Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line XVIII

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe uses the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.Now, I am taking a few requests before wrapping up the project. Today, we’ll look at Pages 277-281 at the request of Mary Pacios.

The two-minute executive summary:

Wolfe claims he had an insightful 1962 conversation with Herald City Editor Aggie Underwood during a cruise on the Queen Mary. The only problem is that Wolfe says he was “on hiatus” from “The Loretta Young Show,” which went off the air the year before. And 1962 happens to be the year the Herald-Express merged with the Examiner, so as city editor, Underwood had to deal with joining the two reporting staffs and a threatened Guild strike. And she received an award in Denver in June of that year. Unless I see ticket stubs and pictures of them together, I won’t believe it.

And Wolfe goes into some mumbo-jumbo about how Norman Chandler of The Times was best friends with Arthur Lake (you’ll recall Lake has a major role in John Gilmore’s “Severed,” although in reality he didn’t know Elizabeth Short because—as we find in the district attorney’s files—Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944 or 1945). And that Norman Chandler was the best man at the wedding of Lake at—Hearst Castle. I would love to see pictures of Chandler hanging with rival publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Don’t miss the rehash of the fake story about Mickey Cohen’s weapons for Israel scam. Or the Leslie Dillon affair. And then another slam on Dr. Leslie Audrain.

In fact, let’s revisit the Leslie Audrain saga.

Now our only source for Audrain being an abortionist is the self-published book “Thicker ‘n’ Thieves” by disgruntled former Police Sgt. Charles F. Stoker. Recall that Stoker was accused of trying to shake down a convicted abortionist (Eric Kirk, a chiropractor). Recall that he had an affair with Policewoman Audre Davis, his decoy who is the only source for any claim whatsoever that Audrain was offering abortions. Davis said she went to Audrain’s office and talked to a nurse (she never came within a mile of Audrain, apparently).

Stoker says that an unidentified supervisor of the medical board’s investigators unexpectedly came back from vacation and learned about Stoker’s sting operation.

Stoker says that when he and Davis went back for the appointment, Audrain’s office was….

Locked!

In fact it was locked all week!

The locked office, therefore, is conclusive proof that the medical board supervisor tipped off Audrain. And proof that Audrain was an abortionist.

And let me interject a little something about the local investigators for the state medical board in the 1940s. They are not anonymous. Their names were Maynard Youngs, Sterling W. Brooks and Walter Anderson. Brooks was accused—and cleared—of taking a bribe from an abortionist so he could stay in business (Brooks claimed the abortionist stuffed district attorney’s investigators’ marked money in his pocket) and Youngs’ widow was accused of performing an abortion on a 13-year-old girl. (The charges were later dropped for lack of evidence, by the way).

Nice folks.

Now, let’s turn to Page 257

“Operated by a group of MD’s who were paying protection money, Stoker told the Grand Jury that the leader of the abortion ring was Dr. Leslie C. Audrain, whose office was in Room 417 at 1052 W. 6th St. in Los Angeles. Stoker found that Audrain had a criminal record as an abortionist and worked under a number of aliases—including Dr. C.J. Morris and Dr. Scott. The designated LAPD unit responsible for apprehending and arresting abortionists was the Gangster Squad but Stoker had discovered that they only arrested abortionists outside Audrain’s abortion ring who were not paying protection money.”

Whew!

The Wolfe says: Page 258

Dr. Leslie C. Audrain allegedly committed suicide at his home in Pasadena on May 19, 1949.

Now, how does Wolfe know that Audrain was in Room 417? Because that’s not in Stoker’s book.

Well he’s going to try to attribute it to this note by Lt. Frank Jemison of the district attorney’s office, and reproduced on Page 274. Apparently we’re only supposed to notice the room number (417) and not the address, 3122 W. 6th St.

I swear, the man can’t read what’s in front of him. Take a good look at Jemison’s note. Notice that he has written “3123? And “311” That’s because 3122 W. 6th St. doesn’t exist.

Oops.

But let’s have some more fun (fun being a relative term for a total research drudge).

I got out my 1942 Los Angeles city directory and looked up Dr. Audrain. You know what his office number was?

Go up to the top of the page and check the scan.

What’s this? He lived in Santa Monica?

But Wolfe keeps saying he committed suicide at his home in Pasadena.

Incroyable.

Now while I had the 1942 city directory out, I looked up a couple of other people.

Like Wolfe’s father, Sailing Wolfe, who is never mentioned in “The Black Dahlia Files.” Gosh, looks like he had a radio shop at 547 S. Western Ave. Why that’s less than three miles from what Donald H. Wolfe portrays as Dr. A.E. Brix’s abortion emporium at 125 S. Lake St. And since Sailing Wolfe lived in Beverly Hills, he’d have to go right past it…. Looks like Sailing Wolfe was 3.8 miles from the Biltmore. And 2.9 miles from the Florentine Gardens? Say you don’t suppose….

If I were a different kind of human being, I could get really nasty.

And here’s somebody else I looked up. Robert T. Gilmore Jr., father of “Severed” author John Gilmore. Your eyes aren’t fooling you, he’s a crime-busting stenographer.

Take a look at that long list of abortion arrests I posted yesterday. That is literally every one I could find over a 10-year period. Notice that Dr. Leslie C. Audrain does not appear on the list, despite Wolfe’s contention that Audrain had a criminal record for performing abortions. Note further that the vast majority of those who were arrested were chiropractors and osteopaths, with a telephone operator, laborer and haberdasher thrown in for good measure.

Did you note the arresting officers in the 1948 and 1949 cases? Detectives Ed Jokisch and Lloyd Burton? Wouldn’t it be great it we could talk to them? Well we can. Ed Jokish is a friend of mine and is still going strong in his 90s. I sent him a copy of Wolfe’s book to get his opinion. Without using Ed’s exact words—he was a sailor in World War II, don’t you know—he’s furious about it and says the book is totally false. And he doesn’t have anything good to say about Steve Hodel, author of “Black Dahlia Avenger” or Vincent A. Carter, author of the self-published book “Rogue Cops.”

Oh this book. I could just throw it against the wall except it would leave a grease mark.

Page 279

“Because there was no ecchymosis in the surgical procedures, and Elizabeth Short had died from the bludgeoning and knife cuts to the face prior to the abdominal incision, we know, therefore, that the uterus, along with the fetus, were removed after Elizabeth’s death. The abortion was post-mortem.”

