So you may not read any Black Dahlia books before watching “I Am the Night.” But you may turn to Google. You should be warned.
BlackDahliaSolution.org may be the worst of the websites on the Black Dahlia case simply because it is still online and causing problems. BethShort.com, an outlet for the late John Gilmore, went dark a few years ago (more about that later).
BlackDahliaSolution.org was run by an oddball named John Frederick “Jack” Kohne Jr., who died in 2016. His obituary says:
Deeply introspective and complicated, Jack lived his life true to himself and his beliefs and accepted and embraced anyone and everyone’s truth of their unique perspective of the world around him.
Kohne gave us supposed killer “Ed Burns,” some crudely retouched photographs and a scenario that will sound weirdly familiar, especially if you are a fan of the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise.
If you look closely at Kohne’s photos of Elizabeth Short, you will see that Kohne made some bizarre, primitive alterations.
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Obviously, anybody who is making crude, bizarre changes to the photos of Elizabeth Short has a problem, no? Read this. Or try to read this:
Kohne gets super, super crazy about secret messages in the crackpot mail generated by the Black Dahlia case.
Somewhere along the way, Kohne derived the name “Ed Burns” out of these messages by anagramming it from “Maurice” as in “Maurice Clement.”
There was no Ed Burns. Ever. And yet “Ed Burns” gets enormous attention among armchair sleuths.
From one crackpot website, “Ed Burns” spread around the Internet and became part of the “hive mind” on the Black Dahlia.
Although some people are skeptical – or confused.
Note: I’m aware of Black Dahlia in Hollywood, but I’m not a member and would never go into it.
But here is one of Kohne’s doctored images that you might recognize. Graphics editors of various websites and news outlets love this picture because it looks real. But it isn’t. Kohne took the original photograph, cropped it slightly and dropped it into a scan of the Daily News front page.
Here’s the real front page. I have had to make obnoxious watermarks on my images because people treat anything related to the Black Dahlia case as clip art. Websites, book covers, pretty much everywhere.
Perhaps you think you can detect all of Kohne’s B.S. and filter it out.
No, you can’t. Because one of the Kohne’s craziest ideas …
Are you ready for it?
Is that the killer left Elizabeth Short’s body on south Norton Avenue as a pointer (is this starting to sound familiar?)
To Degnan Boulevard … Why yes. You may recognize Kohne’s crackpot theory because it shows up in the “Black Dahlia Avenger” franchise! A crackpot theory is bad, sure, but what’s even worse is stealing someone else’s crackpot idea.
And it’s even in Wikipedia!
So no, your B.S. filter will not save you when crackpot theories show up on Wikipedia.
“Deeply introspective and complicated, Jack lived his life true to himself and his beliefs and accepted and embraced anyone and everyone’s truth of their unique perspective of the world around him.”
Well, that’s as dirty a crack about someone I’ve ever read in an obit! That’s like when they say “she loved everyone she ever met!” What was she, nuts?
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RE-posted on twitter @trefology
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