For Monday, we have a mysterious fellow. His companion has been cropped out due to lack of mysteriousness and will appear later in the week.
Note: This week’s mystery movie does not involve gorillas, amusement parks, or current or former inmates of the Mystery Movie Jail. Continue reading
This is the Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case for October 2026.
The Black Dahlia Book Club will meet October 27, 2026. The next Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case will be November 3, 2026.
I am auctioning for charity a signed first edition of Michael Connelly’s The Drop starting today and ending with the Black Dahlia Book Club on October 27. The winner will donate the bid amount to a charity of their choice in memory of Elizabeth Short. Send me proof of the donation, and the book will be in the mail.
Send bids to LMHarnisch@Gmail.com with “The Drop” in the subject field. I will post the bids (if any) once a day.
Reminder: Do NOT dress up like the Black Dahlia for Halloween.
In this episode, I discussed Killer in the Code and Team Connelly’s scam in suppressing evidence that clears their suspect. And as for “Everybody counts or nobody counts,” does Elizabeth Short count except as fuel to propel the solution? How about the Zodiac victims? And Georgette Bauerdorf? These are just empty words on a coffee mug.
I also discussed: Continue reading
I recently had a very pleasant chat with Daniel Curtis regarding the Black Dahlia case, British vs. American sensibilities about murder, the English and American schools of mystery writing (Agatha Christie fans, be warned), Sherlock Holmes, Renaissance drama, Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Crippen, Jack the Ripper – and Mozart.
Give it a watch!
Welcome to the ninth session of the Black Dahlia Book Club!
I finally got tired of talking about George Hodel and Steve Hodel (at this point, I know Steve’s monologues from memory) so I decided to spend some time looking at portrayals of the murder and the investigation. I consider myself first and foremost a historian of the Black Dahlia case, and think it’s important to examine the source material in detail to emphasize the challenges of researching the murder of Elizabeth Short.
The high bidder on an inscribed first edition of Michael Connelly’s“The Narrows is Kostadin Hadzhibanov. Congratulations! The book will be on its way once I receive proof of a donation in the winning amount to a charity of your choice in memory of Elizabeth Short.
Coming soon: The auction of a signed first edition of Michael Connelly’s The Drop with the winning bid going to a charity of one’s choice in memory of Elizabeth Short
Next month: Black Dahlia Ask Me Anything, October 6 on YouTube.
Links:
Joan Renner: “James Ellroy Presents Elizabeth.”
LAPD Public Records Request on the Black Dahlia (pdf).
In this session, I discussed the Los Angeles County coroner’s files and the LAPD files in the Black Dahlia case. I also discussed: Continue reading
Here’s another panel you’ll never see in the sitcom legacy version of “Peanuts.” A cynical Snoopy?
A man phoned Lee Warburton the other day and complained indignantly about his failure to expedite the street work which was blocking the caller’s driveway. “If I’d known this was the way you handle things,” he exploded, “I wouldn’t have voted for you last election!”
“Last election?” Warburton echoed. “I didn’t run for office last election.”
“Yes you did,” the caller insisted. “I distinctly remember voting for you.”
And so Warburton patiently, despairingly informed him that it was six years ago that he retired voluntarily as a councilman representing the east section of San Fernando Valley and that since then he has been a private citizen in public relations work. Continue reading
Los Angeles Times Interview
Capturing the Essence of California Architecture
October 9, 1994
By Steve Proffitt, Steve Proffitt is a producer for Fox News and a contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition.” He spoke with Julius Shulman at the photographer’s home in the Hollywood Hills
In 1960, Julius Shulman took a photograph that, perhaps more than any other single image, conveys the style, grace and allure of postwar Los Angeles. Inside a steel-topped glass box balanced lightly on a hilltop, two young women in white cotton chat, while the City of Angels sparkles below. It is a picture both nostalgic and modern, the work of a self-taught photographer who truly invented himself.
In 1936, Shulman used a vest-pocket Kodak to snap a shot of a Hollywood home designed by architect Richard Neutra. A brash 26-year-old, he showed the picture to Neutra, and a career was born. Neutra hired him to photograph some of his other projects, and introduced the young photographer to such other leading West Coast architects as R.M. Schindler, Raphael Soriano and Gregory Ain. Shulman’s dramatic prints played an important role in establishing an international reputation for these and other Southern California architects, especially during the ’50s, a period many consider the golden age of Modernism. More than any architect of that era, he created a public image of the California style of design. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
October 9, 1907
Los Angeles
She was known as Trellis C. Harris or Trellis Blessing—or Edna Hall. But her method was always the same. She would commit some theft, then fake an epileptic fit, spitting up blood from a capsule hidden in her mouth.
