Tag Archives: Homicide

ROBERT “WILLY” PICKTON — THE PIG-FARMING SERIAL KILLER

From the early 1990s until his arrest in 2002, Robert William Pickton (aka Willy) murdered—to his admission—49 women who he lured from the notorious Downtown East Side of Vancouver, British Columbia, to his pig farm in suburban Port Coquitlam. Willy Pickton’s modus operandi (MO) was to handcuff and rape the women, then shoot or strangle them to death. To dispose of the bodies, he’d butcher them in the same slaughterhouse or abattoir he processed his hogs in, then he fed the severed remains to his live pigs.

The Pickton Case, as it’s well known in Canada, wasn’t just about criminal sensationalism—something as grotesque as feeding human being parts to hungry animals. It’s a sad story of wasted human lives and a misguided mess made by human investigators. Fortunately, some good came from the Pickton Case and the parallel BC Missing Women Investigation / Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. That was better communicative cooperation between police jurisdictions and more efficient file management in missing persons cases.

Before looking at the Pickton Case outcome, let’s review who Willy Pickton was, how he managed to remain criminally active so long, and how he came to now serving the rest of his life in a maximum-security penitentiary.

Robert William Pickton was born on October 24, 1949. He’s now 72. His parents owned the Port Coquitlam pig farm and raised Willy on it, along with his brother, David, and his sister, Linda. Willy Pickton was a reserved boy who dropped out of school at fourteen and remained working the farm after his abusive parents passed on.

Court records show him to be of average intelligence but with a psychological perversion shaped by “Mommy issues”. He was very attached to his mother, regardless of her neglect of him. One notable point in young Pickton’s life was a recorded incident where, as a teen, Willy Pickton bought a calf with his own money and became very enthralled with it.

One day, he returned home to find the calf missing. He asked his mother where the calf was. She told him to go look in the slaughterhouse. He did.

There was his dead, bled, gutted, and skinned pet hanging from a meat hook.

Besides operating a pork processing plant on the farm, Willy and David Pickton ran a side business called “Piggy’s Palace”. They’d registered it as a tax-free, not-for-profit service club that leased the property to community events. Under the surface, it was a free-for-all, illegal booze-can that catered to wild parties filled with underworld characters.

Piggy’s Palace was part of the allure for the Downtown East Side of Vancouver subculture. This drug and disease-infested, civic fester was riddled with addicts and unstables who congregated in a bubble of immediacy and anonymity. These people lived for the moment, not for the day, and were perfect targets for the pig-farming predator.

Pickton would prowl the place—generally boundaried through East Hastings with Powell Street on the north and East Pender on the south. This is right in the heart of Vancouver’s industrial waterfront. It’s only a stone’s throw from the business hub of Downtown Vancouver proper and the uber-wealth of the West End.

Willy Pickton didn’t stand out in the Downtown East Side. He fit right in. At least 49 women thought so as they accepted a ride in his beater truck back to the farm with promises of drugs and cash and fun and an escape from the streets. A permanent escape, as it happened.

A pattern developed in the Downtown East Side. A disproportionate number of women were reported missing. They were all in similar demographics—vulnerable women who lived at-risk due to many societal issues—drug and alcohol addictions, mental illness, homelessness, victims of domestic violence, poverty, poor health, lack of education and skills, unemployable as well as being sex workers and common criminals.

The Downtown East Side law enforcement jurisdiction is owned by the Vancouver Police Department. The VPD noticed their increase in missing women reports and cautiously dealt with the matter by appointing one officer as a missing persons coordinator. Here’s where internal and external politics favored Willy Pickton.

No one in power wanted to say the “SK-Word”—Serial Killer. This would have let an uncorkable genie out of the bottle, and no one in power wanted the workload, budget drain, and social stigma/media pressure of having a serial killer running amuck in the streets of Vancouver.

So, what do good cops do in the face of bad stuff? Downplay it. Better yet, pass it off to another jurisdiction like the Coquitlam Detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—the RCMP or the Mounties.

Canadian policing structure in BC’s Lower Mainland region is rather convoluted, and this led to why Willy Pickton was hard to identify. Even harder to catch. Especially when competing jurisdictions weren’t playing for the same team.

The RCMP is Canada’s national police force They’re much like the United States FBI where they have federal responsibilities unless called or contracted by state / provincial / municipal (Muni) / civic authorities for help. Vancouver Police Department is its own LE agency, much like NYPD is or how Seattle PD operates independently of the multi-level support services like the DEA, BATF, CIA, ICE, DHLS, and a host of others.

