December 18, 2018
Los Angeles, California
TNT and Cadence13, a leading podcast media company, today announced an eight-part podcast documentary series, Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia – a companion to TNT’s six-episode suspense drama I Am the Night. (Clip on below photo to read the full article in Eclipse Magazine posted yesterday, 12.17.18)
I have received numerous inquiries from readers asking for information on the upcoming television miniseries, “I Am The Night.”
Questions range from: Is it your Black Dahlia Avenger investigation? Are you a consultant and involved in the making of the series? Is it a true crime documentary?
The answer to all of those questions is–NO.
Regarding the TNT dramatized fictional miniseries.
I have not been contacted by anyone connected with the TNT “I Am The Night” miniseries, which is scheduled to air in late January. I have no “inside information” on it other than they claim it is “based on a true story” from the book written by my half-sister’s daughter, Fauna Hodel. (Fauna, my niece, died from cancer on September 30, 2017, at age 66.)
So, like you, “I Am In The Dark” about where they are going with the dramatization, other than the glimpses offered by way of the promo/trailers. I have had no contact with TNT, nor have I been contacted by Fauna’s children who are standing in on the TNT promotion for their mother after her unexpected passing last year.
We will just have to wait and see where they go with it come late January.
That said, this previous summer, I was contacted by Zak Levitt, an Emmy Award-winning director-producer-documentarian, hired to create a “companion piece” (audio only) as a follow-up to the, “I Am The Night” dramatization.
Zak Levitt, Executive Producer of Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia, an eight-part podcast to air beginning February 13, 2019
I initially “passed” on Zak’s invitation to be part of it because having investigated and written five true crime books over the past seventeen-years, documenting my father’s life and serial crimes, I did not want to be involved or associated in any way with a fictionalized version of the truth.
Levitt recontacted me and explained that though TNT had partnered with Cadence 13, that his podcast would be produced as an eight-part true-crime podcast and would be independent and tell “the true story of the Hodel Family.” Zak informed me that the podcast would “mostly involve interviews with Hodel family members and stress and examine the varying impacts the Black Dahlia findings had on each of your separate lives, and the damage to the family left behind by George Hodel.”
After multiple conversations, which included his assurance that his production would only focus on the facts, I reluctantly agreed to be interviewed.
Like many requests for audio interviews over the past eighteen years, it is a “Catch 22”.
If I don’t participate and involve myself in it, then the truth is lost. The public will continue to be led by fiction and the Dahlia Myth and Legends remain in place.
This point is made crystal clear at the end of John Ford’s classic film, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” starring John Wayne and James Stewart.
Senator Ransom Stoddard (actor James Stewart) who has become famous for killing a notorious outlaw, Liberty Valence (Lee Marvin) returns decades later to “tell the truth” but the editor of the local newspaper opts to keep the legend alive and pass on the truth. (Play 15 second video below.)
My point and position are 180′ opposite and I would have it,
“This is the West Sir. When the legend is replaced with fact, print the fact.”
Consequently, with Levitt’s assurance that he would remain true to the facts as presented, I agreed to participate in the audio podcast.
After conducting several days of audio interviews, I came away highly impressed with Zak’s personal research, backgrounding and knowledge of not only the Hodel Family but also on the related Dahlia investigation (no easy task) and believe and trust that his “Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family” podcast will result in an honest examination of the facts and provide an important window for the public as a balance to the many preconceived Dahlia Myths and Legends.
I quote Zak Levitt from yesterday’s “Root of Evil” announcement:
“This is a story more than 70 years in the making. The Black Dahlia has generated incredible interest and attention through the years, but nothing has gotten to the heart of the incredibly painful, and ultimately triumphant story of the family that has had to carry the Hodel name – a name synonymous with the most brutal unsolved murder in American history,” said Zak Levitt, EVP of Documentary Content at Cadence13. “Through fresh interviews with the Hodel family and a trove of never-before-heard archival audio, we hope Root of Evil will be the most three-dimensional Black Dahlia story yet.”
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