George Hill Hodel, Jr. a physician who ran a venereal disease clinic in Los Angeles in the 1940s, was on top of the list of suspects. According to The Guardian, Hodel was on a list of six leading potential killers in the Black Dahlia case, and the LAPD bugged his home during the investigation.
Dr. Hodel 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, among its many suspects in the Dahlia case. Police put Hodel under surveillance from February 18 to March 27, 1950, to ascertain whether he could be implicated in the murder. In the surviving transcripts of microphone recordings, Hodel was heard making highly incriminating statements.
“Supposin’ I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my secretary anymore because she’s dead…. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. Maybe I did kill my secretary….”
- George Hodel. February 18, 1950
According to Wikopedia, “The secretary referred to was Ruth Spaulding, who police had previously suspected of being murdered by Hodel in 1945. He was present when Spaulding overdosed and had burnt some of her papers before police were called. The case was dropped owing to lack of evidence, but documents were later found that indicated Spaulding was about to publicly accuse Hodel of intentionally misdiagnosing patients and billing them for laboratory tests, medical treatment, and prescriptions not needed.
Hodel gained more recent notoriety when his son, Steve Hodel, a former LAPD homicide detective, accused him of killing Short in the 2003 bestselling book “Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story.” He believes Short may have been one of his father’s patients.
It was amazing, a son so determined to hang the crime on his father. But Steve Hodel said that initially, after his father’s death in 1999, he thought he would be able to exonerate him. After gathering information he changed his mind.. He claimed his father’s handwriting matched letters the police received, supposedly from the killer. He uncovered photos of a woman who resembled Short in his father’s personal photo album. He said his father’s medical background explains the precise surgical cuts on the body..
“I Am the Night,” a former TNT miniseries, centers around Hodel as a prime suspect in the Black Dahlia case.
Twenty two years ago In 2003, Steve Hodel published a book, “Black Dahlia Avenger; A Genius for Murder,” claiming his father not only had murdered Short by was responsible for many unsolved killings over two decades. In 2009, Hodel published “Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel,” asserting his father was also the Zodiac Killer. But some have discounted Steve’s claims since he started linking his father to so many other infamous unsolved murders but no one as yet has proved him wrong.
“In the previous twenty years, I focused on providing the evidence that my father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, committed the twenty-four murders from 1943-1969, as documented…” (in my six books). I believe the reluctant karmic role which was thrust upon me at the death of my father in 1999 IS NOW COMPLETE and proves the old adage; “truth is stranger than fiction.”
–From Steve Hodel’s blog, three days before his 80th birthday and second retirement in Nov. 2021.