British Columbia’s Greater Vancouver Area (GVA or the Lower Mainland) is a hodgepodge concoction of Mountie and Muni jurisdictions. The Munis have Vancouver, West Vancouver, Delta, Abbotsford, New Westminster, and Port Moody. The Mounties have Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, North Vancouver, Coquitlam, Langley, Maple Ridge, and Mission. Not to mention Vancouver International Airport (YVR, which is a city of its own) and another sub-city, the University of British Columbia.

Greater Vancouver’s policing is a complex and wide-spread overlay. Vancouver’s Lower Mainland—the Fraser River Valley—population is over 3 million contained in 14,000 square miles for an average density of 214 people per square mile (PSM). That wildly ranges from 25,000 people PSM in Vancouver’s West End to practically zero on the watershed’s mountainsides.

British Columbia’s Lower Mainland has 6 municipal departments and 10 RCMP detachments. In 2002, the Munis and the Mounties had no common communication channel. Independently, they did their own thing.

The cities of Vancouver and Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam are close, distance wise. They’re 16 miles apart, as the crow flies, but Port Coquitlam is about an hour’s easterly drive in Vancouver traffic terms. Women were disappearing in Vancouver, but no bodies were being found. Vancouver women were dying in Port Coquitlam (PoCo), and their bodies weren’t being found either.

The missing persons coordinator at VPD was vigilant in her work. She knew what was going on in the Downtown East Side. But she had no idea what was going down in PoCo. Her list—a computerized spreadsheet of missing person names, dates of disappearances, and personal items associated with each woman—was detailed and available to any LE officer with access to the Canadian Police Information Center (CPIC).

The break came on February 5, 2002, when the RCMP in PoCo got informant information that something crazy was going on at the Pickton pig farm. They executed a search warrant and found items linked to several missing women the VPD coordinator listed on CPIC.

They also found human body parts including detached heads and limbs in Pickton’s freezer. In other places were severed dried skulls. They’d been Saw-zalled in half with mummified hands and feet bound inside.

The Pickton Case became a forensic first. The CSI team spent months processing dried and fresh pig manure looking for microscopic DNA profiles of Pickton’s victims. These women were:

Sereena Abotsway
Mona Lee Wilson
Andrea Joesbury
Brenda Ann Wolfe
Marnie Lee Frey
Georgina Faith Papin
Jacqueline Michelle McDonell
Dianne Rosemary Rock
Heather Kathleen Bottenly
Jennifer Lynn Furminnger
Helen May Hallmark
Patricia Rose Johnson
Heather Choinook
Tanya Holyk
Sherry Irving
Inga Monique Hall
Tiffany Drew
Sarah de Vries
Cynthia Feliks
Angela Rebecca Jardine
Diana Melnick
Debra Lynne Jones
Wendy Crawford
Kerry Koski
Andrea Fay Borthaven
Cara Louise Ellis
Mary Ann Clark
Yvonne Marie Boen
Dawn Teresa Crey

These 29 women are known Pickton victims identified through DNA. There are 13 other human female DNA profiles recovered—mired in pig shit—that haven’t been profiled to once-living women. That’s a victim count of 42. It’s 7 less than Willy Pickton confessed to killing and feeding to his pigs.

—–—

Hindsight is usually in focus. It’s been 20 years since the Pickton investigation. Learning is not just about what went wrong and improving. It’s about changing systems like communication between the Mounties and the Munis.

I was retired by the time the Pickton Case exploded. But I was a Mountie product who worked with first-rate Munis in serious crime investigations, and I have to say a murder cop is a murder cop—no matter what badge you’re wearing. We all wanted the same thing. Solve a case through admissible evidence. Bring closure to the families. And work the best we could through systematic differences.

No one in the Pickton Case investigation deliberately derailed the train. Far from it. The VPD missing persons coordinator saw the SK-Word pattern and reported it upline. Upline responded with, “Where are the bodies?” The coordinator said, “I don’t know. I just know this isn’t right and more women are going to disappear unless we dig into this.” Upline came back with, “Okay. Keep an eye, but don’t say anything to the media. We don’t need the SK-shit.”

