Cold Cases · Spotify Studios

The Black Dahlia Murder Pt. 2

September 25, 2023·51 min·1 clip

When his secretary threatened to expose him, Hodel realized he could literally get away with murder.

Mary Uncifer hears the ward at night. The lights are low, but the scene stays tense: murmuring patients, distant screaming, and no real promise of quiet. Then the case turns backward. By 1945, in Steve Hodel's theory, George Hodel had already avoided punishment tied to Ruth Spalding's death. The official ruling was suicide, though the narration slows down because the excerpt gives conflicting reports on whether Hodel was ever a suspect. Medical fraud comes next. After his wife apparently burned documents that implicated him, Hodel was clear and still living off money the narration links to defrauding patients. Comfort was not enough. He moved into the Sowden House, a Los Feliz landmark built in the 1920s by Lloyd Wright. The house changes the whole feel. Concrete, glass, dark passageways, dramatic gates, and reception rooms make it seem theatrical but closed in. Steve Hodel describes secret stone tunnels and disorienting turns, which gives the property the feel of a private maze. Still, it was made for parties and amateur theatrics, and the Hodel family kept that going. The gatherings were openly hedonistic, with drugs and sex circling George Hodel as the theory builds its case around him. Surrealist art matters here too, especially its fixation on the female body and images that can feel sexualized and dehumanizing. None of that proves guilt. It does explain why the house, the parties, the alleged fraud, and Steve Hodel's reading of it all sit so uneasily beside the Black Dahlia mystery.

As heard by us

A sober Black Dahlia listen that stays grounded even as the theories pile up.

This Black Dahlia episode uses the murder as a way into a wider set of Hollywood unsolved cases, and it keeps the single-killer theory in play without overclaiming.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want the Black Dahlia case set beside the other unsolved deaths around it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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