Buried Bones Halloween Special: The Black Dahlia

Summary

Buried Bones Halloween Special: The Black Dahlia

Podcast: Buried Bones — with Kate Winkler Dawson & Paul Holes
Episode: Halloween Special (Live)
Date: October 31, 2025
Theme: An in-depth, modern forensic re-examination of the infamous "Black Dahlia" murder, focusing both on the complicated victim, Elizabeth Short, and the frustrating, shocking nature of the crime. The conversation blends historical facts, contemporary criminal profiling, investigative frustration, and empathy for the victim.

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Episode Overview

In this special live episode, journalist Kate Winkler Dawson and retired investigator Paul Holes dissect the notorious and enduringly mysterious Black Dahlia case. Using their specialties—crime history and forensic investigation—they reconstruct Elizabeth Short’s life, examine suspects, assess the forensics with 21st-century insights, and wrestle with the case’s haunting brutality and cultural impact. The show blends a focus on victimology, investigative process, media interference, popular suspects, and modern criminal profiling, while never losing sight of Elizabeth Short as a person and victim.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Elizabeth Short’s Background (05:02–18:11)

• Introduction to the Case:
  • Elizabeth Short (Betty/Beth), age 22, was murdered in Los Angeles in 1947.
  • Noted for her striking looks, jet-black hair, and “unusual” style—dubbed “Medford’s Deanna Durbin.”
  • Nicknamed “The Black Dahlia” by locals; nickname was a play on a 1946 movie and her fashion.
• Personality & Life Story:
  • Outgoing, considered an aspiring actress, but struggled with truthfulness; made up jobs and roles, possibly for attention, sympathy, or opportunity.
  • Troubled childhood: Her father faked his suicide, reappeared years later, and was estranged.
  • Early adult years involved moving between cities (Medford, Miami, LA, San Diego) and relying on both male and female acquaintances for support.
  • Paul Holes: “Victimology is huge. You have to understand who the victim is.” (06:08)
• Pattern of Instability & Risk:
  • Brief, sometimes abusive romantic relationships and episodes of underage drinking.
  • Used creative lies to weave her social network—sometimes presenting as a war widow for sympathy.
  • Relationship with servicemen and older businessmen, notably Mark Hanson.

2. Leading up to the Crime: Timeline & Associates (18:11–25:38)

• Important Relationships:
  • Mark Hanson (55-year-old businessman, nightclub owner)
  • Marvin Margolis (young medical student and boyfriend)
  • Robert “Red” Manley (married acquaintance, last seen with her)
• Pre-Murder Movements:
  • Traveled from San Diego (where she spent holidays with a friend) to LA by car with Manley.
  • Dropped off at the Biltmore Hotel around 6:30pm, last seen leaving around 10pm, dressed fashionably.
• Unanswered Questions:
  • Unclear what she did between 10pm and the time her body was found.
  • LAPD didn’t (or hasn’t) released all hotel or autopsy details—fueling generations of speculation.
• Media’s Role:
  • Outrageous media presence at the crime scene due to police access; staged witness photos, sensational coverage.

3. Discovery of the Body & Forensic Details (27:13–35:15)

• Crime Scene:
  • Discovered by Betty Bersinger & her daughter in a vacant lot (Norton Ave, Leimert Park, LA).
  • The body was posed: cut in half at the waist, meticulously cleaned, arms bent, legs splayed (sexualized pose), 8 inches from the sidewalk.
  • No blood at the scene—body clearly exsanguinated elsewhere and transported.
• Paul Holes:
  • Dismemberment does not necessarily indicate medical expertise: “There is nothing about the transection or any other aspect that indicates you’re dealing with somebody that had to have medical training or was a surgeon.” (28:49)
  • “This is what we call posing... He has taken the time to put her in this position. He wants that shock.” (31:19)
  • Cleaning likely done for practical reasons (transporting), possible attempt to remove fingerprints, and/or psychological compulsion.

4. Estimating the Time, Place, and Method of Death (38:26–46:58)

• Timeline Clarification:
  • Left Biltmore Hotel January 9, body discovered January 15—leaves a days-long gap.
  • Paul suspects Elizabeth was kept alive for some time before murder.
• Placement of the Body:
  • Scene was chosen to guarantee discovery and maximize shock; demonstrates offender's familiarity with LA.
• Physical Evidence:
  • “Her body has been cut in two for transport purposes. He didn’t start this transaction in cutting her while she was still alive.” (30:52)
  • Livor mortis indicated she’d been dead for hours, though time of death is disputed (likely within 10–12 hours of being placed at the dump site).

5. The Investigation: Suspects, Media, and Public Pressure (47:33–70:26)

• Suspect Avalanche:
  • Extraordinary public and media involvement: 500 false confessions by 1996, police overwhelmed by tips and “crank letters.”
  • Reason for police holdbacks—need to filter lunatic claims from real clues.
• Top Suspects Discussed:
  • Red Manley: Last seen with Elizabeth, passes polygraph, has an alibi.
  • Carl Balsinger: Tangential connection to another murder, also eliminated after polygraph.
  • Mark Hanson: Wealthy, possibly infatuated; his address book found in her belongings.
  • Marvin Margolis: Medical student, PTSD from the war, but no evidence linking him to the crime.
• Physical Evidence & Publicity:
  • Elizabeth’s belongings, including a purse and shoe, found in a dumpster—identified by Manley, but friends dispute their ownership.
  • Her personal effects sent to the media (not police), with newspaper cutouts spelling “Here is Dahlia’s belongings. Letter to follow.” Indicates the killer’s need for attention, risk-taking, and possible narcissism.

6. Theories & High-Profile Suspects (72:48–82:20)

• The Astor Hotel Lead:
  • Post-crime reports of a blood-soaked room, but no timely evidence; investigated as possible crime scene.
• George Hodel Theory:
  • Prominent LA physician, accused by his daughter of abuse, later suspected by his son (a detective) of being Black Dahlia, Red Lipstick, Green Twig, and Zodiac killer. Lacked direct evidence; Paul Holes finds the linkage unconvincing: “I know that I have read his son’s book and I’m unconvinced about the evidence that he has put there linking his father to Elizabeth’s case.” (77:09)
• Walter Alonzo Bailey Theory (Larry Harnish):
  • Surgeon with personal and geographic links; life was in turmoil at time of murder, but again, no direct evidence.
  • Paul: “You need more... you’re looking for the person who actually committed the crime, not somebody who had some sort of geographic location to the general proximity...” (70:26)

7. Forensic Details: Sadism, Modus Operandi, and Behavioral Profile (83:45–99:18)

[Graphic Segment Alert: Highly Disturbing Content; 83:45–99:18]

• Autopsy Insights & Unreleased Evidence:
  • Many details of the autopsy remain unreleased; her organs were lost.
• Paul Holes’s Behavioral Reconstruction:
  • The killer inflicted intense, sadistic torture:
    • Excised nipple/breast, post-mortem cutting and mutilation.
    • Excised tattoo, found in her vagina.
    • Shaved pubic hair, crammed into rectum.
    • “Smile” cuts from corner of mouth to ears—done alive to force mouth open for torture.
    • Cross-hatch knife marks: inflicted while alive for pain.
    • Feces in stomach, indicating forced ingestion—coprophilia (sexual arousal from feces), not caused by accident during body separation.
    • Suggests five-point restraint—possibly a predatory sexual sadist used to BDSM “torture rooms.”
    • “What was done to Elizabeth is done by a sexual sadist. This is the worst type of offender that you can run into.” (91:53)
    • Offender wanted attention and shocked the public and authorities.

8. Linkage to Other Cases & Paul’s Theory (99:18–102:29)

• Historical Context: “West Coast Fiend” Theory
  • Parallels with a series of sadistic murders in San Diego (1931–1936)—victims displayed, sometimes posthumously posed.
  • Paul suggests the killer likely has a history, possibly includes these similar, pre-meditated, sadistic LA/San Diego attacks: “If this is the same guy, he’s operating down in San Diego and then possibly relocates up to LA and then somehow some way crosses paths with Elizabeth.” (100:35)
• Reliance on Modern Profiling:
  • Paul downplays the likelihood that any of the men close to Elizabeth committed the murder: “With what happened to Elizabeth, I’m just not seeing somebody doing that unless they have that secret life and just decided to go after somebody that they had an association with.” (98:00)
  • Binds not deep; possible drugging or incapacitation to explain lack of struggle.

9. Remembering Elizabeth Short (103:47–105:09)

• The show closes by memorializing Elizabeth Short as a vibrant but lost young woman—not just as a notorious crime victim.
• Kate Winkler Dawson: “No matter how much she lied, no matter who she had in this black book, no matter what she did. You know, this was an illustration of just how terrible things can go. But...the fact that we’re still talking about this case, I am hoping LAPD will reach out to Paul or somebody who can help...” (104:32)

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Notable Quotes

• Paul Holes:

  • “Victimology is huge. You have to understand who the victim is.” (06:08)
  • “There is nothing about the transection...that indicates you’re dealing with somebody that had to have medical training or was a surgeon.” (28:49)
  • “This is what we call posing... He has taken the time to put her in this position. He wants that shock.” (31:19)
  • “This is a disturbing case to me. So just recognize that I am not showing any of the images at all... I am going to talk in graphic detail about her injuries.” (83:45)
  • “What was done to Elizabeth is done by a sexual sadist. This is the worst type of offender that you can run into.” (91:53)

• Kate Winkler Dawson:

  • “The pressure was really incredible on lapd, and I think in some ways still is probably, otherwise they’d be looking for all kinds of help... They go back to every man that they could find in her life, and they end up finding some more...” (67:05)
  • “This was an illustration of just how terrible things can go. But...the fact that we’re still talking about this case, I am hoping LAPD will reach out to Paul or somebody who can help. Right, right...” (104:32)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Elizabeth Short: Life & Personality: 05:02–18:11
• Last Days & Timeline: 18:11–25:38
• Discovery, Forensics & Crime Scene: 27:13–35:15
• Time, Location, Cause of Death: 38:26–46:58
• Suspects/Profile Discussion: 47:33–72:48
• Theories & Notorious Suspects: 72:48–82:20
• Forensic Analysis & Sadistic Profile: 83:45–99:18 (explicit, graphic)
• Parallels to Other Cases/Paul’s Hypothesis: 99:18–102:29
• Memorializing the Victim/Closing: 103:47–105:09

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Memorable Moments

• Kate’s “fish and houseguests” analogy for Elizabeth outstaying her welcome among friends. (21:06)
• Discussion of police “holdbacks,” media interference, overwhelming false confessions, and the circus of public involvement. (47:33–49:29)
• Paul’s expert debunking of the “only a doctor could have done this” fallacy. (28:49)
• The deep dive into the psychological and forensic minutiae of sadistic crime, as Paul reconstructs not just the “how,” but the “why.” (83:45–99:18)
• The show’s insistence on restoring Elizabeth Short’s humanity, closing with empathy for the victim and frustration at the cold case status. (103:47–105:09)

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Tone and Style

• Candid, thorough, and sensitive, with honest admission of the case’s remaining mysteries.
• Paul’s forensic discussions are methodical and graphic but focused on understanding rather than sensationalizing.
• Kate counters with compassion, humor, and historical perspective, anchoring the violence in Elizabeth’s lost potential.

