In the February 2026 Ask Me Anything on the Black Dahlia case, I gave an update on my work in progress, Heaven Is Here!
I discussed — yet again — the absurdity of trying to link the Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases. Here’s a link to Elon Green’s January 23, 2026, article in Defector. Continue reading
For Monday, we have two mysterious guests. This is mysterious guest No. 1. Continue reading
Black Dahlia: Murder, Monsters, and Madness in Midcentury Hollywood, by William J. Mann, Simon & Schuster, 464 pages, January 27, 2026, $31.
Like a game of Clue with an actual cold case to solve, a well-worn list of suspects in the 1947 Black Dahlia killing released 22 years ago continues to provide the “true” crime community and the multimillion-dollar industry that feeds it with endless possibilities for speculation and, occasionally, another book.
Was it the murderous Dr. George Hodel at the Sowden House in a gruesome attempt at surrealist art? Mob nightclub owner Mark Hansen at the Florentine Gardens hiring morgue-trained assassin Leslie Dillon to take care of a troublesome dame? Army butcher Carl Balsiger in a fit of violence?
All of them are fakery and fraud by writers Steve Hodel (the ongoing Black Dahlia Avenger franchise launched in 2003), Piu Eatwell (Black Dahlia, Red Rose, 2017) and Eli Frankel (Sisters in Death, forthcoming in October 2025) who, if they read all of their source material, knew their suspect wasn’t the killer and proceeded anyway. Truth is the first victim for a “true” crime author with hopes of making The New York Times bestseller list and everything that goes with it. Continue reading
Notice the item about the police psychiatrist. This post will eventually be filled by Dr. Joseph Paul De River.
By GREGG BARRIOS
WATSONVILLE, Calif. — “I still remember the first time we heard Ritchie sing on the
radio,” the mother of the late Latino rock ‘n’ roller Ritchie Valens recalled about that distant day, almost 30 years ago.
“I told his brother Bob, come on, let’s go to Saugus. I had some business there. I had a 1950 Olds then. The body wasn’t too good, but I paid $50 for each tire and I bought five. I pulled over to the side of the road
when ‘Come On, Let’s Go’ came on the radio. We just sat there looking at each other amazed.”
In those days, before son Ritchie became
a star, the family lived in the San Fernando Valley. Mrs. Consuelo (Connie) Valenzuela would often take her kids to the Spanish-language movies, especially to the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles where they would see master comic Cantinflas and Mexican charro/singer Tito Guizar. “I always thought you had really arrived when a film made it to that theater,” she remembered. Continue reading
Feb. 2, 1938
Los Angeles
After watching The Times twist and turn to avoid saying exactly what the victims in the Paul Wright case were doing when they were shot, we finally get around to it–sort of. Here’s the setup: After a night of heavy drinking by everyone involved, Wright has gone to bed, leaving his wife, Evelyn, and best friend Johnny Kimmel in the living room.
Wright said he was awakened by the sound of the piano and went to investigate, although it was claimed that he merely hid in the bedroom and watched the couple using a full-length mirror on the bedroom door. Continue reading
February 2, 1907
Los Angeles
Conditions at Chutes Park are so bad that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is making a second inspection to see whether operator J.B. Lehigh has made any improvements before his Feb. 20 trial on charges of abuse and neglect.
Chutes is nothing more than a mud-filled stockyards of suffering animals, The Times says. “The ‘park’ is a long puddle of filth, reeking with slime and mud. In the pen where three little does are confined, one of them so emaciated that it is literally hidebound, a thick green scum has formed over the stagnant pool of slime that occupies a good share of the particular part of the ‘park’ where these poor little animals are shut up.” Continue reading
Among those who went along on American Airlines’ first jet flight to New York a few days ago was this paper’s Bill Thomas. His colleagues felt the event should be commemorated, and as the hour for departure neared they gathered solemnly around the city desk and each contributed 25 cents for a $25,000 insurance policy on his life.
It is hardly necessary to mention that newspapermen are lacking somehow in reverence for the things most people hold dear. Doubtless this comes from seeing
civilization at its worst.
“As the plane goes down,” one said, “it should be comforting for you to know you are doing a nice thing for your friends.” Continue reading
It’s commencement week, but the proudest graduate in Southern California today isn’t from any institution of learning.
He went through his ceremony in a shabby Ocean Park store-front dwelling crowded with friends whose combined arrest records could overflow the filing cabinets of any middle-sized town in the country.
Most of the guests, like the graduate, were former gutter dope addicts.
A couple of months ago I wrote about their experiment in “communal kicking” of the habit.
The group calls itself Synanon. Continue reading
Note: This is a post I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.
