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 1997 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 these wannabe detectives have 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) insistence that the Black Dahlia murder “was a standalone; a onetime murder, unconnected to any other murders.”

This assertion ALONE immediately disqualifies their “theory.” Law Enforcement agencies, including the originally assigned detectives, all believed that many of the 1943-1949 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 back then called them “chain murders.”)

Below, I have reproduced the lengthy October 1948 True Detective Magazine article supporting what LE suspected–that five or more of the crimes were committed by the same suspect, who called himself the “Black Dahlia Avenger.” See attached article “The Black Dahlia Murders.”