All Things Morbid

Come for the crime, stay for the snark, or just come for the snark.

recent posts

  • Aaaaaannnnnddddd…..Scene!

    THE FINALE!!! The last post in this 9 post series! I know I’m ready for something new. And it’s not just the finale of these posts either- I’m on the last episode of season 5, Only Murders In The Building! Did the Nana of the Cacicmelio family kill Lester after Lester allegedly killed Nicky to save the Arconia? Sorry for spoilers anybody. This title also works out for our suspect this time round- the acclaimed director, actor, and writer….Orson Wells!

    Cue the gasps of surprise, the murmurs of shock….

    Yeahhhh its not that deep.

    So I’m like when anybody is talking about Orson Wells, “Yeah, I know about him. How? Why, he was a possible suspect for one of the most horrific unsolved murder cases in human history.”

    A perfectly reasonable response, right?

    Moving on…Mary Pacios. Anybody know her?

    Well, she’s a writer, and she was an anti-war activist during the Vietnam war- she also takes nightly Tai Chi classes. Respect.

    Anyhow, Pacios wrote the book ‘Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story Of The Black Dahlia Murder’, in 1996 detailing her theory on why Orson Wells might be the killer.

    What a killer book name.

    …

    What an amazing joke, Pip. You are just the most amazing and funny person on earth- Oh stop it, you’re making me blush.

    Cue the girlish giggles

    [What a horrific sound.]

    Cough cough we ignore everything in the past 3 sentences and get back to the main topic.

    Pacios told the Salon, “Well, see, his name came up a few times. [I]t was just his name kept cropping up.” Suspicious, no?

    Pacios believed that Welles might have had a condition called diphasic personality- a condition often attributed to serial killers in which a person could become violently aggressive when frustrated. Pacios also pointed out that in a magic trick he performed in the 1940s, he pretended to cut women in half and mannequins Welles designed with mutilated faces just like Short’s for the movie ‘The Lady From Shanghai’, which debued in 1947- though the mannequins were never used.

    So those are the facts.

    There were 9 main suspects- that I found- who were believed to have something to do with this godawful crime.

    Who was it?

    We shall never know- unless we do.

    And that is all for the Black Dahlia.

    Also, if you want to know more about the investigation and the police files about the Black Dahlia, all the files you can access for free on the FBI’s website.

    Goodbye dear readers,

    Et soyez prudent!

  • A long, long, unnecessary intro, [Please forgive me] And a Columnist and a Surgeon butting heads…

    Okay guys, I’m back! Yes, I know, after like 2 weeks—maybe 12 days—of absolutely no posting whatsoever—I am back! So about the absence of posts- I do have a life actually [ Hehe, ignore what I said in previous posts… ] and was out in the big wide world, living it. If you call hours of grueling hiking with only two pieces of chocolate to sustain you, ‘living it’. [Okay, okay, so in reality it was only one hour, maybe an hour and a half, but that’s not what it felt like to my body….I play DnD, I’m not an athlete.]

    Moving on…..Yes, I am aware I am not talking about the Black Dahlia in any shape or form, or the deranged surgeon some people suspected. That will begin…. [ I look at the expensive Rolex on my wrist that I do not have..] now.

    So, the police long suspected that the killer was a surgeon or doctor of some kind- they needed to have some kind of medical knowledge and skill to execute the cutting of the body into two parts so cleanly and precisely.

    So now we have a profile: A surgeon, maybe retired, probably a man. Of course, there is George Hodel. But there’s another person believed to have killed the Black Dahlia…

    Walter Bayley.

    L.A Times columnist Larry Harnisch believed that this surgeon was the one to do it.

    In 1996, Hernisch started digging up some info about the Black Dahlia murder- finding some unsettling connections between Bayley and Short.

    Get this: Short’s body was found in the near vicinity of his ex wife’s house. A 45-second walk to be exact.

    The thoughts in Bayley’s mind while he’s walking that 45 seconds: Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious..

    He was suspicious.

    Moving on, Hernisch also found out that Bayley’s daughter knew Short’s sister [ She had three sisters] and Bayley had an office near the Biltmore Hotel, which we know is believed to be the last place Short was publicly seen.

