EPISODE 10: Feb 10th
Grandview is isolated. No homes within a mile. Too close to the Santa Monica Airport?
The location of Jeanne French’s apartment makes Culver City her neighborhood.
This is the Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia podcast. Episode 10.
A construction driver on a bulldozer spies a pile of clothing in a weedy vacant lot near Santa Monica airport. Underneath the powder blue jacket and wine colored silk dress is the body of a nude woman bludgeoned beyond recognition.
Early reporting suggests the victim has been shot in the face and cut with a knife. Neither is true. She has been struck in the forehead with a socket wrench, so that a hole is visible and misinterpreted as an entrance wound. The body has been aggressively kicked, the edge of the killers shoe leather has split her at the mouth and limbs, creating the impression that she has been cut with a knife. Her chest has been stomped until her ribs pierce her lungs and heart causing hemorrhage and death. There are muddy heel prints running the length of her body; her neck is broken, her arms broken, her jaw broken. The press will describe the severe damage by stating her face has been turned to a pulp. Mercifully, it is most likely the victim was unconscious when the stomping takes place.
No immediate clues at the crime scene offer any leads as to the woman’s or the killer’s identity . There are strands of black hair under her fingernails; evidence of a struggle. The fur lined powder blue jacket has a label tag, Adler and Adler. A black leather purse has a note referring to cabin camp in Minnesota on one side and a household budget on the reverse; the rent is $60 a month. Her brown shoes are tossed 50 feet in opposite directions, a pink brassiere and two handkerchiefs are found closer to the body on the muddy ground. These are not clues, only the flotsam and jetsam of the crime scene. The woman will be identified by fingerprints as Jeanne French, who has recently been arrested for driving under the influence.
On day one, the press focus on the lipstick message left on the muddy body; the headline in the Herald Express; WEREWOLF STRIKES AGAIN!
Kills L.A. Woman Writes, B.D. on Body.
Mad Killer in Frenzy Stomps Over Victim.
And In the Los Angeles Times;
ANOTHER WOMAN SLAIN
Victim Of Mutilation Murder
Every effort is made to highlight similarities to the Black Dahlia case. “A homicidal maniac struck again here today and dumped the nude and mutilated body of another woman in a vacant lot, giving baffled police a second Black Dahlia-like murder to solve.” …“The still-attractive Mrs, French, pioneer airline hostess, aviatrix, actress, former nurse and companion to oil heiress Millicent Rogers, left her husband a few hours before her death, angry because he refused to go someplace with her. Police believed that the man she found to “go someplace" was the man who kicked her to death. An autopsy showed she died of shock and hemorrhage from her wounds. She had not been raped. The initials "B. D." were printed in lipstick across her body and police said they indicated either that the killer was the fiend who tortured and mutilated “Black Dahlia" Elizabeth Short less than a month ago or that he was morbidly imitating the slaying. One paper, the Pasadena Star-News tries to give away the obscene word that can not be printed in the paper and shows dots where the letters should be; … DOT, DOT, DOT YOU, B. D.
Like Elizabeth Short, the body of Jeanne French is dumped nude in the weeds of a vacant lot, found by a passer-by. References to her being an actress and beautiful. The mutilation is equally horrific. However, in no way is this a copy-cat killing.
Unlike Elizabeth Short, Jeanne French has led a life, her film career, marriage and child are real not imaginary, Jeanne was the flying nurse who had made headlines and appeared in bit parts in the movies. She is an abusive drunk whose fame is behind her, perhaps she fears her life is slipping away. Unlike the murder of Elizabeth Short, there is no evidence of premeditation, this killer used a weapon from his car trunk and wrote on Jeanne’s belly with lipstick from her purse. Unlike Elizabeth Short, the killer made an effort to hide the body under the pile of clothing.