Well, there’s only one problem with all of this. Wolfe knows what it is because he got access to the district attorney’s files. Recall that this book is titled “The Black Dahlia Files” rather than the more appropriate “What I Pasted Together From the Black Dahlia Files” or the more appropriate “Severed: 2006.”

Because Page 4 of the LAPD summary of the case—in the district attorney’s files—says:

“There is a square pattern of superficial criss-cross lacerations in the skin of the right hip. The organs of the abdomen are entirely exposed. There are lacerations of the intestine and into both kidneys. The uterus is small and no pregnancy is apparent. The tubes, ovaries and cul de sac are intact.”

Got that?

The uterus is small.

No pregnancy is apparent.

Wolfe is lying and knows he is lying.

That’s it for this stupid book today.

Shout out to:

Singapore (220.255.168.252)

Romania (82.76.28.95)

Canada (216.123.180.34)

France (80.124.192.14)

Malaysia (202.133.101.83)

Argentina (200.82.24.119)

Unknown (208.104.74.172)

My old pal in Kerkira, Greece (213.80.115.71)

Sweden (212.73.174.180)

Lake Forest, Calif. (66.18.154.210) 12 hours!

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line XIV

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe uses the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks. Now, I am taking a few requests before wrapping up the project. Today, we’ll continue with Page 219 at the request of Regular Anonymous Correspondent.

Interested parties have made inquiry as to whether I’ve heard from Wolfe regarding my little note about the faked document on Page 198. Well, “faked” is such an ugly, loaded term. Maybe I should say it has submaximized factuality. No, I haven’t.

Page 219

Let’s see. Wolfe is talking about his stepfather Jeffrey Bernerd, finally mentioning that he died in 1950. Oddly, Wolfe goes on about Bernerd’s many friends—Winston Churchill, Lowell Thomas and Charlie Chaplin—but leaves out his dad, Sailing Wolfe, and his great-uncle Bernard Baruch. I’m baffled that in a book full of name-dropping, Baruch is one name that is never mentioned.

Wolfe’s mother meets Ben Williamson, who is identified as being charge of the Time-Life office in Beverly Hills. Wolfe says Williamson got Howard Hughes’ last public interview, regarding the “Spruce Goose,” a nickname that Hughes hated as I recall.

Wolfe says Williamson played poker with Ben Hecht, Jack Warner, Sam Goldwyn, Joe Schenck, Harry Cohn and Mark Hellinger. Wolfe also claims Hecht was tight with the mob from covering gangsters during his days as a reporter in Chicago.

Wolfe says Hecht socialized with Bugsy Siegel, Alan Smiley and Mickey Cohen and that in 1950, Hecht and Cohen held a charity gala at Slapsy Maxie’s to raise money for Jews in Palestine.

“Hecht gave an impassioned speech to the crowd of bookies and Hollywood dignitaries and more than $200,000 was raised that evening for the cause—but somehow the money never arrived in Palestine. Mickey Cohen explained that the boat carrying the cash was torpedoed and sunk, but Ben Williamson and Hecht always suspected that the money went down in one of the big game pots up at Hecht’s Angelo Drive castle.”

Hm. Well, frankly, I’d be perfectly happy to take a pass on this one since it has absolutely nothing to do with the Black Dahlia. Still, it presents some juicy targets for a total research drudge.

Even without the end notes, I recognize one familiar story and that’s the old chestnut about the fake fund-raiser for Israel. I can’t recall exactly where I read this story, but I believe it’s in Mickey Cohen’s autobiography. The idea is that Cohen would stage a fake benefit, plant an item with Aggie Underwood at the Herald-Express, and pocket the money. It could be in another mob memoir. I’m thinking the one by Jimmy “The Weasel” Fratianno.

Let’s see where Wolfe got this stuff. Only one source: Ben Hecht’s “Child of the Century,” Pages 610-613. Not one of the books in the haz-mat pile.

Well, let’s put this through the standard fact-checking torture test.

Ready for some ugly research?

Let’s start with Ben Williamson. I expect this material to be true or mostly true. Of course with Wolfe, one never knows. He claimed to be on hiatus from “The Loretta Young Show” during 18 months when it was off the air.

OK, we can confirm Ben Williamson was Time-Life bureau chief in Los Angeles in 1951 (Los Angeles Times, June 15, 1951). Appears to have been in Los Angeles in 1953, based on a search of the Time website. So there was a person named Ben Williamson and he was actually Time-Life bureau chief in Los Angeles. This puts Wolfe way ahead of John Gilmore’s “Severed,” which is loaded with people who don’t exist. I’m not going to chase this any more unless it starts looking fishy.

Ooohh. Howard Hughes on the cover of Time? We can check that on Time’s website. Shall we? Oh lets! Well, Time had Hughes on the cover July 19, 1948. Hm. Seems to be about Hughes at RKO. Now I would love to be able to bring you the entire article, but it costs money to subscribe. Here’s the link if anybody cares to pursue it.

Uh-oh. Hughes gave his last interview in 1958 to Frank McCulloch of Time Life? I guess that’s if you don’t count the 1972 conference call Hughes staged to rebut Clifford Irving’s book. For sale on EBay?

So much for that. Just a little old Hollywood resume padding. Let’s check on Hecht and Angelo Drive. Hm. Beverly Hills. That’s going to be a little hard to confirm with my limited time and it’s really unrelated to the Black Dahlia. I’ll pass.

How about this 1950 bash at Slapsy Maxie’s? Golly. Guess when Van de Kamp’s bakeries took over Slapsy Maxie’s and turned it into a coffee shop? (Los Angeles Times, March 10, 1950). This little fete doesn’t seem to have gotten any ink in The Times. Isn’t that just so peculiar?

AHA! Now this is what makes research so rewarding. I refer to Robert Rockaway’s “American Jews and Crime: An Annotated Bibliography,” found in American Studies International, February 2000, Vol. 38, No. 1.

Oh I like this. Rockaway does my kind of research:

“Mickey Cohen’s book, ‘In My Own Words,’ while something of a
classic, must be used with caution. Although Cohen presents useful
insights and reminiscences about his life in crime and his Jewish
underworld associates — among them, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel —
a number of his assertions must be treated with a healthy dose of
skepticism.