———

Pickton was charged with a total of 27 counts of first-degree murder. First degree, in Canada, requires the prosecution prove Pickton acted in a planned and deliberate manner on each count. If the planning point isn’t proven, but the intentional killings are still established, then the charges fall to second-degree which allows the convict an earlier parole eligibility to a mandatory life sentence, regardless of first or second.

The trial judge severed the charges into two groups. Group A were 6 women whose evidence was materially stronger than the other 21 in Group B. The trial went ahead dealing with Group A. Group B was set aside pending the first trial’s outcome. (Note: The Group B trial never proceeded.)

A jury convicted Robert William Pickton of 6 counts of second-degree murder. How 12 jurors could think a pattern of murders was not planned but still deliberate, I can’t fathom. But whether first or second, planned or deliberate, or how many counts, is a mute legal point. Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, so Willy Pickton is going to spend the rest of his natural life in prison. There is no way this guy will ever get parole, although the law allows him to apply after 25 years of incarceration.

In the aftermath of conviction, the Pickton Case led to a lawyer-fest of appeals and inquiries. Some were cash grabs. Some were feel-goods. And some led to necessary improvements in legal and investigation procedures.

Interjurisdictional cooperation and communication were the big ones. It wasn’t just a Muni vs. Mountie thing. Munis weren’t talking to other Munis, and Mounties weren’t talking to other Mounties. In fact, the entire Vancouver Lower Mainland cop shops were acting alone. Automatously, you could say, and this was the result of years—decades—of independent police department growth in overlapping Lower Mainland communities.

Retired BC Supreme Court Justice Wallace Oppal headed the Missing Women’s Commission of Inquiry. Wally Oppal, or Stone Wally as he’s known by the police and the media, was the right man for this job. He was a highly experienced trial judge who went on to be the Attorney General of British Columbia. His 2012 report on the matter ran 1,448 pages and came back with 63 recommendations. The number 1 item, rightfully so, was amalgamating all Lower Mainland police jurisdictions—Mountie and Muni—into one regional police force.

Ten years later, this hasn’t happened. And it shows no sign of happening given the City of Surrey, the fastest growing Lower Mainland area, is forming its own police force and getting rid of the RCMP.

However, one major intercommunication and cooperation change did occur, and it was for the better. That was forming the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) that makes  secondments of select detectives from each department—Muni and Mountie—and has the team take over homicide cases throughout the Lower Mainland. Except for the Vancouver Police Department who still do their own thing.

The Pickton Case was a tragedy of mass proportions. It wasn’t just a fact of police failure to communicate or cooperate. It was a sad situation where a marginalized segment of vulnerable women were victimized by an unchecked demon. Here are some quotes from the Oppal report:

“The police investigation into the missing and murdered women were blatant failures.”

“The critical police failings were manifest in recurring patterns that went unchecked and uncorrected over many years.”

“The underlying causes of these failures were themselves complex and multi-faceted.”

“Those causes include discrimination, a lack of leadership, outdated police procedures and approaches, and a fragmented policing structure in the Greater Vancouver region.”

“While I condemn the police investigations, I also find society at large should bear some responsibility for the women’s tragic lives.”

“I have found that the missing and murdered women were forsaken twice. Once by society at large and again by the police.”

“This was a tragedy of epic proportions.”

Outside of the trial and commission of inquiry, the Vancouver Police Department did an extensive internal review. Honorably, they owned the problem and vowed to change procedures in missing persons cases. Deputy Chief Doug LePard, who headed the probe, had this to say at a public news conference:

 “I wish from the bottom of my heart that we would have caught him sooner. I wish that, the several agencies involved, that we could have done better in so many ways. I wish that all the mistakes that were made, we could undo. And I wish that more lives would have been saved. So, on my behalf and behalf of the Vancouver Police Department and all the men and women that worked on this investigation, I would say to the families how sorry we all are for your losses and sorry because we did not catch this monster sooner.”

OTZI THE ICEMAN – THAWING A 5,000-YEAR-OLD HOMICIDE COLD CASE

In 1991, the mummified body of a 5,000-year-old murder victim uncovered itself in melting ice at a rock-gully crime scene high in the Italian Otzal Alps. Named Otzi, the approximately 45-year-old and his possessions were incredibly preserved. His skin, hair, bones, and organs were cryopreserved in time, allowing archeological researchers a phenomenal insight into human life in the Copper Age.

Otzi’s thawing corpse also gave modern forensic science an unprecipitated opportunity to investigate and, positively, determine how Otzi the Iceman was killed.

