Los Angeles, California
August 13, 2016

THE BAUERDORF NOTE- Update 2016

Photograph of actual Note typed by Bauerdorf Killer (Red spots were placed on paper by killer to mimic blood. Analysis by LA Sheriff’s crime lab showed substance to be the medical antiseptic–IODINE.)

In my original investigation of the 1940s Lone Woman Murders, I presented evidence which I believe linked the 1944 Georgette Bauerdorf murder to other crimes which occurred both pre-and-post Black Dahlia. I won’t here review all of that linkage, but want just to focus on and update one particular aspect of that investigation–The Bauerdorf Note.

First, let me restate some points originally presented in 2003 in Black Dahlia Avenger- pages 306-308:

Nearly a year after the murder, an article appeared in the Examiner on September 21, 1945, that read almost like an epitaph. The story included a typed note from someone claiming to be her killer. Below the headline the paper ran Georgette’s picture, along with the note, in which the killer taunted the police and promised to revisit the Hollywood Canteen within the month. The note, exactly as the self-proclaimed killer typed it, read:

To the Los Angeles police–

Almost a year ago Georgette

Bauerdorf, age 20, Hollywood

Canteen hostess was murdered

in her apartment in West Holly-

wood–

Between now and Oct. 11–a year

after her death–the one who

murdered her will appear at the

Hollywood Canteen. The murderer

will be in uniform. He has since

he committed the murder been in

action at Okinawa. The murder

of Georgette Bauerdorf was Divine

Retribution–

Let the Los Angeles police arrest

the murderer if they can–

            An eleven-year-old student named Marilyn Silk had found the note on her way home from school. Written on a sheet of personal notepaper and stuffed inside a dirty envelope, the missive was lying on a stone retaining wall near Fairfax High School in Hollywood. The newspaper also dropped a clue that had not been disclosed to the public at the time of the homicide a year earlier when it reported, “There was the suggestion by friends that she [Bauerdorf] was accompanied home by a man in uniform.”

(SKH Note-  May have been an error in reporting actual location of note as the teenager’s home is literally at or adjacent to the Bauerdorf residence. My guess is she found the note in front of the Bauerdorf residence and turned it in to school authorities upon arriving at Fairfax High School.)

What struck me in the Bauerdorf case was its obvious similarity to the later Dahlia killing, in which the suspect also taunted police via notes to the newspaper. The Bauerdorf suspect promised police that he would appear at the Hollywood Canteen in uniform by October 11. (Father’s birthday was October 10.) The killer’s “Let the Los Angeles police arrest the murderer if they can” echoes the words used two years later in the pasted message to the police in the Dahlia case: “We’re going to Mexico City–catch us if you can.” The killer’s need to seek recognition and publicity for his crimes was a way to exert control both over the police and his victim. Announcing that Georgette’s murder was not a crime but his dispensation of “Divine Retribution” also bears an eerie resemblance to what Elizabeth Short’s killer would say two years later when he called himself the “Black Dahlia Avenger.”

The Bauerdorf Note

            Other similarities in both the Elizabeth Short and Bauerdorf homicides are, in my opinion, striking enough to be considered thoughtprints linking the same suspect to the two crimes.

            In both cases, the notes the suspect wrote to the police suggest that he had some experience as a journalist. In the Bauerdorf murder note, the taunting letter opens with a lead paragraph similar in style to the lead paragraph of a morning newspaper in which the “what, when, where, and who” are all answered.

To the Los Angeles police–

 (when) (who)

Almost a year ago Georgette

Bauerdorf, age 20, Hollywood

     (What)

 Canteen hostess, was murdered

           (where)

in her apartment in West Holly-

wood–                                                             

The killer tells us the “why” in his next sentence, where he identifies the crime as an act of retribution, and in so doing identifies himself indirectly as an “avenger.”

            In the pasted Dahlia notes, the killer again demonstrates journalistic knowledge, this time as a headline writer, in his two separate taunts to police:

‘Go Slow’

Man Killer Says

Black Dahlia Case

Followed in a few days by:

Dahlia’s Killer Cracking, Wants Terms

                These are not notes from a streetwise thug, but professional headlines. So professional, in fact, that true-crime author and commentator Joseph Wambaugh told television viewers in the Learning Channel’s production Case Reopened: The Black Dahlia that:

“Obviously, journalists sent the letter. Cutting and pasting newsprint as was done in a B-movie clichés of the era. The same cruel and unscrupulous reporters who elicited background information from Mrs. Short, the mother, by claiming her daughter had won a beauty contest. But, at the end of the day, they didn’t prevent the case from being solved.”

[Author Note- Wambaugh’s observation above referencing his belief that “unscrupulous journalists sent the notes” was made on the television show in October 1999, some four years before the publication of my book.]

There exists another clue to the identity of the letter writer in his unique method and manner of typing, seen in six different locations in the Bauerdorf note, in which he unconsciously leaves two separated dashes (–) at the end of some of his sentences. In the Bauerdorf note, these double-dashes follow the words: “police–“, “Hollywood–“, “Oct. 11–“, “death–“, “Retribution–“, and “can–“.

In the long letter Father sent me on June 4, 1980, referred to here as The Parable of the Sparrows, which he typed himself rather than giving it to his secretary or wife to type, there are five separate instances where he used his unique double-dash endings:

Page 2

“plastic coating–“

 “mirror film– “

Page 3

                “for Dorero–“

“to her–“

“Remember–“

The use of these double-spaced dashes is such a rarity that their appearances in the Bauerdorf note and in my father’s letter to me set off a loud alarm.

