Speaker 1: You're listening to Facing Evil, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Tenderfoot TV. The views and opinions expressed in
Speaker 1: this podcast are solely those of the individuals participating in
Speaker 1: the show and do not represent those of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio or Tenderfoot TV. This podcast contains subject matter which
Speaker 1: may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised
Speaker 1: from Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio. Introducing Facing Evil.
Speaker 1: I'm Rosha Pacarreira and I'm Evett Gintil. For those of
Speaker 1: you who don't know who we are, we suggest you
Speaker 1: give a listen to our hit podcast, Root of Evil,
Speaker 1: the true story of the Hodel Family and the Black Dahlia. Yes,
Speaker 1: Russia and I are sisters, and in two thousand nineteen
Speaker 1: we hosted Root of Evil together to help tell the
Speaker 1: story of our family, which is a crazy story. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to Root and a crazy fan a
Speaker 1: crazy family, you must listen to it. Yes, and it's
Speaker 1: really a story about overcoming incredible family secrets, murder and
Speaker 1: when I say so much more, it's so much more. Specifically,
Speaker 1: the podcast is a multidimensional story about our connection to
Speaker 1: George Hoddel, the prime suspect in the Black Dollar murder case,
Speaker 1: which is also known as the Elizabeth Short murder case.
Speaker 1: And George Hodel was our great grandfather, and you must
Speaker 1: know that Rush and I never met our great grandfather,
Speaker 1: nor did our mother. She talked him on the phone though, yes.
Speaker 1: But in Rute of Evil we tracked the evidence for
Speaker 1: George's guilt and we try to come to terms with
Speaker 1: the impact that he had on our entire family. We
Speaker 1: also tell the story of our beautiful mother, Fana Hoddel,
Speaker 1: and how she protected us, our entire lives from this
Speaker 1: immense craziness that she discovered. We'll talk a little are
Speaker 1: about that case in a moment, but first let's explain
Speaker 1: what we're doing here with you today. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: our new podcast and it's called Facing Evil. It'll be
Speaker 1: very different from Root of Evil. Well, we focus primarily
Speaker 1: on our story in that podcast. In Facing Evil, we
Speaker 1: want to explore other cases and bring attention to missing
Speaker 1: and murdered people who don't get talked about. We also
Speaker 1: want to talk about older cases, obviously new cases, society
Speaker 1: and culture cases. After Root of Evil finished event and
Speaker 1: I realized that we were not alone in our story.
Speaker 1: There are hundreds, even thousands of families who face tragedy
Speaker 1: every single year, whether they were a victim, themselves, close
Speaker 1: to a victim, or even close to a suspect. Learning
Speaker 1: that someone you love was involved in a violent crime
Speaker 1: is never an easy truth to swallow, right, And so
Speaker 1: we want to share the difficult lessons we've learned throughout
Speaker 1: our healing process because it's a journey, it's a never
Speaker 1: ending journey, and we want to shed light on the
Speaker 1: stories of people like us. Facing evil is about being
Speaker 1: the light in the dark. Can I just repeat that?
Speaker 1: Say that again? Let me say it again. Listen, being
Speaker 1: the light in the dark. It's about moving upward and
Speaker 1: onward and never ever letting the evil define you. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, say that and let that resonate and sink in. Yes.
Speaker 1: And each week we're going to talk about a different case.
Speaker 1: So yes, we're gonna bring you the fact. We're going
Speaker 1: to tell you about what happened. But no one can
Speaker 1: talk about a story the way that event and I
Speaker 1: can talk about a story coming from what we've come
Speaker 1: from and what we've gone through in our lives. I
Speaker 1: hope that we can help people just find some some healing, right,
Speaker 1: And we know that there are dozens of cases for
Speaker 1: us to talk about on facing evil, But if you
Speaker 1: do know of a case you think we should cover,
Speaker 1: please please reach out to us and us know before
Speaker 1: we go any further, there are some things you should
Speaker 1: know about us. First and foremost, Yvette and I were
Speaker 1: both raised in the beautiful Honolulu, Hawaii. It's paradise, the
Speaker 1: most beautiful place in the world, which means you may
Speaker 1: hear us use Hawaiian words or phrases throughout the show.
Speaker 1: I love to say, you can take the girl out
Speaker 1: of the island, but you can never take the island
Speaker 1: out of the girl. Hawaiian culture is incredibly important to us.
Speaker 1: Hawaii is a sacred and a spiritual place, and I
Speaker 1: feel so fortunate that Mom decided to raise us there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we learned to cherish the Aina, the means the land.
Speaker 1: We learned to have inner peace, love which means aloha,
Speaker 1: and kindness for everyone around us, didn't matter who they
Speaker 1: were when we were raised in a melting pot. And
Speaker 1: you might hear us use the word Ohanna, which means family.
