscribing to Dr. Warren’s Thoughtcrimes Substack here: 👉 https://luigiwarren.substack.com
I’ve just finished reading his extensive and remarkable new investigative article, “From the Desk of George Hodel (Part I)”, posted earlier today.
Dr. Warren has taken a new and much deeper dive into the background and early years of my father, George Hodel, presenting new findings and documentation that I completely missed. His research offers a sharper, more focused portrait of the man and his emerging pathologies — the formative years that foreshadowed so much of what would follow.
All I can say is — thank you, Luigi, for the early birthday present. And to my readers: read it.
Here is LW’s article in full. (Sounds like we can anticipate a Part II down the road.)
From the Desk of George Hodel (Part I)
By Dr. Luigi Warren Reposted with permission of the author, from his Thoughtcrimes Substack (2025). https://luigiwarren.substack.com/
Attached below is the full article courtesy of Dr. Luigi Warren:
Fascinating that the 1962 Oceanside murder may have been/was likely a “shout out” to resident Ben Hecht. Much like how the 1966 Riverside murder was perhaps chosen because Sadakichi Hartmann had lived there. It seems GHH was seeking validation from the few who could appreciate him: a couple of the Bundy Drive Boys. Which is also interesting since Bundy Drive Boy Gene Fowler’s son Will got to Betty Short’s body before the cops did…
Steve: At this point, does anyone reading “K” really think this was not the author of the “SLA Letter?” Talk about “thoughtprints.” That story is the key, isn’t it? -LW
LW: Yes, amazing you located those missing pages. Don’t know what happened back then when I was searching his HS books, but sure glad you found the full story. Super job Luigi.
GHH presumably wrote “K” in late ’21 or early ’22. In August 1921 Edwin Baird’s short story, “Z,” appeared in Street & Smith’s “Detective Story Magazine.” “Z” has in recent years received much notice as a potential influence on the future Zodiac, despite its coming out almost half a century before his 1960s crime spree. Did “Z” influence GHH’s “K,” written only a few months later?
I also note that the Hollywood remake of “Fantomas” was released as a 20-episode serial over 1921. GHH was in Paris in 1912-13 when episodes of the original “Fantomas” arrived in French movie houses, and for the original release of some of “Zigomar,” it’s main rival in the international super-criminal serial genre. (Flash-foward: “Zigomar” v. “Intramar” — what’s the difference?)
We have the Father Heslin kidnap/murder in August of 1921. If GHH was involved with that, he would have skedaddled back to LA for the start of the ’22 year at South Pasadena High right after. Indeed, there is evidence in contemporary press reports that a co-conspirator headed down to LA soon after the crime. We also know that Alexander Zelenko had his offices a few blocks from William Hightower’s lodgings in downtown San Francisco at the time of the Heslin crime, and that Zelenko would come down to Pasadena to build the guest house for GHH and then to establish his home close to his lifelong friends the Hodels in ’22.
While I believe that Hightower was involved in the Heslin events, I have previously leaned to the theory that he might have been duped, perhaps by GHH. Recently, chewing more on the evidence, including articles from the SF Bulletin which have recently been added at newspapers.com, I give more credence to the notion that Hightower and GHH, two fantasists, cooked this thing up together. Then things all went horribly wrong, rather as Hightower’s financier friend, Fred Hall, theorized to the press.
Hightower was an eccentric autodidact with an interest in radical politics and (I now believe), a genuine, if largely abstract, antipathy to the Catholic Church. It looks like GHH had absorbed anti-establishment leanings growing up around intellectuals and reading avant-garde writers during a time of revolution, terrorism, and revulsion at the Great War. Hightower and GHH also shared an interest in poetry and a fantastic turn of mind fueled by romantic fiction and detective stories. Hightower was quite literally a mad inventor who experimented with new types of machine gun and “infernal machines” (the contemporary term for what we call “IEDs”).
Tasking GHH to do the Heslin pickup at the rectory could have made the whole crazy plan a bit more credible. If that’s the way it went down, it’s possible that Hightower was the cliffside killer, using that gun for whose disappearance he had no credible explanation. Even if that’s how it happened, it would be a huge secret for a 14-year-old high school student to keep and a life-changing event for GHH. Anyway, lately that’s how my thoughts are running…
Thanks for another compelling update in the notorious case.
The article lends more credence to your case against GHH.
I believe Dr. Warren may have opened up another avenue of investigation into the early years of GHH.
His article states that in 1923, GHH was given a guest house to live in. The question I have is: are there any unsolved homicides or violent crimes against women in South Pasadena during the period he lived in the guest house? My understanding of serial killers is that they often begin criminal activity against people while in their teens. GHH was 15 in 1923 and the guest house would have offered him a perfect private staging area for such activity. His departure from Caltech that same year is suspicious and could be related to such hypothetical crimes.
