Is it true that there is no Detective Herman Willis, as claimed in “Severed”?
A. I have gone to the ends of the earth in an attempt to find the alleged Detective Herman Willis, who provides the information in “Severed” about Elizabeth Short’s purported “infantile genitals,” which he supposedly learned about while attending the autopsy of Elizabeth Short. Interestingly enough, the police summary of the case says the following four people attended the autopsy: Detective Harry Hansen and Ray Pinker, head of the crime lab, Dr. Frederick Newbarr, who performed the autopsy, and Dr. Victor Cefalu, who assisted. No mention of Herman Willis or anyone else. He’s not in the 1940s city directories or phone books, like the other LAPD detectives of the period. Unlike other detectives, he doesn’t appear in any of coverage of the Black Dahlia case. In fact, there’s not a single word about him in the clip files of the Los Angeles Examiner or the Los Angeles Times (where I work). The directory of retired LAPD officers doesn’t list him, and a friend of mine, a former officer who k
