Fri, Feb 17, 2017
"Werewolves Leave a Trail of Women Murders in L.A." Only eight days after Elizabeth Short's body was found Herald-Express reporter Agness Underwood connected the Black Dahlia with an ever-growing list of high profile cold cases, including those of Georgette Bauerdorf and White Gardenia victim Ora Murray.
Fri, Mar 10, 2017
After midnight on March 10, 1947, a railroad worker happened upon a woman's body sprawled near the tracks in Downtown Los Angeles. Assuming she was drunk, he tried to kiss her - and to his horror realized that the woman was dead. Nine hours later, another dead woman turned up on a riverbank 15 miles away. Both had been beaten and strangled. Both had dark hair. The first victim was identified as Evelyn Winters; the second woman as Mae Preston. Theirs made the third and fourth murders of women in the city since Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, was killed. Pressure mounted on the police. The werewolf killer must be stopped.
Fri, Mar 17, 2017
In late March 1947, while police in Los Angeles hunted a serial killer, FBI agents in Pittsburgh interrogated the latest prime suspect in the Black Dahlia case. An Army sergeant recounted the romantic 24 hours he'd spent with Elizabeth Short in September. He marveled at how she'd been treated like a celebrity in a Hollywood nightclub - and revealed that she was surprisingly unresponsive in bed. After the sergeant's interview, the LAPD's murder investigation into the Black Dahlia and the other cases all went cold. There were no new leads in April. Then, on May 2, another woman's mutilated body was discovered in an empty lot. The horror had returned.
Fri, Apr 14, 2017
In this first of five special episodes, Hollywood and Crime profiles the Black Dahlia Murders. Applying 21st Century behavioral analysis to our Season One murders, host Tracy Pattin examines each of our five 20th Century crimes with this modern twist. Joining Tracy are guest experts: former FBI profiler and Real Crime Profile host Jim Clemente and Hollywood crime historian Joan Renner, author of the popular website Deranged LA Crimes.
Fri, Apr 21, 2017
In this second special episode of Hollywood and Crime, we delve into the unsolved murder of oil heiress Georgette Bauerdorf. Host Tracy Pattin looks into the case with the help of former FBI profiler and Real Crime Profile host Jim Clemente and Hollywood crime historian Joan Renner, author of the popular website Deranged LA Crimes. Take a listen as Jim applies his 21st Century behavioral analysis and puts together a profile of the murderer.
Fri, Apr 28, 2017
In this third special Hollywood and Crime episode we analyze and dig into the horrific details of the most famous unsolved murder to date; that of Elizabeth Short, who will forever be known as 'The Black Dahlia.' Host Tracy Pattin is joined by former FBI profiler and Real Crime Profile host Jim Clemente and Hollywood crime historian Joan Renner, author of the popular website Deranged LA Crimes. Once again, Jim applies his 21st Century behavioral analysis and puts together a profile of the murderer while Joan looks at the case and the victim through the lens of a Hollywood crime historian.
Fri, May 5, 2017
In this fourth special Hollywood and Crime episode host Tracy Pattin talks again to former FBI Profiler and Real Crime Profile Host, Jim Clemente and Hollywood Crime historian and author of website Deranged LA Crimes. This time they analyze two murders-Jeanne French and Evelyn Winters. Because Jeanne French's murder was similar to The Black Dahlia's, Jim looks at whether a pattern is developing asking, "Is this the work of a serial killer?" He applies his 21 Century behavioral analysis and puts together profiles of the murderer or murderers, while Joan looks at the cases and the victims through the Hollywood crime historian lens discussing their downward spirals.
Wed, May 17, 2017
In this fifth and final special Hollywood and Crime episode host Tracy Pattin sums up these five fascinating cases with FBI Profiler and Real Crime Profile host Jim Clemente and Hollywood crime historian and author of website Deranged LA Crimes Joan Renner. They give their assessments and insights on who the murderers or murderer could be, coming to very different conclusions. Jim Clemente shares his astounding analysis-one that has never come to light until now.
Fri, Jul 7, 2017
Martin Turnbull discusses three headline making Hollywood Scandals from the 1940s with Hollywood and Crime host Tracy Pattin. The featured stories include the statutory rape trial of screen star Errol Flynn, the pot bust and trail of bad boy actor, Robert Mitchum, and the shocking affair of three time Academy Award-winning actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini.