Unlike Elizabeth Short, the killer obliterates Jeanne French’s identity with a blunt instrument. Elizabeth Short is tortured, the killer wants to watch the Black Dahlia die. The weapon of choice is articulate and Elizabeth’s body is uniquely mutilated; bisected then drained of blood and scrubbed before displaying the corpse in a chosen spot to maximize shock. The killer of Elizabeth Short obsesses about the coverage in the newspaper and communicates with editors and challenges the police.
At the autopsy Dr Frederick Newbarr states the Jeanne French had Chop Suey as her last meal approximately an hour before her death. Newbarr examines the initials on the abdomen as declare they are P.and D. So the Message reads, Fuck You P.D. Tex and perhaps another word sometimes guessed to be “Andy”. P.D may be Peter Dominguez or Paul Derosa not Police Department. A few writers hypothesize that “Tex” is may refer to the fact that Jeanne Axlrod Thomas is originally from Texas. Why would the killer who stomps Jeanne French to death with his shoes care where she was born? He is not mailing a package to Texas, he is signing his work. When I grew up in California “Tex” was as common a nickname as “Red.” Signing off with lipstick on muddy and slippery skin is not common. Not something a person might have previous experience with. One can understand how the words are imperfectly printed; the lipstick is slick and the flesh is a wet and curved.
At the inquest, Frank French testifies calmly and honestly that he loves his wife and would not harm her. He is believable. The killer has small shoes, size 6. Frank French’s landlady says he did not leave the house that night. The killer drives his car and Jeanne’s car. Frank doesn’t not drive. The police check French’s shoes and realize he is not a fit for the crime. Jeanne French’s son, David Wrather spoke at the inquest, …“sometimes she went to cocktail parlors. She made friends easy, awful easy. She went out alone sometimes. She used to talk to me pretty good, I think, she'd have told me if anything was wrong. She's gone now and I'm sure she would want me to say the right thing. She made a lot of her own trouble. Her husband tolerated a lot from her. He was a tolerant man, a very tolerant man. "I don't know of anybody I would suspect.”
The police find Jeanne French’s car. No prints. None on the wine bottle or purse or lipstick tube. Jeanne French’s alcohol level is twice the legal limit, point three one. There are no witnesses of the dump site, the nearest house is over a mile away. Some newspapers suggest the site is a lover’s lane. It isn’t. However, the killer may have considered it to be as good as a place as any at 2:35 am. There is fresh blood in the street. It appears she was knocked unconscious in the road with the socket wrench then dragged 15 feet then stomped to death.
As of the 12th. The press have no suspects and the police have no clues. There are seven witnesses who have seen the likely killer with Jeanne French at two restaurants, a piano bar and a parking lot. The killer is described as slight, short, dark skinned, or dark complected, perhaps latin, with a pencil mustache. This is very un-Black Dahlia Avenger to have so many witnesses. And there is the Chop Suey at 2 a.m. mystery.
The first significant sighting of Jeanne French on the fateful night is at the Plantation Cafe on Washington Blvd at 7:30. She is with two men. These men at a table, have ordered food, Jeanne is intoxicated and on the payphone, speaking loudly to the person on the phone. Christina Studnicka, waitress, hears Jeanne say, “Don’t bring a bottle, the landlady doesn’t allow it.” Then shouting across the restaurant to the men seated at the table, ”Don’t put any liquor in the car.” Studnicka implies the men joust over who will accompany Jeanne. The waitress said both men left the cafe before Jeanne French. She did not know whether Mrs French joined them outside.
However, the next known location for Jeanne French is at her home, on nearby Military Avenue, where she meets her estranged husband.
When Frank French speaks at the coroner's jury, he states his wife had been drinking and he tried to leave, but, he said, “she insisted and dragged me into the bedroom and a woman who lived there in the house separated us. I took my clothes and went home."
At 9:30, Jeanne drives north to the Turkey Bowl Cafe in Santa Monica and has a cup coffee. She talks with the operator of the drive-in cafe, Ray Fecher. Jeanne tells Ray her husband is sadistic, that he liked 'dark' things, and had beaten her several times. Then she raised a pair of dark glasses to show Ray two black eyes.
