Dear Mr. Hodel:
I am informed that Q10 was printed on a leather purse. This sample, from 1949, has three individual characteristics that are also present in the Known and Questioned printing samples:
1) The O in
and
on Q10 is slanted to the left. This O is also found in Kl, K5, Q2, Q8, and Q9.
2) Q10 has letters with horizontal strokes that start far to the left of the body of the letter. This is seen in the letters D and P in
and the letter B in
This formation is also found in Kl, K2, Q7, and Q8.
3) The letter S in
on Q10, has a straight stroke in the middle of the letter that forms an angle on each end. This S is also seen in Kl, K5, K6, Q2, Q7, and Q9.
Due to the three individual characteristics that are common between Q10 and the Known and Questioned printing samples, I concluded it was highly probable that Q10 was printed by the same person who printed the Known and Questioned samples.
The differences between the printing on Q10 and the Known printing samples can be explained by the disguised appearance (irregularity) on Q10.
The unusual printing conditions presented by printing on a leather purse may also play a role in some of the differences between Q10 and the Known samples.
Hannah McFarland's forensic analysis of the handwriting on Boomhower's purse irrefutably connects George Hodel to the kidnap and murder of Mimi Boomhower, one more victim in the skein of lone women murders that took place in the late 1940s.
One month after Mimi Boomhower disappeared, I believe the Dahlia Avenger struck again.
The Jean Spangler Kidnap-Murder
On Tuesday morning, October 11, 1949, the
FEAR NEW DAHLIA DEATH
200 IN ACTRESS HUNT
The victim, a prominent actress, had been kidnapped off the streets of Hollywood, and evidence found in Fern Dell Park sent two hundred LAPD officers on a search for her body.
Jean Elizabeth Spangler was a twenty-seven-year-old actress on her way to becoming a star. She was beautiful, intelligent, filled with vitality and promise, and well liked in the film industry and the brand-new television business, where she had just started working.
After the first headline story in the
Under pressure from the growing unrest in the district attorney's office at the unacceptable performance of his detectives, Deputy Chief Thad Brown held a meeting with officers in the Homicide Division, and then told the press, 'Death by violence is indicated in her disappearance.' He'd sent up the red homicide flag.
Spangler presented an intriguing challenge to detectives, because, as a background check of the victim's activities in the years preceding her disappearance revealed, there were a number of times her path had crossed Elizabeth Short's. In fact, Spangler had once worked as a dancer at Mark Hansen's Florentine Gardens.
Spangler had married Dexter Benner in June 1941, six months before the start of World War II. The couple had one daughter, Christine, born on April 22, 1944. Shortly after her birth, Benner was inducted into the service and sent to the South Pacific.
Other court documents showed that Jean had asked her husband to initiate formal divorce proceedings in 1943, prior to her pregnancy and the birth of Christine. At that time, Spangler told her attorney she 'did not want to appear in court,' and revealed her infidelities with a 'handsome Air Force first lieutenant,' whom she 'intended to marry.' Jean freely admitted that she'd become involved in an 'affair with this pilot,' and they 'had been living together off-and-on, in a Sunset Boulevard motel.' In 1943, a few months after making these revelations, Jean became pregnant, reconciled with her husband, Dexter, and Christine was born the following April. Court papers revealed that after Dexter's assignment overseas, Jean again began seeing 'Lt. Scott,' and, on her husband's return, informed him of the resumed affair, which caused them to immediately separate and divorce. After their separation, the two became embroiled in a bitter child custody dispute that ended with the court awarding full custody of their daughter Christine to Jean.
Albert Pearlson, Spangler's divorce attorney, told police (after her 1949 kidnapping and disappearance) that 'Scott had, during the time of their relationship, beaten her up, blackened her eye, and threatened to kill her if she ever left him.' In the same court documents, the Army Air Force lieutenant was described as being 'tall, about 5-11, slender build, clean-cut and handsome.' Jean Spangler refused to identify and provide the true name of her lover to the court. After her disappearance, her attorney indicated that he 'could not recall the officer's name' and that 'everyone just called him 'Scottie.''
