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Many Black Dahlia suspects, or persons of interest, have been proposed as the unidentified killer of Elizabeth Short, nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", who was murdered in 1947. Many conspiracy theories have been advanced, but none have been found to be completely persuasive by experts, and some are not taken seriously at all.
The murder investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department was the largest since the murder of Marion Parker in 1927, and involved hundreds of officers borrowed from other law enforcement agencies. Sensational and sometimes inaccurate press coverage, as well as the nature of the crime, focused intense public attention on the case. As the case continues to command public attention, more people have been proposed as Short's killer, much like London's Jack the Ripper murders.
Male suspects
Norman Chandler
Donald Wolfe's 2005 book The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles names Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1945 to 1960, as a suspect in the murder. In a complicated scenario involving multiple perpetrators, Wolfe claims that Chandler impregnated Short while she was working as a call girl for the notorious Hollywood "madam" Brenda Allen, which led to her murder at the hands of gangster Bugsy Siegel.
George Hodel
Dr. George Hill Hodel Jr. came under police scrutiny in October 1949, when his 14-year-old daughter, Tamar, accused him of molesting her. Despite three witnesses testifying that they had seen Hodel having sex with Tamar, he was acquitted in December 1949. The trial led the LAPD to include Hodel, a physician specializing in sexually transmitted diseases, among its many suspects in the Dahlia case.
Author James Ellroy endorsed Steve Hodel's theory in 2004.
George Knowlton
Little reliable information is available on George Knowlton, except that he lived in the Los Angeles area at the time of the Black Dahlia murder and died in an automobile accident in 1962.
In the early 1990s, George Knowlton's daughter Janice began claiming that she had witnessed her father murdering Elizabeth Short, a claim she based largely on "recovered memories" that surfaced during therapy for depression after a hysterectomy. Based on these recovered memories, Knowlton published Daddy Was The Black Dahlia Killer with veteran crime writer Michael Newton in 1995. In the book, Knowlton, a former professional singer and owner of a public relations company, alleged that her father had been having an affair with Elizabeth Short and that Short was staying in a makeshift bedroom in their garage, where she suffered a miscarriage. George Knowlton allegedly murdered Short in the garage and bisected her in the sink, then forced his then ten-year-old daughter Janice to accompany him when he disposed of the body. According to Knowlton, Short was a sex worker and a procurer of children for a child trafficking ring. Knowlton claimed that a former member of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department told her that her father was considered a suspect in the case by that agency, but this claim is unsupported by the public documents that have been released in the case. She claimed the same source told her that future LAPD chief and California politician Ed Davis and Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts were suspects in the murder as well. The Los Angeles Times wrote in 1991:
Los Angeles Police Detective John P. St. John, one of the investigators who had been assigned to the case, said he has talked to Knowlton and does not believe there is a connection between the Black Dahlia murder and her father. "We have a lot of people offering up their fathers and various relatives as the Black Dahlia killer," said St. John, better known as Jigsaw John. "The things that she is saying are not consistent with the facts of the case.
Nevertheless, Westminster, California police took her claims seriously enough to dig up the grounds around her childhood home there, looking for evidence. They found nothing to tie George Knowlton to any crime.
On March 5, 2004, Janice Knowlton died of an overdose of prescription drugs in what was deemed a suicide by the Orange County, California, coroner's office.
Jack Anderson Wilson (a.k.a. Arnold Smith)
Wilson was a lifelong petty criminal and alcoholic who was interviewed by author John Gilmore while Gilmore was researching his book Severed. After Wilson's death, Gilmore named Wilson as a suspect owing to his alleged acquaintance with Short. Prior to Wilson's death, however, Gilmore made an entirely different claim to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner in a story appearing January 17, 1982.
Patrick S. O'Reilly
The 1951 suspect list by LAPD lieutenant Frank B. Jemison includes Dr. Patrick Shane O’Reilly, an Orthopedic surgeon in the Los Angeles area. O'reilly was considered a suspect because of his association with two friends of Elizabeth Short, including Mark Hanson, having physically assaulted his secretary in 1939, and having surgically removed part of his right breast in similarity to the crime. O'Reilly was also a suspect due to being a skilled surgeon who was earlier credited with saving the life of Lucille La Verne. He also had a prominent scar on his jaw.
In 2023, it was found that O'Reilly had lied about his name and place of birth, actually being Patrick Trear from Kansas. Trear/O'reilly was found to have a long history of lying to authorities and feeding false stories to the newspapers.
Celebrity suspects
Orson Welles
In her 2000 book, Mary Pacios, a former neighbor of the Short family in Medford, Massachusetts, suggested filmmaker Orson Welles as a suspect.
Bugsy Siegel
Los Angeles mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was allegedly a suspect in the murder investigation of Short. The reason why he was a suspect is unclear, especially since Siegel was more concerned with the Flamingo Hotel and Casino at the time and he was known to be a "lady's man" not a "lady's killer." Also, Siegel was involved with Chicago Outfit starlet, and his on-off girlfriend Virginia Hill. Still, according to Don Wolfe's book The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles,
References
- ^ Wolfe, Don (2006-09-05). The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780060582500.
- Nelson, Mark; Sarah Hudson Bayliss (2006). Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder. New York: Bulfinch Press. Pg 26. ISBN 0-8212-5819-2
- Lopez, Steve (2004-05-23). "Writing the Last Word on a Mystery?". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
- Note that Short's autopsy by Dr. Frederick Newbarr found no evidence of pregnancy: "The uterus is small, and no pregnancy is apparent." As quoted in Newton, 2009, p. 46
- ^ McLellan, Dennis (2004-12-19). "Janice Knowlton, 67; Believed That Her Father Killed the Black Dahlia". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-11-16.
- McLellen, Dennis (14 December 2004). "Janice Knowlton, 67; Believed That Her Father Killed The Black Dahlia". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 26 December 2016.
- Larry Harnisch. "Heaven Is HERE! Author claims to have found 1947 murderer". Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- "Jemison Suspect List". Black Dahlia Info. Archived from the original on 2012-05-27. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- "The Oakland Post Enquirer - Thu, Oct 18, 1934 - Page 13 - Doctors Save Actress' Life By Operation". Newspapers.com. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- "A Chilling Batch of Evidence Could Revive the Unsolved Black Dahlia Murder Mystery". Popular Mechanics. March 17, 2024. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- "Something to Hide". Black Dahlia Mystery. March 12, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- "War Hero, Cripple, Neither, or Both?". Black Dahlia Mystery. March 12, 2023. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
- Jeff Chorney (16 August 2000). "Citizen Killer?". Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- "Adding to mystery of the Black Dahlia". Los Angeles Times. 17 January 2006. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- Wolfe, Don (2006-09-05). The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles: Don Wolfe. ISBN 9780060582500.