Speaker 1: We say this all the time. Ohannah means everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we greet each other by saying a como my,
Speaker 1: which means welcome, so a como my to facing evil.
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, we're going to recap the
Speaker 1: basis of root of evil. That is how we got
Speaker 1: thrust into the Black Tail You murder case in the
Speaker 1: first place and entered the true crime arena. The first
Speaker 1: thing you should know is that our great grandfather, George Odell,
Speaker 1: was considered a suspect in nineteen forty nine, about two
Speaker 1: years after the victim, Elizabeth Short, was found dead in
Speaker 1: nineteen So we're not going to go through all of
Speaker 1: the case details here, but Short's murder was one of
Speaker 1: the most gruesome and notorious killings in all of American history.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles had a rich newspaper and tabloid culture. Crime
Speaker 1: was central to entertainment in a pre TV world when
Speaker 1: people still got mourning and evening newspapers, and when you
Speaker 1: had a really great, horrifying homicide like that, you know,
Speaker 1: this was the story that she ran with. Elizabeth Short
Speaker 1: was living in Los Angeles, California at the time, and
Speaker 1: she was a waitress with hopes of being an actress.
Speaker 1: But on January eight, she went missing. A few days later,
Speaker 1: she was discovered in suburban Limert Park and her body
Speaker 1: was dismembered and mutilated. She had been found on a
Speaker 1: vacant lot, posed and surgically bisected. Dr George Hoddel became
Speaker 1: a prime suspect for a number of different reasons. First,
Speaker 1: he was a surgeon, which would explain the precise cuts
Speaker 1: identified on the dismembered body of Short. Second, he was
Speaker 1: known to have been deeply invested in sado masochism. And
Speaker 1: third and most damning, George was reported to have basically
Speaker 1: roundabout admitted to killing Elizabeth Short on a wire tap
Speaker 1: in his home, but before charges could be filed, George
Speaker 1: fled the country and he landed in the Philippines, where
Speaker 1: he started a new family. He later went to Hawaii, Japan,
Speaker 1: and eventually San Francisco, and that's where he died in
Speaker 1: And thus the Black Dalia case and George's guilt were
Speaker 1: never fully solved. However, George Hodel was almost certainly guilty
Speaker 1: of other crimes within our family without a doubt. We
Speaker 1: know that he sexually assaulted his teenage daughter, our grandmother,
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Hodel. Yeah, and there was an incest trial, or
Speaker 1: at the time they actually called it a morals trial,
Speaker 1: where Tomar's claims of sexual abuse were squashed and ultimately
Speaker 1: George was acquitted, even though there were adult witnesses, two
Speaker 1: of them that actually saw him having sexual relations, as
Speaker 1: they call it, with his own daughter. But George was
Speaker 1: never convicted of any of those crimes because they recanted
Speaker 1: their stories. Yeah, in August of nineteen fifty one, our
Speaker 1: beautiful mother, Fana Hoddel was born. And you know what,
Speaker 1: this was one of the biggest unanswered questions for us
Speaker 1: all Who was our mother's father And it's still unknown
Speaker 1: till this day, and so much was left on the
Speaker 1: cutting room floor and root of evil, including d N
Speaker 1: A that could have possibly disproved that mom's father could
Speaker 1: have been her own grandfather, George Hoddel. I never believed
Speaker 1: that George's mom's father, although I know that you did.
Speaker 1: I was actually shocked to learn the DNA results. But
Speaker 1: we're going to get into that on another episode. But
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, I actually had to do
Speaker 1: a family tree and Mom sent me to Tomar's house
Speaker 1: and so I asked Tomorrow every question under the sun
Speaker 1: about our entire family and the Hodel side of the family,
Speaker 1: and she would never give me a direct answer when
Speaker 1: I asked about who Mom's father was is. But despite
Speaker 1: all of that, despite the fact that that mom you know,
Speaker 1: might have been from George or who knows who her
Speaker 1: father was, Mom always carried herself like she was just
Speaker 1: pure love. She was the most beautiful, amazing human being
Speaker 1: in this entire world. She was beyond her time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she was pure light analoha. And it breaks my
Speaker 1: heart that she's not here with us talking to you
Speaker 1: right now, but I know that she's here. Yes. And
Speaker 1: Mom was actually at birth, she was given up for
Speaker 1: adoption and raised by a new family in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 1: So that's part of the mystery, right, Yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's what we want to uncover, so you know, stay tuned.
Speaker 1: At age fifteen, Mom got pregnant with me and married
Speaker 1: my father, A. G. Bobby Ward on her sweet sixteenth birthday.