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Summary

This episode is a balanced, expert-level blend of historical research, modern forensic interpretation, speculation, and empathy. It honors Elizabeth Short as a human being and exposes the truly horrifying nature of her murder, while also exploring the profound difficulties investigators have faced—both then and now. The case is presented as unsolved but, perhaps, not truly unresolvable; advances in behavioral profiling and forensics continue to chip away at the mystery, while, as ever, the world remembers the Black Dahlia as both victim and symbol.

Transcript

[Bridget Armstrong]

This is exactly right.

[Paul Holes]

Whenever I got through the window, I tried to pick him up, and his body was stiff.

[Ben Westoff]

I'm Ben Westoff, and this is the Peacemaker, a true crime podcast about a string of mysterious suicides at a Missouri university and the fraternity brother tied to them all, Brandon Grosse.

[Paul Holes]

The lawsuit says Grossheim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths.

[Ben Westoff]

Was he profoundly unlucky? Was something much darker at play? Listen to the Peacemaker podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Bridger Weiniger]

When you host a podcast called I said no Gifts, you hope your guests will understand the directive. Yet every week, my guests show up and spit in the face of etiquette by bringing a gift I didn't ask for. Take Paula Scola. You said no Gift, and I respect that boundary. But once you open it, I can explain and hopefully it'll make sense. I'm Bridger Weiniger, and this is my curse to bear. New episodes of I Said no Gifts from the Exactly Right network drop every Thursday. Listen to I Said no gifts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues.

[Bridget Armstrong]

By talking the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We basically sold our souls and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, why don't you help her?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

[Paul Holes]

And I'm Paul Holz, a retired cold case investig who's worked some of America's most complicated cases and solved them.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes, and I weigh in.

[Paul Holes]

Using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Together. Using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

[Paul Holes]

Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is Buried Bones. Best looking crowd I've ever seen. And it's not just all the beverages that they give you on this cruise, I promise. Thank you all for being here.

[Paul Holes]

It's amazing.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And it's our first live show. We've Never done anything like this before, so. I know.

[Paul Holes]

Hey, Kate, how are you?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Hey, Paul. I'm doing well. How about you?

[Paul Holes]

I'm doing great. I'm here on this cruise.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I can't believe I'm here.

[Paul Holes]

You know, one of the things about this case that we're going to talk about, if you're true crime aficionados, you, of course, have heard about the Black Dahlia. One of the unusual aspects of this case from something from the 1940s, is there's a lot of photographs because the media was allowed at the crime scene where the victim was found. As a result, I have material that I often don't have from cases that Kate picks. Right. However, I'm just giving you a warning up front that I'm going to be having to talk about some very graphic aspects to the injuries that the victim suffered, as well as some very disturbing behaviors about the offender. So just be aware of that. I will alert you before I start really getting into those details ahead of time. In case you don't want to listen to that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me do a little disclaimer, because Paul had his disclaimer, but mine is that this is such a massive case, and you'll hear why in a little bit. This has been such a massive case. There's no way we can cram this into an hour and a half episode. So if you guys have really done a deep dive, which I know some of you probably have on this case, we haven't been able to include everything. There's more suspects than people in this room, I feel like, for Black Dahlia. So we kind of went with the highlights. All of our sources are in the public domain and also from Paul's knowledge. But we do have some authors out there who have their own opinions. And so when we talk about those opinions, we'll make sure that we mention who the authors are for sure.

[Paul Holes]

Yep. Sounds good.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. All right. I'm gonna do the very famous quoteway thing. I always do. Let's set the scene. Let's set the scene. Okay, so we are talking about Elizabeth Short. This is in LA in 1947. Elizabeth Short is 22, and she is sometimes called Betty or Beth. And she's a recent transplant from Medford, Massachusetts. I mean, you can tell she is striking. And she, according to her friends, is very, very outgoing. And everybody thought she was going to be a Hollywood star, essentially. So I'm going to give you guys some background, and there's a lot to kind of go through. I'll have Paul chime in on Some stuff, but we need to know more about her. My experience with this case has been because it is such a difficult case and I'm somebody who talks about murder every single day. I've kind of avoided it until now, looking at the details. But I was really interested in her as a person. And of course, Paul will say because of. Do your line. Now I want to hear your line.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. Victimology is huge. You have to understand who the victim is.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We need to get that printed. That's his big line. You can have a T shirt. Victimology is huge. So, you know, we're going to talk a little bit about her and then we'll get into the circumstances and all of that. Okay. So she had dyed jet black hair in high school and she has these beautiful pale green eyes. And she had a nickname I had not heard before. Medford's Deanna Durbin. I think you had to be there in the 1940s to get that immediately. So this was a very famous Canadian American soprano and actress. She got the nickname Black Dahlia in an interesting way. So she used to hang out in Long beach at Lander's Drugstore. And she got the nickname Black Dahlia, which was a riff off of a movie from 1946, which now I'm going to see the more I read about it, which is about a woman who is married to a naval officer. He comes back from the South Pacific, he finds out that she has been having an affair and she ends up dead and everybody's a suspect. And so of course we know the irony with that is that's her nickname. So I've always wondered where that nickname came from.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, I didn't realize that, actually.

[Bridger Weiniger]

Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. So the people at the drugstore thought that Elizabeth had a very unusual look. She also liked to wear black and lacy garments and flowers. And she often pinned a flower behind one ear. And she had a rose tattoo on her left thigh, which I think we'll talk about.

[Paul Holes]

We will be talking about that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And so she would kind of cross her legs to show off this rose tattoo.

[Paul Holes]

Well, would you say, Kate? You know, we're talking 19, late 1940s. And you know, tattoos have become very accepted today. But back in the 1940s, tattoos were often looked at as almost like a criminal type of mark or military. And now you have a 22 year old woman that has a tattoo that she likes to show off. That tells me she's got a little bit of an edge to her.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She does, yeah, very much. I mean, I remember my grandmother talking about how she was horrified. And this must have been in the 70s, if I pierced earrings on women that she always had. I have a bunch of clip ons, pearls, clip on. So that's kind of where we're headed with this. Yes. I think she had a little bit of an edge. So there were some things that I didn't know about her childhood. She had asthma, bronchitis. Also she was moody, they said, despondent. And these are from people who liked her, who loved her. I know people could say that about me. I guess every once in a while. She wore makeup, a lot of makeup. They say an inch thick, which I would have to say is going to be an exaggeration. I would hope maybe not. So here's the thing about Elizabeth Short. And I think one of the things that makes this story a mystery and one of the reasons why people are so fascinated by it is Elizabeth wasn't truthful about her life. She was about some things, oftentimes not about other things or even her location, where she was heading, what she was going to do. And so I think that makes it a really fascinating case for people. So we kind of start here. She made up a bunch of different backstories for various reasons. My kid is calling me inexplicably on FaceTime right now. I'm glad y' all can't see it. I mean, I'm not gonna take this call, but I kind of want to go, do you see there's 400 people here? Okay, so she had a lot of different backstories. So she said she worked for Western Airlines. She said she modeled for a shop specializing in hats in Hollywood. These are very specific claims. She told her mother that she worked at a San Diego naval hospital. And sometimes she said that she was a war widow who not only lost her husband, but also their son. And so, you know, my first kind of question is, I know it seems obvious, but she's obviously a complicated victim already.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. Well, and when you said that she. She's claiming that she worked or at these various locations, is she being truthful about it? No. So she's trying to portray herself as something she's not. And my question of why is she doing that? Is she ashamed of her background and what she's actually done, or is she trying to. She's reading the person she's talking to, and she's trying to become something that that person might be interested in, either as a friend, as a romantic partner, but she's wanting to manipulate how people perceive her.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, before we Approach the timeline of this case. We'll talk about one man who actually seemed very important to her is a guy named Matt Gordon. And that's him. He's very handsome. And he was a World War II pilot, and they had dated. I get the impression that they were going to get married, but he was killed in a plane crash in India. And so I had wondered if that was kind of what led her to the war widow claim. And I'll show you another picture while.

[Paul Holes]

You talk like maybe she's trying to play. I mean, obviously, that's a traumatic thing for her if she's in love with this man and she loses him. But also, she may be trying to take advantage of this war widow aspect, whether it be for sympathy or whether, you know, other benefits she could get as a result. But were they married?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You said no, they dated in Miami beach five years before she died. And he seemed very significant because later on they find some. They get some of her belongings, and there was an obituary with him, you know, mentioned in it and everything. So I think this was. This was somebody who was very special, and I don't see anybody else special in her life as we move forward.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and I believe offline, you and I talked about her father.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. Well, that's a story coming out. It's right here.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. Am I jumping ahead here?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She does it sometimes. Well, you know, I'm usually polite about it. No, I like the way you're thinking, though. Okay. She told her Hollywood friends that she was an aspiring actress, but she never signed up for any classes, she never auditioned anywhere. I had wondered if that was just the expectations that people had put on her because she was so, you know, different than the other kids in Medford, Massachusetts.

[Paul Holes]

I can believe her. She would be an aspiring actress. She has the looks. She's in the Los Angeles region. So maybe she was hoping something would catch on.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me tell you about a big lie that she told and then why it's significant and kind of getting into her background. So she told friends who asked, have you been. They said, have you ever been to California? And she said, no, she had been, I think, right after Matt Gordon died and she went to visit her father in Vallejo. And the thing about what happened with her father seems traumatizing to me. Right. So his name was Cleo Short. He left Elizabeth and her mom and her four sisters in Massachusetts in 1930, and they were all led to believe that he had taken his own life. He parked his car right in front of a bridge over a river they never found his body. He had faked it, faked his own death and moved to California. And then he ends up reaching out to Elizabeth and says, you know, why don't you come and visit me? And she was stunned, I have to assume. But he said, you know, he had a history of alcoholism and he actually mailed her $200 to visit him. And she went. But I don't know what kind of a guest Elizabeth was, but she gets ejected from several different places. And this is one of the first places is her dad says after a few months, okay, you're going to have to move out at some point, out of Vallejo.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. And so, you know, way back earlier in Elizabeth's life, she thinks her father has killed himself. And then she loses this boyfriend that she's very attached to. So she's suffered two traumatic losses, and then all of a sudden, her father comes back into her life. So you can imagine there's going to be a trust issue there, particularly with men, and not necessarily with the pilot so much, but because of the father.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And, you know, this is obviously a man who was living some kind of a false life to make people believe his family, I mean, five kids and his wife believed that he had taken his own life. So that just sets her up for. Right, insecurity and everything else.