    So now comes the theory, crazy as it may be: Harnisch believes that the doctor, fresh from a divorce -Love trauma, always a good motive- and maybe suffering from an undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, may have crossed paths with Short at the Biltmore Hotel- maybe they spent a few days together. Maybe something happened to incite Bayley’s rage. Maybe Short rebuffed him. Maybe she told a lie she had told before; having a son who died at a young age. Bayley is credited at having a son that died at a young age, and Short’s body was found 2 days after the anniversary of his death. Maybe Bayley killed her because he figured out her lie and killed her in a blind rage.

    Maybe this happened, and maybe that happened, all we do know is: Something happened. Something happened from when Robert Manley dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel, and when she was found dead in Leimert Park.

    Maybe I should stop saying maybe and maybe I should wrap up this post.

    Maybe.

    Goodbye my dear readers, and a hope for the future: Saying maybe at the end of a sentence will become the new ‘not’.

    Goodbye, and I’ll write soon. Maybe.

  • The One Characteristic That Is Every Where: Red

    Okay! So this is the 3rd to last post about the Black Dahlia and its suspects. Who else is counting down? ‘Cause I definitely am. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I do love writing about this stuff, but the Black Dahlia…There is a lot to write about.

    Anyway, aside from my emotional distress about everything I have to write about which actually isn’t that much and it’s just me procrastinating, lets talk about Robert ‘Red’ Manley.

    So, a married red-headed pipe clamp salesmen called Tobert- I mean Robert. Robert. Definitely not Robert with a T so its Tobert in the 3rd season of Only Murders In the Building…

    Anyway, Robert Manley was believed by the Police to have been the last person to see her alive, which, as we know, is suspicious in itself. Manley told the Police that he first met Short in late 1946- he struck up a conversation with her on a street corner.

    Manley “asked if she wanted to ride, she turned her head and wouldn’t look at me.”

    “Finally she turned around and asked me if I didn’t think it was wrong to ask a girl on a corner to get into my car.”

    And then they became best friends.

    Sort of.

    When Short needed a place to stay after the holidays she would send Manley a message to come pick her up. Like her own personal Uber.

    So now we get to the part where I explain why the police labeled him as the last person to see Short alive.

    ….

    ….

    Riight, I actually have to explain for you guys to know. Ugh, Work. Carrying on with the case, Short had Manley drive her to L.A- to the Biltmore Hotel to meet a sister that did not exist. When the so-called ‘sister’ hadn’t showed up by 6:30, Manley left Short at the hotel, and drove home to his family.

    So, was Robert ‘Red’ Manley a murderer, you think?

    …Or was he just a really oblivious man who didn’t know how to strike up a ‘normal’ conversation with a girl on a street corner?

    I think the latter.

    And, as the wonderful Pip puts it [The book character, not..well, me. But I am wonderful too. Definitely.] in A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder: “There’s a million discrepancies about that night.” Though I think that line’s from the TV show, and not the book. Which you should watch by the way. Emma Myers stars as Pip Fitz-Amobi and she is really good. She also played Enid in Wednesday- Who else is excited for the 3rd season coming out?

    Excuse me being a fan-girl for a whole paragraph. The trials of writing a blog post and trying to stay on topic.

    Woe is me.

    Now imagine a graceful close of my eyes and a deeply sad and profound delivery of those words.

    Not a teenager using her ‘optimistic cynicism’ as some people put it – You know who you are – to mock the word and be entirely worthy of the crown of the drama queen- which I totally deserve.

    I’ve been ranting. I’m sorry. Bad Pip, bad Pip. I, um, switched on to ‘Dobby’ mode there for a second. Totally happens to people- a common occurrence.

    BACK TO THE TOPIC THIS POST IS ABOUT…..

    Though the police did consider Manley as a suspect, he passed a polygraph test with flying colors. No suspicious behavior. Unlike some people I can name…Cough Cough, George Hodel, Cough Cough.

    Manley suffered the rest of his life with his mental health, and although the police deemed him innocent, he died with a stain of suspicion still directed at him.

    So ‘which of the Pickwick triplets did it? Who of the crew could commit this crime?’

    Another season 3 Only Murders In the Building Reference- I am full of them today.

