Steve Hodel is a New York Times and International bestselling author. His book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America as a "Best Fact" true-crime book.
Steve Hodel was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He served four years as a medic in the U.S. Navy and then joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1963. After six years in uniform patrol, he transferred to Hollywood Division Detectives where he worked all of the "tables": Burglary, Robbery, Auto-Theft, Juvenile, Crimes against Persons and was then permanently assigned to the Homicide Detail.
During his career at Hollywood Homicide, Steve promoted to Detective II and in 1983 was the senior field homicide detective. During his years of service, he received more than 75 commendations and handled over 300 separate murder investigations and had one of the departments highest "solve rates. " Steve promoted to Detective III (the highest attainable rank in detectives) and retired from LAPD in 1986.
HODEL INVESTIGATIONS was established in 1986. Steve has been a licensed California Private Investigator, conducting mainly criminal defense investigations, for the past 23-years. He worked over six-years as lead investigator on a high-profile international murder case which resulted in an innocent man (Yoshikuni Okubo) being released from prison in Tokyo, Japan and reunited with his family, after five years of detention.
Steve's first book, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder published in 2003 with new updated investigative chapters added to the HarperCollins paperback edition in 2004 and 2006. Black Dahlia Avenger is a New York Times Bestseller, a NYT Most Notable Book and was an Edgar Award nominee in the Mystery Writers of America's- Best Fact Crime category.
Steve's sequel, MOST EVIL: The Further Serial Murders of Dr. George Hill Hodel, was published by DUTTON - PENGUIN GROUP on September 21, 2009. The book examines the possibility that George Hodel committed additional serial crimes in both the U.S. and in Manila, Philippines during the 1960s and establishes a circumstantial case that he may well have reinvented himself as the infamous "Zodiac" and committed a series of crimes in the San Francisco Bay area. Most Evil was a Los Angeles Times bestseller.
Black Dahlia Avenger II published in 2012, is the author's six-year follow-up investigation which establishes the Hodel residence as the original Black Dahlia crime scene and links physical evidence from that historic Sowden/Franklin House to evidence found in the vacant lot where the body was found. The book also includes the complete 146-pages of the DA's 1950 Hodel/Black Dahlia taped transcripts.
A GENIUS FOR MURDER: A Play in Three Acts was published in 2013 and is a Hollywood Noir dramatization based on the author's books. The play focuses on events occurring during the five-year period in the life of Dr. George Hill Hodel, just prior to his fleeing the country. (1945-1950)
Most Evil II (Rare Bird Books Sept 2015): Steve's follow-up investigation (2009-2015) into his father's murders and introduces new evidence and additional linkage obtained by him over the past six years. Included in that evidence is the solving of the Zodiac's forty-five-year cryptic cipher, which gives us the answer to the question asked in Most Evil, "Were Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac the same serial killer?"
Black Dahlia Avenger III (Rare Bird Books 2018) Steve's follow-up investigation (2016-2018) into his father's serial murders providing new dramatic evidence revealing a paid police informant letter written in 1949 naming and corroborating Dr. Hodel as the murderer of both Elizabeth "Black Dahlia" Short and a second Lone Woman Murder victim, Mrs. Louise Springer. Provides the most important original document second only to the LADA Hodel Black Dahlia Secret Files.
In The Mesquite: The Solving of the 1938 West Texas Kidnap Torture Murders of Hazel and Nancy Frome. (Thoughtprint Press August 2019) Solves and identifies the killer(s) in what the DPS Texas Rangers described as "It (Frome investigation) remains the biggest unsolved mystery in the Americal Southwest." An eighty-one-year-old whodunit solved by the author in 2019.
The Early Years: The Further Serial Crimes of George Hill Hodel M.D. Part I (The 1920s) and Part II (The 1930s)
Published by Thoughtprint Press 2021 These two book editions present George Hodel's suspected California crimes pre-Black Dahlia and LA Lone Murder victims prior to his series of crimes in the 1940s through the 1960s.
Black Dahlia Avenger IV: A Los Angeles Superior Court Trial by The Quick and the Dead: Confessions from the Afterlife
Published by Thoughtprint Press November, 2023. This book is Steve's first "Historical Fiction" in which Dr. George Hill Hodel and Fred Sexton are called "From Beyond" and face a midnight trial conducted by Judge Ambrose Barrington, in LA's Hall of Justice.
Steve resides in his hometown of Los Angeles.
Author reviews of Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder:
"Los Angeles is the construct of its mythologies good and bad, fact and fiction. The legend of Elizabeth Short is one of the most enduring. But now Steve Hodel has come to put the Black Dahlia painfully to rest. With the tenacity and patience of the veteran homicide detective, he once was, Hodel goes from odd coincidence to rock-solid conclusion. Taking us on the intriguing and unsettling journey every step of the way, Hodel's investigation is thoroughly and completely convincing. So too is this book. As far as I am concerned, this case is closed. Elizabeth Short's legend is now shared with a killer who has been pulled from the shadows of time and into the light. Everybody counts or nobody counts, and that includes the people shrouded in our myths. Steve Hodel knows this. And now we do, too."
Michael Connelly
Bestselling author of Harry Bosch series
"The best nonfiction book about L.A. crime I have ever read."
Gerald Petievich
Author of To Live and Die in LA and The Sentinel
"[Hodel] has written an intensely readable account...So what's the final verdict on Black Dahlia Avenger? Its accounts of cover-ups and civic corruption are all too believable, and much of the circumstantial evidence it presents against George Hodel is persuasive...Has Steve Hodel solved the case? I think so."
Jon L. Breen
Author and two-time MWA Edgar Award winner
Author Black Dahlia Avenger related Television Appearances
1. DATELINE NBC "Black Dahlia" Josh Mankiewicz (2003) 1-hr (20 min seg)
2. COURT TV "Who Killed the Black Dahlia?" Josh Mankiewicz (2003) 1-hr
3. CBS 48-HOURS "Black Dahlia Confidential" (2004) 1-hr
4. A&E Bill Kurtis COLD CASE FILES "Black Dahlia" (2006) 1-hr
5. NBC Universal (France) The Truth About The Black Dahlia (2006) 1-hr
6. CNN Anderson Cooper-360 "Black Dahlia" (2006) 8 mins
7. Discovery Channel "MOST EVIL" (2007) 1-hr
8. The View ABC 7-min segment
9. Travel Channel "Hidden Cities-Los Angeles-The Black Dahlia" (2011)
10.SyFy Ghost Hunters Season 9, "Historic Sowden-Black Dahlia House (2012)
11.SINISTER, The Movie, DVD Lionsgate, "True Crime Authors" Interview (2012)
12.NBC News Patrick Healy, "Black Dahlia Cadaver Dog Sowden House" (2013)
13.Univision KMEX, Leon Krauze, "La Dahlia Negra" Spl Investigation" (2013)
14. NBC News, Patrick Healy, "Ex-Cop Cites New Evidence His Father Was Serial Killer (2014)
15. U.K. Channel 5, Documentary, "Conspiracy, The Hollywood Files" (2015)
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