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Billy Thistle's avatar

Sliding from your mention of noir movie Blue Dahlia (1946) to the notorious murder of the Black Dalia (1947), WIKI names many unindicted suspects including Woody Guthrie, Bugsy Siegel, Orson Welles and George Hodel. The last seems to have been the culprit. His solution of disposing of the body was to display it in a vacant lot in public view, the naked cadaver being surgically sliced in two at the waist and angularly separated.

Why such a brazen and macabre way of disposing of a corpse? The LA detective son of the murderer wrote an absorbing book detailing his father's story - Black Dahlia Avenger. Another book on the subject explores an argument that the killer was imitating surrealist art when Hodel chose his gruesome display. The son confirms that Man Ray was among his father's circle of influential Hollywood friends.

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