ease sprained muscles and by orthopedic physicians . . .
Deputy Sheriff Howard Achenbach, acting on a hunch, entered the Orthopedic Supply Co. at 309 South Hill St., where the material was identified as bandage. However, it was learned that the material in this 9' size of the gauge had not been sold in this city for 22 years.
The killer brought this most unusual weapon with him to the apartment, and after beating the victim suffocated her by forcing it down her throat. Who, other than a medical professional, would be carrying such a 'weapon'?
Above is a photograph of my reconstructed version of how the murder weapon must have appeared, based on the sheriff's deputies' description.
The Los Angeles daily papers covered the Bauerdorf investigation for several weeks, but the Hearst papers minimized their coverage, probably because of Hearst's close friendship with, and respect for, the victim's father.
Nearly a year after the murder, an article appeared in the
To the Los Angeles police--
Almost a year ago Georgette
Bauerdorf, age 20, Hollywood
Canteen hostess was murdered
in her apartment in West Holly
-wood-
Between now and Oct. 11-a year
after her death-the one who
murdered her will appear at the
Hollywood Canteen. The murderer
will be in uniform. He has since
he committed the murder been in
action at Okinawa. The murdernx
of Georgette Bauerdorf was Divine
Retribution-
Let the Los Angeles police arrest
the murderer if they can-
An eleven-year-old student named Marilyn Silk had found the note on her way home from school. Written on a sheet of personal notepaper and stuffed inside a dirty envelope, the missive was lying on a stone retaining wall near Fairfax High School in Hollywood. The newspaper also dropped a clue that had not been disclosed to the public at the time of the homicide a year earlier when it reported, 'There was the suggestion by friends that she [Bauerdorf] was accompanied home by a man in uniform.'
What struck me in the Bauerdorf case was its obvious similarity to the later Dahlia killing, in which the suspect also taunted police via notes to the newspaper. The Bauerdorf suspect promised police that he would appear at the Hollywood Canteen in uniform by October 11. (Father's birthday was October 10.) The killer's 'Let the Los Angeles police arrest the murderer if they can' echoes the words used two years later in the pasted message to the police in the Dahlia case: 'We're going to Mexico City — catch us if you can.' The killer's need to seek recognition and publicity for his crimes was a way to exert control both over the police and his victim. Announcing that Georgette's murder was not a crime but his dispensation of 'Divine Retribution' also bears an eerie resemblance to what Elizabeth Short's killer would say two years later when he called himself the 'Black Dahlia Avenger.'
The Bauerdorf Note
Other similarities in both the Elizabeth Short and Bauerdorf homicides are, in my opinion, striking enough to be considered thought-prints linking the same suspect to the two crimes.
In both cases, the notes the suspect wrote to the police suggest that he had some experience as a journalist. In the Bauerdorf murder note, the taunting letter opens with a lead paragraph similar in style to the lead paragraph of a morning newspaper in which the 'what, when, where, and who' are all answered.
To the Los Angeles police
--
Almost a year ago
Georgette Bauerdorf, age 20,
Hollywood Canteen hostess, was murdered
in her apartment in
West Hollywood--
The killer tells us the 'why' in his next sentence, where he identifies the crime as an act of retribution, and in so doing identifies himself indirectly as an 'avenger.'
In the pasted Dahlia notes, the killer again demonstrates journalistic knowledge, this time as a headline writer, in his two separate taunts to police:
'GO SLOW'
MAN KILLER SAYS
BLACK DAHLIA CASE
Followed in a few days by:
DAHLIA'S KILLER CRACKING, WANTS TERMS
These are not notes from a streetwise thug, but professional headlines. So professional, in fact, that true-crime author and commentator Joseph Wambaugh told television viewers in the Learning Channel's production
Obviously journalists sent the letter. Cutting and pasting newsprint as was done in B-movie cliches of the era. The same cruel and unscrupulous reporters who elicited background information from Mrs. Short, the mother, by claiming her daughter had won a beauty contest. But, at the end of the day, they didn't prevent the case from being solved.
There exists another clue to the identity of the letter writer in his unique method and manner of typing, seen in six different locations in the Bauerdorf note, in which he unconsciously leaves two dashes (—) at the end of some of his sentences. In the Bauerdorf note these double-dashes follow the words: 'police—', 'Hollywood—', 'Oct. 11--', 'death--', 'Retribution--', and 'can--'.
