I’ll have more to say in the first Ask Me Anything session on the Black Dahlia case, January 6, 2026, at 10 a.m. Pacific time, on YouTube.

The flurry of interest in the latest claim of a “solution” in the Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases, using Machine Learning/LLMs/AI is more evidence that unsolved murders exert a powerful magnetism on one another in the public imagination. Killings that are separated by many miles, many years and entirely different methods become “related” in the public mind.  Are the Black Dahlia and Zodiac cases related? No, they are not, except perhaps in the supermarket media. This is the sort of “Ruined Temples Found on Mars”  story we used to see in Weekly World News.

Did Marvin Margolis kill Elizabeth Short? Here’s an excerpt from the LAPD summary on the case saying that he and his roommate, Bill Robinson, were investigated and eliminated.

I’ll have more in January, but here’s a final thought: Is it any wonder that Elizabeth Short’s family maintains their privacy and refuses to discuss this case? Every time some crackpot theory surfaces with “new evidence,” it merely dredges up all their suffering. I don’t blame them in the least.

Can’t make the live session? Email me your questions and I’ll answer them! I’ll also get to the backlog of questions from previous sessions. The video will be posted once the session ends so you can watch it later.

Also remember, I’m launching the Black Dahlia Book Club on the third Tuesday of the Month at 10 a.m. Pacific time on YouTube, which will look at books, articles and other treatments of the Black Dahlia case. The focus will still be on George Hodel and Steve Hodel, who is the most prolific writer on the Black Dahlia case and his father, but there will be other voices as well.