Speaker 1: Mom gave birth to me in ninety on Guess seventh,
Speaker 1: a week later in Reno, Nevada, And after divorcing my father,
Speaker 1: she went on the search to find her biological family.
Speaker 1: She found them in Hawaii. We ended up there and
Speaker 1: that's where I was raised. I was born in Honolulu
Speaker 1: eleven years later in nineteen and our mom, Fauna was
Speaker 1: truly the most loving mother that Evett or I could
Speaker 1: ever have asked for. She loved both of us unconditionally,
Speaker 1: and she was truly our biggest cheerleader. We grew up
Speaker 1: with such immense love that Mom never let that evil
Speaker 1: that she came from, She never let that define who
Speaker 1: she was, and she never became a victim of her circumstances.
Speaker 1: So one little quick thing that we need to explain
Speaker 1: to all of you is the somewhat um complex nature
Speaker 1: of our family's racial identity. When our mother, Fana Hoddel
Speaker 1: was put up for adoption, her birth certificate said she
Speaker 1: was biracial, and she was raised by African American parents,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Lee and Homer Facing, and those were my grandparents
Speaker 1: growing up, my black grandparents. She grew up believing that
Speaker 1: she was half black, and it wasn't until she was
Speaker 1: in her twenties that she discovered the truth. And when
Speaker 1: my mom finally met her biological mother Tomorrow in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: Tomorrow revealed in fact that she had lied and made
Speaker 1: it up and said that Mom's father was Negro for
Speaker 1: all kinds of different reasons. You know, you can imagine
Speaker 1: having a birth certificate carrying it around your whole life,
Speaker 1: and then you meet your real mother, your biological mother,
Speaker 1: she tells you that you're not black. It completely shattered
Speaker 1: her world and it took her, I mean it took
Speaker 1: her many years to reveal the truth to her family,
Speaker 1: to a black family, and even to my father, who
Speaker 1: is black. And so my father is actually white and
Speaker 1: was the first white guy I think Mom had ever ever, ever, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever dated, and she met him on a trip to Hawaiti.
Speaker 1: So she decided that Hawaiti was going to be the
Speaker 1: perfect place to raise the two of us because it's
Speaker 1: such a diverse melting pot and Mom did not want
Speaker 1: us to experience the type of racism that she experienced
Speaker 1: growing up in Reno because she was never black enough,
Speaker 1: she was never white enough. And in Hawaii it's much
Speaker 1: more of a melting pot and it's so much more accepting.
Speaker 1: And for me, being blonde hair, blue eyed, I never
Speaker 1: had an issue growing up in Hawaii ever. Right, So,
Speaker 1: but back to our upbringing and how we came to
Speaker 1: learn about George Hoddel. It wasn't until we were adults
Speaker 1: that the complete truth about George came to light, but
Speaker 1: we grew up hearing stories about him, throughout our higher childhood.
Speaker 1: And we know for a fact that Mom never met George,
Speaker 1: but spoke with him only on the phone. Mom felt
Speaker 1: that he kept tabs on us throughout our lives. But
Speaker 1: in George passed away and our uncle retired l A
Speaker 1: p D. Detective Steve Hodel started to do research into
Speaker 1: his father's life. I flew to San Francisco. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there with June, my stepmother, who had been with my
Speaker 1: father for thirty years, and June said, I think your
Speaker 1: father would want you to have this, and she handed
Speaker 1: me this small album. I looked at it and I
Speaker 1: said to June, June, who is this? And June said,
Speaker 1: I don't know somebody your father knew from a long
Speaker 1: time ago. I was trying to pull it in. Where
Speaker 1: do I know this picture? Why do I know this woman?
Speaker 1: Somewhere deep within me? I made the connection the Black Telliott.
Speaker 1: In two thousand three, our great uncle Steve published book
Speaker 1: Black Dahlia Avenger, exposing George and essentially revealing that he
Speaker 1: was almost certainly the Black Dahlia Killer. And this is
Speaker 1: when the world, and when I tell you, the whole
Speaker 1: world new our dark family secrets. Yeah, I remember when
Speaker 1: Uncle Steve came out on I can never remember if
Speaker 1: it was Dateline or forty eight Hours, but I remember
Speaker 1: sitting next to Mom watching it, and I remember literally
Speaker 1: saying out loud, I am so ashamed to be a hotel.