It is difficult to believe that there was a time when newspapers published rape victims’ names and addresses, but the Herald-Express had no misgivings about it. Aggie Underwood, Herald reporter and eventually the city editor of the Herald Examiner, said she once had to go out eight weeks in a row and interview rape victims. Since this woman may still be alive, I’ve deleted her name and address.
Attacker
Masked Man Assaults
Girl at Gun Point
A young masked gunman early today attacked an attractive 18-year-old girl in the Hawthorne district after forcing her to enter his automobile on 161st Street near Hawthorne Boulevard.
January 31, 1944
Today we have:
—“Random Harvest” with Ronald Colman and Greer Garson on Lux Radio Theater. Courtesy of Archive.org.
Note: This is a post I wrote in 2007.
January 31, 1907
Los Angeles
Showing once again that Los Angeles is out of touch with Sacramento, local health officials are fighting an education bill that would lift mandatory smallpox vaccinations for schoolchildren.
Vaccinations were opposed for several reasons in the Legislature. Assemblyman Sackett objected to placing the burden of enforcement on schools. Assemblyman Percival, a Christian Scientist, apparently objected to the measure on religious grounds. Other opponents said the only reason health officials supported the shots is to protect their jobs.
Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2007.
Dec. 7, 1906-Dec. 22, 1906,
Bakersfield
January 1, 1907
Los Angeles
For 15 days, miner Lindsay P. Hicks lay trapped by a cave-in that killed his five companions tunneling in a mountain above the Kern River for an Edison hydroelectric project. On the 16th day, crews finally cut through the last of the steel and scraped away rocks and debris to free the man who had been kept alive with gallons of milk poured down a 60-foot iron pipe.
At first, Edison officials assumed that no one survived the collapse of the tunnel. Then someone heard the faint signal tapped on one of the steel rails for the mining cars: the code for “trapped miner.” The iron pipe was driven through the side of the mountain to provide air and food as Hicks lay either under a rail car or next to it, sheltered by a pile of collapsed timbers that prevented him from being crushed. Continue reading
January 29, 1944
It’s Saturday in 1944 and today we have
— “The Unwilling Accomplice” on “Nick Carter, Master Detective.” Courtesy of Archive.org
Note: This is a post I wrote in 2006 for the 1947project.
Wanted: Thief Who
Took 3 Snakes
SAN GABRIEL, Jan. 28—Chief Frank L. Carpenter sent out a police broadcast tonight for capture of the boldest and most daring thief in San Gabriel’s history.
The suspect is wanted for stealing three rattlesnakes.
The reptiles were taken from the automobile of Joseph Gerle, snake authority of North Hollywood. Gerle was lecturing at the Town House, 900 W. Santa Anita Ave. Continue reading
Jan. 29, 1934: Gold hidden in network of tunnels under downtown Los Angeles! Continue reading
Note: This is an encore post from 2007.
January 28, 1907
Los Angeles
“If my career seems strange to you, it seems stranger and more incredible to me,” Gen. Homer Lea once said. And indeed it was, for Lea’s life was the tale of a poor and badly handicapped boy’s adventures as a leader in an exotic foreign land.
His 1912 obituary in The Times begins: “His great work finished, the pitiful, wasted little body of the American boy who overthrew the tattered old Chinese empire lies silent in his home in Ocean Park. Gen. Homer Lea died yesterday.
Jan. 27, 1950: It’s difficult to figure out exactly what happened at the Riviera Country Club between actor/golfer Joe Kirkwood Jr. and singer Johnny Johnston. At one time the men and their wives were very chummy, apparently. Then Shirley Temple divorced actor John Agar and there were rumors. Kirkwood and Johnston encountered each other at the Riviera, words were exchanged, etc., etc. Tracked down at a beauty parlor, Temple said she knew nothing about the incident and didn’t care.
Boxie and I will be doing a live “Ask Me Anything” on the Black Dahlia case Tuesday, February 3, 2026, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube.
*Note, I bloopered at one point saying “next Thursday.” It’s “next Tuesday.”
From the California State Archives
Los Angeles, Calif.
Jan. 27, 1928
Mr. Myron Clark,
Assistant Clerk,
Reprisa, Calif.
Dear Sir,
I want to thank you for the nice letter you sent me in answer to the
letter I forwarded Mr. C.S. Neumiller in regard to my husband Walter J.
Collins (#12824).
It pleases me to know that Mr. Collins’ conduct has been so good and
that it is to his credit. You know, Mr. Clark, my husband is not a
criminal but he just made a great big mistake due to financial worries
and the prolonged illness of his dear mother. Continue reading
ladailymirror.com 