Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

The article published the grand jury's final report, and enumerated its specific findings, which included LAPD officers receiving bribery payoffs for protecting gangsters, and bookmakers, gamblers, and abortionists being allowed to run free without fear of prosecution. Addressing the grand jury's full report, the article noted, 'the report was almost reminiscent of Chicago in its heyday of crime, although perhaps on a smaller scale.'

Sharply criticizing the Black Dahlia investigation, the grand jury intimated a 'cover-up' by certain police officers. Below are excerpts directly from the grand jury's report that was summarized in the Express article:

Testimony given by certain investigation officers working this case was clear and well defined, while other officers showed apparent evasiveness. There was not sufficient time left to the jury to complete this investigation, and this Grand Jury recommends that the 1950 Grand Jury continue the probe.

This jury has observed indications of pay-offs in connection with protection of vice and crime, and gross misconduct on the part of some law enforcement officers.

In some cases jurisdictional disputes and jealousies among law enforcement agencies were indicated. In other cases, especially where one or more departments were involved, there seems to have been manifested a lack of co-operation in presenting evidence to the Grand Jury, and a reluctance to investigate or prosecute.

In addition to its findings and critical report, the 1949 grand jury, in its boldest move, recommended that the Black Dahlia investigation be taken over by the district attorney's office investigators and taken out of the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department. They also requested that those same investigators contact and interview the 'wealthy Hollywood man' cited by DA investigator Jemison as a possible prime suspect, regarding his links to the crime.

On April 1, 1950, a few months after the grand jury closed its investigation, the Los Angeles Times printed a story under the headline 'Murder Cases Reopened by District Attorney; Investigators Start Again on Slaying of Nurse and 'Black Dahlia' Brutality,' which revealed that the DA investigators were actively 'searching for a man they believed to be a 'hot suspect' in the three-year-old murder cases. Investigators Frank Jemison and Walter Morgan told reporters that their office was co-investigating both the Black Dahlia and Jeanne French murders.' Further, the article said, 'H. Leo Stanley, chief investigator for District Attorney Simpson, said that his investigators remain unconvinced that a bloody shirt and trousers found in the home of an acquaintance of Mrs. French have been fully eliminated as a clue to the murder.' Investigators had refused to name the man they were seeking as a prime suspect but said, 'He is the owner of the mysterious bloody clothing that has disappeared from LAPD police evidence lockers.' The DA investigators planned to 'take lengthy statements from two close women friends of the slain nurse' and had been assigned to investigate the two unsolved murder cases at the request of the 1949 grand jury.

The actual police reports themselves were never released. However, from public disclosures and statements provided by the district attorney's investigators and from my own research, it seems that LAPD had recovered some bloody clothing from the residence of the 'wealthy Hollywood man,' including pants and a shirt belonging to him, which was booked into evidence and then either 'lost' or deliberately disposed of, probably by members of the Gangster Squad. Indications were that investigators believed the clothing possibly related to the Jeanne French murder investigation, since several of French's women friends had identified the wealthy Hollywood man as being acquainted with her.

Next, and separate from the man's bloody clothing evidence, the independent private investigators located a different set of witnesses, who when interviewed by Lieutenant Jemison told of seeing women's bloody clothing of a size and description similar to those worn by Elizabeth Short as well as bloody bedsheets inside the wealthy Hollywood man's residence.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that Lieutenant Jemison's 'wealthy Hollywood man' was known and identified by both the Los Angeles district attorney and LAPD as the prime suspect in both those murders.

As noted, the DA's office testified that 'the murder site was located on a busy street, 15 minutes from the crime scene.' I submit that the murder site was in fact the Franklin House, located on the busy streets of Franklin and Normandie Avenues in what is called the Los Feliz section of Hollywood.

In October 1999 I conducted a time-and-mileage check by driving from 39th and Norton to the Franklin House. In normal Hollywood traffic, the 7.7-mile drive took me seventeen minutes. And the Franklin House garage opens onto a tiny alley. Once inside the closed garage one has direct access to the interior of the residence, where one could easily remove a body from the house in the dead of night and be undetected.

None of the publicly released documents reveal at what time the LAPD detectives found and recovered the bloody clothing believed to be owned by my father. On what date, and in what year, did they remove this clothing from the Franklin House? The two strongest possibilities are (1) either in February or in the weeks or months immediately following the 1947 murder of Jeanne French, or (2) in the days following George Hodel's arrest for incest on October 6, 1949.

For the moment, the questions relating to the two separate sets of bloody clothing that connected George Hodel to both Elizabeth Short and Jeanne French must remain unanswered. What is certain, and has been answered, is that in secret testimony the 1949 grand jury received from district attorney's investigator Lieutenant Frank Jemison two startling facts: (1) LAPD detectives were covering up the Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders, and (2) Dr. George Hodel was the prime suspect in both crimes.

^*This public comment made by the Johnsons strongly suggests that the photograph originally shown to them in 1947 by LAPD, then again by DA investigators in 1949, was our exhibit 9 or 10, George Hodel's China photos that 'connect him to a foreign government.' It is believed he mailed these photographs to Elizabeth Short from his overseas assignment in 1946.

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The Dahlia Myths

AMONG THE MORE FASCINATING AND DISTURBING aspects of the Black Dahlia murder was the amount of myth that gathered around both victim and assailant as the case aged over the years. Because the case was so much in the headlines in 1947 and in the years since, it has become the subject of a number of books, films, and television movies. Writers and commentators have come up with their own notions of the truth, and all too often their opinions unfortunately become considered fact. Commentators have theorized endlessly about the nature of Elizabeth Short and that of her assailant. In every case, however, the theories about both have been woefully off base. First, there is what I call 'the Dahlia myth.'

The brief, tragic life of Elizabeth Short stands apart from the other victims in our investigation for two primary reasons. The first is the way she was murdered and her body disposed of. Second is the name 'Black Dahlia,' which both horrified and fascinated the public and immediately identified her with this beautiful flower, turning the crime