The Black Dahlia case remains one of the most infamous unsolved murders in true crime history. In this special second part of our conversation with retired LAPD homicide detective and bestselling author Steve Hodel, we go deeper into the evidence, controversy, and personal cost behind his decades-long investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Short.

Steve originally set out to prove that his father, Dr George Hodel, had been wrongly accused of killing Elizabeth Short. Instead, the evidence led him in the opposite direction. In this fascinating and often emotional interview, Steve discusses why he believes his father was responsible, the alleged cover-up that followed, and how his own career investigating more than 300 homicide cases shaped his conclusions.

Steve Hodel is a retired Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective, former private investigator, nd bestselling true crime author. During his LAPD career he worked on more than 300 homicide investigations and received 75 commendations. He is best known for Black Dahlia Avenger, which explores his investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Short and the possibility that his own father, Dr George Hodel, was responsible.

Sources and Further Reading

• Steve Hodel – Black Dahlia Avenger

• Steve Hodel – Most Evil

• Steve Hodel – As Within, So Without

• Steve Hodel – The Early Years

• LAPD Black Dahlia case files

• Contemporary reporting on the murder of Elizabeth Short

• Historical research into the Black Dahlia investigation

🎙️ Switchblade Sisters Social Club is the true crime podcast where two friends exploit their worst fears for your entertainment.

📚 Visit Isla at Criminally Good Books: https://criminallygoodbooks.co.uk🌐 Find us at Switchblade Sisters Social Club: https://switchbladesisterssocialclub.com🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.

In one of the most infamous unsolved murders in true crime history, Dee takes on a case she never thought she’d cover: The Black Dahlia.

On 15 January 1947, the mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The shocking brutality of the crime, the glamour of post-war Hollywood, and the mystery surrounding her killer created a media sensation that continues nearly 80 years later.

This week, Dee walks Isla through the life of Elizabeth Short, the investigation that followed, and the key suspects who have fascinated detectives, journalists, and armchair sleuths for decades. Particular attention is given to one man whose name remains closely linked to the case: Dr George Hodel, a wealthy Los Angeles physician whose own son, retired LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel, became convinced his father was responsible.

Next week, we’ll be joined by Steve Hodel himself to discuss growing up in the shadow of one of true crime’s most controversial suspects and the evidence that changed his mind forever.

• Steve Hodel — Black Dahlia Avenger

• Steve Hodel — Most Evil

• Steve Hodel — Black Dahlia Avenger II

• Root of Evil: The True Story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia (TNT/Cadence13)

• FBI Records: The Black Dahlia Investigation

• FBI History: Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia)

• Los Angeles Police Museum – Black Dahlia Resources

• The Black Dahlia (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

🎙️ Next week: Dee and Isla sit down with retired LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel to discuss the evidence against his father, Dr George Hodel, and what it was like discovering that your own parent may have been one of America’s most notorious killers.

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussion of murder, sexual violence, and extreme brutality.

It’s the summer of 1975 in Colorado Springs. Sunshine, freedom, and young people on the brink of their futures.

And then, over less than two weeks, three lives are taken in acts of violence so senseless, so brutal, they still haunt the community nearly 50 years later.

This week, Isla brings Dee a case that is deeply disturbing, not just because of what happened, but because of what’s still happening now.

We’re talking about a killing spree, not a serial killer - no cooling-off period, no pattern-building. Just escalation. Fast. Chaotic. Deadly.

📚 Sources

• Karen: A Brother Remembers – Kelsey Grammer

• Contemporary reporting and court records on the Colorado Springs murders (1975)

• Parole board records and public statements

In this solo Dee-Brief, Dee dives into the haunting and unresolved disappearance of Amy Fitzpatrick, a 15-year-old Irish girl who vanished without a trace from Spain’s Costa del Sol.

On New Year’s Day 2008, Amy left a friend’s house for what should have been a short, 10-minute walk home. She never made it.

What follows is a case filled with unanswered questions, early investigative missteps, and a family left searching for answers for over a decade. Despite extensive searches involving helicopters, sniffer dogs, and international police cooperation, Amy has never been found.

