Ms. Perfect described "George" as "a male Caucasian in his early forties, with wavy hair and glasses." She indicated "that while he did not appear drunk, he may have been under the influence of narcotics." "George" identified himself as "an FBI agent assigned to work the Black Dahlia investigation," and informed Perfect that "I can tell you who killed Elizabeth Short." Deputy Stefan's notes included the fact that this same "George" had first come to the Hub Cafe on January 21, only six days after the discovery of Elizabeth Short's body. At that time he had stayed in the bar area and was very talkative, informing the bartender he was an "FBI agent working on the Dahlia investigation." The bartender asked to see his agent's badge, at which point "George" mumbled something about "not being afraid of guns," and left the bar. Other employees at the Hub confirmed that "George" had returned again on January 25, but left after only a few minutes, then returned one last time, on January 26, and was recognized by Ms. Perfect from the prior contact, and she immediately summoned sheriffs deputies, but "George" left the bar before they arrived.
Initially, San Diego detectives considered the possibility of a connection between their victim and the Los Angeles wave of killings of lone women, including that of Elizabeth Short, but again LAPD discounted and denied any connection.
Though the first known to occur outside of Los Angeles County, this crime is identical in M.O. to the Ora Murray killing. Coupled with physical description of the suspect, it must be included with the rest of George Hodel's suspected serial killings.
Viola Norton (February 14, 1948)
The headline of the Saturday morning Herald Express of February 14, 1948, read, "Woman Beaten Near 'Black Dahlia' Scene; Alhambra Woman Near Death after Beating by 2 Men."
At approximately 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, Mrs. Viola Norton, thirty-six, left a cocktail lounge in Alhambra, a community immediately east-southeast of the Los Angeles city limits. "Two men, both appearing to be approximately 40 years of age, approached her in a car and asked her to get in." She informed the two men that "she was walking home."
Both men exited their vehicle, dragged her inside, and drove off. The victim stated she "remembered a tussle, but nothing else."
Viola was beaten savagely about the face and head, her skull was fractured with a tire iron, and the two men left her for dead in an isolated area just four blocks from where the body of Elizabeth Short had been found thirteen months earlier. A neighbor discovered the victim unconscious and summoned an ambulance. The information regarding any follow-up investigation was sketchy, but it is believed the victim, though in critical condition, survived. The Norton kidnapping occurred only six miles east of where the bodies of victims Mondragon and Winters were dumped.
This crime occurred just twelve hours before the two suspects would commit another murder in Hollywood. Their next victim would be the real estate agent Mrs. Gladys Kern, previously summarized.
Louise Margaret Springer (June 13, 1949)
On June 17, 1949, the Los Angeles Examiner morning headlines read:
Exhibit 63
Four days earlier, on June 13, twenty-eight-year-old Louise Springer, married with a two-year-old son, had been reported kidnapped. Her frantic husband had called the police minutes after her disappearance.
Louise's husband, Laurence Springer, a hairstylist of wide reputation, worked at a salon on Wilshire Boulevard. His wife worked at a beauty parlor in a department store at Santa Barbara and Crenshaw, just two blocks from where the Black Dahlia's body had been found two and a half years earlier. The couple had been living in Hollywood for a year, after relocating to Los Angeles from the San Francisco Bay area.
On Monday evening, June 13, at 9:05 p.m., Springer had left his wife seated in the passenger seat of their brand-new 1949 green Studebaker convertible in the parking lot while he ran inside to retrieve her eyeglasses, which she had left at work. He returned within ten minutes, but both his wife and their car were missing. Springer desperately searched the parking lot, then summoned LAPD.
After a search of the area by University Division patrol officers, the police reluctantly documented the husband's account on a missing persons report, but told him she probably "just decided to take off and would likely return in a day or two."
On the morning of June 16, Mrs. Lois Harris, a resident of 102 West 38th Street, having observed a new green Studebaker parked across from her home for three days, called the police to report an "abandoned vehicle." Police ran a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) check and, discovering the car was registered in the Springers' name, dispatched detectives to the location.
Louise Springer's body was found in the backseat, draped and covered with a white cape-type material, which belonged to the victim and which, as a beautician, she used to cover and protect her customers.
A later autopsy revealed that she had suffered blows to the head, possibly rendering her unconscious, after which she was strangled to death with a white sash cord that, the police said, the suspect had carried with him.
Robbery was not a motive, since the victim's purse and expensive jewelry and money were not taken. The autopsy surgeons and police detectives released two details relating to the condition of the body First, the suspect was unusually strong, because the sash cord he had placed around the victim's neck had been constricted so tightly as to leave only a two-and-a-half-inch-diameter space in the knotted noose.
The second piece of information, in the Los Angeles Examiner of June 17, read:
BODY VIOLATED
And with a 14-inch length of finger-thick tree branch, ripped from some small tree, the killer had violated her body in such manner as to stamp this crime at once and indelibly in the same category as the killing of Elizabeth Short, "the
Black Dahlia."
Police located witnesses in the 38th Street neighborhood, who provided a limited description of the murder suspect and additional information relating to the time he drove to the location and parked the car. The Springer vehicle at 38th and Broadway was only a mile from where Georgette Bauerdorf's vehicle had been found, also abandoned, at 25th and San Pedro.
Four teenagers provided police with further information: on June 13, they were inside a residence at 126 West 38th Street. At approximately 10:00 p.m., hearing a loud squeal of brakes outside, they saw a green Studebaker convertible abruptly turn in and stop at the curb. The driver quickly turned off the car's headlights.
Seconds later, a black-and-white police vehicle stopped their friend Jack Putney, also a teenager, for a traffic violation. The officers exited their police vehicle and talked to Putney for five or ten minutes by their police vehicle, which was parked just three feet away from the Studebaker. Seated behind the driver's wheel, the murder suspect sat motionless in the dark until finally the police drove off. The teens then saw him turn toward the backseat, lean over, and reach for something. Because of the darkness, the only description they could provide police was that he "was a white man with curly hair."
After the police pulled away, the witnesses paid no further attention to the man or the parked car, nor did they see him emerge from the vehicle and leave the area on foot. The Studebaker, they told the police, remained there for the next three days.
On June 18, 1949, the Los Angeles Examiner headline read: "Police Missed Mad Killer, in Auto with Slain Victim, Parked Near Squad Car."
The Examiner printed a diagram showing the relative positions of the police, the traffic offender, and the murder suspect on 38th Street.