August 1946
Elizabeth returns to Hollywood and stays at Mark Hansen's Carlos Street residence, where she lives for three weeks with Hansen's girlfriend, Anne Toth. Looking for work wherever she can find it and left to her own devices, Elizabeth, rummaging through a desk, finds Mark Hansen's blank address book with his name embossed on the outside and takes it.
September 1946
George suffers a heart attack in China and returns to Los Angeles, where he is admitted to a hospital and discharged from UNRRA.
Late September 1946
Elizabeth leaves Mark Hansen's house before the end of September and moves into the Hawthorne Hotel at 1611 North Orange Drive in Hollywood, where she briefly shares a room with Lynn Martin, then shares a room with her friend from Massachusetts, Marjorie Graham.
September 20-21, 1946
Elizabeth meets the Army soldier 'Sergeant Doe' in downtown Los Angeles, has a dinner date with him, and as they walk back to her hotel they are seen together and chased by a carload of 'Hispanics,' one of whom, I suspect, is Fred Sexton. Father, still hospitalized, and knowing Elizabeth is in Hollywood, may well have asked his good friend Sexton to hit the streets and see if he could find her. These males clearly recognize her, because Sergeant Doe hears one of them yell out, 'There she is!'
Elizabeth and Sergeant Doe spend the night together at the Figueroa Hotel.
October 1946
Elizabeth is still rooming with Marjorie Graham at the Hawthorne and tells her that her boyfriend is an 'Army Air Force lieutenant' in the hospital in Los Angeles. She hopes he gets well soon so that he will get out of the hospital in time for their planned marriage on November 1.
November 13-December 6, 1946
Elizabeth moves to a room at the Chancellor Hotel, 1842 North Cherokee Avenue in Hollywood, which she shares with seven other women. Broke and unemployed, she is forced to move out.
December 6, 1946
On the day she leaves, an anxious Elizabeth tells roommate Linda Rohr, 'Fve got to hurry. He's waiting for me.' I submit 'he' is Dr. George Hodel.
December 6-11, 1946
It is likely that during this period of time after she leaves the Chancellor and for the five days that follow, Elizabeth and George are together. She could be staying at the Franklin House, or perhaps George puts her up in a nearby hotel and she just visits him at his home. It is at this time that he photographs her in the nude and adjacent to the Chinese art object. An incident occurs between them, something traumatic and untoward, perhaps a physical assault, which causes Elizabeth to become fearful for her life. What is known is that Elizabeth arrives in San Diego a few days later, alone and without friends, unemployed, with little or no money, and with no place to live. She has fled!
December 12, 1946
Dorothy French finds Elizabeth in an all-night movie theater, homeless and without prospects, and invites her to stay temporarily with her and her mother, Elvera, at their home in the suburbs of San Diego. The Frenches report to the police that Elizabeth has dated a number of different men during her stay at their house, and that she is especially afraid of 'an ex-boyfriend who [is] extremely jealous of her.' Dorothy and Elvera French describe Elizabeth's emotional condition as highly agitated and secretive throughout her stay with them and that she becomes 'especially frightened when anyone [comes] to the front door.' But Elizabeth remains tight-lipped, continually refusing to tell Elvera French the name of the man she fears.
December 15, 1946
Robert Manley sees Elizabeth at a bus bench across from the Western Airlines office in San Diego and offers to give her a ride home. At the house, he briefly meets Dorothy and Elvera French and returns later in the evening to take Elizabeth out for dinner and dancing.
Mid-December, 1946
Elizabeth is temporarily back in Los Angeles, where 'five unidentified friends' see her at an unnamed nightclub in Hollywood. These same friends tell police that they also saw Elizabeth at a nightclub in Hollywood earlier in the fall, at which time she told them she 'planned to marry 'George,' an Army pilot from Texas.' These separate witnesses are the first to link George Hodel's first name to the military pilot Elizabeth has told other friends about.
December 24 or 25, 1946
Mark Hansen sees Elizabeth around Christmas, three weeks before her murder. Hansen, in his later report to police, does not say where or with whom, but it is likely in Hollywood either at a private party or possibly a public holiday gathering or at his nightclub, the Florentine Gardens.
December 29, 1946, 7:30 p.m.
A terrified and hysterical Elizabeth runs up to a taxi-stand manager at 115 North Garfield Avenue in East Los Angeles. Barefoot and bleeding from her knees, she relates the story of her assault 'by a well-dressed man who was her acquaintance.' This description matches that of George Hodel, who most likely, after arguing with her, drives her to an isolated area, attacks her in a fit of anger, and may have killed her on the spot had she not escaped.
January 2, 1947
Phoebe Short, Elizabeth's mother, receives a letter from her daughter, telling her that she is 'living in San Diego, with a girlfriend, Vera French.' In the letter, Elizabeth lies to her mother, telling her she is 'working at the Naval Hospital.'
