LADA Bureau of Investigation Hodel-Black Dahlia Case File No. 30-1268 contains the official unabridged transcripts of the 1950 electronic surveillance stake-out by a joint taskforce from the LADA Bureau of Investigation and LAPD’s homicide detectives. The wire-recordings capture, Dr. George Hill Hodel’s secret conversations in which he confessed to: police payoffs, performing illegal abortions and admissions to having committed the 1945 murder of his personal secretary, Ruth Spaulding as well as the 1947 torture-murder of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. These transcripts also contain the assault, beating and probable real-time murder of a woman as recorded by detectives during their actual 1950 police stakeout. The on-duty detectives listen in as their prime-suspect, Dr. George Hill Hodel, accompanied by a second man, Baron Ernst Harringa, go downstairs to the residence basement. Detectives listen in and hear sounds of a pipe striking an object, “A woman screams” more blows, “a woman screams again” then silence. The officers, though only minutes away from the residence, TAKE NO ACTION. This is the “smoking gun” that law enforcement cannot allow to be made public. The police and political powers that be—make their decision. The transcripts are sealed and locked away for fifty-four years and are not discovered until the publication of Black Dahlia Avenger, which opens the locked files at the L.A. District Attorney’s Office and ultimately results in these transcripts being made public.
In addition to the original 146-page transcripts of the DA/LAPD forty-day stakeout, the book contains a chapter originally published in Black Dahlia Avenger II, (the author’s follow-up investigation 2006-2012) providing background and biographical information on the two law-enforcement heroes of this real life investigation—D.A. Lt. Frank Jemison and his partner, D.A. investigator Walter Morgan. Also included is Lt. Frank Jemison’s original six-page transcribed interview on March 22, 1950, with Dr. George Hill Hodel’s ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel (author’s mother and former wife of famed film director, John Huston). During this interview, conducted at her apartment on the Santa Monica pier, Dorothy stonewalls Lt. Jemison’s attempts at getting to the truth and the following day alerts Dr. Hodel to the evidence that the DA’s investigators have accumulated. Dr. George Hill Hodel, after receiving this information and realizing he is about to be arrested—flees the country just four days later.
“We identified the Black Dahlia suspect. He was a doctor.”
William H. Parker, LAPD Chief of Police
“The Black Dahlia case was solved. He was a doctor who lived on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.”
Thad Brown, LAPD Chief of Detectives
“The Black Dahlia case was solved, but it will never come out. The suspect was a doctor they [LAPD] all knew in Hollywood, involved in abortions.”
James Downey, Undersheriff, LASD
“We know who the Black Dahlia killer was. He was a doctor [George Hodel] but we didn’t have enough to put him away.”
Lt. Frank Jemison, LADA Bureau of Investigation
In addition to the original 146-page transcripts of the DA/LAPD forty-day stakeout, the book contains a chapter originally published in Black Dahlia Avenger II, (the author’s follow-up investigation 2006-2012) providing background and biographical information on the two law-enforcement heroes of this real life investigation—D.A. Lt. Frank Jemison and his partner, D.A. investigator Walter Morgan. Also included is Lt. Frank Jemison’s original six-page transcribed interview on March 22, 1950, with Dr. George Hill Hodel’s ex-wife, Dorothy Huston Hodel (author’s mother and former wife of famed film director, John Huston). During this interview, conducted at her apartment on the Santa Monica pier, Dorothy stonewalls Lt. Jemison’s attempts at getting to the truth and the following day alerts Dr. Hodel to the evidence that the DA’s investigators have accumulated. Dr. George Hill Hodel, after receiving this information and realizing he is about to be arrested—flees the country just four days later.
“We identified the Black Dahlia suspect. He was a doctor.”
William H. Parker, LAPD Chief of Police
“The Black Dahlia case was solved. He was a doctor who lived on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.”
Thad Brown, LAPD Chief of Detectives
“The Black Dahlia case was solved, but it will never come out. The suspect was a doctor they [LAPD] all knew in Hollywood, involved in abortions.”
James Downey, Undersheriff, LASD
“We know who the Black Dahlia killer was. He was a doctor [George Hodel] but we didn’t have enough to put him away.”
Lt. Frank Jemison, LADA Bureau of Investigation
