14 DAY TRIAL // The Black Dahlia case has left law enforcement officials and the public wandering since 1947. A new lead may have been uncovered, in the form of evidence found in the main suspect's home.
The San Bernardino Sun reveals that a cadaver dog has been brought in to search George Hill Hodel's former residence.
A doctor in Los Angeles at the time, he has long been dubbed Dahlia's killer. He is also suspected to be responsible of several other unsolved murder cases from the 1940s.
His son Steve Hodel is among those convinced that Hodel killed the young girl, researching the case and authoring the book "Black Dahlia Avenger."
Retired police Sgt. Paul Dostie of Mammoth Lakes and Buster has helped Hodel search his father's Franklin Avenue house, looking for clues.
Bringing in a Labrador retriever trained as a cadaver dog has yielded results, as the dog stumbled upon the scent of a decomposed human body.
"We have established as fact that the basement ... some 66 years after the murder, still holds the smell of death," Hodel says.
"Buster immediately took off ... and ran to a vent located at the southwest corner of the property where he alerted, indicating he had picked up the scent of human decomposition," he describes.
The remains of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, were discovered in 1947, at the intersection of 39th Street and Norton Avenue in South Los Angeles.
At that time, local newspapers published notes allegedly sent by her killer, meant to taunt and embarrass the police department.
While having a trained dog pick up the odor of a body is not enough to close the case, Hodel is attempting to retrieve other pieces of corroborating evidence.
Soil samples from said basement have been forwarded to a criminal lab for further investigation.