On a sunny September day, two hikers traversed a mountain pass at the 3210 meter (10,530 foot) level and saw a brown, leathery shape protruding from the ice amidst running melt-water. They closely examined, finding a human body they thought might be a mountaineering accident victim.

They reported to Austrian police who attended the following day, quickly realizing this was an ancient archeological site. A scientific team assembled and, over a three-day period, the remains were extracted and taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck.

Such an incredibly valuable find soon led to a jurisdictional argument between the Austrian and Italian governments and an immediate border survey. It found Otzi lay ninety-two meters inside Italian territory. Italy gained legal possession of the body and artifacts, however in the interests of science and history, everything was kept at Innsbruck until a proper, climate-controlled facility was built at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy, where the Otzi The Iceman now rests.

Many, many questions arose. Who was he? Where did he come from? How long ago did he live? And, of course, what caused his death? Natural? Accidental? Suicide? Homicide?

Technological  advances over the past thirty+ years answered many questions surrounding Otzi’s life and death and surely the next thirty+  will answer more. This, so far, is what science knows about the Iceman.

Hikers found Otzi lying face down with outstretched arms in a protected, rock depression near the Finail peak watershed at the top of the Tisenjoch pass which connected two forested valleys. The trench measured 40 meters (125 foot) long, between 5 and 8 meters (18–26 foot) wide, and  averaged 3 meters (16 feet) deep. For millennia, this area was covered by glaciers which, by the end of the twentieth century, had receded.

Four separate scientific institutes conducted C-14 radiocarbon dating on Otzi, equivocally agreeing he came from between 3350 and 3100 BC — more than 5,000 years ago. This was the oldest-known preserved human being; far older than the Egyptian and Inca mummifications or the corpses found pickled in peat bogs.

Something exceptionally unique about Otzi was that he was a “wet” mummy—an almost unheard of process for a cadaver of this age where humidity was preserved in his cells, unlike the intentional dehydration processes used in Egypt and Peru. As well, Otzi was perfectly intact and not dissected or embalmed by a funeral ritual. His entire body achieved a state of elasticity and, although shrunken, remained as in the day he died including vital clues stored in his digestive tract.

Researchers felt Otzi must have been preserved through a chain of coincidences. It was evident that no damage had been done by predators, scavengers, or insects so it was obvious that the body was covered by snow and/or ice immediately after death. Secondly, the gully lay perpendicular to the main ice flow, allowing the grinding action of the glacier to pass overtop. Thirdly, exposure to air and sunlight was only a brief period before being found by the hikers.

It was vital Otzi remain frozen to avoid an irreversible decomposition and remain intact to preserve his historical significance. This gave researchers limited ability to examine the cadaver as would be done in a conventional autopsy.

A thorough external exam was done in 1991 along with Xray radiography images. Notable was a cut to the back of the right hand which showed early signs of healing as well as breaks to the left ribcage, which had healed, and breaks to the right ribs which were fresh at the time of death. A depression in the skull was thought to be caused by the weight of ice compression and analysis of the only remaining fingernail found that the Beau-Reil Lines, which are like rings on a tree trunk, showed significant stress to his immune system in three periods—16, 13, and 8 weeks before death.

Other factors told of Otzi’s failing health, understandable for a 45-year-old in the Copper Age who’d then be considered elderly. He suffered from tooth decay, gum disease, and worn joints. What shocked the researchers were the amounts, designs, and placement of tattoos on Otzi’s body. There were 61 separate markings, all made by incisions and insertion of charcoal—not ink as has  been used by other cultures for centuries. The locations were consistent with known acupuncture points as practiced for pain relief starting with the Chinese two thousand years after Otzi’s existence and it seemed these markings were therapeutic, rather than symbolic.

Despite examination by many leading experts, no exact cause of Otzi’s demise was determined and it was speculated this old man may have fallen, injured himself, then succumbed to the elements. That was until new technology was developed.

One of the great challenges was to examine Otzi endoscopically—that is to look internally at his organs. Special high-precision titanium instruments were invented—steel probes that were inserted through tiny incisions in the back. Using computerized navigational aids the tools were guided to the exact spots were evidentiary samples could be taken. This was recorded with a hi-definition camera and an entire 3-D map of the mummy’s thorax and abdomen was made.

Lung and digestive tract contents told a time-of-year travel story through the presence of thirty different pollens which entered his body by the food he ate, the water he drank, and the air he breathed.

