Alexandra von Partyka, who worked in the same office with him. Harnisch speculated that she had discovered his 'crime' and was blackmailing him.
In fact, Dr. Walter Bayley had no connection whatsoever with Elizabeth Short, or her murder. For one thing he had developed Alzheimer's disease, and had neither the mental nor physical capacity to either commit such a crime or taunt the police about it. No, his legitimate fears that Dr. Partyka would ruin his reputation arose from another source: she was undoubtedly blackmailing him with her knowledge that he was a member of the L.A. abortion ring.
My search of the 1946 Los Angeles-area telephone book showed that Dr. Walter Bayley's private practice was located at 1052 West 6th Street, the same address as that of Dr. Audrain, Stoker's head of the protected abortion ring. It is very likely that the name of the warned abortionist, contacted by the Gangster Squad detectives the night before Stoker's pending arrest, and who closed his office for a week following, was indeed Dr. Walter A. Bayley.
My research revealed a coincidental connection that seems to have gone unnoticed by police and press in the early days of the Dahlia investigation. Mrs. Betty Bersinger, who first discovered Elizabeth Short's body, told reporters that in notifying the police, she 'ran to the closest house, ' which she described as 'the second house on Norton Avenue from 39th Street, ' and said that it belonged to a doctor. It is highly probable that this house was the residence of Dr. Walter Bayley and his wife Ruth, out of which Dr. Bayley had moved the previous year.
I suspect, too, that my father knew Dr. Bayley, and probably Dr. Partyka and Dr. Audrain as well. All had worked for Los Angeles County, and their downtown medical offices were within six blocks of each other. If George Hodel knew or worked with active members of the M.D. abortion ring, which I believe he did, the probability that they were acquainted would be very strong. Although I don't believe George Hodel performed abortions, because he was opposed to them in principle — except in the unusual position of being coerced by his own daughter under an implied threat of disclosure — it is almost certain that he not only associated with the doctors inside the ring but knew they were being protected by the LAPD's Gangster Squad.
As a result of this inside knowledge and the people he could incriminate were he to have been prosecuted for any of the murders he committed, he was himself protected by the very same Gangster Squad that protected and profited from the work of the abortion ring that Charles Stoker sacrificed his career to expose.
Abortion Ring-Spangler Connections
Kirk,
Can't wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott.
Will work best this way while Mother is away.
It is my further contention that the Spangler note, related to the fact that Jean Spangler needed to obtain an abortion. I believe that 'Kirk' is not a first name, as LAPD chief of detectives Thad Brown tried to suggest when he personally interviewed actor Kirk Douglas, but a surname. Kirk, I submit, was Dr. Eric Kirk, Sergeant Stoker's chiropractor, abortionist, and informant. I further submit that Jean Spangler was initially planning to have Kirk perform her abortion. Her note was directed to him! Because he was suddenly and unexpectedly arrested and incarcerated by Detectives 'Bill Ball and Joe Small, ' and because time was of the essence, she was forced to find a replacement for 'Kirk, ' either through or with the help of 'Dr. Scott.'
On September 17, 1949, just twenty days before Jean Spangler's kidnapping and murder, an article appeared in the
As a matter of procedure, it's likely that the Gangster Squad detectives involved in the Spangler investigation, in a fox-in-the-hen-house type of scenario, were assigned the task of trying to locate and identify the 'Kirk' and 'Dr. Scott' in the Spangler note. This would be logical because of their familiarity with abortionists city-wide. It of course permitted them to protect themselves, and their operation, by keeping the identities of both men secret. As we know from newspaper reports, despite these detectives' 'exhaustive search, ' neither 'Dr. Scott' nor 'Kirk' was ever located or identified.
It is inconceivable to me that the LAPD was unable to make the obvious connection between the abortionist Kirk and Spangler's handwritten note, addressed to him. Kirk's identity should have been obvious to the investigators, because 'Bill Ball and Joe Small' arrested him for performing illegal abortions just three weeks prior to the discovery of the Spangler note. Their failure to identify the real Kirk was all part of the abortion ring cover-up. As we will soon discover, these same Gangster Squad detectives were subpoenaed and forced to testify in secret before the 1949 grand jury. Their testimony would be labeled 'evasive' and 'contradictory' and they would publicly be accused by both the grand jury members and the district attorney's Bureau of Investigation of 'covering up' facts and destroying evidence relating to 'the Wealthy Hollywood Man' (Dr. George Hodel) named in secret before the grand jury as the prime suspect in both the Black Dahlia and Red Lipstick murders.
Thanks to Sergeant Stoker's detailed explanation of how the L.A. abortion ring operated, we are able to connect the dots not only to Dr. Bayley and his role as an abortionist, but, more importantly, to 'Bill Ball and Joe Small.' With Stoker's help, we see them as they were: active ringleaders in a LAPD high-stakes money-for- protection racket. By successfully silencing Dr. Eric Kirk, and speedily sending him to prison, the Gangster Squad detectives prevented any linkage between Kirk and Jean Spangler, who had likely sought him out to perform her abortion in the weeks preceding her disappearance. Then with his arrest and incarceration, she wrote the note, which remained undelivered in her purse, and was found only three weeks later, after she was kidnapped and murdered.
It was October 1949. In the previous two years, more than a dozen lone women had been found savagely murdered in the streets of Hollywood and downtown L.A. Two other socially prominent Hollywood women had disappeared and were suspected to have met the same fate. Gangsters were firing away at each other in open gun battles on Sunset Boulevard, wounding government officials and nearly killing a member of the press. An LAPD chief of police, an assistant chief, a lieutenant, and two vice squad officers were under indictment. My father had just been arrested for incest in a sex scandal that was making the front pages of the local papers. Sergeant Stoker, after testifying in secret before the grand jury as a whistle-blower, along with his partner, Officer Ruggles, had been fired. Corruption in the city and throughout its administration was so pervasive that even sexual predators were able to prey on women without fear of arrest.
Who was actually governing the city and why were the police powerless to stop crime?
1While a sample was taken, no real test was ever completed, as was standard operating procedure. At $250-$500 for a half-hour's work, it was an excellent financial decision to inform all women they were pregnant.
*The organizational structure of the Gangster Squad and their duties and responsibilities within the Homicide Division have been explained at length in an earlier chapter. This is the same detective unit that had, in January 1947, 'assisted' in the investigation of the Black Dahlia murder and had discredited two key witnesses, the Johnsons, and their positive identification of the probable killer, 'Mr. Barnes, ' who had checked into their