[Paul Holes]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, so she does something interesting. She worked at a post exchange as a clerk at Camp Cook, which was in Santa Barbara County. And so it was a training post for servicemen. It's called something different now. She was named Camp Cutie, which is. I think she was attractive. And then she quit suddenly. So now we start getting into people who might have been involved, but we're not sure. She had gotten into what she described as an abusive relationship with a guy that she called Sergeant Chuck. There was a court martial proceeding, and she testified that he assaulted her and he was transferred overseas, but she stayed in Santa Barbara. I don't think they ever tracked down Sergeant Chuck, but that just shows you, you know, she was at the beginning kind of gravitating towards this. This kind of relationship.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, sure. And anytime you get involved in an investigation and you're starting to dig into the victim's background, of course you're going to be taking a look at the. The men that were in her background even years prior. Could somebody come back out of vengeance? They're vindictive. They've been feel like they've been spurned and possibly cross paths with her again, tracked her down in order to exact that vengeance. And so here it sounds like, at least from her perspective, this was an abusive relationship. So of course the investigators are going to kind of pay attention to this guy and figure out where was he at at the time she was last seen.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So if we're catching up here, she's 19, 1943, she's been telling lies, we don't really know why. We've talked a little bit about the psychology, but there's no grifting or manipulation or law breaking. Until she's arrested at 19 for underage drinking, they, instead of putting her in jail, they shipped her back to Massachusetts, which didn't last very long.

[Bridger Weiniger]

Sure.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and again, this, I think, starts going to Elizabeth's personality and maybe some of the lifestyle choices that she's wanting to make as she's getting older. I mean, obviously underage drinking is not something that is what would be considered just a horrible thing to do, really. But at the same time it again, kind of speaks to maybe there's an edginess to her, maybe a little bit more of a risk taking aspect to her personality.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, And I think it gets a little riskier too. So she bounced around between Medford, Miami Beach, Atlanta, and then June 1, 1946, she gets on a Greyhound bus and goes west. She's drawn back to California.

[Paul Holes]

Extraordinarily independent.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, independent. She ended up in Indianapolis, then she went to Chicago and then she landed in Long Beach. So she had been to Vallejo to see her dad before. By early fall, though, she's in LA and she wants to be, it sounds like in la, she's not there the whole time, but she'll go back and forth and ultimately she ends up dying in la.

[Paul Holes]

Right. And one of the things, as I didn't realize this about Elizabeth was her familiarity with Los Angeles. And I believe that comes into play a little bit later on here.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, it does. Okay, here's the first guy that we have to be concerned about. His name's Mark Hanson. And her friends and acquaintances say that she was able to stay in la, different parts of California. She was relying on friends, not just male friends, but female friends and also on men. So she would meet men and she would date them. I'm not saying she's sleeping with all these people, but she would, you know, befriend them and date them. And then, you know, this is what complicates the case. This is one of those guys, he pops up later. So she would move between residences in Hollywood and downtown and she seemed to gravitate toward servicemen like Matt Gordon. And she was also attracted to businessmen. This would be one of them. Mark Hanson was 55. He was Danish. He was a businessman. He owned a theater, and he was a silent partner in the Florentine Gardens nightclub. Mover and shaker. I would say we don't know the real nature of their relationship. And I think people have said, oh, it has to be sexual. It didn't have to be sexual. And he becomes a suspect later on because one of the theories was that he tried to make it sexual and she rebuffed him. And this is what ended up happening. But we do know that she rented a room from him for a certain period of time right around when she was murdered in la. She also had a boyfriend at the same time, and she would stay with that guy. And I'll tell you about him in a little bit. So this is the first one.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. So older gentleman, well resourced, you know, and this can come into play in terms of what happens the night that she disappears.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. We have another guy named Marvin Margolis, and we're going through these people now because they were significant in her life before she died. So when she wasn't staying at Mark Hanson's place, where she was renting this room, she was living with her boyfriend. He was 20, Navy veteran, and when they dated, he was also a medical student. And when you hear about the injuries, you'll understand why. He was smack in the middle of the radar for lapd. He was at usc. So we talked about this before. She is in LA a lot, and she's involved one way or the other in men who, you know, range from.

[Paul Holes]

Young to middle age and connections based out of la. Somebody that she potentially could reach out to if she needed a favor or she needed a place to stay, possibly even cash for maybe Hansen. So, you know, she's pretty well established in the LA area.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And, you know, I know that we described her before as erratic and some, you know, kind of despondent, but she really had a lot of people who liked her for one reason or the other, and people who wanted to help her. And then it sounded like, you know, she outgrew her welcome. What was the Benjamin Franklin? You're not going to know this. The Benjamin Franklin quote. Like, houseguests are like fish. You should get rid of both of them within three days. Isn't that what they quote?

[Paul Holes]

I've never heard of that in my life. That's what you thought.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Trust me, it's a quote. So I don't know what kind of house guest she was, but she was definitely complicated. Let's get to San Diego and then we're quickly getting to la where a lot of this stuff happens. Okay, so she goes down to San Diego and winter approaches and the holidays are coming up and she had told her friends that she was going to visit her sister in Oakland. She did not do that. She caught the bus to San Diego that night. Before her trip she had dinner with Mark Hanson, the older man. And then she saw a guy that she was friends with at Camp Cook, who was Carl Balsinger, and he took her to the Hollywood station and then she goes to San Diego. So when she gets to San Diego, that's December 9th and she ends up at this all night Aztec Theater in San Diego. And she secures a place to spend the holidays by befriending the cashier who is a woman named Dorothy French. So like I said, likable woman it sounds like. But then the fish thing, she outstayed her welcome because after the holidays, January 8, the French family said, you gotta hit the road. And so she does. So this is where she ultimately ends up. So she ends up at the Biltmore. And this will be interesting to talk about. This is a very upscale hotel. There is a man who we'll talk about in a little bit. His name is Robert, Red is his nickname Manley. And this is a friend of hers. He was 25 years old and married salesman. He picks her up in San Diego and he drives her to the Biltmore hotel in downtown LA. He drops her off at 6:30pm so this is all we know about this. Last night he drops her off the hotel. He doesn't go in, he says she's in the hotel. And she comes back out at 10 o'.

[Bridger Weiniger]

Clock.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She's wearing a black suit, white fluffy blouse, black suede high heels, white gloves. She heads south on Olive street. And then we don't know what happened after that. We know the state that she was found in, but she vanishes. We don't know what happened in the hotel. Paul asked me, well, was she at the bar with anybody? Never reported any of that. So she went in the hotel, came out and then that was that.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and so now here you have a 22 year old woman who's. She's flopping, right? She's down in San Diego, she's making friends, she's very comfortable, just kind of probably sleeping on a sofa is the way I'm imagining it to a point. And now she's up at the Biltmore how is she affording the Biltmore? Did somebody give her cash? Did she steal cash from somebody? What are her actual financial resources? But she gets dropped off at the Biltmore at 6:30. She's last seen leaving at 10. And she's obviously made up. She's dressing nicely. She's going out now. She purposely. Is she going out to meet up with somebody? Is she going out to have some fun? Local bar, nightclub, whatever, Downtown la? We've already established she's very, very familiar with this area. She's very comfortable. 10 o' clock at night, walking out of, out of the Biltmore. One of the things I want to know, which we don't have access to because the case file hasn't been released, is once she was found to have been last seen and had a room at the Biltmore, did the investigators go and confirm that? Did they talk to the front office staff? Did they check her room? Were there any phone calls made from the room or out of that room? Was there anything left at the front desk for Elizabeth, you know your typical investigative steps to compile and maybe see. Was there some prearrangement that happened after she was dropped off by Manley? So that's what is interesting to me is do they have that information or not?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And I think that Paul's bringing up a really good point in that because LAPD hasn't released everything, clearly, because they want to work on the case currently too. What that leads to is so much speculation. I mean, we have to speculate too, because we don't have all of the information. I mean, Paul will tell you later on that they haven't released the official autopsy. Right. From that's my understanding he knows a lot of details about it. But because of that, that's when you end up with all of these people who have all different kinds of theories, because you have to speculate. And so that's one of the things that's frustrating.

[Paul Holes]

And anytime you have that speculation, that's where people, when there's gaps in knowledge, that's where people will fill those gaps in. And conspiracy theories come up.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. Okay. So this case is very theatrical in a lot of ways and I'm going to illustrate that right now. So there is a woman who ends up finding her body. Okay. And I'm going to describe that in a second. But I do kind of want to get this out of the way. It's clear to me that the LA newspapers and magazines, when they found key witnesses, they were asking them to kind of Reenact what happened. So this is Betty Baronser, and this is a very dramatic photo. She ends up calling the police because she discovers the body. But I just didn't want you guys to be startled because I saw what is happening. She's in full makeup and so clearly they are trying to reenact something. And I just thought this is an odd. I really wanted her to be in like a night coat or something, you know, But.

