Ed Burns alias Maurice Clement
Guess Who?
Linda Rohr was a Black Dahlia roommate. Maurice was the Dahlia's "favorite boy friend." How many newshawks in the Dahlia newsmania interviewed ultra-newsworthy
Maurice? Zip. Maurice was the little man who wasn't there: Ed Burns. Look what Ed
thought he'd gotten away with:
1. Ed Burns began with a switcheroo: BURNS ED
2. Ed made two anagrams of himself: NBURS DE
3. Ed alphabetically shifted data down v v v v
one place. Shift 2 alphas, skip 2 alphas: MAURR CE
4. Ed put "I/Ed" in the slot he'd saved: MAURRICE
"Maurrice" was "I, Ed Burns" to Ed, and "Maurice" to everybody else. Ed Burns'
Maurrice/Maurice had a last name: "Clement." "Clement" has a decryption which jells
with decryption of "Maurice." Ed utilized "Clement" to say and prove that Ed Burns
was the Black Dahlia killer. Here's how Ed got to "Clement":
1. Ed began w/ "Black Dahlia Killer" plus an apology: BDK SM
2. Ed made his Maurice "maneuver." Two anagrams: BKD MS
3. Ed did his Maurice shift. This time, all up 1 alpha: CLE NT
4. Ed did what we expect of him. He injected "I/me": CLEMENT
The full decryption of "Maurice Clement" is:
"I, Ed Burns, Black Dahlia killer, [that's] me. Sorry mare."
Does it seem familiar? It should. It's the same "Sorry, mare" Ed Burns would set
up in The Hirsh Apts. and use in his suicide/confession message.
Ed Burns was Maurice Clement! And a Maurice Clement is a hub of chicanery in
Donald Wolfe's The Black Dahlia Files . . . In the book are a photo allegedly of and
text purportedly about Maurice Clement. But the LA-area man Elizabeth knew as>
"Maurice" was not in settings and scenarios Wolfe puts Maurice into. And the photo
is of a guy named "Salvadore Torres Vara."
Vara was not the man Elizabeth Short knew as "Maurice Clement." How could
Wolfe have made this "mistake"? Was it a mistake? Look at this:
In Wolfe's book, pg. 277: "He [Clement] was identified as the person who
transported Elizabeth to Mark Hansen's residence on Carlos Street." In John Gilmore's Severed, pg. 94: "[Ed] Burns drove Beth from another
hotel to a house [Hansen's] on Carlos Avenue that was situated behind the
Florentine Gardens nightclub. 'She had a lot of luggage . . .' " Wolfe and Gilmore collectively endorse the Guess Who theme: Ed Burns and
Maurice Clement were one and the same man! On this, they were correct.
The strangest statement in the DA suspect list is under "Maurice Clement." It is
suspiciously short. It concludes: ". . . a likely character type but has been partially
eliminated by the Los Angeles Police Department. See their report." The statement
says "partially"(?) What does that mean? If Ed Burns did drown himself, and is not
hiding out in the Sunbelt, he's eliminated. Is that what it means?
The "belongings pack" telephoner had a silky-sounding voice. The Chancellor
Apartments-phoning Maurice had a cultured British accent. This points directly at
Ed Burns. "Silky" and "cultured British" insinuate deception: Ed's trademark.
Certain Dahlia buffs have claimed that Ed Burns isn't in the LA DA's 1949 Black
Dahlia-murder suspect List. But Burns is in said list as his LA-area alias: "Maurice
Clement." The double-whammy function of this alias is explained below.
M 'n M
Ed had good reasons for using "Maurice Clement" as an alias. One's a weirdity,
not a rarity. It was done by Robert Louis Stevenson in the classic: Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. It was done by the Suzanne Degnan-dissector, William Heirens: Will was the
good guy, George Murman was the bad guy. And it was done by the Black Dahlia-
bisector, Ed Burns: Ed was the good guy, Maurice Clement was the bad guy.
So Ed's Degnan-murder mimetism went further than we'd thought: Ed/Maurice
included the Heirens/Murman thing. And Ed Burns was more cryptically clever in
manufacture of "Maurice" than we'd thought. Do you see it, and hear it? They have
similarities in look and sound: Murman/Maurice.
In addition to being part of the Degnan mimetism, "Maurice Clement" would've
been a cover: an element of Ed's "perfect murder." The DA list said: ". . . working at
Columbia Studios at the time of the murder." Maurice was a talent scout. He must
have used a phony ID. He likely had a desk he would never use, and an LA-area
apartment he'd use when he was in the area on a "one-day trip." The FBI file noted
that Ed Burns made the trips. But I'll bet the Bureau was unaware of the apartment
or "Maurice," at the time of the interrogation. Maurice probably was out in the field
scouting, full-time. The field included Sunbelt states . . . and the Shanghai Dance
Hall in Hollywood, where he met the Black Dahlia. Would anybody in the LA area
have known him as "Ed Burns"? If not, the link from UnID'd Man in Hirsh Apts. to
Ed Burns in the Sunbelt could've been tenuous. LAPD called on the FBI to identify
Mr. Barnes . . . If no one in the LA area knew him as "Ed Burns," then so what if
everyone in the area deciphers his messages? Initials and names they will find are
E, B, Ed and Ed Burns: not M, C and Maurice Clement.
Like other elements of the Dahlia murder, Ed's "Maurice" alias reflects long-term
planning. The murder might've been in the works from the time Ed realized the love
of his life would never be "his": in other words, from the day Ed Burns and Elizabeth
Short met. Maybe Elizabeth never heard "Ed Burns" prior to the trilogy reading. But
that's crazy. Yes! Ed Burns was a psychiatrist-certified mental case. And the Black
Dahlia murder was stranger than any "true story" Black Dahlia fiction I've read.
Ed Burns must've been a fixture at the top of LAPD's Black Dahlia-suspect list
from the day the FBI ID'd him. And Ed told us most of what we would want to know
about the murder. But 1947 LAPD did not close the case . . .
Do not follow the bouncing blue ball!
The Fate of the Black Dahlia Murderer
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