In addition, joining the staff of the Los Angeles Record as a reporter could have been a way to insert himself into the best possible position to keep tabs on police investigations into those probable cases. As you mention repeatedly in your books, reporters would sometimes have more information than the police during the period in question (1923 to 1950).
Happy 84th, Steve! Thanks for the shout-out. From “K” to “Z,” it all fits together… -LW
Fascinating that the 1962 Oceanside murder may have been/was likely a “shout out” to resident Ben Hecht. Much like how the 1966 Riverside murder was perhaps chosen because Sadakichi Hartmann had lived there. It seems GHH was seeking validation from the few who could appreciate him: a couple of the Bundy Drive Boys. Which is also interesting since Bundy Drive Boy Gene Fowler’s son Will got to Betty Short’s body before the cops did…
Steve: At this point, does anyone reading “K” really think this was not the author of the “SLA Letter?” Talk about “thoughtprints.” That story is the key, isn’t it? -LW
LW: Yes, amazing you located those missing pages. Don’t know what happened back then when I was searching his HS books, but sure glad you found the full story. Super job Luigi.
Steve:
GHH presumably wrote “K” in late ’21 or early ’22. In August 1921 Edwin Baird’s short story, “Z,” appeared in Street & Smith’s “Detective Story Magazine.” “Z” has in recent years received much notice as a potential influence on the future Zodiac, despite its coming out almost half a century before his 1960s crime spree. Did “Z” influence GHH’s “K,” written only a few months later?
I also note that the Hollywood remake of “Fantomas” was released as a 20-episode serial over 1921. GHH was in Paris in 1912-13 when episodes of the original “Fantomas” arrived in French movie houses, and for the original release of some of “Zigomar,” it’s main rival in the international super-criminal serial genre. (Flash-foward: “Zigomar” v. “Intramar” — what’s the difference?)
We have the Father Heslin kidnap/murder in August of 1921. If GHH was involved with that, he would have skedaddled back to LA for the start of the ’22 year at South Pasadena High right after. Indeed, there is evidence in contemporary press reports that a co-conspirator headed down to LA soon after the crime. We also know that Alexander Zelenko had his offices a few blocks from William Hightower’s lodgings in downtown San Francisco at the time of the Heslin crime, and that Zelenko would come down to Pasadena to build the guest house for GHH and then to establish his home close to his lifelong friends the Hodels in ’22.
While I believe that Hightower was involved in the Heslin events, I have previously leaned to the theory that he might have been duped, perhaps by GHH. Recently, chewing more on the evidence, including articles from the SF Bulletin which have recently been added at newspapers.com, I give more credence to the notion that Hightower and GHH, two fantasists, cooked this thing up together. Then things all went horribly wrong, rather as Hightower’s financier friend, Fred Hall, theorized to the press.
Hightower was an eccentric autodidact with an interest in radical politics and (I now believe), a genuine, if largely abstract, antipathy to the Catholic Church. It looks like GHH had absorbed anti-establishment leanings growing up around intellectuals and reading avant-garde writers during a time of revolution, terrorism, and revulsion at the Great War. Hightower and GHH also shared an interest in poetry and a fantastic turn of mind fueled by romantic fiction and detective stories. Hightower was quite literally a mad inventor who experimented with new types of machine gun and “infernal machines” (the contemporary term for what we call “IEDs”).
Tasking GHH to do the Heslin pickup at the rectory could have made the whole crazy plan a bit more credible. If that’s the way it went down, it’s possible that Hightower was the cliffside killer, using that gun for whose disappearance he had no credible explanation. Even if that’s how it happened, it would be a huge secret for a 14-year-old high school student to keep and a life-changing event for GHH. Anyway, lately that’s how my thoughts are running…
-LW
Thanks for another compelling update in the notorious case.
The article lends more credence to your case against GHH.
I believe Dr. Warren may have opened up another avenue of investigation into the early years of GHH.
His article states that in 1923, GHH was given a guest house to live in. The question I have is: are there any unsolved homicides or violent crimes against women in South Pasadena during the period he lived in the guest house? My understanding of serial killers is that they often begin criminal activity against people while in their teens. GHH was 15 in 1923 and the guest house would have offered him a perfect private staging area for such activity. His departure from Caltech that same year is suspicious and could be related to such hypothetical crimes.
In addition, joining the staff of the Los Angeles Record as a reporter could have been a way to insert himself into the best possible position to keep tabs on police investigations into those probable cases. As you mention repeatedly in your books, reporters would sometimes have more information than the police during the period in question (1923 to 1950).
Just a thought.
Check out The Early Years Parts I and II https://stevehodel.com/books/the-early-years-part-i-the-1920s/
and https://stevehodel.com/books/the-early-year-part-ii-the-1930s/ I present cases that were very possibly committed by GHH starting at age 14. Best, Steve