[Paul Holes]

But it also illustrates, with one photo, it illustrates that from the very beginning, the media started setting a narrative on this case. Because the media was out there at the crime scene from the very get go.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh yeah, huge case. Okay, I'm gonna have two crime scene photos. I am way more squeamish than any of you out there, I promise. And so I made sure that I only picked these two photos you can't see. But I think it was important for Paul to be able to see where she was found before we talk about what happened. But we shouldn't be able to see her clearly here. Okay, let me tell you what happens. So Betty is out with her daughter and they're on South Norton Avenue in Limmert park, which is seven miles southwest of downtown LA. And on Norton there is a vacant lot between 39th and Coliseum. And she sees what appears to be a posed mannequin. So this is the beginning of the scene. She starts describing it and it's this mannequin that she then figures out as a body is just eight inches from the sidewalk. And it is alabaster, white skin, body of a woman. She is posed face up with elbows bent at right angles and legs splayed just above the navel. Her torso is cleanly, they think, surgically cut so that her body is completely bisected.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and I think, you know, this is not where I'm going to be getting into too much graphic detail. But this is one of those extrapolations here. Elizabeth's body has been cut in two through the waist. And historically, people involved in this case have said, well, it must be done by somebody with medical knowledge. And I know on previous episodes where we've had dismemberments, there always seems to be, you know, that type of opinion. And the reality is, when I look at what happened to Elizabeth, there is nothing about the trans section of her body that indicates that anybody, this person, person had specialized medical knowledge. You know, this is somebody who could have medical knowledge. This is somebody that could be involved as a butcher, a hunter, somebody. If you're getting into certain types of predators as they grow up, they kill, torture and dismember animals and they learn animal anatomy as a result. But it's also just common sense. If you're going to cut a body in half, these, the easiest place to do that is through the abdomen and the easiest place to cut through the spine is between two of the vertebrae versus trying to cut through bone with a knife. So from my perspective, there is nothing about what I am seeing with the transaction or any other aspect, and I'll get into that later on, that indicates you're dealing with somebody that had to have medical training or was a surgeon. I do think what's important though is that the cutting her body in half. When I take a look at the ends of the wounds, they are devoid of any hemorrhage. She is absolutely dead at the time she is cut in two. The offender is cutting her in two for transport purposes. He didn't say start this transaction in cutting her while she was still alive.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And I think it's interesting because when I, before you and I started this show, I always thought about dismemberment cases, that this is just somebody who's kind of a sick person. How could somebody do that? And then Paul brings up the word packaging, which I had never really heard before, in that how do I get rid of this person efficiently and carry them somewhere, you know, which is why how a woman could carry a very large man. And, and it's all about the packaging, which I thought was interesting.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and it also goes to, even though Elizabeth is not a real heavy woman, she's 115 pounds, I think 5, 415 pounds. Right. But 115 pounds is still 115 pounds. If you've ever picked up a 90 pound bag of cement, you go, wow, that's heavy. Let alone a floppy body, that's 115 pounds. So carrying two parts of a body that each are roughly 50 to 60 pounds is a lot easier. Plus you're able to hide those body parts easier within, let's say, a vehicle. There's no question the offender drove out to this location in a, in a vehicle. And you know, part of this aspect of looking at her, Kate talked about how her arms are, you know, bent at the, the elbows. Well, the reality is her hands are above her head on each side. She's laying face up. Her lower body, her legs are spread very wide. The body is positioned anatomically correct. The upper part and the lower part are in the right spatial situations with the upper part slightly offset. This is what we call posing. If this offender was just dumping the body out of the car and trying to get away as fast as possible, this is not how Elizabeth would be looking. She would just be a pile right on this sidewalk. He has taken the time to put her in this position. He is in the process, he wants that shock. And so he is. Now she's completely nude. She's been extensively cleaned. He has purposefully moved the upper body away from the lower body, both in terms of distance away from each other as well as offsetting. So anybody looking at this body would go, she's been cut in half. Of course, the splaying of the legs. She's. She's absolutely nude. No articles of clothing on her body. But the way that her legs are splayed is indicating the sexual intent of this offender. And then there's other injuries to her body.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, well, let me tell you a couple more little details. And Betty goes and calls, rightly calls the police. The two halves are about a foot apart, which is dramatic to me. I mean, there is a clear delineation between that there are flies everywhere and no blood.

[Paul Holes]

People make a lot of about this. There's no blood and, well, she's been cut in half. So the major reservoirs of blood inside the human body have been opened up. So the manipulation of this body after it's been cut in half, you're going to have a lot of blood loss. In addition, you've got extensive cleaning that's occurred from her. However, when I'm looking at the crime scene photos, I'm seeing blood smears on her right rib cage up into her armpit. That looks like a bloody hand. Pos Pro. You know, the offender's hand as he's manipulating the body, there's actually blood staining on the right side of. Of her head, like she had laid faced on on the right side, probably during transport. So this idea that there was absolutely no blood in her body is like, it doesn't mean anything to me. It's not like she was purposefully, you know, like hung up and you know, like what you see with animals and her neck cut, that's not. Is what. What is going on here. She's just lost the primary reservoirs of blood in her body. And then as those body parts are manipulated, some of the smaller reservoirs of blood, of course, will start seeping out. I'm pretty confident that the offender probably did have some blood stage inside his vehicle or whatever packaging material he used to get those body parts out to this location.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Think back to the early 2000s. You're flipping through TV channels and then you hear this.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you learn something from this?

[Bridget Armstrong]

But looking back 20 years later, that iconic show so many of us love, it's horrifying.

[Ben Westoff]

Robyn, first of all, is too old.

[Paul Holes]

To be starting model.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She's huge.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I talked to cast, crew, and producers who were there for some of the show's most shocking moments.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

If you were so rooting for her.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Why don't you help her with never before heard interviews? The Curse of America's Next Top Model examines why this show was so popular and where it all went wrong.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We basically sold our souls and they got rich.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Paul Holes]

Whenever I got through the windmill, I tried to pick him up and his body was stiff.

[Ben Westoff]

I'm Ben Westoff, and this is the Peacemaker, a true crime podcast investigating a string of mysterious deaths at a prestigious Missouri university. And the fraternity brother at the center of it all. A few years back, two fraternity brothers died by suicide just weeks apart. In shockingly similar ways, both were discovered by the same student, Brandon Grossheim.

[Paul Holes]

I laid him down and proceeded.

[Bridger Weiniger]

I tilted his head back and presented him mouth to mouth and seeking.

[Ben Westoff]

At first, people gave Brandon the benefit of the doubt. But when three more acquaintances died the following year, the tide turned.

[Paul Holes]

The lawsuit says Gross Heim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths.

[Ben Westoff]

Was he profoundly unlucky, or was something much darker at play? Listen to the Peacemaker podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast cast.

[Paul Holes]

December 29, 1975. LaGuardia Airport.

[Unknown Narrator (Law and Criminal Justice System)]

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage. Kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then at 6:33pm everything changed.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

[Paul Holes]

Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The injured were being loaded into ambulances.

[Paul Holes]

Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

[Unknown Narrator (Law and Criminal Justice System)]

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged. And it was here to stay. Terrorism, law and order. Criminal justice system is back in season two. We're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight that's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and criminal justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me give you some details about the timeline and you can tell me what you think about this. Okay, so she leaves the Biltmore at 10pm she's discovered by Betty the next day at 10:45 in the morning. This is what they say. Post mortem lividity is apparent on the top part of her entire body, especially on her upper right leg. But rigor mortis hasn't set in yet.

[Paul Holes]

So lividity is. After you die, your heart stops pumping, the blood settles down to gravity. When the body is turned over, that blood can then reposition itself inside the body. But if the body is left in a position for a long enough period of time, the blood will kind of stick to where it settled with gravity. This is what we call lividity. So externally we can see this purplish hue on the body here. In this case, you're starting to see lividity, which is described on the upper side of, let's say, Elizabeth's thigh. Yet her thigh is as if she were lying on her back. That lividity is inconsistent with the position that her lower body was found. That tells me that her body was in a different position with her thigh face down, the blood settling with gravity, and it was in that position for a long enough period of time to where now that blood has set, that lividity has set, and then her body was manipulated. So that's some sequence, some temporal information that I can use to help start reconstructing what happened to Elizabeth after she died. Can you go back one slide, take a look at where her body has been dumped. And again, I use that term, dump in terms of where it's been deposited. The offender has purposefully chosen this location. Everything the offender has done about where her body has been put is purposeful. If somebody's just trying to hide her body, is he going to be dumping it right off the side of the sidewalk in a neighborhood? It was a woman out pushing her baby in a stroller that found Elizabeth's body. He is purposely choosing this location because he wants it found, and he wants it found in that shocking state that he posed her body in. For those that are involved in construct, you know, neighborhood construction, you know, obviously this is the same street, the neighborhood the contractors have already laid, the sidewalks, already formed the driveways and the street and probably all the other stuff as there's going to be a newer phase of construction happening in this neighborhood. He chose this location because he knew he would be able to spend the time to pose the body and not be seen. He didn't go up to where the houses are, but he knew, probably from familiarity, that in short order, once you know, the sun comes up, her body was going to be found. Tells me he likely knew about this neighborhood ahead of time. So he must have some familiarity with this particular part of L. A. Now, does that mean he's a lifelong resident of L. A? No, it's just like he is not just doing this kind of what I'd call a dump and dash type of thing where he's just finding a somewhat of an isolated location, getting rid of the body. This is all purposeful. He has planned this and he is wanting attention and he is wanting to shock the people that are now going to get involved in the case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This will maybe change stuff for you. I just want to be very clear on the timeline. So she leaves the French family in San Diego on the 8th of January. She goes the next day with Red MANLEY up to LA. He drops her off at the Biltmore. That's January 9th. She is discovered by Betty, five decisions six days later. So that's why there's a debate over her time of death.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. And then I would say she was probably kept a lie for a period of time.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

That seems like a long time for it to be a stranger. Or is that not a long time? I mean, we've all heard the awful stories about people being kept for years. I'm just wondering, what do you think?

[Paul Holes]

You know, I think there's going to be some insight as to not necessarily specifically who, but the type of offender that killed Elizabeth. And you'll see where there is a possibility that that offender could have kept Elizabeth alive for a period of time.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me tell you one more detail. When they move her body to their vehicle, the deputies notice that the grass under the body is still wet with dew. And they think that that must mean that she was murdered somewhere else about 10 to 12 hours earlier. Earlier. And brought to the site earlier in the morning.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. So the dew has set, and then the body is placed on it. And by 10:45 in the morning, the uncovered grass is dry, but the grass that's underneath her or the plant material is still wet. So I think that's actually a good observation. Doesn't necessarily. It shortens the window, but. Because when you start talking about estimating the time of the time of death, you know, these are big windows we're talking about. So he's saying, you know, pathologists saying 10 or 12 hours. It could be hours on either side of that range.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So at this point, do you want to get into more detail about what's on the scene or have you covered everything as Far as the way that.