I have three thoughts about Jeanne wearing sunglasses at night and showing strangers her black eyes. ONE. Her look makes it easy for witnesses to recall seeing her. TWO. Before Jeanne speaks, the story tells itself; she has been wronged, her husband is a villain. And it justifies why she is alone. Why she is upset. And perhaps to herself, why she is drinking. THREE. Her black eyes means she looks like a victim to a predator.
Witness Marshall Watkins stops at the Turkey Bowl to buy a newspaper and noticed the intoxicated Jeanne French talking to another drunk woman. As Marshall waits for his change, he hears Jeanne refer to a “bum” and hears Jeanne say ‘just like the Black Dahlia’. What Watkins hears is remarkable in retrospect, however, at the time, why would he carefully listen to a conversation between two intoxicated women. He does notice Mrs. French has parked her car four feet off from the curb and that she drives off erratically at 10:00 pm. The coffee has had little effect. Jeanne heads back to Culver City and enters an unnamed bar at 10421 Venice Blvd, she is alone and shows bartender Earl Holmes, her black eyes. Jeanne declares she is going to commit her husband to the Sawtelle Veteran Hospital’s neuropsychiatric ward the next day. It is now 11:00 pm, Jeanne visits Frank at his rooming house.
According to Frank’s testimony, they walk outside the rooming house to have some privacy for about 40 or 50 minutes. They quarrel and she hits him in the face with her purse and drives off about 11:50 p.m. Frank worried about how drunk she is, assumes she is going home.
In fact, Jeanne drives south, back to Culver City and a next seen in the company of the man with a thin mustache and dark skin at the Piccadilly drive-in around midnight. Car hop Anthony Anzione recognizes Jeanne as a regular customer. Mrs.Toni Manalatus gets a good look at the male companion. The killer drives off with Jeanne at 1:15 and parks across the lot to go inside the Pan American Bar where they sit at the bar stools nearest to the door and listen to piano player Sam Young play tunes. Bartender Joseph Nesco remembers the couple and describes the “boyfriend” as medium-small and dark complexioned. Jeanne left a tip for the piano player who watches as the couple goes outside and gets into the “boyfriend’s” 1936 Pontiac or Chevy Sedan at closing time. 2:00 am. This car is brown, beaten up, dirty.
According to her autopsy, Jeanne has chop suey. The press initially report the LAPD is unable to locate the Chinese restaurant. On the 13th of February the San Bernardino Sun tells its readers that the police have located the cafe. Only the Sun. No other papers offer this scoop and the Sun doesn’t name the place. A visit to the 1947 Culver City yellow pages lists an ad for the New Shanghai Cafe at 9345 Washington Blvd in downtown Culver City at Ince and Culver, a Trader Joe location today. The cafe is open till 3 am serving food and beer and offers take out. Do they have chop suey? The ad says the New Shanghai Cafe is owned and operated by Chinese and brags QUOTE “if it’s Chinese food, we serve it.” I have no confirmation that this was the restaurant and no evidence since no witness came forward to the press. One has to imagine a woman wearing dark glasses in a restaurant would be remembered. Perhaps they had take out and ate in the car. As Jeanne French’s son said, “she made a lot of her own trouble.” It’s 2:30 am. Jeanne is an angry drunk in an inebriated stranger’s car. Similar to the murder of Jerry Burns in 1939, perhaps the murder took place because the sex did not.
Jeanne’s 1929 Roadster is seen at 3:15 a.m. The Piccadilly drive-in is a 24 hour cafe. Tony Anglone, watchman and jantor, sees the chopped Ford driven into the parking lot between the Cafe and Pan American Bar. Tony notices when a short man, slight in build, exits and runs away from the car.
