Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

Many attempts have been made to define genius. Some believe it to be no more than 'an infinite capacity for taking pains'; others, like Lombroso, aver that it borders on insanity or is a matter of heredity. The fascination of the subject lies in the fact that any approach to it leads to interesting, if futile, speculations. Of course, not all great men have been of unstable nature, but the fact remains that all too frequently geniuses have had to contend with physical, nervous, or mental anomalies of one kind or another. The sketches following have been chosen to illustrate that the superlatively talented in any field of endeavor may time and again be held in check by seemingly insurmountable physical burdens, only to find in them the challenge to greater efforts, even though in some cases the burden ultimately proved too great for human endurance.

Each day following this introduction, beginning with April 24, featured a brief biographical sketch of historical geniuses listed alphabetically, many of whom suffered either physical or mental maladies, including frequent listings of insanity. The list of geniuses included most of the literary heroes from my father's youth. A partial naming from the calendar: Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nero, Nietzsche, Peter I (the Great), Poe, Richard Porson, Rousseau, Schopenhauer, A. C. Swinburne, Tchaikovsky, van Gogh, Paul Verlaine, and Francois Villon.

Handprinted by my father was the entry:

Poisons: 402 et seq.

This page read:

S

YMPTOMS AND

T

REATMENTS OF

P

OISONING

Unless otherwise stated, oral poisoning is to be understood. The

lethal

dose — taken in a single dose — is of course an indefinite figure. It is to be understood that smaller doses have been taken with lethal effect, while larger quantities have not proved fatal.

The following pages provided a chart of most of the known poisons, listing each one's lethal dosage, symptoms, and treatment.

All the following were dated entries in my mother's handwriting:

November 7, 1943 — Seaman School. Gelka Scheyer for Children's pictures.

November 8, 1943 — George 10-11 am 727 [Presumably this notation refers to Father's downtown office address, which was 727 W. 7th St.]

November 9, 1943 — George 7-10:30 pm Eye lecture Gen. Hosp November 11,1943 — George 2-6 pm Heart [Presumably four hours set aside for testing and examination by specialist relating to George's heart condition.] November 11, 1943 -8-11pm Calif Club

November 12, 1943 — 12-2 Committee Meeting Chamber of Commerce

November 13, 1943 — KFI-Syphilis Show

Two of the last three entries are important because they reveal that Father was associated with both the prestigious California Club, originally established by the Chandler dynasty, and its offshoot, the L.A. Chamber of Commerce. The back-to-back meetings are of particular interest, because they show Father's close connection to some of the most influential men in Los Angeles at the time, the men who were running the city.

As for the final entry, KFI was the NBC outlet in Los Angeles. Mother, in conjunction with Bob Purcell, David Eli Janison, Karl Schlichter, and producer Jack Edwards, wrote a series of radio dramas called 13 Against Syphilis: The Unseen Enemy, which were sponsored by city, county, and state public health departments in an effort to 'disperse the fog of ignorance' surrounding venereal disease. Because of his position as the Los Angeles County Health Department's venereal disease control officer, Father served as technical adviser to the show.

I believe both the bill of lading and the 1943 calendar I discovered in the basement of the Franklin House in 1999 are valuable pieces of evidence. The former establishes that Dad's Chinese artifacts, his spoils of postwar Hankow, arrived in mid-October 1946. The latter establishes Dad's 1943 interest in the lethal dosage of numerous poisons. It also demonstrates his fascination with genius and his need to satisfy himself that many men of genius led troubled and dysfunctional lives and tortured themselves emotionally, often to the point of violence either upon themselves or others. There is also independent verification of Father's serious heart condition.

When I moved back to Los Angeles in July 2001,1 saw an article in the Sunday, July 8 edition of the Los Angeles Times, featuring the Franklin House as the 'Home of the Week,' on sale for $1.5 million. The house was on the market. So I made another appointment with Bill Buck for a final conversation and some more photographs.

When we met, I explained to Buck that I was writing a book about my father that dealt with his mysterious past, adding that my research over the past two years had connected him to some Hollywood underworld figures from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Although Buck had no information regarding the connections of previous owners of the house to any underworld crime cartels in Los Angeles, I did get a chance to take photographs of the secret room, the light fixture in the den, and Father's shipping crate from China, which was still in the basement.

Buck also told me that our fathers had known each other, at least professionally, because both were prominent medical doctors in Los Angeles. They had met at the Franklin House back in the 1940s when Dad called a meeting of a group of six physicians in connection with the L.A. County Department of Community Health. Buck said, 'As my father described it to me, after the meeting was over, your father clapped his hands loudly and out came these two geisha girls dressed in full regalia. I guess it was 'party time' or whatever. My father nervously looked at his watch, thanked your dad, and promptly left. I guess some of the other physicians stayed.'

Buck said that after his father bought Franklin House from my father, he found some pornography and pictures of naked women hidden there. 'It was about a year after he had moved into the place,' Buck said, which would have