• Irish Examiner – Coverage of Amy Fitzpatrick case

• Irish Times – Police in Spain search for missing Irish girl

• Irish Times – Search continues for missing Irish girl

• Irish Times – Police examine computer in search for Irish girl

• Irish Times – Family renew appeal for missing girl

• Irish Independent – Police talk to mother in search for Amy

• Irish Times – David Mahon guilty of manslaughter of Dean Fitzpatrick

• Irish Times – Mahon jailed for 7 years for killing Dean Fitzpatrick

• Search for Amy (official campaign site): https://www.searchforamy.com/

• Garda Crimecall appeal: https://www.garda.ie/en/crime-prevention/crimecall-on-rte/

• INTERPOL Yellow Notices: https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Yellow-Notices

• Sur in English – Anniversary reporting on the case

• Irish Examiner – Additional reporting and opinion pieces

Don’t forget to follow Switchblade Sisters Social Club wherever you get your podcasts, and keep an eye on our socials for clips, reels, and behind-the-scenes chaos from CrimeCon 👀

Sources🎧 Listen & Follow

We’re on a very brief mid-season pause (because life), but Dee couldn’t leave you hanging. So welcome back to a bite-sized Dee-Brief - short, sharp, and just a little bit scandalous.

This week, we’re diving into one of history’s most iconic and controversial women: Mata Hari. Exotic dancer. Alleged spy. Wartime scapegoat?

Shot by firing squad in Paris in 1917, Mata Hari’s story has been retold for over a century - but the truth remains frustratingly unclear. Was she a dangerous double agent… or simply a convenient villain in a time of fear and propaganda?

Over 100 years later, Mata Hari is still shorthand for the “femme fatale spy” - but modern historians increasingly see her as a tragic figure caught in the machinery of war and propaganda.

Normal service resumes next week, sexy listeners 💋

SOURCES

Pat Shipman (2007), Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari.

Julie Wheelwright (1992/2009), The Fatal Lover: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage.

Russell Warren Howe (1986), Mata Hari: The True Story.

Georgetown University Special Collections – Letters of Margaretha Zelle (Mata Hari). Digital facsimiles of her letters (1902–1917), including ones to Lt. Jean Hallaure.

UK National Archives (KV 2/1-2): British intelligence files on Mata Hari (1916–24).

French Service Historique de la Défense – Procès Mata Hari, 1917. (Order No. 2w 18/35) Trial dossier from Vincennes (sealed until 2017). Summary published by Russell Warren Howe.

Contemporary Newspapers Archives (1917): e.g. Le Figaro, Le Matin (Paris); The Times (London); New York Times. (Explore Gallica and library databases for 1917 reports on the trial.)

Smithsonian Magazine (Nov. 2017): “Revisiting the Myth of Mata Hari” by Meilan Solly.

TIME Magazine (Oct. 2017): “Mata Hari’s True Story Remains a Mystery” by Ray Cavanaugh.

Stefan Steinberg (2020), The Death of Mata Hari – Inside the Tragic Story of WWI’s Most Celebrated Spy (MilitaryHistoryNow.com).

CIA Archives – “Mata Hari Was Framed, Files Show” (1985). Article on Russell Warren Howe’s findings; declassified CIA snippet referencing the newly opened trial dossier. (Available via CIA Reading Room archive.)

Fries Museum (Leeuwarden) – Mata Hari Room.

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses the murder of a child and racially motivated violence.

On 21 August 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till boarded a train from Chicago to Mississippi. He carried a small suitcase, his father’s ring engraved “L.T.” — and the excitement of a summer adventure.

Four days later, he was dead.

What happened to Emmett in the Mississippi Delta became one of the most infamous lynchings in American history. Abducted in the middle of the night by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, brutally beaten, shot, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck, Emmett’s murder exposed the lethal reality of Jim Crow America.

Emmett Till’s death became a catalyst. Rosa Parks later said she thought of Emmett when she refused to give up her bus seat. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. invoked his name in sermons. Activists would later call themselves the “Emmett Till Generation.”

Justice in a courtroom never came and Emmett Till never saw his fifteenth birthday.

But his story helped ignite a movement that reshaped America.

:

• Timothy B. Tyson, The Blood of Emmett Till

• National Museum of African American History and Culture

• FBI Historical Case File: Emmett Till

• U.S. Department of Justice (2021 Cold Case Closure Report)

• Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board (2025 document release)

• PBS American Experience

• Library of Congress Civil Rights History Project

• White House Proclamation (Emmett Till & Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, 2023)

• Congress.gov (Emmett Till Antilynching Act)

• Chicago History Museum

• Mississippi Free Press (2025 records release coverage)

• Murder in America episode 55

Sources