The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 119

a lot of vitriolic stuff about Steve and his book on the Murphy says. people are trying to assassinate him, but Steve has met it professionally each step of the way and just methodically gone about proving his Hodel was particularly stunned by the local response to his book because he is retired LAPD, and because of advance publicity his book received from Times columnist Steve Lopez, who shortly before the release of Dahlia persuaded Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley to let him look at his previously unreleased Black Dahlia files. (Hodel realize that the D.A.’s office had reinvestigated the case until his book was finished.) In1950, in a complicated bureaucratic maneuver that Hodel claimswas part of a larger cover-up, the D.A.’s office formally closed its reinvestigation of the Black Dahlia case and turned over copies of its files to the LAPD.

To this day, the depart- menthas refused to open its files. But as soon as Lopez opened the D.A.’s original file, he wrote, a picture of George Hodel fell out. Other documents revealed that Hodel was indeed a suspect and that the police had bugged his house at 5121 Franklin a magnificent re-creation of aMayan temple where Hodel believes Short was tortured and killed before being taken to Leimert Park. Lopez even found transcripts of conversations recordedinside that house, including one from Feb. 18, 1950, in which Dr.

Hodel says: I did kill the Black Dahlia. They prove it now. They talk to my secretary anymore because The hidden microphones also recorded, on Feb. 19, 1950, a woman crying as she tried to call the operator. Later, there are what seem to be sounds of digging and of a shovel hitting a pipe.

Five minutes later, the microphones recorded a scream, and then two minutes later a second scream. Steve Hodel says he has no idea who the screaming woman was, although it was not his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, who was listed as an overdose suicide in 1945 despite police suspicions that George Hodel may have killed her. That same day, hewas recorded alluding to his connections in local law enforcement agencies and saying, like to get a connection made in the D.A.’s Lopez wrote two columns about Hodel and his book, as well as the supporting evidence he uncovered at the district office. His verdict: case was intriguing but not yet convincing. Continued on Page 58 Stephen R.

Kay, head deputy for L.A. district attorney office in Compton, has prosecuted murder cases for more than 35 years, and he says Steve Hodel has enough facts to convict his father, the late Dr. George Hodel, for at least two murders. But it easy for for himself and not the D.A.’s write a six-page letter to Hodel endorsing his case. He concluded that the evidence was strong enough to indict George Hodel for the Elizabeth Short murder and the mutilation-murder three weeks later of Jeanne French, a case known as the Red Lipstick Murder because the killer wrote an obscenity and the initials BD in lipstick on body.

It was difficult for Kay because part of case explains how George Hodel evaded the biggest dragnet in city history and continued to live and allegedlykill in Los Angeles for three years until he fledthe country in 1950. The explanation involves police corruption that reaches all the way to two now-dead LAPD legends, William Parker, who served as chief from 1950 to 1966, and former chief of detectives Thad Brown, who became interim chief when Parker died. But Kay has been able to separate the facts of case from the broader theory about why the case went unsolved. have to deal with the police Kay says. evidence Steve Hodel has uncovered is compelling enough for me without having to confront the issue of the Among dozens of pieces of evidence, Kay cites four key parts of an intricate circumstantial case: 8 The handwriting on the 13 taunting notes and letters the apparent killer sent to the police and press in the first few weeks after the murders, as well Why an L.A.

County Prosecutor Believes Steve Case as the writing on identified it as his and then he did the right thing. He got an independent evaluation from a court-certified handwriting expert without telling her anything about the person or the case involved. That expert said it is highly highest you can go without having the original the writing is the same as Dr. and I agree. His block printing is very 8 The similarities between the Short and French murders: was killed on Jan.

15 and French on Feb. Kay says. were stomped, both suffered blunt-force trauma to the head and both were posed in vacant lots early in the morning. There were so many similarities that it jumped out at The most obvious link, he says, is that the killer took the time to write on body. clear the killer still had the Black Dahlia on his mind and that he still had a lot of anger toward her even as he was doing this new And, again, the handwriting.

Both Hodel and the handwriting expert, Hannah McFarland of Seattle, identified the lipstick printing on body as likely being George 8 The killer could only be a surgeon, which dramatically shrinks the suspect pool for the Short had to be a skilled surgeon because the body was so neatly cut in half with no trauma to the organs and no serrated Kay says. else, even someone who worked at a office, be able to do it with that kind of precision. There is no other credible 8 The two photos of Short found by Hodel in his album: photos prove a physical link between Dr. Hodel and Kay says. He thinks at least one of the a woman naked with her eyes definitely Short.

He also agrees with Hodel that even if one or both turn out not to be Short, it negate the supporting evidence that has surfaced since Hodel undertook his investigation. has taken the case way beyond the Kay says. no longer depends on the Two-year-old Steve Hodel with his father George. an ex-cop, I know cops are territorial about their cases, and I fear happening In a two-hour media briefing last month, two LAPD robbery-homicide detectives poked holes case and delivered the line: Yes, Dr. Hodel was a suspect and, yes, he could have done it.

But because almost all the physical evidence has disappeared from that included the 13 taunting notes the killer sent police and the media and which, through careful analysis, could prove or disprove conclusion, the case will never be closed. Chief William J. Bratton seconded that opinion: not interested in a 50- year-old case, and not going to spend any more time or money on The LAPD thefirstto set aside findings. Hewoke up one Sunday in May 2003 to a scornful Los Angeles Times book review by novelist Gary Indiana, who concluded: is, finally, and not at all sympathetically, appalling that ahomicide detective would sell out his professional integrity to produce this piece of meretricious, revolting twaddle, which amounts to evidence manufacturing, litigation-proof slander and chicanery on a fabulous scale and does absolutely nothing to answer the question: Whokilled Elizabeth Hodel like to talk about that review because he knows it sounds like sour grapes. his right to say anything he wants about the Hodel says.

when he attacks my professional integrity and accuses me of manufacturing evidence, I think that goes over the line. How can a book reviewer just slander you and make crazy accusations like friends and family say review was traumatic for him. is a sensitive guy. That was tough for him because a man of immense says Bellingham attorney Dennis Murphy. is the foundation of his professional success both in L.A.

and here in Washington aprivate Murphy was one of only three people Hodel confided in when he was investigating his father and slowly, reluctantly coming to his horrific conclusions. scathing review triggered criticism on the Internet from Dahlia cultists who derided Hodel and his Daddy-did-it theory, which echoed a little-noted 1995 book by Janice Knowlton, based on supposedly repressed memories, called Was the Black Dahlia 38LOS ANGELES TIMES.