    Until my next post, dear readers, and a reminder: Don’t get into red headed pipe clamp salesman’s cars just because they asked if you needed a ride. Or just any anyone with hair, no matter what color it is. And people with no hair. They can also be murderers who want to kill you.

    Adios!

  • Quote Of The Month:

    “Hell is empty,

    And all the devils are here.”

    -The Tempest

  • Another Needed Father-Daughter Therapy Sesh

    We have a re-do of our darling father-son pair, Steve and George Hodel. Now Janice Knowlton and her papa George Knowlton, take center stage.

    Janice wrote up her theory that her dad was supposedly the culprit of one of the most grisly murders ever in her 1995 book, ‘Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer‘.

    Talk about a killer name.

    Hehe.

    Okay! So now that I have paid my dues to the god of dad jokes and have become a pile of goo on the floor because of embarrassment, [Don’t worry, figuratively, not literally- no mess for the janitors to clean up] let’s see what other important\interesting stuff there is to make fun of, yeah?

    So, [imagine me rubbing my hands together in an evil fashion] as Janice wrote in her book, she had started to remember things that happened to her as a child- memories she believed she suppressed in the late 80s. Her father had died quite a bit before this, but Janice seemed to remember a disturbing memory- a memory of which the contents were of her father murdering a young woman Janice knew as ‘Aunt Betty’.

    Suspicious, right?

    Janice wrote on to claiming that she saw Elizabeth Short being beat to death by her father with a claw hammer in their family home in Westminster, California. And that her father forced her to accompany him as he disposed of the body.

    Wow. It sure is a very detailed theory. Sort of.

    But all of this, based on just a suppressed memory? With no solid evidence?

    Seems more like a stretch to me.

    Janice’s step-sister seemed to believe that too.

    Even said that Janice’s book was ‘trash.’

    Even though the L.A Police were aware of Janice’s claims, they didn’t follow up on it. Which, with the results they were getting with the case….well, I would take every theory I could get.

    So besides commenting on how the police did such a great job with the investigation of the Black Dahlia case, what else do we have?

    John P. St. John, – What a name by the way – an LAPD homicide detective said, ‘”The things she is saying are not consistent with the facts of the case,” to the Los Angeles Times in 1991.

    Even with all this hate, Janice and her co-author, Michael Newton, argued that there was evidence tying George Knowlton to Elizabeth Short. Like, they claimed that the police had a suspect called ‘George’ – George Hodel, anybody?- who drove a tan car. Just like George Knowlton.

    And, guess what?

    A man who dated one of Short’s roommates -Congrats!- said that he met a man named ‘Georgie’, -Really?- who’s interests and background information eerily matched George Knowlton.

    Woah

    Okay, so this one is a bit more…far-fetched than the other, but don’t you see the potential?

    …

    I will be back with another post about a red-haired suspect who was a taxi driver- and if you have watched the British Sherlock on BritBox with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, you know that taxi drivers are suspicious…and are serial killers with a creepy boss called Jim Moriarty.

    Right…..

    Don’t die, wonderful viewers- but if you do, have your ghost send me the details so I can write about it.

    Cos that’s how people say goodbye now-a-days.

  • A less tantalizing one…A Gangster, A Newspaper Publisher, And A Creepy Uncle

    This theory is less well-known\ widespread one- Short gets pregnant, the father of the child enlists a gangster to kill her, you know. A Standard Saturday. [ You see what I’m doing with the alliteration?]

    So, what do we think? Did a gangster known as Bugsy Siegel kill Short because he was enlisted by Norman Chandler, the publisher of the L.A Times, who was the alleged father of her unborn child?

    Seems like a stretch.

    So if you were wondering who was the genius and/or majorly paranoid person that came up with this theory, I present: Donald H. Wolfe, author of 2006 book The Mob, The Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.

    Hey, he’s almost as good as me at naming things.

    ‘Cause I’m just the best at creating amazing names for my posts, right?

    Like, ‘A less tantalizing one…A Gangster, A Newspaper Publisher, And A Creepy Uncle‘, is such a unique and eye-catching name, just the best.

    …

    So, Wolfe grew up knowing a man called ‘Uncle Vern’- a evil name if I ever heard one. [ Sorry, Uncle Vern’s of the world.] This Uncle Vern supposedly had worked for the gangster- and over the years, he has seemed to suggest that Bugsy Siegel had something to do with the murder of Elizabeth Short.