Why take the risk? Why park the car where he could be seen by a witness? Jeanne’s car must have been parked where she meet him for the second time that evening. Likely the car is at the killer’s home. Jeanne was too drunk to drive. She must parked at his house at midnight and they left in his beat up brown car. Did the killer live close enough to this parking lot to walk home? He must be in a comfort zone running back. Why else choose this parking lot? Timing is crucial. If the killer parks the car at 3:15 and killed her at 3 that given him 15 minutes to drive home and get into Jeanne’s car. Does he have time to change his shoes? Maybe his shirt and pants, too. The has to be worried about blood on his clothing, as he is going to run away from the car. He has to be careful. He doesn’t leave fingerprints on Jeanne’s car. It only makes sense that he would drive to the parking lot because its close to his house. The killer has to live within a five to eight minute drive from the Plantation cafe. He lives in Culver City, likely within a ten to twenty minute walk. Police should have canvassed the area with photos of Jeanne’s chopped 1929 Ford Roadster. Did anyone notice a twenty year old car outside a man’s house after midnight? Apparently not.
Why Grand View as a location for death, it’s not a dump site like Norton Ave, yet the question ‘Why Grand View’ is a surprising similar yet different question than why Norton Ave? Where is the killer of Jeanne French going north on Centinela? Toward what? In contrast the Black Dahlia Avenger knows he is going to the Norton Avenue location.
Norton Avenue was planned Grand View Avenue was not. But they are both vacant, middle of nowhere places.
So Norton Avenue had to be discovered as nowhere on the middle of a trip to somewhere. How else would the black dahlia avenger know Norton Avenue is a street of undeveloped lots filled with weeds and a place where children ride bicycles? Is he a real estate salesman? Otherwise he would've had to discover it when he was going from one place to another, right? You only find nowhere only when you are come by it one day on the way to someplace else. For example, a man driving from USC to Loyola University might pass thru Leimert Park and see Norton Ave.
Where is the destination for the man accompanying Jeanne French I have to think the killer is driving Jenny French somewhere when he pulls over to a nowhere. Why are they going back to Santa Monica?
Police locate another suspect on day three . A housepainter named George Whitt, age 40, he was seen at the same unnamed bar on Venice Boulevard where bartender Earl Holmes’ ear was bent by Jeanne French on her last night.
Whitt’s face has cuts and bruises and police hold him by making up a technical charge of robbery. Whitt, who lives in Palm Springs met Jeanne and Frank French when he painted the apartment on Military Avenue. After the Frank French moves out, Jeanne and George Whitt have a few dates. The police eliminate Whitt as a suspect within 24 hours. Whitt burns his shoes. Even though his shoe size is one of the reasons he is eliminated. Well…Of course he does. Why trust the police when they start the investigation by accusing him of a crime he did not commit to hold him for questioning. Not everyone trusts the police in 1947 and for good reasons.
Remember Ernest Tate, 30-year-old negro janitor and ex-prizefighter who worked at the apartments where Georgette Bauerdorf lived, he never goes back to his job. Why put himself in a place where a witness might decide Tate looks suspicious.
Most true crime enthusiasts recall the murder and dismemberment of Susan Degnan on Monday January 7, 1946. The 65-year-old a janitor in the building where Degnan lived, was severely beaten by the police during 48 hours of questioning. He did not confess. The boy that does confess, Bill Heirens said he was interrogated around the clock for six consecutive days, beaten by police and not allowed to eat or drink. The Police pour ether on Heirins’ testicles, they punch in the stomach while chained to a hospital bed and give him Sodium Pentothal without permission or defense lawyers present. Why this is applicable? Because the fear of police is real. This impacts the investigation on multiple levels. We will never know how many witnesses declined to come forward. Witnesses had to be concerned that the police might decide they were the last person to see Jeanne French or Beth Short alive. George Whitt or Earnest Tate may have information that could have helped the police. But there is good reason every lawyer advises to say nothing. There is a witness in the Jeannie French Murder who could have helped the police find the killer. Waitress Christina Studnicka saw two men at the table in the Plantation Cafe at 7:30. Who was that second man?
