78th Anniversary of the Murder of Elizabeth Short-Black Dahlia Avenger IV: The Murder Trial of Dr. George Hill Hodel as Presented by “The Quick and the Dead.”

Tomorrow is the 78th anniversary of the discovery of the severed body of Elizabeth Short in a vacant lot in the Liemert Park area of Los Angeles, some five miles south of Hollywood.  Her kidnap/torture murder in 1947, tagged, “The Black Dahlia” became known and remains as, “Los Angeles’ most famous unsolved murder”–UNTIL NOW.

You have heard the many theories and myths.

If you’ve read the books covering my twenty-six years investigating the torture/murder of Elizabeth Short you know the facts: a) that the murderer was known by law enforcement and b) he was a surgeon with the skills to perform a Hemicorporectomy***, [a surgery in which the body is transected, cut in two, between the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae] and c) that the operation was performed by, Dr. George Hill Hodel (the sole surgeon at a CCC logging camp during his early medical practice.)

Even after writing multiple TrueCrime books about my fact-filled investigation, there are still those who hang on to their myths, missing the story. The story of how the discovered facts all fit together.

In order to tell that ‘story’, the whole story, I have written ‘an historical fiction,’ BLACK DAHLIA AVENGER IV, that puts the murderer, and his accomplice, Fred Sexton, on trial, at the Los Angeles Hall of Justice. (The same courthouse that he was found “not guilty” in for committing incest with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Tamar Hodel, in 1949, some 76-years-ago.) In that trial, my later investigation established coercion and payoffs to witnesses and the DA’s office.

In BDA IV, both defendants are put on trial and subject to testimony from and by the original 1940s victims who are summoned and finally given a voice,  from the other side to explain ‘who dunnit’!  You will hear direct testimony presided over by a ghost judge, the Honorable Ambrose Barrington and presented to the court by a veteran ghost prosecutor, Ms. Kay Stevens. I act as her investigator and help coordinate the calling of living witnesses. The trial, is factual and all the evidence presented is REAL and comes from actual police and DA reports, as well as my own investigation.

Black Dahlia Avenger IV: A Los Angeles Superior Court Trial by The Quick and the Dead
(Available in print and audiobook)

***  Numerous naysayers have through the years claimed and continue to claim that Dr. George Hill Hodel “Never practiced or had any surgical experience.” Not True. I have repeatedly provided documentation that he had extensive surgical training.  In addition to the 755 hours of hands on experience, which included performing a dozen autopsies in medical school, he then worked as an intern at San Francisco General Hospital for one year, and after graduation he served for a year as the sole ” Camp Surgeon at a CCC logging camp in New Mexico” as documented on his 1942 application to join Public Health Service. (See copy of original below.)