Rumor: Black Dahlia case solved? Cadaver dog finds possible death scene

2/5/13

Former LAPD detective awaits evidence that could finally prove his father was killer.

UNCONFIRMED: Results from soil samples taken from Hodel childhood home are pending

The Nov. 9 search of the historic "Sowden House" (see images) was conducted and filmed on Syfy Channel's "Ghost Hunters" but never aired on TV, United Press International, the Daily Mail (warning: graphic content and images) and other outlets are reporting.

Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel joined the search in an effort to prove that his father murdered 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, on Jan. 15, 1947.

According to UPI, the cadaver dog, a Labrador retriever named Buster, led detectives to a vent just outside the basement of Hodel's childhood home, where he detected a smell of human remains; the Daily Mail said Buster established four locations with a faint trace of human composition in the basement. Soil samples were sent to a lab for analysis.

Even before the results come back, Hodel remains convinced his father, doctor George Hill Hodel, was the Black Dahlia killer. The younger Hodel authored a book, "Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story," in 2003 that details the gruesome murder and points to his father as the killer.

George Hodel was a person of interest at the time of the murder. Before charges could be brought, however, Hodel abandoned his family and relocated to Asia. He died in 1991.

"We have established as fact that the basement ... some 66 years after the murder, still holds the smell of death," Steve Hodel said.

(Click here for other accounts of the story.)

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