The new Wednesday night shows debut, with Gene Barry in “Bat Masterson,” a short-lived series that tried to capitalize on the popularity of the TV Westerns.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
October 8, 1907
Los Angeles
Health officials and a deputy district attorney have joined to urge the Board of Supervisors to ban fishing within a half-mile of the city’s Hyperion line that pours sewage into Santa Monica Bay.
This week’s mystery movie was the 1943 Universal film The Mad Ghoul, with David Bruce, Evelyn Ankers, George Zucco, Robert Armstrong, Turhan Bey and Milburn Stone.
Courtesy of University of Southern California, on behalf of the USC Special Collections.
October 1, 1910: The Times Building in flames, as seen from Broadway just south of First Street. Notice The Times Eagle outlined by the fire.
El Alisal, October 1, 1910:
This is a sad day for me and for every other man that loves Los Angeles.
At one this morning I was dictating to Brownie and heard a terrible roar in town and remarked that it sounded like dynamite and just casually thought it might be The Times.
Sept. 30, 1886: We decided to dig out the original quote from Joe Mozingo’s history of the Los Angeles Times in Sunday’s paper. And let it be said that the editorial pages of frontier newspapers were not known for their decorum. A little context: Virtually all frontier newspapers wrote like this in the 19th century and are most entertaining.
But summoning a photographer “for an obscene purpose” to take a picture of the exhausted (and presumably passed out) survivors of a night of debauchery? Nothing is new, is it?
On the jump, the entire, unsigned, editorial, plus a little technical difficulty delays deliver of The Times.
Boxie and I will be doing a live Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, October 6, 2026, at 10 a.m. Pacific time on YouTube. The next Black Dahlia Book Club is Tuesday, October 27, 2026, at 10 a.m. Pacific time on YouTube.
In this session, I’ll give an update on the book, discuss the latest developments in the murder of Elizabeth Short and pick away at my backlog of questions.
Reminder: Don’t dress up like the Black Dahlia for Halloween.
Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them!
Mayor Bowron asks 117 commission members to quitGermany issues a new ultimatum on Czechoslovakia and King George VI places Britain under a state of emergency as President Roosevelt makes another plea for peace.
Quote of the day:
“I have done all that one man can do.” –Neville Chamberlain
Italian leader Benito Mussolini says war in Europe is inevitable and tells his generals that fighting will begin in two or three days at most. Thousands of foreigners flee Italy by every available train and boat.
Note: This is an encore post from 2006.
September 28, 1907
Los Angeles
Members of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club have written to officials in support of a measure banning loud exhaust pipes on motorcycles.
“The motorcycle club says that it has been making a direct crusade against open mufflers and that all members of the club are forbidden to open their cycle mufflers within any city or town limits,” The Times said.
“We wish it generally understood that those riders of motorcycles making this ‘popgun’ noise, which causes so many complaints, are not members of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club,” the group said.
This week’s mystery movie is the 1941 Monogram film King of the Zombies, with Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, Mantan Moreland, Henry Victor, John Archer, Patricia Stacey, Guy Usher, Marguerite Whitten, Leigh Whipper, Madame Sul-Te-Wan and Lawrence Criner. Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2005 and originally appeared on the 1947project.
And then he was gone as if he had never been here at all. The hundreds of people who threw themselves at his feet to kiss the hem of his robes or simply to occupy the chair where he had been sitting were nothing but a memory.
He was Avak Hagopian, a somber 20-year-old from Kharadag in Azerbaijan, and working in Tehran as a mechanic—or a goldsmith—the stories vary. He paused one day as he was about to bring down a mallet and was struck with a vision, a vision that returned twice more. With faith in God, he would cure the sick, the blind and the diseased. The young man with the dark, intense eyes grew a beard and let his hair flow to his shoulders. He became “Avak the Healer” or “Avak the Great,” performer of miracles.
Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1943 Columbia film What a Woman, with Rosalind Russell, Brian Aherne, Willard Parker, Alan Dinehart, Edward Fielding, Ann Savage, Norma Varden, Douglas Wood and Grady Sutton. Continue reading
This week’s mystery movie was the 1928 Universal film Lonesome, with Glenn Tryon, Barbara Kent, Fay Holderness, Gustav Partos and Eddie Phillips.
