July 29, 2023
Birch Bay, Washington
99th Birthday of murder victim Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short
Date: Summer 1950
Location: Los Angele, California
Time: Time to get out of Dodge
Dr. George Hill Hodel is literally days away from being arrested by LA DA Lt. Frank Jemison. Jemison is about to seek two felony counts against George Hodel for the murders of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short and for GHH’s secretary, Ruth Spaulding. He’s tipped by insiders and splits, initially going to either Mexico or the then territory of Hawaii. Lt. Jemison is then “pulled off the cases” and ordered to return all the files and secret taped confession and surveillance tapes to LAPD and ordered to “hand deliver them to Chief of Detectives, Thad Brown.” He follows orders but secretly locks a second copy of the taped transcripts in the DA files. (Discovered by my investigation 53 years later.)
Dr. George Hodel sometime in the summer of 1950 accepts and moves to Hawaii where he assumes his new triple role positions as (1) “Psychiatrist of the staff of the Territorial Hospital in Kaneohe in charge of the rehabilitation program, and (2) Chief psychiatrist and the clinic at Oahu prison and (3) staff instructor and lecturer at the University of Hawaii.”
Below are two separate articles related to Dr. George Hill Hodel published on the same day in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper. The first article (on the “Society” page ) announces his marriage to Hortensia Laguda Lopez and the second in the regular section announces his “initiating a unique rehabilitation program of ballroom dancing at the Kaneohe Mental Hospital.” I’ll let the article tell the story, but as you read his “new program” keep in mind that at least two of his serial crimes involved his meeting his victim at a Dance Hall, then ballroom dancing with his victim prior to inviting them out to “see the town” and murdering them. (Ora Murray 1943 and Marian Newton 1947). I keep repeating this same catchline, “You can’t make this shi* up”, but there it is.
The Honolulu Advertiser
August 24, 1952
Society Page
The Honolulu Advertiser
August 24, 1952
Last Thursday on Oahu a murderer, a man who can’t remember the first half of his life, a combat pilot, and a commercial artist got together to learn the tango.
They are members of probably the most unusual dancing class ever held in Hawaii for the students are inmates at the Kaneohe Territorial Hospital who are dancing to regain their mental health.
THE CLASS MEETS for about an hour and a half every week and is directed by two professional instructors from a downtown studio who contribute their services. Between 30 and 60 patients at the hospital turn out for every session.
Dr. George Hill Hodel, psychiatrist at the hospital, is convinced the foxtrot is good medicine for his patients.
“Most of these people have failed in personal relationships,” he said. “More than half are withdrawn, reclusive, and poorly related to the outside world. What we’re trying to do here is make them realize other people exist.”
“I KNOW OF NOTHING that does it more vividly than social dancing.”
At the beginning of the session, the men lined up in a row on one side of the room and the women on the other. Their ages range from 24 to 60. First, the instructors put the patients through basic steps and then the students are paired off to try out what they’ve learned.
The patients attend the sessions eagerly enough, Dr. Hodel said, but getting them to step out on the floor is more difficult. Even then, a student will simply up and leave his partner every once in a while to go back to his chair and stare at the floor.
“IT’S JUST TOO MUCH for some of them,” the doctor explained. “But they come back.”
The class represents as strange an assortment of professions and talents as you’ll find anywhere. There was a good-looking man in a crisp white shirt and brown slacks who can’t remember the early part of his life. Some time ago, he was able to remember the early part but not the last half.
Now the doctors are trying to put his life back together, Dr. Hodel said.
ANOTHER MAN who is getting a little bald and walks with a slouch was a combat flyer during World War II with 266 combat missions and a whole string of medals.
One of the girls, dressed in a neat, colorful, Holeka, broke down after she had a baby. Her parents would not let her marry the father. The girl now refuses to admit she had a child.
Dr. Hodel pointed out a tall man in an aloha shirt as a commercial artist and author of a book on drawing.
ANOTHER HARMLESS-looking little man who was dancing with one of the instructors killed a man with a knife, Dr. Hode said, because voices told him the man was going to kill him first.
By the time the session was over, the patients danced much more freely than at first. The doctor said it takes a while to break through the wall of fantasy and daydreams that many of the patients build around themselves.
One of the advantages of dancing as therapy, he said, is that it gives patients a chance to function as a group. Most of them have fallen down in these relationships, he added, especially with the other sex.
“RELATIONSHIPS with the other sex are fraught with hidden fears for these people,” he explained. “Here the sexes can mix openly in a healthy atmosphere.”
Below are more than two dozen newspaper articles featuring Dr. George Hill Hodel during his three-four year stay in Hawaii from 1950-1953 or 54, prior to relocating with his wife to Manila, Philippines.![]()
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The post Psychiatrist Dr. George Hill Hodel – A Cinderella Psychopath: Meets His Victims at a Ballroom Dance then Murders them; Then As Chief Psychiatrist in Hawaii Introduces Ballroom Dancing Program for Murderers to Regain Mental Health appeared first on Steve Hodel.