[Paul Holes]

She'S found, well, I think, you know, in terms of the observations at the scene or just from initial observations at autopsy. And most people who are familiar with the case are aware that her mouth has been cut on both sides from the corner of the mouth extending towards each ear. And so that's a very visual aspect that even the, you know, the media and the person that found Elizabeth notes that that is a very startling looking injury that the offender inflicted. The other thing that's important to know at this point in time is that Elizabeth's both wrists showed evidence of binding marks. Both ankles showed that as well as there appeared to have been some cordage of some type that had been wrapped around her neck. However, it had not been used to strangle her.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. So they found several fibers which they concluded were bristles from a stiff brush are found in her facial lacerations, her breast wounds, her pubic region. On a tire track found in a nearby driveway, there is a smear that might have been left by the heel of a bloody shoe. And other blood spots are found 1 inch from the driveway's curb and on a canvas bag emptied of cement. They eventually match Elizabeth's fingerprints to the ones on she got arrested. So that's how they were able to ID her. Right.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and so, you know, of course, the brush bristles, you know, there's no question Elizabeth's body was extensively cleaned. And it's more than just, you know, rinsing the body in a bathtub. The offender is actually taking a brush, it sounds like in order to be able to more thoroughly scrub her body. Now this is in the day well before DNA and ABO testing, you know, so why, why is he spending so much effort to clean the body? You know, part of it I thought of, well, is he concerned about bloody fingerprints that he may be leaving behind on, on, on her body, which is a possibility, you know, but also there's just a practice, tactical aspect. He's wanting to transport Elizabeth's body and if it's very, very bloody, you know, now it's, it's a little bit more care that he has to take not to get the blood in his vehicle or on other things. So he may just be. I need to, I need to clean this body up. I also think there may be other things going on and I'll address that later.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, I was going to ask if you've seen this situation in more modern cases where it's not any of that. It's like a fetish or something like they feel that need to cleanse the victim.

[Paul Holes]

Well, you know, when I've had cases in which victims, and sometimes there are sexual assault victims that are made to clean, they are made to go in the shower, and sometimes you have other bodies where, like, I've got one case in which bleach had been extensively used on this woman's body. You know, in this day and age, offenders are paying attention to how they can be identified. And, of course, DNA is a huge thing. And so they're understanding I need to get rid of the DNA containing evidence. That's where in the 1940s, what is the offender thinking could be used to get him caught. And it would be fingerprints back then.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, now listen to this. I don't understand people who think like this. So we have a lot of suspects. In the 40s, there were, during the initial investigation, 60 people who confessed. Can you imagine? I mean, poor. I don't want to feel sorry for LAPD too much, but poor lapd and now this is even worse. Paul so early in the investigation, the detectives received more than 400 clues from amateur sleuths. And by the time 2021, just four years ago, comes about, there are. The number of tips is so great that LAPD had to stop accepting calls about the case. You know, I mean, it's incredible. So 500 people confessed by 96.

[Paul Holes]

So. Well, you know, this is where, you know, people will criticize law enforcement. Why doesn't law enforcement release more information about cases? It's because unless you have that identifying evidence, like DNA evidence that you know and can prove came from the killer, you need to be able to have details that during an interview, the actual killer would be the only one that would know those details. It's what we call holdbacks. Because the reality is, is that law enforcement sees these nut jobs that are willing to confess to a homicide like this. This is not just in these high profile cases. You have these types of individuals that will come forward in the most mundane case, or you have other people out there in the general public that are sending in, you know, during the time of this case, handwritten letters, and they think they have some sort of knowledge that's going to help law enforcement solve the case. And they're all false leads. And then now today, because of the Internet and all these online sleuths, and some of them are not going to disparage them all. Some of them are really talented.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Don't disparage them, because some of them are probably here as possible.

[Paul Holes]

But I bore the brunt of the early online sleuthing community, both for the Zodiac and the Golden State Killer case. And I can tell you it is overwhelming when you are a sole investigator and you have 30 people giving you tips and asking, well, what have you done with my tip? I can tell you San Francisco PD basically for Zodiac is going, we're done. Because we can't deal with the amount of stuff that's coming in.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. Well, let's talk about our first viable suspect. It's our man, red Manley, the 25 year old married salesman who was the last person beside the person who killed her to see Elizabeth Short. So he is arrested because of that. Right. So they put him in custody, search him, question him, and then the beginning of more theatrical photos. He's taking a polygraph test.

[Paul Holes]

He looks suspicious, doesn't he?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Even in the 40s. I mean, my second book was based in the 20s. Even in the 20s, they knew that polygraphs should not be admitted in court. So he passed. Just for the record, he passes two of them.

[Paul Holes]

So he passes two polygraphs. Does he have an alibi?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

He does have an alibi. And as we'll find out, he is trying to be helpful in the case, but we don't know how helpful.

[Paul Holes]

Okay. You know, so, I mean, this is, you know, investigation 101. The last person to see Elizabeth alive. You know, it's like, okay, what happened after you two parted ways? And did you guys reconvene at some point after she left the Biltmore?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Carl Palsinger was the old friend. It doesn't even say boyfriend. Old friend from Camp Cook. And he's the one that took her to the Hollywood bus station to go down to San Diego for the holidays to live with the Frenches. So he's interviewed the day that Red is released. Carl looks suspicious. The first of many. And in 41, Belsinger's schoolmate in Kansas City was murdered. Her name was Leila Adele Welsh. She was a beauty pageant queen in the late 1930s. So she was beaten with a stone mason's hammer. Her throat was slashed with a sharp 7 inch long butcher knife. And then her killer fled with a piece of flesh cut from her buttocks. These details are tame compared to what we're gonna be talking about. So this is, you know, another, another warning. So her brother was tried for the murder, but he was acquitted. And then he moves to la. Carl moves to la, and Detective Brown tries to get in touch with him, but learns that he's left the state, which is suspicious, I'll grant you they track him down to St. Louis, Missouri, and he is forced to take a polygraph test. And he passes.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. You know, and this is where, in a case like this and you're digging into Elizabeth's life and you run across somebody that has a connection to her that also is associated with another horrific crime, you're going to pay attention to that. However, I can't tell you how many times looking at suspects do I find weird circumstances that initially go, oh, that's. That seems important. And then it turns out I end up eliminating that guy with DNA, and it was just a coincidence. One of the things I have experienced personally with Golden State Killer is that when you cast a wide enough net, let's say I were to go and investigate every single man in the audience, I can guarantee I will find some of you that have weird circumstances where I'm going to go, you know what? I better dig into him some more. That is just part of working these types of cases. I can't say his name was Carl. Yeah, I can't say Carl is Elizabeth's killer or I can't eliminate him either, you know, but it doesn't necessarily rise to a level to where I'm blown away based off the fact that he's just associated with another woman who was horrifically killed. He wasn't even convicted of that crime.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So now we've insulted the audience. Who are the amateur sleuths and all the men it looks like in the audience? Okay, so to me, this is the most kind of tangible set of clues that we have. So there is a package of her belongings that arrives eight days after her body is found, and it's sent to the examiner newspaper. The envelope has a faint odor of gasoline, kerosene, or rubbing alcohol. There are, you can see, cut out letters on the front. It reads, here is Dahlia's belongings. Letter to follow. Inside there are 23 items belonging to Elizabeth confirmed. I mean, including her Social Security card. So there's newspaper excerpts, photographs, business cards, birth certificate, Social Security card, and that obituary I told you about that she carried around. And there's also an address book from Mark Hanson, the Danish businessman, the 55 year old. And so there's that detail, too. And I can tell you about that. But you want to talk first?

[Paul Holes]

Well, you know, these belongings to me look like, you know, items that she likely would keep in her purse. She's moving around so much that she probably would keep those with her. So when she's setting out the to go do whatever she was going to do that Night, she's got her purse with her. The killer ends up acquiring these belongings, and then. This is entirely consistent with the psychology of how her body is posed for the shock. He wants attention. Now he's seeking attention. He could have sent these into law enforcement. Do you think the law enforcement would have run to the newspaper and say, look what we got? No. He sent them purposefully to a media outlet. What does this sound like? Zodiac, Right, in terms of the type of psychology, I want attention. And I'm going to tell you right now, whoever killed Elizabeth is not the Zodiac. But I'm just saying that there is this narcissistic need to reach out. We see this with BTK and Dennis Raider. This is very different than Joseph d', Angelo, the Golden State Killer, who does not want any attention at all. Whenever I got through the windmill, I tried to pick him up, and his body was stiff.

[Ben Westoff]

I'm Ben Westoff, and this is the Peacemaker, a true crime podcast investigating a string of mysterious deaths at a prestigious Missouri university. And the fraternity brother at the center of it all. A few years back, two fraternity brothers died by suicide just weeks apart in shockingly similar ways. Both were discovered by the same student, Brandon Grossheim.

[Paul Holes]

I laid him down and proceeded.

[Bridger Weiniger]

I tilted his head back and proceeded to get him mouth to mouth in cpr.

[Ben Westoff]

At first, people gave Brandon the benefit of the doubt. But when three more acquaintances died the following year, the tide turned.

[Paul Holes]

The lawsuit says Gross Heim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths.

[Ben Westoff]

Was he profoundly unlucky, or was something much darker at play? Listen to the Peacemaker podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Think back to the early 2000s. You're flipping through TV channels, and then you hear this.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you learn something from this?

[Bridget Armstrong]

But looking back 20 years later, that iconic show so many of us love is horrifying.

[Paul Holes]

Robyn, first of all, is too old to be starting a model.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

She's huge.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I talked to cast, crew, and producers who were there for some of the show's most shocking moments.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

If you were so rooting for her.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Why don't you help her with never before heard interviews? The Curse of America's Next Top Model examines why this show was so popular and where it all went wrong.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We basically sold our souls and they got rich.

[Bridget Armstrong]

Listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Paul Holes]

December 29, 1975, LaGuardia Airport.

[Unknown Narrator (Law and Criminal Justice System)]

The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then at 6:33pm everything changed.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal.

[Paul Holes]

Apparently the explosion actually impelled metal glass.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

The injured were being loaded into ambulances.

[Paul Holes]

Just a chaotic, chaotic scene.

[Unknown Narrator (Law and Criminal Justice System)]

In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism, law and criminal justice system is back. In season two. We're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight that's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of law and criminal justice System on the iHeartrade radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

There's more stuff, as I had mentioned, in this package that was sent. So there is in her belongings a brown imitation leather bound book with gold letters, 1937, as you can see, and Mark N. Hanson printed on the COVID inside. The addresses for nearly 75 men are listed in Elizabeth's handwriting, even though the envelope has been doused with something. Gasoline, I think, is what I had heard last. And handled by a lot of postal workers. The detective does for fingerprints, but he can't find anything. So gasoline or any kind of solvent, Would that just be a no go for people pulling prints off something like that?