“This is good practice with regard to all criminal memoirs, since mobsters tend to justify their actions, distort their motives, and lie. For example, Cohen writes that he always believed that “Jews should behave differently and more correctly.” Yet he threatened, extorted, and beat Jews when it suited his purposes.

“Another example involves Cohen’s activities on behalf of the Irgun,
the underground Jewish organization in Palestine led by Menachem
Begin. According to Cohen, he “would do anything for a cause that
was right, especially Jewish causes.” Cohen became especially enthusiastic about helping the Irgun when he learned that “these guys actually fight like racket guys would. They didn’t ask for a quarter and they gave no quarter.”

“Accordingly, Cohen helped stage fund-raising affairs that raised thousands of dollars to purchase weapons and had them shipped to Israel. Cohen’s account remained the generally accepted version until the publication, in 1984, of the memoirs of Jimmy “the Weasel” Fratianno, a self-confessed Mafia killer turned government informer.

“Fratianno knew Cohen well. When he was not trying to kill Cohen, Fratianno socialized and worked with him. Cohen invited Fratianno to one of his fund-raisers, which was held at Slapsy Maxie’s restaurant in Los Angeles. Fratianno admitted being awed by the affair. “The place is packed. I’ve never seen so many Jewish bookmakers in one place in my life,” he remembers. “They’re all there. Famous actors, producers, big shots in the community. It’s a full house.” Fratianno claimed that nearly $800,000 was raised that evening.

“Because he distrusted Cohen, Fratianno remained suspicious of his motives. Fratianno asserted that Cohen would never let hundreds of thousands of dollars slip through his fingers. His doubts increased when he read a story in the Los Angeles Herald that reported that an unnamed ship carrying arms for the Jews in Israel sank in the Atlantic Ocean during a storm. These were the weapons supposedly purchased by Mickey Cohen.

“According to Fratianno, Cohen had a girlfriend who worked at the Herald. “This broad would walk on hot coals for Mickey,” he claims. Consequently, she printed anything Cohen gave her. “The way I see it,” says Fratianno, “Mickey called her and made up a story about buying guns and ammunition
for the Jews with the million raised at the benefits and then told her
the boat sank. A few unknown people died, some were saved, and
she prints it on his say-so.”

“Other sources disparage both men’s claims. Yitzhak Ben-Ami
headed the Irgun’s European-based illegal immigration operations.
In 1947, the Irgun sent him to the United States and he helped organize the fund-raising affairs Cohen and Fratianno spoke about.

“Ben-Ami claims that “between $50,000 and $60,000 was raised,” not
the hundreds of thousands that Cohen and Fratianno refer to. “The
Jewish underworld contributed all together about $120,000 for the
Irgun,” says Ben-Ami.”

This is worth repeating:

“His assertions must be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. This is good practice with regard to all criminal memoirs, since mobsters tend to justify their actions, distort their motives, and lie.”

Time for my walk

Shout out to:

Pollo Loco? (64.164.183.65)

Hearst (65.212.0.194)

Department of Defense Information Center, Olongapo, Philippines (214.1.3.248)

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line XII

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe uses the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.Now, I am taking a few requests before wrapping up the project. Today, we’ll continue with our examination of Page 218 at the request of Mary Pacios.

I hope Wolfe doesn’t lean so heavily on Vincent A. Carter’s “Rogue Cops” today. Yesterday’s go-round was quite time-consuming. Poking holes in one bad book is hard enough; poking holes in two bad books is even worse.

Page 218

Oh, thanks a lot, Mary!

We have a whole cast of characters to untangle today. And there's no way to make this short or easy. It's going to be tedious.

Now before we get started, let me emphasize yet again that according to the district attorney’s files, Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944 or 1945 (recall that this book is titled “The Black Dahlia Files” rather than the more appropriate “What I Pasted Together From the Black Dahlia Files” or the shorter “Severed: 2006”).

First, our cast of characters, in order of their appearance:

• Fred Otash, a disgraced former LAPD officer, referred to by James Ellroy as “The Late, Great Freddy Otash.” Ellroy says Otash was a snoop for various scandal magazines of the 1950s and there has always been speculation that he had knowledge of—if not participation in—one of the famous Mickey Cohen attacks. What’s certain is that Otash was accused of brutality in the 1940s for roughing up a street preacher at Pershing Square. I know, because it’s in the minutes of the Police Commission in the city of Los Angeles archives.

• Ray Pinker, head of the LAPD crime lab.

• Norman Chandler, Wolfe’s target of choice in his scenario that Elizabeth Short was pregnant with Chandler’s love child.

• Arthur Lake, a CDP (conveniently dead person) who played Dagwood in a string of 1940s movies and is a key figure in John Gilmore’s “Severed” (25% mistakes and 50% fiction) involving the Hollywood Canteen and murdered socialite Georgette Bauerdorf. “Severed” goes into a long, fictitious tale of Elizabeth Short knowing Bauerdorf, having them work together as junior hostesses at the Hollywood Canteen, etc. Recall that Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles when Bauerdorf was killed in October 1944. Oops.

• Brenda Allen, a notorious madam of the 1940s who was implicated in a huge scandal involving the Los Angeles Police Department.

• Dorothy Chandler, wife of Norman Chandler.

• Patricia Davies Van Clive—boy, you got me on that one. Wolfe identifies her as Lake’s wife, but after he mixed up the Murphys, I’m just not sure he can keep track of anybody. Ah, no wonder I can’t find her in Proquest. Her name was Van Cleve. Oops. Well this is odd. Wolfe identifies her as “said to be the niece of actress Marion Davies.” But the Jan. 26, 1928, Times obituary on Marion Davies’ mother, Rose C. Douras, refers to Patricia Van Cleve as a granddaughter. Doesn’t seem to be much question about it, eh? And when Marion Davies’ father died, Patricia Van Cleve is listed in the April 27, 1935, Times obituary as a granddaughter. A July 6, 1937, Times story refers to Lake and Van Cleve, so presumably they were married by then.

• Arthur James, a convicted forger who served two years for violating the Mann Act. James came forward after Elizabeth Short was killed, claimed he met her in 1944 (remember, Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944-1945) and took her to Arizona, where he was arrested. James is a prominent figure in “Severed” (25% mistakes and 50% fiction).

• G.K. Chesteron. Wow, I hope Wolfe doesn’t accuse him of killing the Black Dahlia! As soon as I see the name of a CDP (conveniently dead person) I start to worry.

