This article was published in May
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1762494/georgette_bauerdorf_the_other_black.html?cat=2
Murdered by the Dahlia's Killer?
The crime scene was like something out of an old Hollywood movie. It was October of 1944. A young woman, just 20 years of age, was found submerged face down in a bathtub full of water inside her home. Her lustrous dark hair skimmed the top of the still.
warm water that engulfed her lifeless body. She wore only a pink hued pajama top, no bottoms. A cloth had been shoved in her mouth far enough to choke her, and she had been sexually assaulted. The girl was bruised over several areas of her body, particularly the back of the head, hips, pelvic region, and right thigh. The imprint of a man's hand, fingers and thumb specifically, could be seen on her thigh as well suggesting the use of extreme force during the assault. The girl was Georgette Bauerdorf.
By the time the body of Georgette Bauerdorf was discovered, rigor mortis had already set in and it was estimated that she had been dead for at least 8-10 hours already. Georgette lived alone in a posh Spanish Baroque style apartment building called El Palacio - "The Palace." The lavish building located on Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood certainly lived up to its title. The building and grounds were beautiful with a bit of old world charm. Living there would certainly make a young woman feel like a princess, especially considering at least one successful actress (Virginia Weidler) lived there as well at the time.
The expensive accommodations and well-to-do clientele living at El Palacio would certainly seem to make the place attractive to potential burglars, but a crime much worse than theft would occur on that crisp October night in 1944 when Georgette Bauerdorf was raped and strangled to death. Detectives on the scene reportedly determined the primary motive for the crime was rape, and the murder was a secondary consequence of the violent sexual assault. Nothing had been stolen from the apartment, despite expensive jewelry and other items sitting out in plain view. It seemed the perpetrator was motivated purely by sexual desire.
According to many sources, the cause of death was strangulation. However, in all of the research available (to me anyway), there is scarcely mention of strangulation marks on Georgette's neck so it is quite possible that she died of asphyxiation when her attacker shoved a cloth deep down her throat during the rape, probably to keep her quiet after she tried screaming for help (A neighbor actually reported hearing Georgette scream for her life around 2:30 in the morning, but didn't call the police). Georgette's death may have been incidental, although it is possible the perpetrator made a decision to kill her during the commission of the sexual crime. Either way, detectives on the case did not seem to feel the murder had been the primary motive for the crime.
So who was Georgette Bauerdorf and why would someone want to rape and kill her?
Georgette was born in New York City where she spent a good portion of her youth before the family moved to Los Angeles, California, for several years. There, Georgette attended the prestigious Westlake School and earned her high school diploma there. She was in good company at the school, which has boasted many notable students over the years. Among the famous names and faces to come out of the school are: actress Candace Bergen, former CA governor Gray Davis, actress Bridget Fonda, sibling actors Maggie & Jake Gyllenhaal, comedian Jon Lovitz, Bewitched actress Elizabeth Montgomery, musicians Gunnar & Matthew Nelson, Ron Reagan - son of former President Reagan, actress Tori Spelling, and beloved child actress Shirley Temple. Georgette Bauerdorf was among the elite, to say the least.
Following high school, Georgette gained employment in the Women's Service Bureau of the LA Times while also volunteering at the Hollywood Canteen, a place frequented by men from all outfits of the military. Bette Davis and John Garfield played a significant role in creating the Canteen, which first opened in 1942. Current owners of the club describe its history as follows:
"The Hollywood Canteen operated...as a club offering food, dancing and entertainment for servicemen, usually on their way overseas. Even though the majority of visitors were U.S servicemen...The serviceman's ticket for admission was his uniform and everything at the Canteen was free of charge."
For Georgette, working around all those servicemen while volunteering at the Canteen was one of the perks. By all accounts, she liked to date quite a bit and was especially fond of all the military men either deploying or returning from the war (WWII then). Georgette was certainly living the life. She had attended school in the company of some well-known actresses (Shirley Temple & Myrna Loy), she lived in a beautiful palace-esq building next to another actress, and she was surrounded by celebrities and military men through her work. What more could a girl ask for?
Unfortunately, Georgette would only enjoy that wonderful life very briefly. In August of 1944, when Georgette was twenty, her family left Los Angeles to return to New York. She remained in the beautiful El Palacio two-story apartment alone and continued to enjoy visiting the Canteen. But st a few months later, before she had a chance to meet up with a beau in El Paso, Texas, she would be savagely raped and killed in the early morning hours of October 13, 1944. No one was ever charged with the crime, and the case officially remains unsolved to this day, although it was closed years ago. Several men confessed to the crime, but none proved to be guilty.
But in an interesting twist, when the now infamous Black Dahlia was killed within a year or so of Georgette's murder, a person of interest came to light. A man, who identified himself as Arnold Smith, came forward with details about the Black Dahlia case. He named the killer as Al Morrison, and described the grotesque manner in which Morrison slapped a board across a bathtub and then laid the Black Dahlia's body across it while he proceed to saw her in half and drain all her body fluids into the tub before first washing and then dumping her body. He also commented on "that other one who was found in a bathtub," possibly referring to Georgette Bauerdorf. Details of the two murders quickly overlapped. A bathtub had been utilized in the two cases, and both women had had something stuffed in their mouth (The Dahlia's panties were shoved in hers, according to Smith). Additionally, they were both around the same age with dark hair and similar features. They both seemed to enjoy the Hollywood crowd and the two women knew each other.
An important clue further linking the two cases was the fact that Georgette's car had originally been discovered abandoned not far from the spot where the Dahlia's body was eventually found following her murder. In the case of the Black Dahlia, it was as if the killer had previously scouted the site when he left Georgette's car there. The man Arnold Smith identified as the Dahlia's killer, as it turns out, never existed! There was no such person. Police suspected Smith and Morrison were one in the same, but they would never be able to charge him. He accidentally burned to death after falling asleep with a lit cigarette. Crime reporter Aggie Underwood was one of the first individuals to push this theory that the murders of Georgette Bauerdorf and Elizabeth Short, aka: The Black Dahlia, were related. He urged police to actively pursue this possibility. In his book, The Cases That Haunt Us, now retired long time FBI profiler John Douglas concurs with Underwood and believes the two murders could very well have been committed by the same individual. In fact, he suggests that the perpetrator was likely a serial killer and may have been responsible for other unsolved murders at the time.