Exhibit 56a shows how the original note appeared in the September 21, 1945, Examiner article along with Georgette’s photograph. A separate Los Angeles Times article on the same date informed readers that detectives believe red iodine stains visible on the typed paper were placed there by the suspect to represent blood. Exhibit 56b is reproduced from my father’s Franklin House sales brochure, prepared in 1949, and shows him seated atop his desk, which pictures an old Royal typewriter (enlarged as an insert). This typewriter could well have been the instrument used to type the Bauerdorf note and those of some of the later crimes.

Exhibit 56a and 56b

GHH Royal typewriter on desk enlarged in upper left insert.

Mystery Writer Jon L. Breen-

In August 2003, Jon L. Breen, the highly respected, veteran mystery writer and two-time MWA Edgar Award winner wrote an early critique of my book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder. Breen’s thoughtful critique entitled “Daddy Did It” was published in the Weekly Standard on August 18, 2003. His six-page review was well balanced and pointed to what he then considered being some of the strengths and weaknesses of in my investigation. One of the weaknesses highlighted by Jon Breen was from the section currently under review–the Bauerdorf Note. Here is the extract from Mr. Breen’s 2003 critique:

“Hodel obviously is not required to make an iron clad case…Still; reasoning that is far-fetched or obviously erroneous serves to cast further doubt on his main case. For example, Hodel compares one of his father’s typewritten letters with one purportedly from the killer of Georgette Bauerdorf, victim of a 1944 bathtub murder. Hodel assumes that using a double hyphen to represent a dash is somehow unusual. On the contrary, it is standard. Word processing programs do it automatically.”

   Mr. Breen ended his 2003 review with the following:

“So what is the final verdict on Black Dahlia Avenger? Its accounts of cover-ups and civic corruption are all too believable, and much of the circumstantial evidence it presents against George Hodel is persuasive. …Has Steve Hodel solved the case? I think so, but he has some tidying up to do for the paperback edition.”

Five years later, he included his original full review of Black Dahlia Avenger in his excellent book, “A Shot Rang Out: Selected Mystery Criticism” (Ramble House 2008) adding the below P.S.:

Postscript 2008: Hodel did, in fact, include additional material to strengthen his case…One writer who believes his solution is Orson Welles biographer, Simon Callow, who examines the evidence against Welles with some admiration in Orson Welles: Hello Americans (2006) before averring that Hodel’s conclusion is definitive. [Emphasis mine–and ‘thank you” Mr. Callow.]

An English Teacher/ Tech Editor Proofs Bauerdorf Note

“The writer {Bauerdorf Note] had both masterful/arcane knowledge of English punctuation as well as of specialized typographic/printer(!) conventions.”

A few years back I received this welcome and informative e-mail from a high-school English teacher and former tech-writer/editor.  “P.M.” had this to say about the Bauerdorf Note, excerpted from his longer e-mail:

Dear Mr. Hodel:

…

I’m almost done with your fascinating & engaging book, which I bought
after finishing James Ellroy’s “My Dark Places.” I’m a retired (63)
tech writer/editor from Silicon Valley & Microsoft (Redmond WA) with a
Calif. Credential to teach H.S. English. So…
Those double dashes were more than a personal peculiarity: in
the age of typewriters, they were the accepted substitute for what’s
called an “em” dash, a punctuation mark similar in use/meaning to a
semicolon but less formal (precedes amplification of meaning, etc.).
They weren’t on typewriters, so people used 2 dashes instead. The single/shorter dash (“en” dash) and hyphens have different usages &meanings. So the writer using them (your Dad) had both
masterful/arcane knowledge of English punctuation as well as of
specialized typographic/printer (!) conventions. Hmmm…

                                                                                                        P.M., South Carolina

            Thank you, P.M. for setting the record straight on what I in 2003 ignorantly referred to as my father’s seemingly, “unconscious characteristic of using double-dashes.”

EM and EN —A Quick English Lesson for Dummies (like me)

em·dash or em dash
( m d sh ) n.

A symbol ( ) used in writing and printing to indicate a break in thought or sentence structure, to introduce a phrase added for emphasis, definition, or explanation, or to separate two clauses.(Its name derives from being the width of an m in printing.)

en·dash or en dash
( n d sh ) n.

A symbol (- ) used in writing or printing to connect continuing or inclusive numbers or to connect elements of a compound adjective when either of the elements is an open compound, as 1880-1945 or Princeton-New York trains.(Its name derives from being the width of an n in printing.) 

In the below exhibit I have reproduced both the killer’s original 1945 typed Bauerdorf Note and the LA Times retyped reproduction of it both of which were published in the newspaper.

Note that in the killer’s typewriter written note on the right we see he was forced to use “double dashes” [highlighted with red arrows] since the EM dash was not available to him.

However, when the newspaper reproduced the killer’s note, [left] they correctly replaced his intended EM dash, with actual ones, which were available to them on their linotype machines. [Also highlighted with red arrows. Note they missed reproducing two of his EM dashes which I have indicated as green arrows.]

Bauerdorf Note- “To The Los Angeles Police”

In the below exhibit I have extracted the sections of my father’s original 1980 Parable of the Sparrows Letter, wherein he demonstrates his continued use of the typewritten “double dash” in place of the EM dash. The letter, also written on a typewriter, predated computers by just a few years. I believe the first commercial use, making the EM dash available on WordStar and DOS, was offered just two years later, in 1982-1983.

Author’s Note

A massive amount of circumstantial evidence linking George Hodel to the Georgette Bauerdorf Murder underscoring it as one of the “Lone Woman Murders” has surfaced since the original publication of BDA. That information/evidence has been presented elsewhere in my writings, including my updated 2014 edition of Black Dahlia Avenger II. This blog merely examines and updates the information pertaining to the Bauerdorf Note.

The post Spell-Checking A Serial Killer: Reexamining LA’s 1944 Georgette Bauerdorf “Bathtub Murder” Note Update 2016 appeared first on Steve Hodel.