Oh, whew. Wolfe just says he was a fan of the Father Brown books and says his stepfather knew Chesterton. Odd, isn’t it, that Wolfe never mentions his father, Sailing Wolfe, or his great-uncle Bernard Baruch?

This is funny, Wolfe (Page 217) describes Otash as an “illustrious private eye.” Well, I suppose if you consider it illustrious to work for Confidential magazine, be convicted of doping a race horse (The Times, May 12, 1960), and being called along with Mickey Cohen to testify on racketeering (The Times, March 14, 1959) then Otash fills the bill. In a Nov. 27, 1981, Times article, Otash claims he and his partner beat up Johnny Stompanto and dumped him in the Hollywood Hills without his clothes.

Right.

Got everybody straight? OK, here we go:

Wolfe says:
1. Otash “had been ensconced at the California Club, where he kept the distinguished residents and power brokers of the city under surveillance for Ray Pinker and the Gangster Squad. According to Otash, it was at his California Club suite that Norman Chandler rendezvoused with women who were often brought there by his playboy friend, actor Arthur Lake, who was on Brenda Allen’s “A” list. Although Dorothy Chandler did not care for Lake because of his licentious lifestyle, Lake was one of the few people Norman was close to. They had been best friends for many years, and Norman had been best man at Arthur Lake’s wedding to Patricia Davies Van Clive [Cleve], who was said to be the niece of actress Marion Davies.

2. Arthur Lake had first met Elizabeth Short in 1944 at the Hollywood Canteen. Both their names had been found in the Bauerdorf diary, and Lake admitted that he knew Elizabeth when he was brought in by the Sheriff’s Department for questioning.

3. If Arthur James was correct—that Elizabeth Short had been pregnant when she was murdered, and the father of the unborn child was Norman Chandler—it would explain the extraordinary efforts by the Chandler faction at City Hall to cover up the secret circumstances of the horrendous crime.
It will be interesting to see how Wolfe attempts to pull this off; like watching slow-motion video of a card cheat.

Let’s dispense with the easy things first.

We can dump Paragraph 3, because we dealt with James’ claims yesterday. I’ll simply add that there is nothing to show The Times didn’t do its best to compete with the Examiner on the Black Dahlia story. I would say, without getting out a pica stick to measure them, that The Times and the Examiner devoted roughly the same number of column inches to the story, although The Times did play the story inside. Again, The Times considered itself the city’s family paper, contrasted with the more sensational Hearst publications.

Paragraph 2 is false because Elizabeth Short wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944. Therefore, her name wasn’t found in Georgette Bauerdorf’s diary and Arthur Lake couldn’t possibly have admitted knowing Elizabeth Short. He couldn’t have known her. For the record, when Bauerdorf was killed, authorities interviewed every single person who worked at the Hollywood Canteen. If Elizabeth Short had been a junior hostess there, she would have been interviewed.

I imagine Wolfe’s source is “Severed.”

To the end notes, Watson!

Holmes!

My, aren’t we lightly sourced on this page? Especially considering the allegations involved.

OK, Paragraph 2 is hung on “Severed,” Page 154, just as we surmised. Except the material is really on Page 155.

But then, incredibly, Wolfe says he interviewed Aggie Underwood, former city editor of the Herald-Examiner, in 1962. That, folks, is a neat trick. Let’s dig a bit, using amazon.com’s “search inside” feature.

What’s this?

Page 225

“By 1962, Ben Williamson had become the national news editor for Time magazine and he and my mother moved to New York City. I had been working at Samuel Goldwyn Studios on the ‘Loretta Young Television Show’ and during the show’s hiatus, I was on my way to Europe for a holiday. I had a ticket for a bunk in Tourist Class on the Queen Mary, and Ben and my mother were putting me up at their Fifth Avenue apartment until the sailing date.

“My Black Dahlia puzzle box had been stored away for years, until my mother gave one of her parties during my stay—and Aggie Underwood was one of the guests. I didn’t remind Aggie of the appointments she had failed to keep almost a decade earlier, but I discovered that she, too, was sailing on the Queen Mary on her way to a holiday in Europe and the Greek Islands. When the boat sailed, I spotted Aggie on the passenger list, but decided I wasn’t going to bother her-besides, she was in Cabin Class and I was down in the bowels of the ship in Tourist. However, in the mid-Atlantic, I felt Joe Friday coming on, and I snuck into Cabin Class and found Aggie in the Mermaid Bar. While engaging her in holiday chitchat, I slowly steered the conversation into the Dahlia latitudes. Perhaps it was because Hearst had died and she was safely in the mid-Atlantic that Aggie felt free to talk about the Black Dahlia case.

“Aggie said that she had always believed there was a connection between the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf and Elizabeth Short and she had been totally mystified when ‘the Boss’ ordered her off both the Bauerdorf and the Dahlia case. She said she sat at her desk in the city room and did her knitting for several days, neither answering the phone nor speaking to anyone, in a silent protest. She said she had intended to leave the Herald when she was suddenly bumped upstairs to the city editor’s desk.

“Later, she learned that it had to do with the Arthur Lake connection. Aggie recalled that she had heard from contacts in the Sheriff’s Department that both Arthur Lake and Elizabeth Short had been mentioned in the Bauerdorf girl’s diary, and Lake had been brought in for questioning. After the Black Dahlia murder and the mailing of the contents of Elizabeth Short’s purse to the Examiner, she learned that Arthur Lake’s phone number had been found in Elizabeth Short’s address book.”

Now this is a foul bit of work, folks. A long-ago voyage on the Queen Mary, a convenient encounter that’s impossible to check.

Well almost.

You see, Will Fowler, author of “Reporters,” interviewed Aggie Underwood about the Black Dahlia case. Luckily, he recorded it. And it’s in the Urban Archives at Cal State Northridge. I’ve listened to the tape.

Do you know what Aggie says about Elizabeth Short and Georgette Bauerdorf?

Nada.

Aggie Underwood’s archives are also there. I’ve been through them. Guess what, there’s zero about Georgette Bauerdorf and Elizabeth Short. Not a single word.

I’ve also read a letter by Aggie Underwood on the Black Dahlia case at the Medford, Mass., Historical Society. You know what she says about Georgette Bauerdorf?

Zilch.

And you’ll never guess who received an award as most outstanding woman in journalism in June 1962. In Denver. Make that late June 1962 (Times, June 29, 1962).