Most pollens were from trees and indicated that he ingested them during a bloom in the late spring or early summer. The locations and digested states of different pollens in different sections of the stomach and intestines showed Otzi had made a climb from the valley floor to the pass where he died within a twenty-four hour period. Pollens in the lower half of the tract were identified to low elevation trees and pollens in the upper area were from higher elevation species.

So, it was known that Otzi had left the populated valley and headed for high country where he met his death. Speculation rose that he might have been fleeing some danger.

This theory strengthened in 2001 when new Xrays identified a small, flint arrow head in Otzi’s left shoulder which had been missed ten years earlier. A close examination of Otzi’s back revealed a two-centimeter slash and established the path of the arrow which indicated he’d been shot from a rear and lower position.

In 2005, Otzi was put through a high-resolution, multi-slice CT scanning machine which enlightened the arrow wound. Clearly, the arrowhead had caused a one-centimeter gash in Otzi’s left subclavian artery which is the main circulatory pipeline that carries fresh oxygenated blood from the heart to the left arm. Such a serious tear would have caused massive internal bleeding and rapid death—probably within two minutes.

The CT scan showed something else. There was significant bleeding at the base of the brain which corresponded to the depression in Otzi’s skull. He’d suffered a serious head injury right at the time of death.

With the cause of death now certain to be from a violent act of homicide, the prime question centered on the circumstances of how all this went down. Researchers felt the answer may lay in the Iceman’s possessions.

Among the artifacts found on and around Otzi’s body were a copper ax, a flint dagger, a quiver with twelve blank arrow shafts and two completed arrow shafts with stone heads. There was also winter clothing and supplies to support wilderness survival.

This speaks to motive, for if robbery was behind Otzi’s murder, it’s certain that the perpetrator(s) would have made off with these valuables. Glaringly missing was the shaft of the fatal arrow, especially in light of Otzi’s quiver arrows being perfectly preserved.

Egarter Vigl, a leading archeological expert on the Iceman, believes that the assailant tried to pull out the arrow to destroy evidence, only to snap off the arrowhead inside. Vigl was quoted in the archeology magazine Germani, “telltale markings in the construction of prehistoric arrows could be used to identify the archer much in the way modern ballistic can link a bullet to a gun. The killer yanked out the arrow to cover his tracks. For similar motives, the attacker did not run off with any precious artifacts that remained at the scene, especially the distinctive copper-bladed ax; the appearance of such a remarkable object in the possession of a villager would automatically implicate its owner of the crime.”

I’d have to agree with Mr. Vigl and I’d like to add an observation of my own.

In the hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies I’ve examined as a cop and a coroner, I’ve never seen a cadaver with its arms outstretched in a hyperextended position like how Otzi the Iceman was found. This is absolutely unnatural and shrieks to me that someone placed the arms in that position after death.

I think it’s safe to speculate on what might have happened and here’s what Otzi’s crime scene evidence suggests to me.

The day before Otzi’s death, he was in a physical altercation down at the village on the valley floor where he suffered the cut hand and possibly the broken right ribs. This caused him to pack up and flee, climbing to the elevated pass where he was overcome by his attacker(s) and shot with the arrow from behind and below. This wound would have put Otzi into hemorrhagic shock and he would have quickly collapsed and internally bled out. Following his collapse, the murder(s) went up and caved-in the back of Otzi’s head to finish him off.

I don’t believe this happened in the gully. I’ve looked at the scene photos and can’t envision how Otzi could have been shot from below in that tight gully, which is what the forensic evidence clearly shows on arrow’s track through the body—even if Otzi were bending over.

No, I suspect Otzi was shot elsewhere, dragged by the arms, dumped in the gully with all his possessions, and then covered with ice and/or snow to hide the evidence.

After 5,000 years, the answers to “By who?” and “For what reason?” are unlikely to be known, despite futuristic technology, and the murder of Otzi the Iceman will always remain a really cold case.

*   *   *

For a fascinating look at the whole Otzi stories, including the exceptional photos, visit the official website www.Iceman.it at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.

WHO REALLY MURDERED AND MUTILATED THE BLACK DAHLIA?

