September 24, 2017
Los Angeles, California

According to a few inquiries from my readers, I am informed that a new Black Dahlia book reportedly to be published on October 10, 2017 (George Hodel’s Birthday) is claiming “a new solution to the Black Dahlia Murder.”  The U.K. press  has indicated that a British author is  claiming a “coverup” and has named “the real killer as, Leslie Dillion,” the once “prime suspect” of Dr. Paul DeRiver, the discredited and fired LAPD “psychiatrist.” DeRiver after offering his services for free then created and self-appointed himself head and of the Department’s, “Sexual Offense Bureau.”

According to transcribed testimony from the 1949 DA Files and Grand Jury questioning some of Dr. DeRiver’s circumstantial evidence that led him to believe Leslie Dillon was the killer was (according to Dr. DeRiver) based on his own findings as follows:

*  The fact that when Dillion and DeRiver dined together at a restaurant,  Dillion claimed the meat served to him “was too rare and he couldn’t eat it”, which to DeRiver’s mind showed proof of a guilty conscience because it reminded him of the raw carnage of his crime and demonstrated a consciousness of guilt.)

* When DeRiver interrogated Dillon with detectives in his hotel room he asked Dillon to take down his pants and shorts. Dillion complied and DeRiver observed he had “an infantile penis”, more along the size of a teenager rather than a man’s,  which  in DeRiver’s mind would “make him more inclined to be a rapist or sexual deviant.”

*Dillon provided Dr. DeRiver with a hand-drawn sketch of the man he met and believed might be the Dahlia killer, identifying him as “Jeff Conner”, residing in San Francisco.  Dr. DeRiver informed detectives that this individual would not exist as he was nothing more than “Dillon’s alter ego” created as a cover to deflect suspicion away from Dillon.

There are many more examples from the official police files, demonstrating Dr. Deriver’s psycho-babble, but you get the idea. I’ll leave it at that.

I briefly addressed the DeRiver/Dillon Black Dahlia Fiasco in my third book as follows:

Excerpt from Black Dahlia Avenger II Chapter 20, (pages 312-313):

…

September 19, 2017
Los Angeles, California

“Finally, I absolutely forbid that my body be opened upon any pretext whatsoever.  I would have it laid to rest, without ceremony of any kind.”
Marquis de Sade

“I do not wish to have funeral services of any kind. There is to be no meeting or speeches or music and no gravestone or tablet. I direct that my physical remains be cremated and that my ashes be scattered over the ocean.”
Dr. George Hill Hodel

Above are the handwritten funeral instructions of  both
Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade (2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) and George Hill Hodel M.D. (10 October 1907-17 May 1999)

Sade, of course, was the noted French Libertine for whom the term Sadism was coined and his erotic writings on sexual depravity and torture (Justine, Juliette, The 120 Days of Sodom etc.) made him the champion/anti-hero of the later, Surrealist Movement.

September 1, 2017
Los Angeles, California

Once again, place the following in your “YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP” file.

The below letter was written in September 1953 by then Hawaiian Territorial Governor,  Samuel Wilder King.  It is a letter of introduction and recommendation of Hawaiin based psychiatrist, Dr. George Hill Hodel. The “To Whom It May Concern” refers to all Asian and Far East countries, colleges, hospitals, research centers etc.   I will let Governor King speak for himself and his esteemed researcher. (The letter was given to me, by June Hodel, along with other personal effects, just a few days after my father’s death in May 1999.)

August 25, 2017
Los Angeles, California

            1943                                                              1994

The photo on left was taken on my second birthday in Los Angeles. Photo right was taken with my father in front of my then home in Bellingham, Washington fifty years later. (Note that the photos are bookends. Dad has his right hand on my right shoulder and fifty years later, I have my left hand on his left shoulder.)

August 14, 2017
Los Angeles

In the 1925 Los Angeles Evening Herald article, “The Clouded Past of a Poet” written by Ted Le Berthon, we recall that George Hodel did not want the Drama Critic to use his real last name, and provided him with  the pseudonym, “George Morel.”

July 12, 2017
Los Angeles

Mike Hodel

( July 12, 1939- May 6, 1986)

Mike Hodel would have been 78 today.

My older brother Michael died of lung cancer in 1986, at the relatively young age of- 46.  (His early death was the catalyst for my decision to retire from LAPD and “move on.”)  Mike had a brilliant mind and was a voracious reader, often reading two books a day throughout his entire life. He wore many hats. He was a writer, radio news reporter, and Sherlock Holmes scholar.  One of brother Mike’s proudest moments was receiving investiture into the Baker Street Irregulars Society. (BSI was founded by Christopher Morley in 1934, and fellow members included: U.S. presidents FDR and Harry Truman, science fiction author, Issac Asimov, and mystery writer,  Rex Stout, creator of P.I. Nero Wolfe.)  In 1980 Mike, along with co-author, Sean Wright, published the novel, Enter The Lion: A Posthumous Memoir of Mycroft Holmes.

Mike’s entire life was dedicated to people and causes. His conduit For The People was through local Los Angeles, listener sponsored  FM radio station–KPFK.  He loved science-fiction, and his show aired on KPFK as—Mike Hodel’s Hour 25, where, over several decades, he interviewed hundreds of guest authors, from the greatest legends to brand new unknowns.. (His show continues to this day on the Internet, and can be found at- http://www.hour25online.com)

Mike was awarded radio’s prestigious, Golden Mike Award, (no relation) for his 1970s radio coverage of WATERGATE.  During his 20 years at KPFK, he was on staff as News Director, Public Affairs Director, and fund-raising administrator. Roy Tuckman, the current host of KPFK’s Something’s Happening, had this to say about his lifelong friend and early mentor:

   Mike was the main ‘voice of KPFK,’ a major fundraiser and a voice of sanity and humanity during the many staff battles. As a teacher and mentor, he helped many people over the years begin their work on radio. In his final years, his main concern was the increasing illiteracy in America. He produced a series of 13    programs on “Illiterate America” which remain in the Pacifica Archives.

June 29, 2017
Los Angeles, California

The British Rock band, The xx just released and posted a new music video, “I Dare You” which they describe as their “Love Letter to Los Angeles.” Posted six hours ago on YouTube, it already shows 63,000 views.

June 21, 2017
Los Angeles, California

George Hodel 1923 South Pasadena Year Book

June 8, 2017
Los Angeles, California

Thoughtprint:  The motive within a thought.  The ridges, loops, and whorls of the mind, which like the “points” found in a fingerprint, contain the potential to link an individual to a specific time, place, crime, or victim.

                                                                       Steve Hodel
(Term originally coined by author in his first book, Black Dahlia Avenger (2003)

Photo was taken in 1966 in front of LAPD Parker Center “The Glass House.”

June 4, 2017
Los Angeles, California

George Hodel, immediately after his October 6, 1949 arrest for Incest and Child Molestation retained nationally renowned criminal defense attorneys Jerry “Get Me” Giesler and his partner, Robert Neeb to represent him. GHH secured their services by signing over his Sowden House as a $10,000 retainer. ($102,000 in today’s dollars)

Post-trial in 1950, he then prepared his own Sales Brochure “For Sale, SHANGRI-LA in Los Angeles” and put the house on the market asking “$44,500 Liquidation Price.” (Roughly a half million in 2017 dollars)