“Mrs. Underwood was presented the award at the [National Federation of Press Women’s] 26th annual convention at the Cosmopolitan Hotel here.”

Guess who was honored at a presswomen’s party in September 1962, in Toluca Lake.

And Los Angeles history buffs, what happened in 1962? That’s right. In January, the Examiner ceased publication as a morning paper and merged with the afternoon Herald-Express.

What’s this? The Guild recommended a strike at the Herald in April 1962? Contract not settled in May 1962?

So 1962 would be sort of a bad year for the city editor of the newly constituted paper to be taking a cruise, wouldn’t you say?

And this stuff about “Perhaps it was because Hearst had died…”

William Randolph Hearst had died, all right. On Aug. 14, 1951. Eleven years earlier.

Oh, but it gets better. “The Loretta Young Show” wasn’t on hiatus in 1962. It had tanked the year before, with the last show airing in January 1961. In the summer of 1962, Young was in the news for being an absolutely harridan on the set of her new show, firing people left and right, and getting sued by actress Portland Mason. Attention TV buffs: “The New Loretta Young Show” replaced “Hennessey” on CBS and was on the air from September 1962 to February 1963. Then it, too, tanked.

In other words, Wolfe couldn’t have been on hiatus from “The Loretta Young Show” in 1962 because it was canceled a year earlier. And Aggie Underwood was in Denver in the summer of 1962 after going through the merger and then dealing with negotiations on a Guild contract. And she never mentions Georgette Bauerdorf in her tape at Cal State Northridge.

I’d sure like to see Wolfe’s ticket stubs from the Queen Mary right now. How many times do you need to catch someone in a lie before their entire story collapses?

Let’s wrap up a couple of loose ends. It is true that Underwood was taken off the Black Dahlia case for a short while in 1947 and put on the city desk. However, as she mentions in her autobiography, “Newspaperwoman,” she was put back on reporting. The Black Dahlia case was her last big story before moving to the Herald’s city desk, where she became the first woman city editor of a major metropolitan daily.

I’ll give you one hint about Paragraph 1. Otash was a uniformed patrol officer in 1946 when Wolfe claims he was staked out at the California Club.

Oops!

That’s it for today. It’s too nice outside for this.

Shout out to:

Judicial Council of California (208.239.204.208)

CBS (170.20.96.118)

Peabody, Mass. (64.48.71.210)

Firefox 1.0.4 (216.123.180.34)? Upgrade!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line IX

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe uses the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.

Yesterday, we looked at a particularly foul and nasty installment, Page 167, at the request of Mary Pacios. Today we’ll do Pages 197-198 at Mary’s request. I hope you are ready for a shocker. Even for Donald H. Wolfe, this is nasty, nasty work. A ruthless, conniving, calculating and cynical attempt to pull off a fraud.

You are so busted, Donald H. Wolfe.

To the haz-mat pile of Dahlia books….

This chapter is titled. Hm. Well Page 196 is labeled “Inside an Enigma” and Page 197 is “Sunshine and Shadow.” OK, Part II is “Inside an Enigma,” echoing Will Fowler’s favorite comment on the case. Of course, Wolfe doesn’t actually credit Will, but you’ll find it on Page 92 of “Reporters.” The chapter is titled “Sunshine and Shadow.”

Page 196 is about organized crime in Los Angeles: Jack Dragna and Bugsy Siegel. And there’s a lot of mumbo-jumbo and Brenda Allen, Mickey Cohen, the mob assassination of Paul “Paulie” Biggons, blah blah blah.

Oh “a hail of bullets.” Now there’s an original phrase. The only thing missing is “shots rang out.”

OK, well here’s an untrue statement:

“The gangland killings and attempted assassinations made headlines for days but remained unsolved. Although neither Homicide nor the press seemed to have a clue about who was responsible, the average cop on the beat and the below-average man on the street knew it was the Mafia Capo of Los Angeles, Jack Dragna.”

Now this is just Wolfe being nasty for the sake of being nasty. I would say that for the vast majority of gangland murders in Los Angeles of the 1940s, there was no mystery as to the killers or their motivation. The problem for the police is locating cooperative witnesses, because oddly enough, most people find it unhealthy to testify in court about mob murders. And although publishing capricious and unverified murder accusations against conveniently dead people (oh, say Bugsy Siegel or Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel) may sell lots of books, allegations against living people will get you sued.

Well let’s see, Page 197 is mostly boilerplate about innocent, wide-eyed Elizabeth Short returning to bad old Los Angeles in July 1946 with “little comprehension of the dark side of the movieland maze, where the studios, the nightclubs, the unions and many of the major talent agencies had been infiltrated by the mob.”

The only thing missing is: “Run, innocent little girl, run like the wind back to home and hearth in safe old Boston as fast as your shapely milk-white legs and trademark black suede pumps can carry you!!!”

Now I am skipping around so I may have missed the bogus stuff from “Severed” about Elizabeth Short being at the Hollywood Canteen in 1944 and all that rot (note: she was actually in Florida and Boston). And doesn’t Wolfe have her being a prostitute at some point? And then he turns around and makes her into a lazy tramp. I mean Wolfe really doesn’t have a handle on who she was, does he?

“When her bisected body was found on Norton Avenue in Leimert Park, it wasn’t mentioned by Capt. Jack Donahoe or the press that her remains were found in the weeds approximately 250 yards from the backyard of Jack Dragna’s house at 3927 Hubert Street, near the corner of Thirty-Ninth and Norton.

Nor was it ever mentioned that the letter “D” had been carved by a knife into the pubic area of the victim’s flesh. The D is clearly visible in police photographs held today in the Black Dahlia files of the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Did the D stand for Dahlia—or could the D have stood for Dragna? Whatever the meaning of the psychopath’s message, the silent scream from the sacred setting was certainly heart at the nearby home of the Mafia Capo, Jack Dragna—and La Famiglia.”

And then there’s the this memo. Mary asked if Wolfe cut off something important in reproducing it.

But first. It’s true the police and the press didn’t mention the proximity of Jack Dragna’s house to the crime scene. As I recall, it’s about five blocks. Dragna’s house, by the way, is still there and fairly modest for a mob chieftain.

Luckily, we have Google Earth and Google Maps. So let’s see. Isn’t it weird that Wolfe talks about the distance to Dragna’s backyard? Hm.