The Black Dahlia murder mystery is one of America’s—if not the world’s—biggest unsolved homicide investigations. On January 15, 1947, a pedestrian found 22-year-old Elizabeth Short’s body in Leimert Park’s district of West Los Angeles. Short was naked, bisected at the waist, viciously disfigured, and obviously posed in public display by her killer. Her case remains open despite more than 150 suspects surfaced and cleared—except for one who was the main person of interest. Did this man really murder and mutilate the lady nicknamed The Black Dahlia?

The Black Dahlia case wasn’t just a huge police investigation. It was a media frenzy as the public held a massive fascination with her body’s macabre and grotesque condition. The corpse was so shocking that I’m not going to publish photos in this post. If you’re curious, there are many Black Dahlia crime scene photos online.

Elizabeth (Betty or Beth) Short was born on July 29, 1924, near Boston Massachusetts. Her father disappeared after the October 1929 stock market crash and was believed to have committed suicide by jumping off a bridge into the Charles River. Beth Short’s mother raised her as a single working mother, however in 1942, the father turned up alive and living in Los Angeles.

Beth Short reacquainted with her father by moving to Los Angeles when she was 18. Their relationship turned rocky and she went to live on her own in 1945, surviving on waitress wages and with help from a few friends—mostly men. There was speculation Short was a prostitute/call girl but no evidence of that was found during her murder investigation.

She was more of a barfly/party girl and a little on the promiscuous side having numerous men-friends. One male suitor was an older gent, an Air Force pilot. He proposed marriage by letter but was accidentally killed in a plane crash before he could return to America and marry Beth Short.

The last man to see Short alive—at least the last man police could identify—was a married travelling salesman Short secretly dated. Robert “Red” Manley liaised with Short in San Diego and dropped her off back in Los Angeles at the downtown Biltmore Hotel. This was on Thursday, January 9, 1947, and Short intended to meet her sister who was visiting from Boston.

They never connected. There are some accounts Short was seen using the lobby telephone at the Biltmore as well as unverified sightings of Short at the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge about 3/8-mile northwest of the Biltmore. Here Short’s trail went cold, and there was a week gap until her body was found.

At 10:00 am on Wednesday, January 15, Betty Bersinger was walking with her three-year-old daughter in an undeveloped area of Leimert Park midway between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street (GPS Coordinates 34.016 N and 118.333 W). Bersinger saw what she believed to be two parts of a department store mannequin lying just to the side of the roadway in a very exposed position. On closer inspection, Bersinger realized the ghostly-white corpse was human. She rushed to a nearby house and phoned the police.

As two detectives arrived at the crime scene, so did passerbys and reporters which soon grew to a crowd of onlookers and a throng of media. This was before the days of controlled CSI examination with yellow barrier tape and uniformed guards keeping the public and press from observing and releasing key-fact information such as the body condition.

Los Angeles pathologist and County Coroner Frederick Newbarr autopsied Elizabeth Short on January 16, 1947. His report described the body as a white female, early 20s, 5’ 5” tall, 115 lbs. with light blue eyes, dark brown hair, and badly decayed teeth. These are the highlights of Short’s autopsy report:

  • The body was completely devoid of blood.
  • There was minimal blood about the scene, amounting to a few drops.
  • The corpse had been washed with a mineral solvent, possibly gasoline.
  • The upper torso was horizontally severed from the lower abdomen and legs.
  • The anatomical point of severance was between the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae.
  • The upper torso organs were present and attached.
  • The intestines had been removed and coiled up underneath the buttocks.
  • There were injuries to the scalp and skull consistent with blunt force trauma.
  • Both corners of the mouth were incised and elongated approximately 4 inches.
  • The mouth incisions were made antemortem (before death), evident by ecchymosis or bruising to the wound edges.
  • Numerous postmortem (after death) cuts were made in random order about her torso, pelvis, and legs, evident by a lack of ecchymosis to the wound edges.
  • Antemortem ligature marks were evident on the wrists, ankles, and neck indicating she had been bound or restrained before death.
  • The anal orifice was fixed in dilated measurement of 1 and ¾ inches.
  • No semen or foreign trace evidence indicating an assailant was found.
  • General body condition indicated that death occurred approximately ten hours before body discovery making the death time somewhere over the night of January 14-15.
  • Official cause of death was shock from cerebral injuries and blood loss from the mouth.

The coroner, with the help of the FBI, identified Short’s body through fingerprints. Short had been previously arrested and processed in Santa Barbara for underage drinking (Yes, back in the 40s a minor in alcohol possession was a big deal). This opened the investigative trail to track Short’s whereabouts and develop leads.

