They cherry pick information to confirm their view of who the killer was. Dillon had been taken into custody by detectives from the LAPDs Gangster Squad, claimed he was held against his will, and questioned for days by a police psychiatrist. [5], 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 1945-1960, as a suspect in the murder. Harnisch is writing a book about the case, but the homicide and the investigation are only part of his focus. At the time of the murder, Bayley's estranged wife still lived in the home. A neighbor of the family, Bob Pacios, told Harnisch that Short was by far the prettiest of the five sisters.. Detective David Lambkin, who was head of the Unit at the time, said that Hodel lost credibility as a result of the numerous other murders he attributed to his father. At the Biltmore Hotel, where Short was last seen, the bar serves a Black Dahlia cocktail. [32], According to Los Angeles district attorney files, Dr. Patrick O'Reilly was a medical doctor who knew Short through nightclub owner Mark Hansen. [6] Wolfe's claim that Short was a prostitute is at odds with the Los Angeles County district attorney's files, which plainly state that she was not, as Wolfe asserts, pregnant.[7]. During this time his marriage dissolved, he moved to a small apartment, and he faced the depressing reality of spending holidays away from his wife and son. After Black Dahlia Avenger was released, the book attracted so much attention, the LAPD brass allowed Hodel to present his theory to the Cold Case Unit. Dillon expressed reservations about Los Angeles, and chose Las Vegas instead. Informant Lillian DeNorak [Lenorak] has been committed to the State Mental Institution at Camarillo. Harnisch spent three decades as a newspaper copy editor, ensuring stories contained no inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and were grammatically correct, and he brings this punctilious approach to his Dahlia research. He had so much additional material that when the story ran, he decided to write a book. In December 1948, Dillon agreed to meet with De River and was given the choice of one of three cities: Los Angeles; Phoenix, Arizona; or Las Vegas, Nevada. In Los Angeles, the book was savaged. The clips at the, The marriage certificate indicated there was a link between the Short family and South Norton Avenue. The envelope included Shorts birth certificate, Social Security card, newspaper clippings, and a ten-year-old address book, which listed seventy-five men. As reliable sources of information about the case, such as the FBI files and portions of the Los Angeles district attorney files, have become publicly available, statements about Short and the murder attributed to Wilson in Severed and supposedly tying him to the crime have not been borne out as accurate. When a Dahlia enthusiast heard about Harnischs investigation, he sent him a box filled with photocopies of newspaper articles about the crime, a transcript of the inquest that contained most of the autopsy notes, a homemade documentary, a copy of Shorts grades from elementary school, and a dim photocopy of the marriage certificate of her oldest sister, Virginia Short. Harnisch attended a reunion of Gordons unit, the 2nd Air Commandos, in Florida and interviewed a number of his fellow pilots. Some speculated that Dillon's ex-wife Georgie Stevenson was related to former Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, who contacted the Oklahoma governor on Dillon's behalf, although none of these relations have been verified. [35] Pacios bases this theory on such factors as Welles's volatile temperament and his creation of mannequins three months before Short's death that supposedly featured lacerations virtually identical to those inflicted on Short. Sitting at her kitchen table, he felt disoriented by the juxtaposition of this sweet elderly woman who proudly displayed drawings emblazoned with I LOVE GRANDMA on her refrigerator, recounting how she stumbled upon the mutilated body. Walter Bailey may refer to: Walter Bailey (lawyer), state prosecutor in South Carolina; . He sticks to the facts. Richardson informed Jack Donahoe, the head of LAPDs Homicide Squad about his finding and said he would tell him where the suitcases wereunder one condition. When Larry Harnisch, a Los Angeles Times copy editor and writer, began studying the case in 1996, he eventually concluded that Bayley could be Short's killer. Also, Siegel was involved with Chicago Outfit starlet, and his on-off girlfriend Virginia Hill. In August, 1945, five days before V-J Day, Gordon was killed in a crash and Short never overcame her grief. He was checking her out. 