April 5, 2025
Birch Bay, Washington
A Personal Note to My Readers
This upcoming week marks the 21st anniversary of the publication of Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder (Arcade 2003).
As most of my readers know, that hardback book, a New York Times bestseller, was followed by investigative updates added to new paperback editions published from 2004 to 2018.
These were followed by “The Early Years” Part I (1920s) and Part II (1930s), which linked George Hodel’s past to his future, showing he started his serial killings as a teen and continued for the next fifty years, likely “retiring” in 1969 with the Paul Stine murder in San Francisco.
Five months ago, in November 2023, I decided to do what LAPD and the LADA’s Office should have done in 1950: put George Hill Hodel ON TRIAL for his 1940s Black Dahlia and Lone Woman Murders.
Black Dahlia Avenger IV is my first “historical fiction,” a trial by “The Quick and Dead,” but make no mistake. Though I have given the victims voice and brought them back from beyond the grave to testify—their testimonies and the evidence presented ARE REAL.
I am grateful for the overwhelming response I have received here in the U.S. and from many readers from abroad over the past two decades. The response to my investigation is running about ninety percent positive.
As for the naysayers, most of their “attacks” come from disgruntled wannabe “theorists,” the most vocal being a vitriolic obsessive and long retired Los Angeles Times copyeditor and self-proclaimed “Black Dahlia Expert” who, for twenty-six years, has wrongfully accused another medical doctor (long deceased) who a year prior to the Black Dahlia murder, lived in residence a block from the body-dump site.
Along with my thanks and gratitude to my readers, I would like to make one final and exceedingly important point, that is:
I did not come up with some “theory” that my father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, committed the murder of Elizabeth “Black Dahlia” Short. Further, I did not solve the Black Dahlia Murder.
What I did do was discover that the LAPD and the LADA’s Office solved the murder back in 1950 and, for personal and political reasons- COVERED IT UP. This is not “my theory” of what occurred but rather the DA’s and LAPDs own investigation.
The secret LADA Hodel Black Dahlia Files prove THEY solved the crime “beyond a reasonable doubt” and allowed Dr. George Hodel to flee the U.S. Then, by order of DA William Simpson, the Hodel Tapes and proofs were turned over to LAPD Deputy Chief of Detectives Thad Brown, who destroyed all the evidence. (Or, rather, thought he did.) He had no clue that LADA Lt. Frank Jemison kept a “second set of books” and locked them in the DA’s vault, which was discovered and revealed in my investigation in 2003.
Today’s LAPD (2003 forward) had no clue the case had been solved back in 1950. In 1950, Chief of Detectives Thad Brown removed and destroyed all files naming George Hodel as the killer and all the related Hodel witness interviews. The name George Hodel was totally unknown to any and all of the Cold Case Detectives assigned to the “Black Dahlia” case for the past fifty years. (Confirmed by LAPD Detective III Kirk Mellecker, who was the sole Robbery/Homicide Detective assigned to the case from 1975-1991 (sixteen years!) and had sole custody of the keys to the Dahlia files.)
Bottom Line: The Black Dahlia Murder came to me. I didn’t go to it. I was long retired (thirteen years) and living out of state. (Washington) My father’s death opened Pandora’s Box, and the rest is history.
Warmest Regards,
Steve Hodel, Birch Bay, Washington
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