In one of the lowest and most disgusting points in the entire history of journalism, reporters from William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner intercepted the identification information—thought to be through a police source—and telephoned Short’s mother in Boston before the police could make an in-person notification of death. The reporters roused the mother under the guise that Beth had won a beauty to which they wanted to run a feature story. Through this, they gained a lot of personal information which they fed to the drooling public.

The killer was watching this all. On January 21, an unknown male phoned the Examiner’s editor congratulating them on their coverage, including publishing the crime scene photos of Short’s nude and butchered body. The caller told the editor to, “Expect some souvenirs from Beth Short in the mail”.

On January 24, the Examiner editor received a package with Short’s birth certificate, personal papers, and address book. A cut and pasted note gave clues to where Short’s shoes and purse were hidden. These were found and verifies as legitimate.

The Examiner got a hand-written note on January 26, dated January 24. This time the writer who claimed to be the Black Dahlia Avenger stated he would turn himself in, arranging a time and a place for coverage. It didn’t happen. The last contact with the killer was another cut and pasted letter on January 29 which read, “Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified.”

In 12 days, from the body discovery to the killer’s last contact, the Black Dahlia story went from unknown to front-page headlines that lasted months. Where did the Black Dahlia name come from to immortalize a poor and innocent victim like Elizabeth Short? No one really knows, but there are two schools of thought.

One is that the news media simply made it up to further sensationalize an already over-the-top story. The other is possibly from drug store staff where Short shopped. Allegedly, Short always dressed in black and wore a flower in her hair. Combined with her striking white skin, she made a spectacle which the staff called The Black Dahlia, possibly a word-play on a 1946 movie titled The Blue Dahlia. It’s possible intrepid reporters picked up the nickname and used it to sell more papers.

LAPD detectives focused on Beth Short’s trail and her male acquaintances, especially those having recent contact with her before her death. Red Manley was eliminated after two polygraphs and an air-tight, sworn alibi. Others took a lot of effort by a lot of officers to satisfy them the person they were interested in was not responsible.

And the LAPD detectives focused on two absolutely unique aspects of the Black Dahlia crime scene and autopsy findings which, in this day and age, would have been critical hold-back evidence known only to the investigators and the killer—nor publically splattered and speculated on throughout every western media outlet.

First was the method Beth Short had been cut in half with. The pathologist/coroner, Dr. Frederick Newbarr, later testified at Short’s inquest that the severance was a surgical procedure that only could have been done by a highly-trained surgeon with the proper surgical equipment. Dr. Newbarr stated—under oath and on the record—the severance was a medical procedure developed in the 1930s and termed a hemicorporectomy.

A hemicorporectomy was a last-ditch effort to save a person’s life when the entire pelvic system was failing. To not remove the pelvis, buttock, and leg assembly (including the lower GI tract) would have meant certain death so surgeons would resort to, literally, cutting a person in half and discarding the lower region.

This radical surgical procedure left the patient alive and confined to a walker-like device for mobility and a colostomy bag for capturing waste exiting the stomach at the duodenum. The only place in the spine a hemicorporectomy could be achieved was between the 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae.

In Dr. Newbarr’s words, “Whoever did this surgical procedure (to Elizabeth Short’s body) was a very fine surgeon.”

The second unique aspect of the crime scene findings was Short’s body positioning. From the onset, both press and police emphasized the body wasn’t just dumped at the discovery point—it was carefully and craftily posed for some definite purpose. There was no attempt to hide the corpse. No, it was the opposite. The killer wanted it found and publically published.

If you’re strong-stomached enough to view the crime scene photos, you’ll see Short’s remains lying supine (on her back) with her arms extended straight out from her shoulders with her elbows bent 90-degrees upward to make a football goalpost-like frame over her head. You’ll see Short’s lower segment offset to the right of her torso and her right hip in line with her left side. Also, you’ll see the torso/hip offset distance to be the same as the gap between her upper and lower segments. Then, you’ll note Short’s legs are positioned wide open in a 90-degree separation or a 45-degree split from the midline of her vagina.

There isn’t an experienced cop, coroner, or criminologist who wouldn’t see meaning in this crime scene. It’s painfully obvious the killer positioned Short’s body to send a message. But what bizarre message by what bizarre surgeon-killer could that be?