Returning our focus to the perception of Jeanne French from the first headline, she is “Another Woman” We remember Jeanne’s name today and discuss the facts of the case only because of a potential Black Dahlia connection.
“Another woman” is language one might hear in a divorce court. “The Flying Nurse” has lived a life of accomplishments, a world war two Army nurse, a pioneer airline hostess, a private nurse for the worldly rich who traveling to Paris and Manhattan. A contrarian, a courageous and rebellious woman who breaks the glass ceiling and fails at domestic life Jeanne may have felt more comfortable in a parachute than an apron. Jeanne French lived a life that ends in tragedy. In death, her destiny is to be a moon to the Black Dahlia planet.
Simply, Jeanne is reduced to being another woman because her horrific murder happens on Feb 10th not Jan 10th. Imagine that, because of the way the press creates perceptions Jeanne French is reduced to an “x” on the black dahlia map because she has been murdered in the wrong month.
These headlines that describe the deaths of Jeanne French and Elizabeth Short as mutilation murders serves to create a false sense of commonality. It is misleading, and that misconception bleeds over to other myths of association by false commonality. The focus on the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Row as a potential suspect in the Black Dahlia murder exists because the killer AKA the Cleveland Torso murderer purportedly sent a letter the Cleveland police in 1938, saying “You can rest easy now,” it read. “I have come out to sunny California for the winter.” In the letter the author claims to have buried a victim’s body on Century Boulevard between Crenshaw and Western Avenues in Los Angeles. No body was ever found. The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Row is a missionary serial killer, his victims were destitute inhabitants of a shanty town creek-bed area on the outskirts of Cleveland. The work of a missionary serial killer is self justified because he is cleansing society of the unworthy. This is not a lust killing like the Black Dahlia case. The Butcher killed 7 men and 5 women. He beheads them and victims have their limbs and heads disposed of in different locations. At minimum, 12 victims, more likely 20 are assigned to the Mad Butcher. Most bodies are recovered a year after their murder and it is possible some victims have never been found. None of these Mad Butcher signatures resemble the facts of the Black Dahlia or Flying Nurse murders.
The commonalities are the gruesome nature of the crime, the size of the headlines and public fear instilled. The basis of these clickbait theories is fear and headlines. The torture of Elizabeth Short is articulate and planned. After she is dead the killer diverges to angry mutilation, the slicing of the breast, the scooping of the tattoo, the cuts to the sex organs demonstrates a multination brutality. Then the killer reverts to articulation and planning as he drains the blood, scrubbed the body and readies it for display. It is the articulation that makes the murder unique not the brutal mutilation. The evolution from torturer to brute to mortician is the journey of this Avenger that the clickbait noisemakers fail to consider.
What happens when I examine the three parts of Jeanne French’s death? He strikes her in the face with a tool found in his car. Then drags her in the mud and stomps on her face neck arms and chest. A bone pierces her heart. This is hard physical work. The weapon is his body. Then picks up the lipstick case; belongs to her, something, feminine and personal, women choose their color, choose their brand. He signs off using her lipstick. Then hides her body under her clothes and Jeanne disappears from view. He hides his work after signing it. After he violently hits with a tool to Shut her up, he unleashes inhuman amount of anger as he extinguishes her life. Why leave a note? Oddly Personal act after violently depersonalizing her by obliterating her face and crushing her body. I associate notes with suicide not murder. Fuck you is a bit redundant after you have murdered someone. Who is the killer communicating to?
This path from torturer to brute to mortician is not what we see in the Jeanne French murder.
It’s all brute from the beginning; from the point he strikes her face to when covers her body.
