HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 – Theory vs. Fact: The Demythification of the Source, Identification and Solving of the Black Dahlia Murder
Birch Bay, Washington
January 1, 2025
(This 2024 photo looking across the harbor to Canada is by local Birch Bay photographer Clive Stevens)
Greetings from Birch Bay and the NW corner of the United States.
First, let me wish all my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR and let’s all hit the ground running and make this a constructive year for us both personally and professionally.
To jumpstart that goal, (on both a personal and professional level) let me start the New Year, by setting the record straight on the myth that began twenty-two years ago and has grown even stronger through the decades.
It is oft repeated in news reportage, and in remake documentaries, as well as frequently published in true crime magazine articles and parroted in podcasts and by online self-proclaimed “experts”:
THE MYTH goes something like this:
“The 1947 Black Dahlia Murder is one of LA’s most famous whodunits and remains unsolved to this day. In 2003, a retired Los Angeles detective, Steve Hodel, published a NYT bestselling book, Black Dahlia Avenger, which presents his theory that his father, Dr. George Hodel, committed her murder. He also claims that his father killed numerous other Los Angeles women in the 1940s and then fled the country.”
THE FACTS:
The 2003 publication of Black Dahlia Avenger, and the naming of his father, Dr. George Hill Hodel
as the sadistic torture/murderer of Elizabeth Short “IS NOT HIS THEORY”.
Likewise, the 1940s LA Lone Women kidnap/murders ARE NOT HIS THEORY.
A theory is a set of ideas intended to explain facts or events. However, a theory is not fact, no matter how well-supported it may be. A theory does not generate a solution. What does generate a solution? An investigation of a proveable set of facts that leads to answering some or all of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a crime or crimes generates its own solution.
The Black Dahlia Murder and related serial crimes and the identification and solution that Dr. George Hill Hodel committed those crimes came from THE LAPD AND THE LADA DETECTIVES. SPECIFICALLY, THE 1947 “BLACK DAHLIA” CRIME, THE MURDER OF ELIZABETH SHORT, WAS ACKNOWLEDGED “SOLVED” AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT. (LAPD CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, THAD BROWN AND THEN MR. DA, WILLIAM E. SIMPSON) BACK IN 1950.
Black Dahlia Avenger is not a son’s theory alleging his father was the killer of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. Rather it is a veteran homicide detective’s investigation into and discovery of the documented solution and coverup of that crime in 1950, by LAPD and the LADA’s investigators.
It is often said in life, in politics, and in crime that the covering up of an event is often worse than the event itself. Hard to imagine that the cover-up of a murder can be worse than the murder… but in the fullness of time the discovery of the cover-up was far worse as it permitted the actions of corrupt law enforcement agencies to result in a known, identified serial killer to continue killing for another twenty years.
The discovery of this coverup was the unexpected result of a highly trained, highly skilled, veteran homicide investigator starting out to prove that allegations that “his father was a suspect in the Black Dahlia murder” had no merit and to his four-year investigation leading to the discovery of DA documents and hidden wire recorded transcripts proving the opposite and to a 1950 coverup at the highest levels of law enforcement by the LADA and LAPD.
Hopefully, with the 78th anniversary of the murder of Elizabeth Short (January 15, 2025) rapidly approaching we can begin to separate THE MYTH from the FACT and understand that my now twenty-six-year investigation is not “a son’s theory that Daddy did It”, but rather the uncovering of law enforcement’s original investigation and solution that “Dr. George Hill Hodel did it.” Discovering in their original 1950 investigation that they determined and documented that George Hodel knew Elizabeth Short, had dated her, and admitted killing her and his personal secretary, Ruth Spaulding in secret wire-recorded statements, along with an LAPD-paid undercover informant (Glenn Martin) identifying George Hodel as the killer of Elizabeth Short and a second victim, Louise Springer (June 1949) all conducted by a joint task force of eighteen LAPD and DA detectives back in 1950.
Again, my best wishes to all as we begin the New Year of 2025.
Detective III Steve Hodel #11394
LAPD Hollywood Homicide Detectives (ret.)
Steve, as I had stated years ago, GHH provided abortion services to many LAPD, SFPD personnel & the members of many LE agencies throughout CA & many other locales he visited or resided …………many secrets that needed to be kept!! This service rendered by your father infused GHH with much needed self esteem and a “bonding” with others that GHH desperately wanted throughout his lifetime! This is why the exposing of childhood abuse & neglect is so important because the tragedies:/aftermaths are rampant throughout societies worldwide! Take pride, Steve, in service well-rendered to your fellow man🤝!!! 😎🌵
I’m so glad to see this, Mr Hodel. It has driven me crazy for years to see such a dismissive attitude taken towards this and all of GHH’s crimes. Has anyone short of Jack the Ripper been so thoroughly and professionally investigated? And as far as that goes, these crimes are much better documented!
Thank you for your service, sir, and all you’ve done since. Happy New Year to you and yours!
Jennifer W:
Thanks Jennifer. Much appreciated.
Stay tuned. More to come. Happy New Year to your and yours too.
Steve
Did you have full access to what remains of evidence and records for this case? I know things have been lost over the years. I assume what does remain of evidence was re-examined for forensic evidence? Has exhumation ever been considered?
What percentage -would you estimate- of what exists in this case has been made public? Curious if things have been with held as this is an open case?
I am aware of the retired FBI profiler’s write up, have there been others?
Lastly, do you feel this will ever be officially solved?
Stacy: No, not full access, just what was concealed for fifty-plus years in the DA vault. Hodel Black Dahlia transcripts and Lt. Jemison limited interviews of various witnesses. None of the Hodel witness interviews remained other than my mother’s interview at SM pier by Lt. Jemison. No physical evidence at DA’s office to my knowledge, and most if not all has “disappeared” from LAPD evidence lockers. For LAPD to “officially solve” the case they would have to agree to a coverup by their/our two greatest heroes: Chiefs Bill Parker and Thad Brown, so NO. I don’t see the department ever officially endorsing my findings despite documented admissions by Chief Thad Brown and others that the “case was solved and it was a doctor that lived on Franklin Avenue.” (George Hodel)