103 Email Exchanges Between Steve Hodel and Alex Baber, 2022–2023”

October 23, 2026
Birch Bay, Washington 

103 Email Exchanges Between Steve Hodel and Alex Baber of Cold Case Consultants, 2022–2023

A number of readers have asked about my contacts with Alex Baber and author Michael Connelly—what we discussed, and over what period of time.

The photograph above shows my printed correspondence with Alex Baber during 2022–2023: 103 email exchanges. The stack measures 2¾ inches thick and contains an estimated 600-plus printed pages, including earlier messages repeated within the email chains.

First, regarding Michael Connelly: I have had no contact with him since his unequivocal endorsement in 2003 of my findings identifying George Hodel as the killer of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. Below are his endorsement and a photograph of us attending the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards ceremony, where Black Dahlia Avenger was nominated in the Best Fact Crime category. Connelly was then president of MWA.

Connelly and Hodel 2003 Edgar Awards

Michael Connelly 2003 endorsement of “Black Dahlia Solved.”

Alex Baber initially contacted me by email and requested a telephone conversation. We spoke, and he subsequently assured me that his “supercomputer” could assist with my investigation.

Over the course of our correspondence, I shared material documenting some twenty years of research and investigative findings. I also separately mailed him all of my published books and provided DA and LAPD reports and other investigative materials.

Those materials included LAPD and District Attorney reports that, as I have documented, named and eliminated Marvin Margolis as a suspect in Elizabeth Short’s murder.

I present this correspondence to establish the extent of our communications and Baber’s familiarity with my investigation.

My published findings linked George Hodel to the 1947 Black Dahlia and other Los Angeles Lone Woman Murders. I later presented my investigation of his possible connection to the 1968–1969 Zodiac murders in Most Evil, published by Dutton in 2009, followed by Most Evil II, published by Vireo/Skyhorse in 2015. The latter included what I identified as an additional link: an interpretation of a Zodiac cipher using the ancient Ogham alphabet to spell HODEL. In my 2015 follow-up I declared by belief that George Hodel was in fact both Black Dahlia Avenger and then reinvented himself in Zodiac some twenty years later.

The top page of the stack includes an email from Baber dated February 28, 2023. In it, he described watching one of my presentations on YouTube and reading my “numerous books.” He also wrote:

“I have developed a great deal of respect for you, your work, and dedication to uncovering the truth…”

In a separate email, Baber expressed confidence in my findings linking my father to the serial crimes presented in my two-volume work, The Early Years: The Further Serial Crimes of George Hill Hodel, M.D. (1920s and 1930s). Both volumes were published in 2021, the year before he contacted me.

The correspondence speaks for itself.