Fri, Sep 8, 2017
Historian Joan Renner (Author of The First with the Latest!: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City) discusses the news media, the relationship between the Press and the Police in Los Angeles in the 1940s, and three women who not only wrote the headlines, but also made them - with Hollywood and Crime host, Tracy Pattin.
Fri, Sep 29, 2017
The fourth victim in the mutilation murders of 1947 was Dorothy Montgomery - a mother, homemaker and a teetotaling churchwoman -- whose nude body was found sprawled beneath a pepper tree in L.A.'s southeast suburbs. Unlike the previous victims, Dorothy was not engaged in high risk behavior - she was abducted from her car while waiting to pick up her daughter after a dance. And yet, like the others, she was brutally murdered and horrifically mutilated. Who would so such a thing? Was it the same Werewolf killer suspected of attacking the other women? Or was it the person sheriff's detectives suspected - a man Dorothy knew very well.
Fri, Oct 6, 2017
Just ten days after Dorothy Montgomery's body was found, another wife and mother was attacked - this time in Long Beach, a port city about 25 miles south of L.A. Laura Trelstad was last seen leaving a Mother's Day party to go dancing at the Pike, a giant seaside amusement park downtown. Her body was found in the pre-dawn hours at the Signal Hill oil field a few miles north of her home. Police tracked Laura's movements on her final night to a downtown bar and then onto a bus heading home at about ten-thirty. She was last seen getting into a car with a stranger. But then the trail went cold. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, the murder trial in the Dorothy Montgomery case came to a dramatic conclusion when the prime suspect took the stand in his own defense.
Fri, Oct 13, 2017
On June 21, 1947, six months after the murder of the Black Dahlia, another shocking homicide stole the Werewolf killer's spotlight. Top Hollywood mobster Bugsy Siegel was assassinated in a Beverly Hills mansion. In a book written decades later, an author claimed Siegel killed Elizabeth Short -- making Bugsy the most notorious among dozens of suspects in the Dahlia case.
Fri, Oct 20, 2017
Eight months passed and then, on Valentine's Day 1948, there were two attacks. Viola Norton survived an assault by two men who abducted her in Alhambra, an eastern suburb of Los Angeles, and drove her 16 miles to Leimert Park. She was found clinging to life the next morning, a few blocks south of 39th and Norton, where the Black Dahlia's body was found. That same day, realtor Gladys Kern was stabbed in the back while showing a house in the Hollywood Hills. Her body was found two days later, laid out on the kitchen floor. The case seemed to take a promising turn when police received a confession from the killer's accomplice. And then, six months later, the LAPD made a dramatic announcement: They had arrested a man they called the "best suspect" so far in the Dahlia case. They claimed Leslie Dillon had information about the case that only the killer could know.
Fri, Oct 27, 2017
In June 1949, more than a year after the Kern murder, another body was found. Louise Springer, a successful young hairdresser, was carjacked in a parking lot on Crenshaw Boulevard, just five blocks from the site at 39th and Norton where Elizabeth Short's body had been dumped two and a half years earlier. Four days later, Louise's body was found in the back seat of her car, which had been abandoned on a downtown side street. The manhunt that ensued was the largest in the city since the Black Dahlia investigation. While the search continued, the first of two women went missing. Emily Boomhower, a wealthy widow, disappeared from her Bel Air mansion on August 18, 1949. Three weeks later, Jean Spangler, an attractive young starlet, was last seen leaving a Sunset Strip nightclub at two in the morning.
Fri, Nov 3, 2017
In the wrap-up of our Black Dahlia Serial Killers series, host Tracy Pattin interviewed true crime experts Joan Renner, editor of Deranged LA Crimes.com and author of The First with the Latest: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of the City, and Jim Clemente, host of Wondery's Real Crime Profile, as well its Best Case/Worst Case and Locked Up Abroad podcasts. He's also a writer/producer for Criminal Minds on CBS and creator of Discovery's Manhunt: Unabomber. Tracy interviewed Joan and Jim earlier, in episodes 13 to 17, about the murders covered in the first season, including that of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. Now she follows up with them on the murders we covered in the second round - and gets these experts' take on the big question: Were all these crimes committed by a single killer or were they the work of multiple copycats and lone wolves?