Modern Forensic Analysis Identifies “Jane Doe” in Dr. George Hodel Album as Elizabeth Short, the “Black Dahlia”

February 19, 2026
Birch Bay, Washington

Modern Forensic Analysis Identifies “Jane Doe” in Dr. George Hodel Album as Elizabeth Short, the “Black Dahlia”

“Updated Forensic facial analysis indicates a 97–99% probability that this image
from Dr. George Hodel’s private album depicts Elizabeth Short, the ‘Black Dahlia.”

As Within, So Without: Man Ray, Surrealism, and the Secrets Behind the Black Dahlia Murder—
Now Available

After more than three decades of investigation into the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short—the young woman the press quickly named the “Black Dahlia,” long considered Los Angeles’ most infamous unsolved killing—newly applied forensic and photographic analysis has produced the most definitive result yet.

Modern scientific facial-recognition comparison of the historic “Jane Doe” photograph preserved in the private album of Dr. George Hill Hodel—the Los Angeles District Attorney’s primary suspect in 1950 and first publicly revealed through my investigation in 2003—now indicates a 97–99% probability that the woman depicted is Elizabeth Short.
This level of identification approaches the highest certainty achievable from historical photographic evidence. Independent photographic assessment further suggests the subject appears to have been either unconscious or post-mortem at the time the image was taken, a finding presented within the broader evidentiary context of the investigation.

That finding stands alongside extensive corroborative physical, visual, and documentary analysis developed across decades of investigative work.
Taken together, these lines of evidence form the foundation of my new book:

As Within, So Without: Man Ray, Surrealism, and the Secrets Behind the Black Dahlia Murder.

While elements of this investigation have appeared in my earlier books, this final volume brings the material together in a single, fully illustrated synthesis—integrating updated forensic analysis, newly examined visual connections to the Sowden House, and expanded historical and psychological context surrounding the case.

More than seventy-five years after Elizabeth Short’s murder, modern science now allows certain questions to be approached with a level of clarity that was previously impossible.
It is my hope that this work contributes meaningfully to the historical record of a crime that has remained unresolved for generations.

As Within, So Without: Man Ray, Surrealism, and the Secrets Behind the Black Dahlia Murder — now available on Amazon.

8 1/2 x 11″ Color, 212 pages, Hardback First Edition

Thank you, as always, for your continued interest and support throughout this long investigation.

— Steve Hodel

Buy Book Amazon Link HERE