Black Dahlia Avenger The True Story

In 1947 the brutal, sadistic murder of a beautiful young woman led to the largest manhunt in L.A. history. The killer teased and taunted the police and public, but his identity remained a mystery. Until now ... On January 15, 1947, at about 10:30 A.M., in Los Angeles, California, a woman's body was discovered in a vacant lot at 39th and Norton. Not only had the murderer bisected her but he had horribly mutilated her body, then carefully posed her as if to leave a provocative message. When LAPD detectives arrived on the scene a few minutes later, even the most hardened among them were shocked and sickened. That crime, which until now has never been solved, became known to history as the Black Dahlia murder. It made front-page headlines coast-to-coast for weeks, as the LAPD sought vainly to track down the killer. The murdered girl, it turned out, was lovely twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short. From Massachusetts, she had come west, like so many women before her, in search of fame and fortune in the film capital of the world. Shortly after her murder, the L.A. papers began receiving notes from a person who called himself the Black Dahlia Avenger. For weeks the killer tormented police, clearly reveling in his notoriety and ability to avoid detection, much as his English counterpart Jack the Ripper had done in London sixty years before. At one point he offered to turn himself in, then reneged and said he was leaving town. "Catch me if you can," he challenged. When the LAPD failed to solve the crime, the case was passed down from year to year to crack homicide detectives, but none could ever bring the killer to justice. In 1949, the Los Angeles grand jury-convened by the district attorney in the wake of public outcry against the failure of the LAPD to solve not only this crime but a dozen other murders of lone women in Los Angeles over the succeeding two years-conducted their own investigation and subpoenaed LAPD detectives and the chief of police to testify. As a result, a "prime suspect" was identified and named in secret, but for some unexplained reason he was never indicted or brought to justice. Hints of LAPD corruption were rife during that era, and some very high-ranking police department heads rolled, as politicians vied to capitalize on the situation to their advantage. Also finally solved in this shocking expose is the brutal killing of Jeanne French, known as the "Red Lipstick" murder, which occurred just three weeks after the Black Dahlia murder. Why had these high-profile murders never been solved? Because, the author demonstrates unequivocally, there was a massive cover-up by the LAPD, including the top brass, who as early as 1947 had identified the actual suspect-a man too hot to handle-and allowed him, a psychopathic serial killer, to remain free to prey for years on other beautiful lone women. Even more startling is the identity of the murderer, a true-life Jekyll and Hyde, a man who by day was a highly respected member of society and by night a mad, sadistic killer. This book, the result of more than two years of meticulous investigation by a professional homicide detective, at long last closes the case on what has often been called "the most notorious unsolved murder of the twentieth century."Hodel, Steve is the author of 'Black Dahlia Avenger The True Story' with ISBN 9781559706643 and ISBN 1559706643.