More like 6½ blocks. Google Maps says it’s 0.6 of a mile. Now look. This is really important. Out of consideration for the people who own the house, I absolutely never give out the actual address of the crime scene. I always say 54 feet north of the fire hydrant in the middle of the block. I have made up an address for Google purposes that’s fairly close to where Elizabeth Short’s body was found.

How about a little math? Hm. 1,760 yards in a mile, makes it more like 1,056 yards. So Wolfe owe us 806 yards—nearly half a mile off.

This is really funny. Page 375: “Dragna’s address in the 1946 telephone directory place him three short blocks from Thirty-Ninth and Norton [forgetting, of course, that the body wasn’t found there]. Isn’t it interesting that Dragna’s HQ of evil is listed in the phone book? Like maybe people could call him up ask about the latest mob hits or something.

Of course, those of use who have a 1946 L.A. phone book can check. (Thank you, Ebay). Guess who’s not listed.

Go ahead and guess.

Maybe I should check under Evil, H.Q.

Oops.

Whew. Nothing like wrestling with the technology to get the satellite picture I need. Again, note that I have intentionally fed Google the wrong address for the crime scene. IGNORE it.

Now while we’re at it, who else isn’t mentioned by police or the press. Who is it that lives at 3944 S. McClung?

Would you believe it? Detective Lt. Paul W. Freestone, the University Division watch commander who was actually at the crime scene.

<sarcasm>

A coincidence? I think not.

</sarcasm>

So the following are lies:

Jack Dragna’s house wasn’t 250 yards or three short blocks from the crime scene.

Jack Dragna’s address is not listed in the 1946 Los Angeles telephone directory.

Not exactly a good showing is it? Not a real confidence-builder.

Now for Part II.

“Nor was it ever mentioned that the letter “D” had been carved by a knife into the pubic area of the victim’s flesh.”

You know what I like about this paragraph?

Did the D stand for Dahlia—or could the D have stood for Dragna?

Gosh, I don’t know. Maybe it stood for Donald Duck or Donald H. Wolfe.

Wolfe is having fun here because the district attorney’s office won’t let anybody copy the body photographs. I’ve seen them all and I don’t recall anything like that, but then I wasn’t looking for the letter “D” either.

So let’s check this memo Mary was asking about. Because I do have that.

Gosh, this is kind of hard to find.

Weird that it’s not dated. It should be.

Uh-oh.

I’m starting to get a really, really bad feeling about this document.

My spider-sense is tingling.

Now the text is found on Page 13 of “Evidence and Declarations Tending to Connect or Disconnect Leslie Dillon to the Murders of Elizabeth Short, Jeanne French and Gladys Kern.”

The full text is:

ITEM NO. XIII:

SOME PEOPLE BELIEVED that the “D” cut in the shaved pubic region of Elizabeth Short is of the same type as found on the body of the French woman. [Aha. That explains the reference. Jeanne French].

Facts reveal that the pubic region of Elizabeth Short’s body was not shaved.

Experts in handwriting have stated that it would be impossible

[page break]

to determine any type of handwriting from the so-called “D” cut into the pubic region of Elizabeth Short’s body.

ITEM NO. XIV….

The really bizarre thing is the header Wolfe shows:

M E M O R A N D U M

To: H.L. Stanley, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation

ATTENTION: Arthur L. Veitch, Deputy District Attorney

IN RE: Elizabeth Short Murder—Los Angeles Police Department Records, Reports, Statements, Correspondence, Evidence and Information

FROM: Frank B. Jemison, Lieutenant—Bureau of Investigation

Because it’s not there.

I’m starting to think Photoshop, folks. Let’s hope I’m wrong.


BUSTED!

Gosh, it looks like someone lifted the header off an unrelated Oct. 29, 1949, memo from Frank Jemison to H.L. Stanley. Snipped off the inconvenient date and pasted on the material about Leslie Dillon.

I’m short on time so I won’t scan in the material today, but you can rest assured, the document produced on Page 198 of “The Black Dahlia Files” is fraudulent and pasted together from two unrelated reports.

Would someone please remind me again what a well-researched book this is? I keep forgetting.

Shout out to:

National Internet Backbone (59.92.54.60)

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Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line VI

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format, in which the anonymous, butchered body is found and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.Now I’m taking a few requests before I wrap it up. Yesterday, we looked at Page 131 at the request of Mary Pacios. Today, we’ll look at Page 162 at the request of Regular Anonymous Commenter.

Page 162

This chapter is titled “A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery…” paraphrasing former Examiner reporter Will Fowler, author of “Reporters.” As stated previously, “Will Fowler remembers” are three of the most frightening words in the English language, as we have caught Will in any number of false statements. I knew Will for years and treated him as a friend, but he lied his head off to me about the Black Dahlia case. I don’t think it was malicious; he just like to tell a good story.

Holy smokes!

I backed up a page to get a running start and have to pick my jaw up off the floor on this one.

Pages 160-161

“According to Vince Carter, many officers in Administrative Vice knew Donahoe was misleading the press and the public regarding the facts in the Black Dahlia case but they were afraid to come forward because of Donahoe’s underworld friends:

Donahoe had a reputation as a killer and he was a close friend of another killer—Jack Dragna, who was Lucky Luciano’s West Coast representative. Somewhere along the way, Jack Dragna and Captain Jack Donahoe became friends. Dragna had control over the narcotics business and Donahoe was an important contact…. It was Dragna who introduced Donahoe to Chickie Stein, Dragna’s narcotics distributor in L.A., and she and Donahoe became quite close. Chickie was a beautiful Sicilian woman with dark brown eyes who was brought up in a New York whorehouse. Her mother had been one of Lucky Luciano’s whorehouse madams….. Chickie was introduced to Dragna by Luciano when she was in her early twenties. Luciano trusted her completely and when Luciano was arrested by Thomas Dewey, and Chickie’s mother’s prostitution business folded, Chickie came to Los Angeles as Luciano’s West Coast heroin connection under Dragna’s guidance. Donahoe and Chickie became close friends and he presented her with a gold medallion with the Christ crucifixion on one side and the Star of David on the other. Chickie wore this around her neck on a fine gold chain. On one occasion she showed it to me and Captain Jack Donahoe’s name was engraved on one side of the medallion. Chickie was as proud of it as if it had been given to her by one of the mob bosses—which in my opinion was not too far off the mark.”

Wow. That’s about a dirty a deal as I have ever read about Jack Donahoe who in reality was squeaky clean and one of the most admired men in the Los Angeles Police Department.