The killer is a brute who silences, a brute who crushes and a brute who justifies himself in writing then places her clothes as if its an envelope with the message inside. There is motion in his actions as the tool is impersonal, his shoe is personable, the body made invisible. The body is equally hidden from the public aa hidden from himself.
The Black Dahlia Avenger has so many more layers; torturer to brute to mortician multiple needs; almost multiple personalities. The Black Dahlia Avenger doesn’t not hide the body from the public or himself. There is a Black dahlia story involving David Lynch meeting with Jigsaw John St. John at the Musso and Franks over dinner St. John shares a black and white photo of the copse on Norton Avenue ands asks Lynch “what do you see? Lynch, America’s most surrealist director, studies every detail noting the mint condition and the depth of focus in the picture, saying “ he let me look at it for a long time and I knew there was something he wanted me to see but after a while I said to him I don't see it he smiled and took the photo away. So I kept thinking of this thing like an anvil burning in my head then suddenly I knew what it was, That picture was taken at night with a flash and that opens up a whole realm of possibilities regarding the case.” Indeed this indicates more items sent to the police than we are aware of previously. The photo is a trophy, proof of accomplishment.
Certainly having a dark room and camera equipment means the killer has a middle class level of income. Photography may be the vector that connects the path of the killer to the photogenic Elizabeth Short.
The body of Jeanne French is invisible, the body of the Black Dahlia is visible. There is indication of so much planning here as well, to bring the camera, maybe a tripod and pose the body and have time to set up the shot. The planning involved in the murder suggests Black Dahlia Avenger may be a serial killer and it begs a question that isn’t easily answered. How can the police know when a serial killer begins killing?
I am going to quote John Douglas’s commentary on the Black Dahlia case.
“Elizabeth Short longed for something that always eluded her.” She “was young and emotionally vulnerable and needy, with a highly dependent personality. Because of her lifestyle she was a high-risk victim. Like Blanche DuBois, she relied on the kindness of strangers She could easily be targeted by anyone who wanted to dominate or hurt women. He could have spotted her a mile away.
“To do what he did to his victim, both ante-mortem and post-mortem, he also have to have a house or an apartment. It could be small and run down as long as it was some place private with access to running water, where he know he would not be interrupted. so now we know the UNSUB can’t have been poor–at least not compared to his victim. He had to have some money for rent as well as car expenses.
As this is not the type of crime we’d expect a jealous boyfriend to commit in the heat of passion. Nor is it the action of a frustrated suitor; who in a drunken frenzy murdered her when learned this girl was the ultimate tease… These scenarios–or one involving female offender do not match the profile of this UNSUB as evidenced by the crime.
Lust crime killers have disorganized personalities, yet this UNSUB was able to imagine, plan and carry out this time consuming, complicated crime. For this reason we’d expect him to have some criminal history before his encounter with Beth Short.
You don’t jump into this kind of thing without some criminal evolution and development.
“If we saw this case today in isolation, we’d still know immediately that we were dealing with a serial killer.”
ONE MORE THING
There is a theory concerning the placement of the body of Elizabeth Short on Norton Avenue. It is suggested that the positioning of the arms is inspired by a relationship of the killer to the works of Man Ray, Steve Hodel sees a similarity between Elizabeth Short’s bisected body on Norton Ave and Man Ray’s photograph “the Minotaur”. Indeed when the two photographs are placed side by side, I see it . But I also can place a picture of Elizabeth Short next to a picture of a woman celebrating the day of the dead. The resemblance of the manner in which the sugar skull makeup mimics the slice across the mouth, along with the dark eyes and flowers in the hair is remarkable. It doesn’t mean Elizabeth Short was killed by a psychopath who celebrated a grotesque Halloween variation on a cold January night.
The suggestion that art inspires death is cocktail party conversation. This takes us far beyond an idea of the killer taking a photo at night with a flash as a trophy. There is no intellectual basis for any conclusion that links surrealism and murder.