[Paul Holes]

Well, what's interesting, if you go back to the last slide, you know, as I look at these, first, even though there's maybe an odor of kerosene or gasoline on these items, you know, there's actual ink on these items that, with that type of solvent would start to run. I'm not seeing that. Plus, the here is Dahlia's belongings that, you know, magazine article, words out of magazine that's been, you know, taped or glued onto there. You can see these smudges. Well, that to me looks like it's been processed by a fingerprint processing technique called an anhydrin. So I'm questioning whether or not these items were truly doused in a solvent. There may have been an odor, but that may be more because maybe they were up against something in this guy's trunk and some of that odor got onto these paper items. It's just like when you pump gas, you know, and, and you get in your car and you can smell the gas on your hands. I have a feeling that's more like that because I'm not seeing evidence that these things were saturated with a solvent.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

If this was some kind of a effort by the killer to cover up something, does that mean between that and scrubbing her body, is that law enforcement or somebody out there who has knowledge like that, it has to be right.

[Paul Holes]

Well. Or is a reasonably intelligent person that is understanding that there are things that law enforcement does that could get him caught and so he's taking steps. This is risk management by the offender. And so you see offenders that are what I'll say, sophisticated, intelligent, that will plan their crimes to be able to carry out the crimes so they can get away with them. And then there's the post offense behavior in terms of how do I continue to do things to not get caught. But he is taking elevated risk by communicating. He's basically saying, look, I've got her belongings. And you know, he's taken the time not to have his handwriting. But it's something where he is reaching out to law enforcement. So there is a compulsion that he has. Part of his psychology is to need this attention. He wants this case to blow up as big as possible.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, there are an awful lot of things, people reaching out, writing letters at this point, once this information comes out. There was a story that I told you that I think I'll just throw out there to the audience, listeners here. The examiner says that they've got a phone call from a mysterious person saying, I'm going to send this package, you know, and it happened the day before the package arrived. And maybe this will be kind of the beginning of the investigation. But we talked about maybe dismissing that kind of a phone call.

[Paul Holes]

Well, this is where if the killer is calling into a reporter, is that reporter immediately calling up? Law enforcement said, I just got a phone call from this guy. That's what I would want to know. How early was this documented before a package actually arrived? I kind of suspect that once the package arrived, the reporter said, oh, I remember receiving a phone call. Then I questioned, is he telling, is that reporter telling the truth or is he looking for attention himself?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, they get a bunch of letters to different newspaper outlets and nothing can be attributed directly to the killer except for the package of her stuff. And the police suspect that the journalists are actually writing the letters themselves to get attention for the newspapers. And so any letter that came that could have really been from the killer was pretty much immediately dismissed because there was no information that was unique. And I know how important you say that is.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and again, here's. Now you have people who are wanting to insert themselves into the investigation. Either they genuinely think that they are helping or they get some level of satisfaction from the fact that they are part of the investigation. Even if it's so small as sending in a letter saying, hey, you need to look at so and so.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I think the LA Police Museum has a great display which is. They call them crank letters. That's literally what the display is, crank letters and Black Dahlia. So I wanted to put that one up. Okay. Another big break comes with the dumpster, what I refer to as the dumpster discovery. So January 25th, Elizabeth Black patent leather purse and one of her suede high heel shoes are recovered. And they had been reported the previous day by a cafe owner who found it, you know, in the dumpster. He had spotted the items. And this was about 15 blocks, about 2 miles from where Elizabeth's body had been found. He says they were not there the night before, Thursday night, the two days before. And he said that by the time the police acted, the trash had been collected and dumped at a nearby byproducts plant. And it's, you know, eight miles away from the cafe at this point. And they find the purse and the shoes. I'll tell you in a second the rest of the story about who identifies these things. But it's a big question mark whether this purse and this shoe belong to Elizabeth. Right.

[Paul Holes]

You know, and that becomes a question because if that is her purse and then he had the killer actually mailing or, yeah, sending in her belongings, you know, the purse is the source of that type of material. You know, but the question is, is that truly her purse? In this day and age, we might be able to do that with DNA or fingerprint technology. There isn't enough unique markings on this purse, at least on the outside, to be able to say, well, that just matches exactly. You know, it has to be Elizabeth's purse.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So Red is back in the picture, the one who dropped her off in LA to begin with, and he identifies the purse and the shoe as hers. The issue is, is that friends that she had said, we've never seen that purse. That is not her purse. And that's when the question is, is this even this woman's purse? Nobody knows for sure. Red says, in dramatic fashion, I can still smell her perfume on it, even though it's been in a dumpster for however many days. So I don't know if Fred's a reliable source here.

[Paul Holes]

Well, you know, here you. First, they have this suspect handling evidence while he's smoking a cigarette. No gloves, so there's a problem there. And second, this looks like.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I don't think he's lit that cigarette yet still.

[Paul Holes]

But there's a photographer, you know, capturing a photo of this. Is this the media, a reporter doing? I mean, this is just showing the media contamination. And in this particular case, yeah. I mean, and other types of contamination.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And, you know, the. The cafe owner says, I have no idea. They took this away, this stuff away before, after he had reported it. So he doesn't know whether it's hers or not. Anyway. Okay, so now we return to Mark Hanson, and this is another angle of him. So they start to focus on Mark Hanson, and I cannot understate enough how important it was for them to solve this case. I mean, the pressure was really incredible on lapd, and I think in some ways still is probably, otherwise they'd be looking for all kinds of help. And so they are looking again. They go back to every man that they could find in her life, and they end up finding some more. But they look at Mark Hanson because they start talking to mutual friends, and they said that apparently Mark had a yin for Elizabeth, and he treated her differently than other women that he had had in his life. He had two dresses tailored for her. He was ticked off when she would bring her boyfriend around. When they questioned him, he was giving contradictory statements, but not about, you know, anything that really had to do. It was more of, like, their relationship. It wasn't details about the case, but they search his house and. And bug it also, and they can't find any evidence. What do you think about that? You know, he's directly in her life, and it. Sure he liked her.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. You know, but at the same time, this is where, as I evaluate this case, you know, up front, I can't necessarily say, you know, of, like, the names of the men in her life. Anybody stands out above anybody else. I need to have a better understanding of the type of offender I'm looking for and as well as what kind of physical evidence might be present that I could use to either corroborate or refute statements that Hansen is. Is saying, as of right now, he's just a man in her life. There needs to be something more that says, okay, there's something about him that potentially could indicate that he is her killer. Right now, anything that you've told me is just. It's just not. That's just facts about him.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And, I mean, they're not going to let go of him just yet, but they're becoming very frustrated. So now we're back to the surgical precision and how they're convinced that all the way back to Jack the Ripper times. We know that with profiling, if there's something that looks even remotely like a doctor did it. Poor physicians were under fire for it. So given the precision of her body, the way it was cut, medical professionals become the early suspects. So Marvin Margulis, he was the one who was her boyfriend. He was a medical student at usc. She would live with him off and on, but she was also living at Mark Hanson's at the same time. He had gone through part of the war and was very traumatized. Ptsd and people said that it changed his personality. Personality pretty directly. In one psychiatric report, it said that. That Marvin had time and training where he had ample evidence of open aggression. Being resentful over, not granted instruction in operating technique, which it sounds like was probably a good idea not to give him instruction on that. There was no physical evidence, though. No.

[Paul Holes]

What? There's nothing there, to be frank. You know, this is. This is often what I see because I have fallen into traps myself, where I start taking a look at certain circumstances about a suspect and then go, oh, there's significance in the case to these circumstances where I have failed and where I often see other investigators or even. And especially in the online community is people are missing. You have to establish a nexus to the crime. You're looking for the person who. Person who actually committed the crime, not somebody who had some sort of geographic location to the general proximity of where the crime occurred. You need more, you know, and this is where you really. If you start getting somebody that you're really digging into, you start narrowing the scope, if you will, starting to focus in to where now all of a sudden, this man is showing a nexus to the crime one way or another. There's something that is now popping where you go, okay, now I've got something real versus he might have been in the area.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, so now we're going to go to a mysterious location where police wonder if this is where she was killed. Okay, so we're at the Astor hotel, and in 1949, there's a new investigator named Frank Jemison. He takes the lead. He learned. Now this is two years after this happens. He learned that there were bloody clothes that had been found in a room at the Astor Hotel, which was about four miles from where Elizabeth Short's body was found. It was described by people at the hotel, hotel workers that found it. It was blood soaked mattress and blankets. There were men's shoe prints that had been smeared and tracked, and human feces was all over the apartment. The asshole had unusual guest. According to people who were there. He was a man from Europe. That was unusual for them. And he stayed at the motel around the same time. I think they thought he was creepy. And now they go back to Mark Hanson because he's Danish. So this is where we're going here is, you know, they find this creepy guy. They have absolutely no physical evidence from this blood soaked scene because it happened, you know, a year and a half or two years earlier.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. And of course, you know, the, the blood soaked mattress, human feces. And I'll be talking about that in a little bit. You know, there is some significant aspects to that because of course we know Elizabeth has bled significantly. There's also aspects related to feces associated with her. Take a look at this motel. This is a motel in la. Is there a chance that there was another crime that commit was committed that had nothing to do with Elizabeth in law enforcement? I've been in, you know, hotel rooms and where now you have. Well, there's a lot of blood in here. It happens.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Wait, is that your phone?

[Paul Holes]

This is my, my Google assistant. It just started answering a question for me.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I need, I need you not that guy.