I mean, this is the Jack Donahoe I know:

“Police Captain Jack A. Donahoe, commander of the Robbery Division, was honored by the City Council yesterday for his refusal to retire after 30 years of service to the Police Department.” Los Angeles Examiner, Nov. 11, 1954.

“No police officer in the city has done more or worked more conscientiously for the protection of the community and the riddance of criminals than Jack Donahoe,” Len Jacobsen, head of a charity known as the Roorags. Los Angeles Times, Aug. 18, 1955.

And this:

“He has been repeatedly cited for efficiency, cooperation, leadership, courage, alertness and devotion to duty. The recommendations come from the FBI, Treasury Department, Naval Intelligence, California Highway Patrol, District Attorney’s offices and State and local police throughout the nation.

“On the occasion of Donahoe’s 30 anniversary with the department, Chief of Police William H. Parker cited him for ‘devotion to duty and outstanding police work.’ In all his years as an officer, Donahoe has only missed 20 days on sick leave.” Gene Sherman, Club Magazine, September 1955.

And this:

“The capacity crowd [for Donahoe’s retirement in 1962] jammed the Police Academy for what was believed to be the largest police retirement dinner in Los Angeles history.” Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1962.

And this:

More than 1,000 mourners attended funeral services for retired Police Capt. Jack A. Donahoe in the Church of the Recessional, Forest Lawn Memorial-Park. About 600 stood outside the church [note: this is in June] in which seating arrangements could be made for only 400, and heard the services over loudspeakers.

Police Chaplain William Riddle said Donahoe was ‘ not just a policeman but a man who was building for us a future freedom which only law enforcement can make possible.’ ” (Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1966)

OK, let’s see Wolfe’s source on this baloney. This is attributed to Carter’s “LAPD’s Rogue Cops Cover Ups and the Cookie Jar,” a self-published book we covered earlier.

“Rogue Cops,” Page 156.

Now recall, before we even look, that Carter started with the LAPD in 1942 said he was working as a reserve officer at the Hollenbeck station while Donahoe worked downtown. Recall further that Carter says he never worked the Dahlia case but always followed it.

OK, let me check that again: “Mogul” Page 160-161 is attributed to “Rogue Cops,” Page 112, 156, 158.

Ready?

Page 112 is too long to quote in its entirety, so I’ll quote the first line of every paragraph:

1. A gambler like Mickey [Cohen] only bet on sure or fixed bets.

1. Before Mickey left Cleveland in his early twenties he and some of his friends were arrested on robbery charges.

1. The old line vice take in Los Angeles was in disarray and was being reorganized by Captain Jack Donahoe in the Robbery-Homicide Squad.

Note: Robbery and Homicide were separate divisions in the 1940s. Oops.

1. While Luciano, the top mob man in the nation, was in prison, he controlled the New York mob through Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky and other mob leaders.

Here’s Page 156:

1. big cities, are controlled by those who control vice activities. The prison officials who worked with Nate…

1. Ron asked Nate where he got women for the men

1. “We used young men, boys, who came into the prison.”

1. The war was coming to an end and Nate had a chance to get out of prison.

1. Ron Hardman told me bits and pieces of his life.

1. Big Jack Donahoe, Captain in charge of Robbery Division, exercised considerable power in 77th Street Division, an area which was predominately Black. Donahoe controlled narcotics and other vices in the Division. Everyone, crooks and cops alike, was afraid of Donahoe. He was known to have killed several men.

For the record, I can’t find a newspaper story about Donahoe ever killing anybody. In fact he went out of his way to take Edwin Walker alive, even though Walker had killed CHP Officer Loren K. Roosevelt. [The case was the basis for the Richard Basehart film “He Walked by Night.”]

Oops!

Everybody was afraid of Donahoe, cops and crooks alike? I suppose that’s why his retirement party was the biggest in Police Academy history and why there were 1,000 people at his funeral, eh?

Now let’s go to Page 158:

1. They visited the Division Captain before roll call the following night, Ron said.

1. The Captain understood the problem fully. Apparently he didn’t believe that he could buck Captain Donahoe either.

1. Ron said that everything went smoothly at Juvenile.

1. Ron didn’t know it, but 9th and Broadway was the worst place in the department.

1. Nate Rubin said that he knew the structure of vice operations in the city well.

1. Nate trusted Ron Hardman and talked freely to him.

OK to be fair, Carter does drag Chickie Stein into the last paragraph. But I don’t see a word about this gold crucifix/Star of David.

Ha! Got you, Vince Carter:

Page 161

Ron told the two Irish detectives about our visits with Chickie and Bernie at Chickie’s boutique. He described the medallion Donahoe had given her, with his name engraved on the back side, and how she bragged of her relationship with Big Jack. He also told Bain and McGhee that Chickie had bragged about being in bed with Jack Dragna in a Hollywood motel when he died of a heart attack.

In fact, Dragna died in Room 125 of the Saharan Hotel on Feb. 23, 1956, and was found by the maid. He was alone. No “Chickie Stein.”

Maybe you’re thinking of police recordings made with a microphone concealed in the headboard of a bed in 1951. That, Dragna buffs, was 24-year-old Annette Eckhardt. (Los Angeles Examiner, June 6, 1952, cites arrest date of March 11, 1951).

No Chickie, No Washie.

OK, so I didn’t get to Page 162, requested by Regular Anonymous Correspondent. I couldn’t ignore this smear of Jack Donahoe, one of the finest, most admired and most popular officers in LAPD history.

I’ll get it tomorrow.

Shout out to:

Albuquerque Public Schools (209.189.130.15)

Hurry back!

Blogging the Wolfe Book, Request Line III

I have ceased blogging in real time as I read Donald H. Wolfe’s “The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles.” Wolfe is using the “Laura” format in which the anonymous, butchered body is discovered and the narrative proceeds in flashbacks.

Now, I’m taking a few requests before I wrap it up. Last time, we looked at Pages 108-111. Today we are looking at Page 119, at the request of Mary Pacios.

The title of this chapter is “Persons Unknown” and I couldn’t help but notice an unfortunately familiar name on Page 118: Robert Slatzer. For those who are unfamiliar with the story, Will Fowler of “Reporters” fame used to claim that he was the ghostwriter on Slatzer’s “memoir” of being married to Marilyn Monroe for three days until the studios scotched the deal. In conversations, Will used to trash Slatzer every chance he got and worked Slatzer over on Pages 286-288 of “Reporters.”