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. [15] Hansen's great granddaughter Helen Alexis Yonov was interviewed for Piu Eatwell's upcoming documentary on the Black Dahlia for NBC Peacock Productions. Another theory was that the assailant bisected Short's body because he or she was not strong enough to move it in one piece. Ill just say it was very helpful.. At the end of the conversation, she implored Harnisch in an anguished tone not to tell anyone how to find her. Fowler claimed there were no officers to prevent reporters and photographers from tromping through the crime scene and interfering with the evidence. Researching Walter Bayley has been equally difficult for Harnisch. Detectives in the LAPDs Cold Case Unit said the photos bore no resemblance to Short. He wanted to interview Short and her husband in an attempt to determine the identity of Barbara Lindgren, but they were dead. Although he was never a suspect in the case, many doctors and others with medical . The mailings disturbed the recipient so much that she showed them to her sister in Los Angeles, who contacted the police. The editor, however, asked, Do you want to do it? Harnisch, who had always wanted to be a writer, responded, Hell, yeah., At the Times morgue, he obtained all the clips on the case, photocopied them, and placed them in chronological order. Dr Walter Bayley who knew Elizabeth's older sister, Virginia. He doesnt bring in all this superfluous stuff to prove his case. 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.[29]. Hansen's girlfriend Ann Toth shared a room with Short in this house, which was near Hansen's nightclub. Black Dahlia Murder Suspect Dr. Walter Alonzo Bayley Dr. Walter Alonzo Bayley was a Los Angeles surgeon who lived in a house one block south of the vacant lot in which Elizabeth Short's body was found, until he left his wife in October 1946. Detectives threw him in the drunk tank. Walter was our only sonthe only child of our flesh and blood, Bayley said in a newspaper story. Although I wasnt quite there yet, this was definitely interesting. The victim was initially known as Jane Doe number one, the first female homicide victim of 1947. Testimony during the trial revealed that she had previously accused her father of killing Short. She told Harnisch that she was stunned that Bayley and Partikya used to pick up dinner to go, listen to classical music at their medical office, and eat dinner while watching surgery films. Still, Shorts mother refused to believe her daughter was dead. She wasnt. It didnt look quitelike anything more than perhaps an artificial model. About a month later, while he was talking to his wife during a break from his copy editing duties, she told him he had received a letter from the state. Sensational and sometimes inaccurate press coverage, as well as the nature of the crime, focused intense public attention on the case. Flipping through filesmuttering, Hansen, Hansen, where is Hansen?he locates a folder, fishes out testimony, and points to the relevant passage. Webbs story is like a mini-morality tale: A little girl doesnt listen to her mommy and makes this horrible discovery. The murder of Elizabeth Short has never been solved, despite the work of many detectives and law enforcement officers. "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. I found out that a woman in the drugstore is the one who named her. Harnisch points out that Short did not drink and the Gallery Bar didnt exist when she arrived at the hotel. I havent seen anyone come close to what hes done. 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. Scope and Contents Dr. Bayley's USC School of Medicine diploma, California Board of Medical Examiners certificate, and letter and . During his search he recalled reading something about the Black Dahlia years earlier. The cop/son is a little questionable, though. Over the course of their correspondence, De River began to believe that Connors did not exist and that Dillon had committed the murder himself. This is what he theorized: Lindgren was the matron of honor at the marriage of Virginia Short and Adrian West, who Harnisch learned quite a lot about from interviewing their son, Elizabeth Shorts nephew. Wilson was never a suspect until Gilmore brought him to the attention of authorities. He also said the coincidences piqued his interest. What Harnisch does know is that after her fianc was killed, her life careened out of control, dissipating her ambition and her rectitude. Some writers claimed she was lured to Hollywood from the East because she was an aspiring actress. 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. He read a history of the ranch and interviewed a group of scholars at Cal Poly Pomona who had conducted a detailed study of the areas architecture and history. Some researchers argue that the Sowden house is where Short was held and killed. The deceased child's birthday was January 13; Short's body was discovered on January 15. Along a dreary, weedy block without a house on either side, a housewife was walking to the store with her five-year-old daughter, scolding her a little because she wanted to play in the dew-wet lots. For decades, the gruesome death of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short remained a mystery. When Bayley died in January 1948, his autopsy showed that he was suffering from a degenerative brain disease. On January 15th. Yes, there was some corruption in the department, but that was mostly in Vice. Harnisch removes from his files a 1948 Examiner article on the dispute over Bayleys will and shows it to