Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

To Los Angeles Herald Express

I will give up in

Dahlia killing if I get

10 years

Don't try to find me

The night edition of the Herald Express included a front-page photograph of the latter note, and in a front-page headline revealed:

'DAHLIA' KILLER NOTES WORK OF SAME MAN, TESTS SHOW

The LAPD crime lab analysis had quickly connected the envelopes and paper used and indicated that the same suspect who sent the original packet containing the victim's identification and address book also sent the subsequent offers to surrender in exchange for a ten-year sentence. Additional important evidence found on these notes by the crime lab were that several dark hairs had been imbedded in the Scotch tape used to paste on the words. Upon comparison, the hairs were found not to be those of the victim, but nonetheless became an important clue, to be matched to the hair of future suspects.

Publicly, LAPD detectives stated, 'We are dealing with a homicidal maniac who craves attention for his crime and may come forward in a bold and spectacular manner for his curtain call after he has wrung out the last drop of drama from his deed.'

Federal inspectors at the Terminal Annex Post Office in downtown Los Angeles received a fifth note on Wednesday that they characterized as a 'semi-illiterate death threat,' reported to have been 'scribbled on glossy paper, torn from a note tablet.' Though not reproduced in the newspaper, the message read:

A certain girl is going to get same as E.S. got if she squeals on us.

We're going to Mexico City — catch us if you can.

2K's

On the reverse of the mailed envelope someone, presumably the sender, wrote:

E. Short got it. Caral Marshall is next.

The Examiner engaged questioned-document expert Clark Sellers, considered by most to be one of the nation's leading forensic handwriting experts of the day, to review and analyze the handprinting on the postcards it had received from the purported suspect. Sellers had gained public notoriety as one of the chief forensic experts who testified for the prosecution in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial, in which he connected handwriting samples from the suspect, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, to the ransom note and helped the state win a conviction.

In his expert analysis, Sellers told the Examiner, 'It was evident the writer took great pains to disguise his or her personality by printing instead of writing the message and by endeavoring to appear illiterate. But the style and formation of the printed letters betrayed the writer as an educated person.' The Examiner also revealed that Sellers had conducted 'microscopic tests' on the Black Dahlia message and made 'several important discoveries the nature of which is being withheld.'

A second questioned-document expert, Henry Silver, was also contacted to analyze the original note the killer had sent with the victim's belongings, as well as some of the later postcards received by the press. Silver said:

The sender is an egomaniac and possibly a musician. The fluctuating base line of the writing reveals the writer to be affected by extreme fluctuations of mood, dropping to melancholy. The writer suffers from mental conflict growing out of resentment or hatred due to frustration of sex urge. Because the last letters of many words are larger, it reveals extreme frankness. The writer is telling the truth. Furthermore, he can't keep his secret and feeds his ego by telling. There is a fine sense of rhythm present, showing the penman to be either a musician or possibly a dancer. He is calculating and methodical.

Thursday, January 30, 1947

A day after he had promised to surrender, the killer sent a new pasted note addressed to Captain Donahoe that read:

Exhibit 22

Have changed my mind.

You would not give me a

square deal. Dahlia killing

was justified.

That same day, Daniel S. Voorhees, a thirty-three-year-old restaurant porter, called police to ask them to meet him at 4th and Hill Streets, downtown, where he confessed to killing Elizabeth Short. Voorhees was quickly eliminated when his handwriting was compared to that in the killer's note. Mentally and emotionally unstable, Voorhees was one of the first of a long list of what the police would term 'confessing Sams,' people seeking five minutes of 'fame' by attempting to link themselves to the sensational murder.

Friday, January 31, 1947

The Herald Express published photographic copies of six additional messages, all purported to have been by the Dahlia killer. The first, in letters pasted from a newspaper, read:

Exhibit 23

'Go Slow'

Man Killer Says

Black Dahlia Case

The next read:

I have decided not to

surrender Too much

fun fooling police

Black Dahlia Avenger

Another note, also pasted together from cut-out newspaper type, was sent in. This contained a photograph of a young male with a stocking mask drawn in covering his face to conceal his identity. Pasted words glued to the note read:

Here is the photo of the werewolf killer's

I saw him kill her

a friend