[Paul Holes]

So, you know, I think it would have been nice that somebody had reported that earlier and then they could actually have that evidence. But now you're stock, you're still talking about the 1940s. You know, at best, maybe ABO testing similar type. Now I think you had mentioned to me offline that she was type ab. Yeah, yeah. You know, and that's a rare blood type. So that would have been something that I would raise my eyebrows about. But two years later, and you know, the lead now is as well, who is the creepy guy? And then now is there a way to associate him with Elizabeth's death?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So far, you know, this guy is not. Mark Hanson is not directly connected except that he was in her circle so far and he had feelings for her. We don't understand the relationship. Okay, now we're going to get into, I would say two of the most publicized because they were in books, theories that are out here. There's a doctor who sounds like an awful person. His name is George Hodel. Oh, see, I heard it. Somebody knows about this name. Okay, so Detective Jemison, who had taken over. Now again, you guys, this is a year and a half to two years after this happened. He's taken over. He is starting to look at George because this guy is number one, a venereal disease specialist and a sex offender. So he first comes to the detective's attention in 49 because his 14 year old daughter. This is him 14 year old daughter accused him of hosting orgies, sexually assaulting her, impregnating her, and then forcing her to terminate the pregnancy. This is what the doctor said. And he goes to trial and he says she's a pathological liar. So to prove their point, the defense asks the daughter if she had told one of the male boarders that her father was a murderer of Black Dahlia. And she said she doesn't remember. And so they're trying to prove that she's a liar. And he is acquitted. And they bug his residence now in 1950, because Black Dahlia, anytime anybody mentions Black Dahlia connected to a man, this is at this point they're a suspect in the case. So they bug his residence, they record him saying, supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now, but when they try to link him to Elizabeth, the evidence doesn't hold up. But his son will circle back to it decades later.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah, yeah. And I think the interesting thing about, you know, on at least what is really known about George Hodel is he was an incestuous child molester. So he's a sex offender. And part of an investigation into a sexually motivated homicide is to start taking a look at, well, who are all the sex offenders in any particular area and start digging down on them. Even if there is no known connection between that sex offender and the victim, like with Elizabeth, All I can really say at this point, I can't tell you one way or another if he's the one that is Elizabeth's killer or not. I know that I have read his son's book and I'm unconvinced about the evidence that he has put there linking his father to Elizabeth's case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And so when we talk about that theory. So as Paul mentioned, his son has written, I think, several books. In 99, when George Hodel dies, his son, who is a former LAPD detective, becomes convinced that George was a sado sexual serial killer. I think sado sexual part is probably pretty accurate. I don't know about the serial killer part. And he believes that not only was his dad the killer of Elizabeth Short, but also the Red Lipstick Killer, the Green Twig Killer and the Zodiac killer. 2 out of 3 I think we should probably do on the show, obviously, you know, because they sound really interesting and I know you've looked into this sort of thing, this accusation, you know.

[Paul Holes]

I am into intimately familiar with the Zodiac case. I did some work on that. And that was a case that occurred literally in my Backyard, where I did my entire law enforcement career. I do not. I think what happened to Elizabeth Short is a completely different type of offender than who the Zodiac is, even though there is this narcissistic want for attention. But as I get into shortly, you will see that the types of crimes that these two offenders committed are so diametrically opposite from each other that I don't see where there is a connection. Now, these other things, the Lipstick Killer out of Chicago or the Green Twig Killer, I don't know anything about those crimes at all, but I often will see where people will start to what I call over link cases that they think, oh, the same offender committed these different series, and that's just a real phenomenon. I've seen the opposite. Where now everybody talks about linkage, blindness, it really does come down to evaluating the core of what happened to Elizabeth Short. And then that is where I would probably say I'm thinking there might be over linkage with George o' Dell being these other serial killers, particularly with Zodiac. I can't really speak about the other series.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. The other theory that I've read about is from Larry Harnish, who was a writer for the LA Times for 27 years. He was a feature story writer. And he believes that it was Walter Alonzo Bailey, who was a surgeon who specialized in hysterectomies and mastectomies. He has been proposed as a suspect because even. Well, Bailey wasn't even on the radar at the time for lapd, anybody else, or the FBI. But his office was just a couple of blocks from the Biltmore, where Elizabeth was. His estranged wife, Ruth lived on Norton Avenue, just a block from where her body was found. And there is, and this is what I thought was most interesting, there is evidence that Bailey and the Shortcut families knew each other, that Bailey's daughter, whose name was Barbara, was the maid of honor at Elizabeth's sister's wedding. So there's at least that connection. I think what ends up happening and what, you know, Harnish says is that Bailey's life was in shambles when she was murdered. At this point, he had not held a professional position for several years. He never recovered from the death of his son, who was 11. He deserted his wife for a younger woman. He had a big change in personality. He died of natural causes a year later. Okay, after Elizabeth died. But the cause was a lesion on the brain that can cause personality changes as well as dementia and, you know, urges for bizarre behaviors the way they described it. But there's still nothing. No conclusive anything with him either.

[Paul Holes]

No. And this is again, we get into where there's some circumstantial aspect. His office is near downtown LA where she was last seen. His ex wife is living on the actual road where her body is. So you could see, okay. He's. He's really upset with his ex wife. He goes out, does this horrific murder on this younger woman and deposits her body as sort of a message to his. His ex. Okay. You know that I could see a set of circumstances where maybe, but at the same time, it's just now sort of loose circumstantial stuff. And, and it sounds like, you know, the, the fact that Bailey was a surgeon that specialized in mastectomies and hysterectomies. Well, this is going to play into some of the wounds that Elizabeth's body exhibited. However, I will tell you, those wounds are for different reasons than a. And do not show somebody having a level of surgical expertise in how they were inflicted. Doesn't mean Bailey couldn't be the one who committed this crime and inflicted those wounds. You just can't draw the conclusion that it must be somebody who is. Has advanced medical training.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. I want to make sure we have enough time for you to be able to go through everything you want to go through with the details of what we learned about what was probably in the autopsy. I will shorthand very quickly what happens next. We don't know if there's any DNA evidence that had been collected. It looks like they wanted to try to get a toxicology test. They lost her organs in 1947. The speculation is they were thrown away after the autopsy. Post mortem report, as we talked about before, is not available. And, you know, it's been, I think, very, very frustrating. People have cried out that this is a cover up from the LAPD because they screwed up. Of course, they deny it. And they were able to analyze the blood from the fibers on her body. She's an ab, which, as you said, was a rare blood type. And they think that the bristles that were found on Elizabeth's body were made of a plant material, like palm tree fibers, which are used in cheap brushes, essentially. And they're trying to settle on time of death and the kill site, which they cannot conclude anyway. So at this point, you can kind of get into your details. Paul's got the stuff that I don't even want to look at, which is on his laptop. Let's just go through some of the more disturbing stuff, I think.

[Paul Holes]

Sure. So this, like I, I mentioned at the beginning, this is where I'm. I am going to be talking in graphic detail about her injuries and I am going to be talking about some offender behaviors that will be disturbing. This is a disturbing case to me. So just recognize that I am not showing any of the images at all. We actually talked about it because if I were in front of law enforcement, I'd be showing and saying, this is why I am forming this opinion. I have to verbally describe it. So just kind of be patient as I go through this and I'm going to kind of step backwards. I'm going to start with the post mortem aspects, which we've already talked about. She was cut in half and I've already explained, express my opinion. This happened post mortem. Even the pathologist who did the autopsy reportedly also formed that opinion. She was also stabbed three times in the center of her chest post mortem. This is now the, the, the offender is targeting her heart, right? He is ensuring that she is dead probably before she transects her body. That rose tattoo that of course, Elizabeth was very special. It was very special to her. Well, that was excised out. There is almost a perfect looking square, maybe three or four inches on each side. The margins of where that tattoo, the wound margins are indicating this was done post mortem. That tattoo was found in her vagina. It had been shoved up inside of her. When we see tattoos being excised nowadays, you know, typically I've got cases going back several decades in which oftentimes bodies are dumped, but the identifying features of the body are removed. And usually what we'll see is the head is gone, the hands are gone. Why? Because the teeth can be used to identify the person. The facial characteristics can, fingerprints can. The offender sometimes will excise tattoos because the tattoos are being recognized as a way that that body can be identified. So the offenders will take these steps to delay identification. I'm not sure this is what Elizabeth's killer is trying to do because he's leaving the tattoo within the body. And only he can really answer the question of what that means, whether that was. He knows that was important to her and he's just having, you know, a thought on how he can just further, you know, desecrate her. But that's where he is modifying her body post mortem. The marks on her wrists, her ankles and her neck, as I mentioned before, these marks are not deep, what we call furrows. And a pathologist can say, hey, I've got, you know, the skin will stay indented if, if somebody had been tied up. None of these are deep. I first can say she was not hung up to be bled out. No question about it. I will also say that the marks around her wrists and ankles are so light that if they were used to bind her, she wasn't resisting against that nor were they tied very tight. The important thing to me is the neck is that that also is not deep at all. It was not used to strangle her. The death certificate is not listing strangulation as, as cause of death. The neck is all soft tissue up front. When somebody has had, you know, cordage wrapped around the neck and pulled tightly, even if they're not killed, you sometimes see some significant furrows. That's not what's happening here. One feature that really stands out to me is there's a series, a linear series of circles marks on the backside of her neck. These marks, almost all of them are, look like they're the same size, they're evenly spaced and they're in a linear distribution. Some have attributed these marks as cigarette burns. They do not look like cigarette burns to me at all. This looks like a feature of something that was on the, pressed up against the backside of her neck. And I believe that it's very possible that that was the underside of a restraint that the offender was using to tie her down. She is in a five point restraint system and I use the term system loosely this, she, in my, my opinion, she is spread eagle and she is bound at the, the neck. The first thing I'm going to address is her right nipple and surrounding skin have been excised and that was never recovered. When I take a look at the margins of the wound to her right breast, it's showing that this occurred while she was alive. There is bleeding in the margins. As I further look at this, I can see where practically all the underlying breast tissue is present. Other cases that I've worked in which breasts have been excised, oftentimes the entire breast is removed. In this particular case it is the nipple and the skin on the sternal side, the inside chest part, it is a nice clean, straight margin. But then as you get to the outer side of this wound, it's scalloped. Well, this happens when you see the skin being pulled very tightly and then once the skin on one side is cut through, then the remaining skin forms like that. What do you want to call it? Fluting. And when it's cut through as it's stretched, the remaining thing is going to be in this scallop Thing this is hugely significant. This is the offender who is purposely removing her right nipple while she's alive. This is a sadistic act and we see this in certain subcultures. And I'm going to kind of go into some more aspects of her injuries and then talk about what I think is going on here. In addition, her pubic hair had been shaved and it was found inside her rectum. Her rectum had been dilated almost 2 inches and there was abrasions on the outside of the rectum. This isn't an act of sodomy. This is foreign object penetration. Possibly that foreign object was used to stuff the pubic hair up her rectum and probably doing other things at the same time. After the pubic hair had been shut, shaved, the offender took a knife and started cutting into her pubic region. And he's doing it in a cross hatch method where he's doing parallel lines one direction and then parallel lines going down the opposite direction.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And is that she's still alive.

[Paul Holes]

Can you tell? These are, these have hemorrhaging in the margins. She is still alive when the offender is doing this. So he is now inflicting pain on sensitive areas of Elizabeth's body. The smile, what people will call the smile. This is not a smile. What he has done is he has cut from both corners of her mouth, going straight back. He's not carving in to make it look like she's smiling. This is a functional thing that he is doing.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Doing.