Sample:

“After the book was published, I found it to be filled with fantasies. It has turned into a type of unliterary work that gives Hollywood history a hernia.” “Reporters,” Page 287.

Note also that Wolfe claims the late Slatzer as a friend.

Now this is the funny part:

“Robert Slatzer, a young man from Columbus, Ohio, who had traveled to Hollywood to become a screenwriter, often went to the Florentine Gardens and dated Ann Toth several times before becoming the boyfriend of another Hollywood wannabe, Norma Jeane Dougherty.”

Of course, this is absolutely absurd. Have you ever seen a picture of Robert Slatzer? I imagine Wolfe credits it to an interview with his conveniently dead friend.

Oh! This is better than I even imagined. Wolfe credits it as a joint interview with Slatzer and “Severed” author John Gilmore. Now I have trouble imagining those guys in the same room, but here’s the citation:

“Marilyn liked going to the Florentine Gardens and ….” int. Gilmore/Slatzer, 1989. int. Wolfe/Slatzer 2004.

Of course, the unpublished draft of “Severed” in the Gilmore archives at UCLA uses Slatzer as the source for a story about a purported lesbian affair between—oh guess—Elizabeth Short and Marilyn Monroe. Apparently this was too much even for the publishers of “Severed.”

In fact, according to the district attorney’s files (recall that this book is titled “The Black Dahlia Files” rather than the more appropriate “Severed: 2006”) Ann Toth had a regular boyfriend named Leo Hymes and didn’t date at all.

Oops.

“Slatzer remembered….” Boy, that’s a phrase almost as frightening as “Will Fowler recalls.”

Page 119

OK. Wolfe is talking about Ann Toth, one of Elizabeth Short’s roommates.

“According to Ann Toth, Elizabeth had been promised extra work in the movies and a role in NTG’s [Nils T. Granlund’s] next Florentine Gardens revue. It was inferred in the press that Elizabeth had become one of [Florentine Gardens business manager] Mark Hansen’s many girlfriends, but he adamantly denied to the police that he had ever been intimate with her. ‘She dated many different men while she was living here,’ Hansen said, ‘mostly hoodlums whom I wouldn’t even let in my house.’ ”

The quotes are fairly routine and lifted from the newspapers, rather than the district attorney’s files. But this stuff about Elizabeth Short being promised work in the Florentine Gardens revues is a new one on me. Let’s check the end notes. Nope, nothing. Figures.

Wolfe seems to be setting up poor old Maurice Clement as a mob torpedo and made man. Like all those mob guys were driving 10-year-old Fords as Wolfe implies:

“He drove an older model black Ford sedan. Beth called him ‘Maurice’ and he had promised to ‘setup’ [note to ReganBooks, the publishing house without proofreaders or fact-checkers, that is ‘set up’] Elizabeth in an apartment in Beverly Hills.’ Ann Toth had put a name to the mysterious ‘short, dark complexioned man’ who used to park in front of the Hawthorne and pay Beth’s rent—the mystery man who picked up Beth in his ‘old black Ford sedan’ and helped her move to Mark Hansen’s place on Carlos. Was it the same ‘1936 or 1937 black Ford sedan’ seen by Robert Meyer and the newsboy, Bobby Jones, as it remained parked for several minutes at the site where Elizabeth Short’s mutilated and bisected body was disposed of in the predawn hours of January 15, 1947? Apparently Det. Harry Hansen suspected that it was and that ‘Maurice’ may have been the connecting link between Elizabeth’s Hollywood acquaintances and the ‘sacred setting’

“Witnesses at the Chancellor and the Florentine Gardens were uncomfortable talking about Maurice or mentioning the mystery man’s name because he was a dangerous subject. Maurice was connected.”

Page 120

“Maurice proved to be Maurice Clement, a minion of Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen, who was a procurer for the Syndicate call-girl ring run by the notorious Hollywood Madam, Brenda Allen.”

Well this rambles on and on and I won’t quote more of it.

Gad, I wish Wolfe could make up his mind whether he’s going to call her Elizabeth or Beth. Note that he uses both names in the same paragraph.

Beth called him ‘Maurice’ and he had promised to ‘setup’ Elizabeth in an apartment in Beverly Hills.’

Yow.

I don’t want to go back through all the nonsense about the “boy on the bicycle” from the crime scene because it covers 10 posts. That’s what the search feature is for and it’s very nice. From freefind.com

And Maurice never helped Elizabeth Short move. I don’t know where Wolfe got that one. Of course, all she had were a couple of suitcases and a hatbox so it wasn’t all that much.

Rather than get into all of Wolfe’s mumbo-jumbo about dangerous little Maurice, the mob torpedo and wiseguy who was driving a 10-year-old Ford (the vehicle of choice for flamboyant gangsters, don’t you know) here’s what the district attorney’s office says about him:

(Oh, and I wouldn’t attach any significance to the order used in the list of suspects. Note that Mark Hansen is last and he was one of the more prominent candidates—although he, too, was exonerated).

Wolfe even reproduces it way back on Page 276:

“Maurice Clement, Apartment 107, at 1616 North Normandy [Normandie] was working at Columbia Studios at the time of the murder. His name appeared in this victim’s address book. He knew Short socially and is a likely type of character but has been partially eliminated by Los Angeles Police Department. See their reports.”

Nothing about him being connected to the mob. Nothing at all, in fact. Completely bogus.

In case you want to check, yes, the building is still there. It’s a two-story apartment house on the east side of the street just south of Hollywood Boulevard. It’s a very unassuming little building and not exactly what you’d expect for an elegant mobster pad.

I should mention something else just because it’s amusing. There’s a lot of claims about what was known on the Columbia lot about poor old Maurice and how he was such a prominent figure. Except that that the picture Wolfe publishes of him on Page 310…. Uh, that’s not him. That is an unlabeled photo in the district attorney’s files on Elizabeth Short. In the files on another case, however, the photo is labeled as Salvador Torres Vara. That’s No. 9 on the list of 22 suspects. (Except he’s “Vera” there, remember that these reports were dictated so many names are spelled phonetically).

Oops.

Time for my walk.

Shout out to:

Hastings, England (212.58.233.129)

Cyveillance (63.148.99.239)

Melrose, Mass., (66.31.62.23)

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