Squad were assigned to assist in the investigation due to the fact that the crime may have been gangster-related, as a prominent citizen and friend to known hoodlums — also a boyfriend of the victim — was a possible suspect. The two Gangster Squad detectives (known and friendly to this suspect) informed the regular homicide detectives assigned to the Dahlia case that they had checked him out and were able to eliminate him as a suspect. They likely further minimized his 1947 connections to the crime by informing other detectives that it was simply a mix-up, a case of mistaken identity. Chiefs Brown and Parker, in their 1949 briefing, were likely further informed of the following: two years after the Dahlia murder, in October 1949, the suspect/acquaintance of these same two detectives, a prominent and wealthy Hollywood man, a medical doctor, had been arrested and charged by LAPD Juvenile Division detectives with having committed incest with his fourteen-year-old daughter. Now this guy was going to trial.
The candidates received more bad news. An independent investigation by Internal Affairs officers had just turned up evidence that the two Gangster Squad detectives who had originally eliminated this suspect had probably destroyed some bloody clothing that may have connected him to another murder shortly after the Dahlia killing. In fact, according to IAD, these detectives might well have done everything they could to cover the doctor's tracks, so that he would not be discovered. What were their motives? Probably financial, because it's known that this Hollywood doctor was not only tied to known gangsters but also might well have either been involved in payoffs to the police or been tied to the abortion ring Charles Stoker testified about before the grand jury. Perhaps both.
But the worst was yet to come. According to the IAD officers, it was highly likely that many more of the recent murder victims since 1947 were connected to this same man, and he might well have been responsible for a dozen or more sexual homicides over recent years.
Both Parker and Brown — and it was Brown's own brother who had investigated this suspect — knew that they had everything to lose and nothing to gain by putting this guy away and risking a full disclosure. With the elections eight months away, were the truth to become public, each candidate and everything he'd worked for would be swept away in a tidal wave of scandal. The humiliation sure to follow would not only result in each man's total loss of power within the department, but would probably destroy the department as well. The LAPD would never recover.
Could either Parker or Brown, both of whom were creatures of the system, admit to the public that two of their veteran detectives were running an abortion ring, taking protection money as payoffs, and then covering up Los Angeles's most brutal murder to protect a friend tied to the same gangsters who were paying them off? Finally, as a direct result of their actions, this madman had been allowed to remain free to continue his killing spree for two more years within the city.
Disclosure was not an option. The liability to the city alone from the lawsuits by relatives would almost certainly bankrupt the city. Two corrupt policemen could not be allowed to destroy the careers of the many. Nor could they be allowed to destroy the reputation of the department. There was only one solution: a cover-up of the Gangster Squad detectives' cover-up. For the good of the entire department, for the good of the city, and probably for their own good as well, the two candidates for chief rationalized and justified their actions and put in place a cover-up.
So the orders came down: all Dahlia records were to be sealed, entombed at Homicide Division. It was an informational lockdown. No one was to see the investigation. One detective was to be assigned to the case and even his own partner would be restricted from access to the files. Nothing on the Dahlia case was to be shared with any other jurisdiction, and trusted sentinels were to be posted as gatekeepers to the locked files. Maybe even the files themselves were destroyed in an attempt to remove anything that might shed light on the truth. After all, these women were all alone in the world. And they were dead. Nothing would bring them back. Why destroy the department when it would accomplish nothing? Both Brown and Parker were united in the same conclusion — the department could not look back, only forward. Each man, were he to be made chief, doubtless vowed to put reforms into place that would keep a disaster like this from ever happening again. And when Parker became chief, he began just such a decade of reforms.
These, I believe, were some of the main reasons — and justifications — by a few men in power at the very top to implement a cover-up: to preserve the department, the administration, and the city coffers.
In 1949 Los Angeles it was business as usual.
1Three weeks later, Chief Parker would suffer a massive heart attack while giving a public speech and die. Thad Brown would then assume command.
*Daryl Gates, in his autobiography,
LAPD's Internal Affairs Division (IAD) was established in 1949, by then interim chief Worton, who promoted Inspector Parker to the rank of deputy chief and placed him in charge of this newly established unit. IAD detectives were (and are to this day) both feared and hated because of their role of investigating and ferreting out crooked cops.
28
The Grand Jury
— Herman Melville
WHILE MUCH OF THE INFORMATION that follows is probative and directly supports the fact that George Hodel, the 1949 grand jury's 'wealthy Hollywood man,' was the prime suspect in both the Black Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders, we need no further proof. We have reviewed the evidence, seen the proof, and now know he was without question the killer.
But there remains a further truth that needs be addressed. Like myself, many will find this second truth to be as dark as, or darker than, the stark reality of my father's madness.
That truth has to do with proving my allegation that the Los Angeles Police Department did commit a Dahliagate. The department's two highest officers, Thad Brown and William Parker, in a conscious and deliberate obstruction of justice, aided and abetted a cover-up and, along with their subordinates, were directly responsible for knowingly permitting a psychopathic serial killer to remain free until he was finally forced to leave the country in 1950.
I make these allegations with the utmost reluctance and a heavy heart. These two leaders, Parker and Brown, were on the job and in command during my watch. Both were my personal heroes and remain unarguably LAPD's