[Paul Holes]

He initially is cutting into her upper right lip in that same crosshatch manner. What is he doing? He's inflicting pain around her mouth. Why? He wants her to open her mouth. If you don't want somebody to get inside your mouth, what do you do? You clench down you, you close your lips. What he has effectively done by doing these incisions almost all the way back to, to the ear is he has cut through the muscles that the victim had to use to keep her mouth shut. Once he has inflicted these incisions, he can now open her mouth at will. The pathologist notes that inside her stomach was feces. This is where it becomes. I mean, this is dark. This is where I teach law enforcement a serial predator course. And I start out by saying, know thy enemy predators, these sexual deviants, they do things that the average person would never ever consider. And you have to understand the various paraphilias that these guys fantasize about. And one of those paraphilias is coprophilia or scatophilia. This is sexual arousal. By feces. Either you're interacting with it yourself or you're watching somebody else interact with it. Some think that the transection of her body is why there was feces in her stomach. No, her intestine was cut up at the duodenal level. This is the top of the intestine where stomach contents are first entered into for the liver and the pancreas to start feeding their digestion digestive fluids to help do it. A pathologist will never ever misidentify that as fully formed feces. So if the pathologist was correct and she has feces in her stomach, she ingested it. Do you think she did that voluntarily? No. She is fighting against this offender by keeping her mouth locked while she is in this five point restraint constraint system. And he ends up going, nope, I can do this to you. And he does it. And so now he's putting my opinion, he's putting feces into her oral cavity and making her swallow. If she wants to breathe, she's going to have to swallow. It's also possible, based on the subculture that I think this offender is likely out of that there could have been a ball gay placed in her mouth as part of this restraint system. What was done to Elizabeth is done by a sexual sadist. This is the worst type of offender that you can run into. And I would not dismiss the possibility that this offender has a purpose built space to do this to women. How many times across the nation have there been men who have these torture rooms or dungeons found? Sometimes because they have committed homicide, Sometimes they're fantasized about fantasizing about doing it. Other times they're enslaving women. And that's a different type of offender. This is a sexual sadist. And so in my opinion, I think the most likely scenario is Elizabeth went out for a social night, she went to a bar, she went to a nightclub and she ran across a guy that somehow isolated her away and got her, whether it be in a bed and spread eagle. And now he is getting sexual gratification from inflicting pain once she is dead. Everything he's doing at that point is just matter of fact because sexual sadists get off on hearing the story screams, hearing the, the writhing that their victims are doing. There are case examples that victims who are being attacked by a sexual sadist, they play dead. They're like, I'm done. And these guys will push off and walk away because their sexual gratification comes from the torture that they are doing. When you look at like the right nipple you'll see if you watch part of what I've had to do. And this is part of. Because my mentor in the behavioral space, Sharon Hagan, says, paul, you have to see what these guys are looking at to develop their fantasies. Sharon would go into the adult bookstores and look at, you know, pull the books off the shelf and start taking a look at what these guys are consuming. And of course, now it's all online. If you pay attention to the hardcore BDSM porn, what do they do? They put clamps on these women's nipples and pull them super hard. If that were to be cut while it's being pulled like that, it is going to be exactly what happened to Elizabeth. The cross hatching in the pubic area. You know, the fact that I'm going to force you to open your mouth, in my opinion, is what's happening there. This is all part of this type of fantasy, the cross hatching technique with the knife. I mean, I know there's got to be artists and drawers in here. Crosshatching is a drawing technique. I would not be surprised that this guy had fantasy drawings. And part of what he's doing when he's doing this crosshatch in her pubic region is somewhat replicating some drawings that he's done. These offenders will do those types of drawings. Dennis Raider is a prime example of that. So Elizabeth's last moments of life were horrific. Now, how long, long could he have kept her alive? You know, was she alive four days and bound in this situation? I don't think so. I think there's some, some issues with the, the time estimates going on there. But when I look at what, what happened to Elizabeth, I'm going, this is a predator. And I start evaluating these suspects, and I'm going, you know, may, I can't eliminate them, but I'm going, no. You know, I think if I were to invest my resources, I'm thinking this guy has done other types of crimes. In fact, I found a photo. If you think this is somewhat. What happened to Elizabeth is completely unique. No, I had Michelle McNamara's researcher, who's an amazing digital space person. He found me a mutilated woman, mouth cut just like Elizabeth's right breast, almost completely excised, and the abdominal region cut wide open. This is what these types of guys do. So as an investigator, I'm taking a look at Hanson and Mann and hearing the details, and I'm going, you know, what, with what happened to Elizabeth, I'm just not seeing somebody doing that unless they have that Secret Life and just decided to go after somebody that they had an association, association with. But one of the series of cases that I ran across was a series of seven women, teenage girl up into, you know, more mature woman, if you will, that had, in the years prior to Elizabeth's case, had been killed by what was being described as this sadistic slayer. And I know Kate has some background information on that series.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yep. So this is the case that Paul was talking about. So this is from 1947, January 19th. So journalists from the LA Daily News and the Ventura County Star speculated that Elizabeth was the victim of what they called a mad killer or a sadist who had terrorized San Diego for 15 years. So they called him the West Coast Fiend. And he was believed to have sexually assaulted and murdered at least seven women in San Diego between 1931 and 1936. So here are five of them. So it's Virginia Brooks, Louise Touber, W.B. dolley Bybins, who is also known as Diamond Dolley, Hazel Bradshaw, maud Detwyer, and Mrs. Wesley Adams, and one other person, Florilla Kwolik. So what they say happened was that they were sexually assaulted, savagely, slashed sometimes as many as 17 times, and dismembered in one case, strangled. And the murderer transported their bodies to, well, trafficked areas where they were strange, certain to be found.

[Paul Holes]

So, so when I hear, you know, sadistically slain, you know, for me, when I use the term sadistic, that is a very specific term. This is where this person is getting sexual gratification by inflicting pain upon somebody else. The press uses the term and the general public will use the term different. So this is where I'm going. Okay? I have somebody that is committing crimes that potentially could be done by a sexual sadist. I want to know more details about this crime. But then there's certain behaviors, at least in the newspaper article, I'm looking at where I go, oh, hold on. There is something significant here. One of the women, I think it was Louise Tauber, you know, she's. She's raped, killed, and then moved to a different location where she is now strung up between two branches of. Of two different trees on display. He's posed her. Elizabeth was posed. Whoever killed Louise Tauber down in San Diego, he is wanting that shock and awe, just like Elizabeth's killer. So now I'm going, there is enough going on here where I want to know more about the San Diego cases. I personally think even though Elizabeth had a connection to, she had just come from San Diego, has that Connection to San Diego. I think that's likely coincidental. I think if this is the same guy, he's operating down in San Diego and then possibly relocates up to LA and then somehow some way crosses paths with Elizabeth, you know, and that's just my kind of working investigative theory right now, but it's just based upon. I'm interpreting what was done to Elizabeth going, this isn't Robert Hanson. This isn't, you know, these other guys, you know, can't eliminate it, but they are lower down on my priority list than, let's say, the guy that was responsible for the San Diego series.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, I have a question that I hadn't thought of before. Were you talking about the bindings on her feet and her. Her wrists and her throat? They weren't cut into the skin in a way where it looked like she was fighting really hard. Is that right?

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. It does not look like somebody that is, like, really fighting and abrading, but she is restrained at those five points. I'm absolutely confident of that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, what I'm wondering is, since they didn't get toxicology results because they threw away her organs, is there a chance that it's like that the lighter marks, because she was drugged really heavily when this was happening?

[Paul Holes]

I think there was a really strong chance of that. Plus, she also has blows to the head significant enough to cause some bleeding in what's called the subarachnoid space. The pathologist didn't think it was sufficient to have caused death in and of itself. But she also may not be fully cognizant, and that may be where she's overpowered. The offender gets her to a location, whether it be to his vehicle or inside his residence or a hotel room, and now he's overpowering her. She's not completely cognizant, and now he's able to get her restrained and then start doing the sadistic acts to her.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So now you know why I had so much anxiety about the Black Dahlia case. But we wanted to end, of course, with Elizabeth Short, because, you know, I have kids and Paul does, too, and my kids and his two youngest kids are basically, you know, within a few year range of her. And, you know, we don't talk about her mom or her siblings. She had four siblings, or her dad, for that matter. But so much has been focused on who did this that we know that the victims get lost sometimes, no matter how much she lied, no matter who she had in this black book, no matter what she did. You know, this was an illustration of just how terrible things can go. But, you know, at the same time, the fact that we're still talking about this case, I am hoping LAPD will reach out to Paul or somebody who can help. Right, right. And, you know, he has a good relationship with them, but it's a situation where there's a lot of resources out there, and, you know, certainly we're hoping to get a resolution to this. But regardless, I mean, what a life she could have had. She was 22, and things could have changed for her pretty dramatically. So this is one of the sadder stories. I'm sorry to leave it with you guys like this, but. But this is the reason why we do the show, so that we remember victims. This is why we do it.

[Paul Holes]

Yep. You know, and I just want to thank everybody for, you know, sitting through this, and hopefully you have a better understanding of this case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And thanks so much to iheart and Divergent. And you gotta get started on that true crime only cruise, just like the murderous lady or something. I don't know. Thank you all for joining us. We're very Bones. Thank you so much.

[Paul Holes]

Thank you very much.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Paul Holes]

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi, research.

[Paul Holes]

By Alison Trouble and Kate Winkler Dawson.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

[Paul Holes]

Our theme song is by Tom Breivogel.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive.

[Paul Holes]

Produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, and Danielle Kramer.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook, buriedbonespod.

[Paul Holes]

Kate's most recent book, all that Is Wicked, A Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And Paul's bestselling memoir, Unmasked My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

[Paul Holes]

Listen to Barry bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Whenever I got through the window, I tried to pick him up, and his body was stiff.

[Ben Westoff]

I'm Ben Westoff, and this is the Peacemaker, a true crime podcast about a string of mysterious suicides at a Missouri university and the fraternity brother tied to them all, Brandon Grosse.

[Paul Holes]

The lawsuit says Grosseim was one of the last people to see each victim before their deaths.

[Ben Westoff]

Was he profoundly unlucky, or was something much darker at play? Listen to the Peacemaker podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridger Weiniger]

When you host a podcast called I Said no Gifts you hope your guests will understand the directive. Yet every week, my guests show up and spit in the face of etiquette by bringing a gift I didn't ask for. Take Pola Scola. You said no gifts, and I respect that boundary. But once you open it, I can explain and hopefully it'll make sense. I'm Bridger Weiniger, and this is my curse to bear. New episodes of I Said no Gifts from the Exactly Right Network drop every Thursday. Listen to I said no GIFs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bridget Armstrong]

I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast the Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues.

[Bridget Armstrong]

By talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

All, we basically sold our souls and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, why don't you help her?

[Bridget Armstrong]

Listen to the Curse of America's Next Top model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.