The shock of Surrealism images was purposeful. The art movement was a response to the horror of World War One, not an excuse for external violence and bloodshed. Dismembering is what war does. Soldiers and nations are cut to pieces. Allow me to turn this around by asking a question of the day.
Raise your hand if you have been to the Louvre in Paris and observed the Greek statue without arms and upon leaving the museum were you inspired to hack the limbs of attractive women in the manner of the Venus de Milo?
No. Death and the fear of death inspires art, not the other way around. The troubled figure at the center of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” was inspired by a Peruvian mummy the artist observed at a Paris exhibition. Surrealist images challenge and inform us. The soul of art inspires internal action; retrospection, dialogue and debate.
This idea that art inspires death is a notion that is little more than chewing gum for the lazy brain.
We learn about violent lust criminals by comparing one crime to similar crimes; not by walking thru a museum or leafing thru a gallery catalogue. Steve Hodel believes his father is a serial killer. He concludes George Hodel murdered Georgette Bauderorf, Ora Murray, Jeanne French, Lillian Dominguez, Gladys Kern, Mimi Boomhower, Jean Spangler and Louise Springer in addition to Elizabeth Short.
There is no reason to embrace this supposition. One only needs to examine the various signatures of these different murders to understand there is no one-size-fits-all solution in these crimes.
Most mystery crime readers may not be aware of the murder of Lillian Dominguez, she was a 15 year old girl, stabbed while walking with her friends after school dance in a safe Santa Monica neighborhood on Oct 3rd 1947. She attacked by stranger who ran at her with needle-like knife and delivers a blow to the chest. “That man touched me,” Lillian said, “I can’t see,” then collapsed to the sidewalk and dies on the way to the hospital. Criminal Investigation centered on Hispanic youth gangs as knifing was seen as the weapon of choice in a Latin crime of passion. The police are wrong, this is not a gang, it’s a lone assailant and as the attacks continue, he’s given the name “The Jabber”. On September 2nd Barbara Jean Morse, age 14, was stabbed in the breast near her home on Euclid Avenue in Santa Monica. It was 10:30 am and Barbara was waiting for a bus to go swimming when wild, dark-completed 27 year old man came up and “hit her” in the chest. The blade misses the heart; Barbara lives, Lillian died. Ora Murray’s companion was identified as Roger Lewis Gardner, age 26, ten years younger than George Hodel. Mimi Boomhower and Jean Spangler disappeared, there was no body, no crime scene, no similarity.
The primary commonality for these deaths is the fear inspired Herald Express headlines of unsolved violent crimes. Steve Hodel is sincere, I find his theory of multiple killings is unproven.
It is difficult to disprove a theory so instead let me ask another question, if murder and torture, mutilation and body placement is art-inspired, why did George Hodel keep killing but stop making art? The body placement of Jeannie French doesn’t show any artistic influence. She was bludgeoned in the road, dragged thru mud, brutally stomped and buried under her own clothing.
Even if everyone can agree that the choice to place Beth Short’s body in a certain way that creates an image that is satisfactory to inner urge of the killer, there is no reason to suggest this has any correlation as to why the killer may have tortured Beth; there is no association of this idea with evidence of motivation or guilt.
The manner in which our society digests movies and stories plays a significant role in the way we resolve mysteries in our head. We seek connections. Our brain will see a cloud shaped like Godzilla or a Cheeto shaped like Jesus on the cross and feel satisfied.
In the recent miniseries, I Am The Night journalist Jay Singletary, played by Chris Pine, has an “aha!” moment about the case when walking through a gallery of surrealist pieces of art.
Body placement of the Black Dahlia is not an “Aha moment” in the manner of the rosebud-sled scene at the end of Citizen Kane.
Conscious or unconscious body placement of Elizabeth Short corpse on Norton Avenue doesn’t indicate George Hodel’s guilt any more than it points to Orson Wells.
Until next time.
2 a.m. Chop Suey Culver City location?