Then I turned to the 'Red Lipstick' murder and asked, 'Do you recall the name Jeanne French, a nurse who was murdered three weeks after Elizabeth Short? Was her name and her case file connected to the Short case?
Kirk gave me a lengthy answer, which solved a bunch of mysteries right away, including the real identity of the lead investigator on the case and why the case was able to be covered up.
No, the name [Jeanne French] doesn't sound familiar. I don't recall any nurse being connected. No reports on that. The case files and investigation that I saw dealt pretty much with Elizabeth Short's background and lifestyle. I think there were about four guys that she was hanging out with at the time. They always treated the Short case as a single case, that's why when you mention the nurse thing, it doesn't ring a bell. But I got to tell you, by today's standards, had I worked the case, I would have looked at the possibility that he had done it before. I mean that classic of a style has to make you think serial killer. And if she wasn't his first, it certainly wouldn't have been his last.
No, I never saw the name Sexton come up, as far as I can recall. It's been a long time though. No, there was no mention about any grand jury investigation. I don't know anything about that.
I'm trying to remember the original detective on the case. He had a funny name. No, not Hansen, it was another name. [I provide him with the name of Finis Brown.] Yes, that's it, Finis. He came into the office one day. He was retired and living in Texas. He was the real investigator on the Short case. He was the one that did all the work but Hansen took all the credit. St. John and I were going to talk to I lansen about the case in Palm Springs, but we never got to it, then he passed away. Brown did too, I guess. Really? I didn't know that Finis Brown was related to Thad Brown. [Finis Brown was Chief Brown's brother.]
Well, I would hope they still have the physical evidence on the case. I never pulled any of it, because I never had a need to at the time. I would think it's still there. No, I don't remember anything about anybody finding a watch. Don't remember that in any of the reports, but it's been a long time now. No, I don't think they had any fingerprints on the case. Just a body dump as I recall.
No, there was never any indication that Elizabeth Short was a prostitute. I think Finis Brown did a tremendous job of putting the case together. No, there wasn't ever any hint of any kind of coverup. No, I never heard any reference to any grand jury investigation, I think if I had I would have remembered that.
Danny Galindo had the case, and so did Pierce Brooks. I don't know who has it now. No, I never heard the name Brian Carr, but I don't know any of the new guys. They are all pretty much gone from the old days. When I first went down and was working the case, I had a lead in Oklahoma or somewhere. Wanted to talk to them. That's when I realized it was merely a token assignment, where they didn't really want anything clone. I mean unless there was like a safe-deposit box with a confession inside it. . .
As I hung up, I was dumbfounded. I had just gotten off the phone with a man whom I fully respected, who had personally reviewed and maintained the Dahlia case files for over fifteen years. A highly trained professional, he had been entirely honest and open with me. He had read the file, reviewed all the evidence, and told me that there was nothing there, nothing about my father, nothing about Jeanne French, nothing about the grand jury and what they had found. Where had the information gone?
It was clear verification that the original detectives — Finis Brown and his partner Harry Hansen — had done their duty. It was obvious that Kirk Mellecker, and most likely his predecessors Danny Galindo and Pierce Brooks, had inherited a completely
Mellecker was totally ignorant of the suspected cover-up, nor did he know about the DA's investigation and grand jury recommendations that the case be taken away from LAPD. He was not aware that George Hodel had been a suspect; nothing was in the file about his link to the case as the 'wealthy Hollywood man.' Further, Mellecker had not known that, early on, Captain Jack Donahoe had provided definite links to the Jeanne French 'Red Lipstick' murder. In fact, he had not even heard of that victim's name! He was also unaware that in 1947 alone more than a dozen additional rape-murders and 'dumpings' had occurred in and around Los Angeles in the weeks and months preceding and following the murder of Elizabeth Short and had been publicly connected by the press.
He did not know that a man's military-style watch had been found at the crime scene. Kirk had not spoken with Harry Hansen, LAPD's reputed expert on the Dahlia case, and had no idea that the co-investigator, Finis Brown, was the brother of LAPD's most famous and highest-ranking detective, Thaddeus Brown. He did, however, establish definitively that it was Detective Finis Brown, and not Harry Hansen, who was actually in charge of the investigation, in control of the files and running the show during those important early years.
Kirk Mellecker and his predecessors Danny Galindo, Pierce Brooks — made famous in Joseph Wambaugh's
After my conversation with Mellecker, I realized that what I had suspected — that the LAPD was involved in an ongoing concealment — was inaccurate. The body of the truth was never
The only possible way for any of these detectives to have discovered the truth behind the cover-up would have been to do as I had done — go back in time to 1947-1950 Los Angeles and reconstruct day-by-day the scattered facts from the four separate newspapers and the thousands of separate articles. The truth is buried in what would have to be a three-year, week-by-week, reinvestigative search for the coverage of the events as the bits and pieces of the truth appeared in the press. This is what I did, and my steps are completely retraceable.
As of this writing, the currently assigned LAPD detective on the Elizabeth Short-Black Dahlia investigation is Brian Carr. Presumably, Carr received the baton from John St. John some six or seven years ago. I located two published interviews with Detective Carr, the first dated June 1999, the second in October of that year. Both interviews were brief. The first was conducted by Pamela Hazelton, who had established a Black Dahlia website, www.bethshort.com, as a research center for Dahlia case devotees. For that interview, Hazelton reported on her website, she met personally with Detective Brian Carr at LAPD's Homicide Division at the police administration building, Parker Center.
Ms. Hazelton said that Detective Carr told her that 'due to the lack of his emotional involvement in the Black Dahlia murder investigation, and because he was not able to get to know the victim's parents and family, it is difficult for him to slot unlimited time to the case.' She quoted Carr as saying, 'When I get emotionally involved in a case, that's a really huge motivating factor.'
According to Hazelton, Carr also said that he was 'doubtful that the case will ever be solved.' He revealed, 'It's [the Dahlia murder] got signs of serial murder all over it, but again, they never found another murder linked to it.' Carr correctly refused to answer any specific questions related to the suspect's modus operandi, but did confirm that 'the suspect appeared to have some medical knowledge,' and most surprising of all, he told her, 'The killer probably knew the victim,' but he did not elaorate on how or why he arrived at this conclusion. Carr said that 'any
