August 7, 2024
Birch Bay, Washington
Several readers have informed me that my Black Dahlia Internut Naysayers complain that “Hodel conducted his Black Dahlia investigation in secret and never made any attempt to inform or request information from the LAPD or then assigned Black Dahlia Case investigator Brian Carr before publishing Black Dahlia Avenger book.”
As to conducting my investigation “in secret.” YES. All criminal investigations are conducted in secret. None of my more than three hundred homicide investigations were conducted “in public”. All were and always are-sub rosa. As to the second part of the statement, that is totally FALSE
For the record:
Author LAPD Contact No. 1
My first LAPD contact and inquiry occurred two years into my Dahlia investigation and a full year and a half prior to the publication of my Black Dahlia investigation.
As documented in Black Dahlia Avenger (Arcade 2003), I personally contacted the most senior Black Dahlia detective ever assigned the case. In July 2001, I conducted a telephonic interview with retired Detective III Kirk Mellecker. Kirk had been assigned and was the sole investigator in charge of the Black Dahlia investigation for over fifteen years (1975-1990). He alone had the key to the locked files at the downtown Robbery/Homicide Division. As reported in my original publication in that interview, Det. Mellecker confirmed he had familiarized himself with the files and indicated “nowhere in the LAPD was there ever any mention of the name Dr. George Hill Hodel.” “Neither did there exist any reports bearing his name indicating that he had ever been interviewed or mentioned either as a witness or a suspect.” (Subsequent to this 2001 interview, post revelations in 2003 and the discovery of the massive amount of documents and wire recorded transcripts naming George Hodel, found in the District Attorney’s Office Vault, Detective Mellecker confirmed in later interviews that none of these documents were ever known by LAPD or existed in the locked files.)
LAPD Det. Kirk Mellecker
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LAPD Black Dahlia Case Investigator 1975-1990
(Longest assigned officer to the case in LAPD history.
Had sole custody of locked cabinets for fifteen years.)
Author LAPD Contact No. 2
Subsequent to my providing Head Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay with my completed investigation in September 2001 and his five-month review, in July 2002, both Head DA Kay and I requested a formal meeting with LAPD brass and detectives from the Robbery/Homicide Division to present my findings. Crickets. No response.
Author LAPD Contact No. 3
In October 2002, we again renewed our request to meet and brief the LAPD. Again, no response.
Author LAPD Contact No.4
In January 2003, Head DDA Kay and I made our final request, advising LAPD that my book and investigation were set to be published in less than one month, on April 15, 2003. This underscored the fact that we believed “The Department” should have the facts prior to them becoming public. Still, there remained no response from the brass or from the Homicide Division.
Black Dahlia Avenger (Arcade 2003) was published on April 15, 2003, as scheduled and became a New York Times bestseller within weeks.
Due to the public notoriety and urged by his second in command, Deputy Chief Sharon Papa, the newly assigned chief, William Bratton, ordered that his detectives and high command schedule a briefing with me and Head DDA Steve Kay. We presented our findings in September 2003 at Parker Center Police Headquarters. (This meeting took place only on my/our fourth attempt to contact and meet with my former Department prior to the publication of my first book.)
At the conclusion of this September 2003 briefing with the brass and homicide detectives, then LAPD Chief of Detectives James McMurray ordered his homicide detectives in attendance (Det III Lambkin OIC Cold Case Unit and Det. Carr) “to go ahead and clear the Black Dahlia investigation based on Hodel’s and Kay’s presentation unless they could find any major holes in the case.” Further, he ordered Det. Carr to “go to the DA’s Office and obtain the LADA Hodel Secret Black Dahlia Files that were missing and non-existent and had been removed from the LAPD locked files many decades prior.” (The Cold Case Unit ignored Chief McMurray’s orders to clear the case, claiming they were “too busy” and knowing he was retiring in several months. That order remains ignored to this date, some twenty years later.)
Further, Detective Carr and his superior, Detective Lambkin, ignored their Chief’s order to obtain the Hodel DA Files for another six months and did not obtain a copy of the reports or confession transcripts until well into 2004.
The following excerpted pages are from Black Dahlia Avenger (HarperCollins paperback 2004)
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The post Internut Naysayers Make False Claim “Author Never Contacted or Attempted to Contact LAPD Before Publishing “Black Dahlia Avenger” appeared first on Steve Hodel.