    Until our amazing theorist Wolfe had pointed at Chandler and Siegel, they had not been considered proper suspects- Before I carry on, let me give you a little history lesson.

    Bugsy Siegel had risen to power in New York City before moving to L.A in the 1930s.

    He poured millions of dollars into the Flamingo Hotel in Los Vegas- jump starting the city’s growth, before- wait for it- being mysteriously murdered himself on June 20, 1947.

    How about that? Maybe it doesn’t mean anything, and maybe it does.

    So Wolfe argues that Siegel’s implausibility makes him such a good Black Dahlia suspect.

    Me? I’m not so sure.

    But for now, we say goodbye to paranoid theorists, creepy uncles, mysteriously-murdered gangsters and a publisher with an alleged malicious agenda.

    Goodbye my 5 subscribers and people who read my post but don’t subscribe and that makes me feel really sad, so sad I spend my free time crying on my bathroom floor…..

    Kidding! I don’t do that. So ridiculous. No, I spend my free time investigating everyone who reads my posts but don’t subscribe and I find ways to end them.

    …

    I don’t have much of a life if you can’t tell.

    Adieu,

    Mon Viewers.

    [ Pretend I said that in a totally authentic french accent.]

  • 3 Insane Musketeers…And A British Author

    Hi Guys! I’m Pip, and today I’m going to talk to you about murder!

    How was that for a cringe intro? My sister recommended it to me. Go figure.

    Anyway, today we focus on 3 alleged murderers: Mark Hansen, Leslie Dillon, and Jeff Connors.

    Okay so this motive is kind of the oldest one in the book- A deranged sociopath falls in love, he gets rebuffed, then a remake of “If I can’t have you, no one can,” sends his two henchman to kill the girl in a grisly old fashioned murder. To us in the ‘True Crime but Make It Stomachable Club’, this is just a typical Tuesday, but for all you simpletons out there I will explain in due course.

    [ Sorry if I offended anyone with that last comment.]

    You see, in her 2017 book, ‘Black Dahlia, Red Rose,‘ British Author Piu Eatwell argued that Jeff Connors and Leslie Dillion carried out the murder of the Black Dahlia at the command of Los Angeles night Club Owner, Mark Hansen.

    The 3 Musketeers. Who aren’t french.

    As Eatwell lays out, the belongings of the Black Dahlia the alleged killer sent to the Los Angeles Examiner and other L.A newspapers – Remember? That happened all the way back in Confessions, Blind Dates, And Media Madness, for the old-timers- a few days after her death, which only adds more suspicion in the case. Anyone remember the address book with the name Mark Hansen inscribed on the cover?

    And that’s not even the least suspicious thing.

    So, allegedly, Short had spent a few nights with Mark Hansen- but she rebuffed him. Enter the murdery, [that is probably not a word- actually it is most definitely not a word] psycho phase that led to him to plan Short’s murder with the rest of the ‘True Crime But Make it Especially Gruesome So When Writing About It The Writers Have To Censor Information,’ Club.

    [ They’re our rivals here in the ‘True Crime But Make Its Stomachable’ Club.]

    So, 2 years later- Yes, 2 years later- the LAPD gets a break in the case- God knows they need it, the poor guys having to investigate this case for, like, 3 years and then having to deal with wannabe detectives who blog about the case online….

    Where were we? Right, a break in the case. A man called ‘Jack Sand’ called the police and started to make claims about the Black Dahlia case- he said that a man called Jeff Connors killed Short because she had threatened to reveal “an affair not considered proper by the average person”.

    AND JUST WAIT.

    Jack Sand’s real name was Leslie Dillon.

    And he just happened to work for Mark Hansen in the past.

    Don’t you think that it ties up nicely?

    But the 3 musketeers were never charged. Of course they weren’t, otherwise you wouldn’t get this wonderful blog.

    Carrying on, because there’s never enough evidence that does stop the police from arresting people, Eatwell also adds that Short was killed at the Aster Motel- Dillon was staying there, and the motel owners actually admitted to finding a room covered in ‘blood and fecal matter’, around the time of the killing. Witnesses also remember that they saw a dark-haired woman who looked like Short, and a man that resembled Hansen.

