Remembering an Old Partner-Homicide Detective III Kirk Mellecker – LAPD’s Longest Assigned Investigator on the Black Dahlia Murder, Dies at Age 77.

Upon his transfer to Major Crimes, Kirk’s first assignment was being handed the keys to one of Los Angeles’ Coldest of Cold Cases–Victim Elizabeth Short-The Black Dahlia 1947 Whodunit. (Not uncommon for “the new guy in the unit”, as mostly it amounted to taking calls and “tips” from private citizens.” Call-ins saying, “I know who killed the Black Dahlia.” A joke of sorts in the unit, since the infamous case was at that time, already 27 years cold.)
But, to Kirk Mellecker, it was NO JOKE. He was given the keys to the six-drawer-locked Black Dahlia Files and he alone had investigative responsibility and sole access to them.
Kirk’s career in the Robbery/Homicide Division was stellar. He investigated and solved dozens of high-profile cases through the decades and would promote to Detective III in 1990.

My next contact with Kirk was in 2001, some twenty-six years after we were partners and he was well into his retirement from LAPD.

In this contact,  I learned he was now a major case specialist at NCAVC, the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime near Quantico, Virginia. Kirk’s current job was to train law enforcement officers nationwide in the use of a national crime computer database and retrieval program called VICAP, which is primarily used for analyzing patterns and potential evidence in serial sexual homicides and identifying possible suspects.

I knew he had been assigned to the Black Dahlia investigation (which I was secretly investigating), and it would be another two years before my publication of Black Dahlia Avenger) in 2003, in which  I document that most revealing conversation between Kirk and myself. I knew that Kirk had partnered and become personally very close with “Jigsaw John” the legendary LAPD detective who had over forty years on the job. (I had met Det. John St. John on many occasions at various crime scenes during my 17 years working Hollywood Homicide.)

Several years ago, famed director, David Lynch wrote an article in which he states he had dinner with then retired Det. John St. John at Musso & Franks restaurant in Hollywood. (Happens to be my favorite Hollywood restaurant.) The bottom line of Lynch’s story is that Det. St John showed him a crime scene photo of the original Black Dahlia, which at the time made no impression on Lynch since he had seen them many times before. Lynch claims St.John smiled, put the photo away, and left. Then it hit Lynch. The photo was taken at night in the moonlight! That photo had never been seen or shown before. Elizabeth Short’s killer left the body there before daybreak on January 15, 1947. See my 2019 blog on Lynch’s account and “dinner with John John.”

Director/Screenwriter David Lynch Reveals “New/Old Clue” to Black Dahlia Investigation in “Dinner with John John”

Now, let me fast forward to the present 2022–just two months back.

I decided to recontact Kirk and see if he could shed any light on the alleged meeting between his old partner “Jigsaw John” and David Lynch. What follows are an exchange of emails between myself and Kirk leading up to just days before his death.

I am sharing these emails knowing that Kirk, like myself, was all about getting to the TRUTH and knowing things AS THEY ARE–a “Just The Facts” kind of attitude if you will.