It seems the LAPD detectives had a person of interest in their sights early in the Black Dahlia murder investigation. The LAPD file is still open and ongoing, although cold, so they control information as they should. What’s known about their interest in Dr. George Hill Hodel Jr. is officially confidential but quite well-known in the internet, book, and movie world.

Dr. George Hodel was surgically trained in the 1930s. He was familiar with the hemicorporectomy procedure, and he was familiar with sexual deviancy. Hodel was charged with incest on his 14-year-old daughter who, by the way, knew Elizabeth Short’s sister. There was one degree of separation between Surgeon Hodel and Victim Short including the several-block distance from the Biltmore Hotel and the Crown Gate Cocktail Lounge to where Hodel’s clinic operated.

Although George Hodel was a trained surgeon, he made money though his clinic specializing in treating venereal disease. At the time, the forties, VD was rampant through sexually-promiscuous people and it was something held in shame and confidence. Was Elizabeth Short a VD patient of Dr. Hodel’s as well as being a through-family acquaintance?

The detectives thought so. They thoroughly investigated Hotel including bugging his home where they heard this:

“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 though there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. Maybe I did kill my secretary.”

Those statements were suspicious enough to make detectives look into the death of Ruth Spalding. She was Dr. Hodel’s clinic assistant who died of a mysterious drug overdose shortly after the Dahlia case happened. Speculation by detectives is Spalding recognized Elizabeth Short as a patient, knew Hodel’s surgical experience, and put 2&2 together.

The detectives, and possibly Ruth Spalding, weren’t the only ones who suspected Dr. George Hodel was the Black Dahlia’s killer. In 1950, when the heat was on George Hodel and the Dahlia recording was intercepted, Hodel moved to the Philippines where died in 1999. Hodel remains an LAPD person of interest in the Dahlia case.

Someone else also considers Dr. George Hill Hodel as the Dahlia killer. That’s his son. Steve Hodel who, coincidentally, is a retired LAPD homicide detective. It wasn’t until he retired that Steve Hodel put 2&2 together when he reviewed property from his father’s estate and found highly-suspicious material linking his father as the Dahlia killer.

One was photographs of a young woman similar to Elizabeth Short. Two was handwriting samples similar to the Examiner hand-written note. Then, the fact his father worked so close to the scene where Short was last seen and, in all probability knew and possibly treated Short. And then there was the coincidence Short’s body was posed close—very close—to Hodel’s estranged wife’s house.

Certainly Dr. George Hodel had the means and opportunity to be the Balck Dahlia killer. Motive isn’t an included element in any murder trial. There’s no burden for the prosecution to prove motive in any case—corporal or capital—but proving motive tips the scale in persuading a jury to convict beyond all reasonable doubt.

Assuming George Hodel—who had the surgical means to perform a hemicorporectomy and was lurking in the vicinity when Beth Short disappeared along with his history of sexual deviance and a hint of homicide—was the Black Dahlia killer, the question is why?

His son, Steve Hodel, supplies it. Art work. George Hodel had a close friend named Man Ray who was a 1930s-1940s surrealist artist—a prominent who worked with greats like Salvador Dali.

Steve Hodel identifies two hard-to-ignore similarities between Man Ray’s art and the Black Dahlia’s posing. Ray’s 1936 piece Les Amoureux shows an elongated woman’s mouth with slit-like extensions and a corpse-like figure below and admiring it. Ray’s 1934 Minotaur shows a naked woman’s torso with the goalpost-like arm-posing.

Something I can’t ignore is the mathematical connection between Man Ray’s surrealist art and the Black Dahlia’s pose. Elizabeth Short’s arms were 90-degrees from her shoulders to her forearms, and her forearms were 90-degrees upward from them. Her torso was 90-degree offset, equidistant from the separation of her lower section. And her legs were a 45/90-degree posing from her pubis.

This posing was no accident. It was no coincidence. It was a purposeful display of artistic impression.

In my death investigation experience, I’ve never seen anything close to the Black Dahlia case. I’ve never seen intentional grotesque mutilation like this, and that’s why I haven’t posted pictures. But, I do see hard-to-deny facts.

Two principles guide homicide investigations. First—the more bizarre the case, the closer the answer is to home. Second—Occam’s razor. The Principle of Parsimony. When faced with multiple explanations, the simplest answer is usually the right answer.

On the balance of probabilities—with no better solution—I believe Dr. George Hill Hodel really murdered and mutilated the Black Dahlia.