Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

The Herald Express also published photographic copies of three additional 'crudely' hand-printed notes, each written and mailed to them on a separate postcard. The first two apparently referred to the surrender and confession of Daniel Voorhees:

Exhibits 26 & 27

26) The person sending those other notes ought to be arrested for

forgery. Ha Ha!

B.D.A.

27) If he confesses you won't need me

B.D.A.

The third read:

Exhibit 28

Ask news man at 5 + Hill for clue.

Why not let that nut go

I spoke to said man

B.D.A.

Exhibit 29

Armand Robles, age 17

Accompanying their article on page one, the Herald Express also ran a photograph of a young man with the following request addressed to its readers:

A 'poison pen' is using a picture of this young person in the 'Dahlia' case letters. If this person will call at the

Evening Herald and Express

office, a line may be obtained on the 'poison pen' author of letters which send police on 'wild goose' chases.

The following day, seventeen-year-old Armand Robles and his mother, Florence Robles, contacted the newspaper and were interviewed by reporters for a story that ran the next day in which Armand explained that the photographs printed in the newspaper the previous days were of him and had been stolen about three weeks before by a strange assailant. He had been walking in the vicinity of the 4300 block of Eagle Street in Los Angeles on or about January 10, young Robles said, and 'he was about to approach a footpad,'¹ when he was 'knocked down by a man, who then took his wallet.' The photographs sent to the Examiner; which Robles had taken 'about 3 months ago at a shooting gallery on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles,' had been in the wallet. He described his assailant as, 'well dressed, tall,' and 'driving a newer model car.'

In a later mail, the Herald Express received a new pasted-up note, which read:

Exhibit 30

yes or no?

Saturday, February 1, 1947

In response to Armand Robles's going public with his information, another 'poison pen' pasted-up note arrived at the Herald Express with a different photograph of Robles. This time the sender had hand-drawn an arrow pointing to Robles's picture, with the word 'next' above his head. The pasted message itself read:

Exhibit 31

'that young! I'll do him like I did the

'Black Dahlia'

'Black Dahlia Avenger'.

That same day, in a statement to the press about where the crime had occurred, Captain Donahoe speculated:

It appears impossible the Short girl was murdered in the city. We are forced to this conclusion by the failure of anyone to report a possible place where she was killed within the city limits. If she was slain in a house or a room or motel in the city it seems impossible that some trace has not been reported or found. This leads us to the conclusion that she was killed outside the city. The killer could not have emerged from the place in clothing worn when the murder was committed and the body drained of blood. He could have been too easily detected and stains would have attracted attention.

Donahoe also suggested, 'The killer used a thick bristled brush of coconut fiber to scrub the body clean before he removed the body from the murder den.'

The foregoing exhibits are photographs published in the various newspapers in 1947, and show the separate communications, pasted and handwritten notes, sent in by the Black Dahlia Avenger. Excluding the D.C. telegram and the typed letter to the district attorney's office, the suspect has, incredibly, within a two-week period posted a total of thirteen separate taunting notes to the press and police.^*

Monday, February 3, 1947

With newspapers desperate for feature copy about the murder to attract readers, a number of editors asked some of the city's best-known mystery and scriptwriters for their take on the Black Dahlia. Ben Hecht, Craig Rice, David Goodis, Leslie Charteris, Steve Fisher, and others were asked to profile the character traits and personality of the killer for the public. Ben Hecht, whom we recall from his bizarre 1924 murder mystery Fantazius Mallare, which was reviewed and praised by the then young editor of Fantasia magazine, George Hodel, now some two decades later had become Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriter of mysteries. Hecht's brief but serious profile of the Dahlia killer was the most bizarre: 'a dyke lesbian with a hyper-thyroid problem.'