me. Thats kind of given the case new life.. Intimidation by a young woman colleague caused Dr. Walter A. Bayley, physician, to disinherit his wife, the widow Mrs. Ruth A. Bayley, she claimed yesterday in a will contest suit, filed in Superior Court. Former colleagues and relatives expressed to Harnisch how shocked they were at how Bayleys personality drastically changed toward the end of his life. His daughter was friends with Elizabeth Short's sister but it isn't certain that he ever met Elizabeth. Hes a journalist, he lets the facts guide him, and he doesnt have any agenda other than the truth., Anne Redding, chair of the Justice Studies Department at Santa Barbara City College, has researched the homicide for more than thirty years and uses it as a centerpiece in her Study of Murder class. . Rudolph Walthers, known to have been acquainted with victim and also with suspect Hodel, claimed he had not seen victim in the presence of Hodel and did not believe that the doctor had ever met the victim. In 2009, Hodel published Most Evil: Avenger, Zodiac, and the Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel, in which he claimed that his father was also the Zodiac Killer. Harnisch decided to start from the beginning, when the area was part of a Spanish RanchoRancho La Cienega o Paso de la Tiejera. Trying to accurately chronicle the boyhood, career, war experiences, mental decline, flaws and foibles, and the marriage and eventual dissolution of the union of an unremarkable man born in 1880 seemed, at times, like a quixotic quest. Thats why he was so interested in talking to her. The Walter Bayley Theory The theory of Walter Bayley was devised by Larry Harnisch, an LA Times copy editor. All the articles just say he was a cop. He has interviewed more than one hundred-fifty people, ranging from the first officer on the scene, to family members of Short, to a former boyfriend, to detectives assigned to the investigation, to the woman who discovered the body. Harnish, solemn and staid, appears offended, and tells Fallon hes not interested and wouldnt allow a film to be made that treated Short like a piece of meat.. Redding of Santa Barbara City Colleges Justice Studies Department says that both Eatwell and Hodel have fallen into the trap of confirmation bias. He simply wanted to tell a good crime story and to create an accurate biography of Short, tracing her life from small town Massachusetts, to California, to her death. Harnisch theorizes that Bayleys neurological deterioration contributed to his alleged violence against Short. His research, he believed, was redeemed. Her body was found in a weed-webbed lot in South Los Angeles, surgically severed in two, washed and scrubbed, posed, and completely drained of blood. An intense man who chooses his words carefully, he wears wire-rimmed glasses, has neatly parted gray hair, and a high forehead that dissolves into furrows when discussing the many myths and mistakes promulgated by writers. Steve Cooley about the case, he said that Kay had presented Hodels theory in a closed-door presentation, but he wasnt close to being convinced. Still, he allowed Lopez to peruse the previously unreleased 1949 grand jury files, which chronicled an investigation headed up by D.A. Detectives had planned to mail her fingerprints to the FBI in Washington, but an Examiner editor suggested using the papers Soundphoto machine, which was similar to a fax, to transmit the fingerprints to the Hearst Washington Bureau and then hand deliver them to the FBI. He worked at the Tuskegee Institute, and practiced . They didnt. Ten days after Shorts body was found, the killer mailed an envelope of Shorts belongings to the Examiner. As City Editor Jimmy Richardson sat in a swivel chair beside him, Sutton called Shorts mother, Phoebe, and said that her daughter won a beauty contest in Southern California. When Larry Harnisch, a copy editor and writer for the Los Angeles Times, began studying the case in 1996, he eventually concluded that Bayley could be Elizabeth Short's killer. As a result of wide-spread corruption in the LAPD, Hodel claimed, the murders were covered up and never solved. Multiply getting details like that with a thousand other details and youll see why its taking me so long to finish the book.. Hodels investigation began when he was retired and living in the Pacific Northwest. And Los Angeles Times columnist Larry Harnisch believes that Walter Bayley was the doctor who did it. In her 2000 book, Mary Pacios, a former neighbor of the Short family in Medford, Massachusetts, suggested filmmaker Orson Welles as a suspect. She drifted around the country during the next year-and-a-half until her death, never held another job, and often stayed briefly with friends and acquaintances. While most decades-old murders slip into obscurity, the Black Dahlia case attracts so much attention that the LAPD has continued to assign the homicide to a specific detective since the lead investigator retired in 1960. Which listed seventy-five men he decided to write a book refer to: Walter Bailey may to... 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