    …

    So do y’all still think its George Hodel?

    Or the 3 Musketeers?

    Who aren’t French.

  • 7 Suspects, Cement Bags, and Anxiety Ice Cream

    Hello people who read my blog!- Which, sadly, is not that many. I write here today the final post of the Black Dahlia trio, Suspects! Like a messed up version of Jeopardy! There was 7 main persons of interest that our dear LAPD and FBI had. We’ll start one at a time. And when I say one at a time, I mean it. To further draw this mystery out, I will be posting one post per suspect. And, you guessed it, this post will be about George Hodel.

    George Hodel:

    Steve Hodel, George Hodel’s son, suspected his father was the Black Dahlia killer after he found a tiny photo album containing two photos of a dark-haired woman with an uncanny resemblance to Short while cleaning out his father’s house, who had passed away. After finding this, Steve decided to do more investigating on the subject. He found some pretty compelling evidence.

    George Hodel was a doctor; he would have had the skill to cut Short in half. His handwriting also seemingly matched the cards to the handwritten notes to the newspapers and Police. And, the cherry on top, he had purchased concrete bags shortly before Short’s death, which matched to bags at the crime scene. And with this much evidence against him, how was he not arrested!!!???? …..Just wait. It gets better.

    And I mean the story gets better, not the blog, because the blog is already the best it can be, right? Right?

    …The blog will also get better. I hope.

    So aside from the clear show of teenage anxiety and self-consciousness that you all got front seats to, what else is new? [ But let’s be honest people. My anxiety has always been here. We’re actually pretty good friends. Sometimes we go grab ice cream together….]

    LITERATURE!!!

    Yes, literature. Okay, so what I’m talking\writing about is actually really old, like 22 years old. Like when the dinosaurs were alive, right? I mean, I wasn’t even alive back then, in the dark, dark ages of 2003. So yeah, this information isn’t strictly ‘new’, but humor me. Steve Hodel published all this information in a book he wrote- the Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story

    But that’s not where this ends.

    No, not even close. Close is over here, and being close is over there, and close to being close is-

    Anybody get the reference? No? Okay…

    So because we human beings are paranoid little things, one of us decided to fact-check Steve’s story. This happened to be Los Angeles Times– Because we love rip-offs of the NYT- columnist Steve Lopez. According to the Guardian, Lopez asked for more information of the Black Dahlia murder. They sent over a couple of old files. And guess what he found?

    George Hodel was an actual suspect. The police had suspected him. And they did not arrest him. And yes, it makes for a weak case. Just some cement bags the same brand as the one used to transport the body, handwriting that matches the handwriting of the alleged killer, photo graphs of the victim when there was no clear connection between them….A pretty weak case. Definitely. So weak.

    But the next evidence brought it all together. As Lopez dug deeper, he found out that the police had bugged George Hodel’s home- Yes we are still talking about George Hodel; I do realize that I haven’t mentioned him by name in a while- in the 1950s. On Feb 19, 1950, the recording device picked up a woman’s scream. Later it recorded George – Cause now we’re on a first name basis because I’ve spent so much writing about him- talking to another person, and George said, “Realize there was nothing I could do, put a pillow over her head and cover her with a blanket. Get a taxi. Expired 12:59. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. “

    Then, as if that wasn’t suspicious enough, George added, “Suposin’ I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my secretary any more because she’s dead.”

    ….

    It was like he was thinking, ‘Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious….

    He was suspicious. Very suspicious. And yet….Imagine I say something wise here.

    So, what have we learned? Anxiety makes a good friend to get ice cream with, this blog will get better allegedly, and……Oh! George Hodel may very well be a murderer.

    Thank-you for reading, and the next potential murderers -Yes, murderers, plural- I’ll be writing about is a possible love interest, and a henchman.

    Have a good day, and remember: Make it Morbid.

    😀

  • Quote Of The Month:

    “In this short life that lasts merely an hour,

    How much,

    How little,

    Is within our power.”

    -Emily Dickinson

  • Quote Of The Day:

    You say you love rain, but you open your umbrella.

    You say you love the sun, but you find a shady spot.

    You say you love the wind, but you close your windows.

    This is why I’m afraid.

    You say you love me too.

    – Unidentified Person