Speaker 1: And Mom looked at me because she wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: sit in that and she's like, no, like, we are
Speaker 1: not the evil that we came from. And she kept
Speaker 1: telling us over and over again, like you better know
Speaker 1: your mantra. We are the daughters of a Faano hotel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember reading the Black Dahlia Avenger for the first
Speaker 1: time and thinking, Holly shit, the whole world knows. That's
Speaker 1: such a crazy feeling of knowing that that bloodline runs
Speaker 1: through our family. Mom was even more convinced after this
Speaker 1: that she needed to tell the world her story to
Speaker 1: shed light on overcoming evil, and she spent her whole
Speaker 1: life on this mission, the mission to not only tell
Speaker 1: her story, but to tell other stories about healing and surviving,
Speaker 1: just as we are doing now. Yeah. Mom was a trailblazer,
Speaker 1: like she first and foremost always wanted to empower anyone,
Speaker 1: especially people who were a victim. But then in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seventeen, everything changed and our world was shattered
Speaker 1: when our beautiful mother, Fauna Hodel died from breast cancer.
Speaker 1: Sorry sorry, I always get emotional over this, um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: our mother died from breast cancer, and it was just
Speaker 1: weeks before her lifelong dream of telling her story to
Speaker 1: the world came to fruition and we were given we
Speaker 1: were given this incredible opportunity to tell her story via
Speaker 1: Root of Evil and T and T s limited TV
Speaker 1: series I Am the Night, and it was. It was
Speaker 1: truly a cathartic and surreal we kept saying surreal over
Speaker 1: and over process for both of us being on set
Speaker 1: in the recording studio. As weird as it may sound,
Speaker 1: it really felt like we were helping to bring our
Speaker 1: mother back to life. And in two thousand nineteen, it's
Speaker 1: shocked us, but Root of Evil shot to the top
Speaker 1: of the podcast charts and Yvette and I were basically
Speaker 1: thrust into the spotlight. But please don't be fooled. Mama
Speaker 1: Fono Hodel. She she was working things from up above
Speaker 1: like she was Streak Lane her fairy dust. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: knew what she was doing and she prepared us for this.
Speaker 1: Our entire lives and we went on this world wind
Speaker 1: Press tour. We basically didn't even have time to grieve,
Speaker 1: but we did all kinds of things, including going on
Speaker 1: the Today Show Dr Oz and my personal favorite, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, Dr Phil, And the best therapy I've
Speaker 1: ever had in my entire life was actually with Dr Phil,
Speaker 1: not on his TV show that we were on, but
Speaker 1: afterwards he invited us to be on his podcast. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is a funny story because I did not
Speaker 1: want to go on the Doctor Field Show and Rasha
Speaker 1: was like, come on, let's just do another one. But
Speaker 1: I went on it, and to my surprise, he was
Speaker 1: truly a wonderful human being and he taught us so much,
Speaker 1: so much on that show. Dr Phil is pretty awesome
Speaker 1: and I even still have the Doctor Phil handkerchief that
Speaker 1: he literally handed to me any vet when we were
Speaker 1: bobbing uncontrollably in front of him. And the reason that
Speaker 1: we were sobbing is after he took in the entire
Speaker 1: story that we were telling him about our family and
Speaker 1: our lives, he looked right in our eyes and he said,
Speaker 1: what you girls are doing is so incredible because someone's
Speaker 1: going to be listening to this and they will see
Speaker 1: that it's okay because monsters live in the dark, and
Speaker 1: what you're doing is bringing this to light because you're
Speaker 1: talking about it. That was such a powerful moment for me,
Speaker 1: for both of us, And what we realized in that
Speaker 1: moment is people don't talk about grief. People don't talk
Speaker 1: about death, people don't talk about incest, people don't talk
Speaker 1: about homophobia or transphobia, or racism or murder. People just
Speaker 1: don't talk and grief and shame. I mean, they're like
Speaker 1: a beast. I shouldn't say, they're like it is a
Speaker 1: beast that we are all constantly trying to tame. So
Speaker 1: when you have a voice and your privileged enough, like
Speaker 1: we are to have a platform, which we know we
Speaker 1: were given this platform as a gift um initially from
Speaker 1: our mom and then from Weird of Evil and now
Speaker 1: facing evil, we have to use it to amplify others
Speaker 1: and share it, share the light and give people hope.
Speaker 1: We we never thought in a million years that we'd
Speaker 1: be sitting here talking to you as True crime host. Nope, right,
Speaker 1: but if we're going to be here, if we're going
Speaker 1: to be True Crime host, we are going to shed
Speaker 1: a light and help others, heal somehow, some way. It's
Speaker 1: what it's all about, overcoming and facing evil. So that's
Speaker 1: what you can expect from Facing Evil. Episode one will
Speaker 1: publish next this week, and don't forget to subscribe so
Speaker 1: that you're up to date on every new episode. All right,
Speaker 1: We've got one last order of business before we let
Speaker 1: you go. We've been working with a fantastic, brilliant, phenomenal,
Speaker 1: awesome producer from my Heart Radio on this show. His
Speaker 1: name is Trevor Young, and he's here on Mike with
Speaker 1: us right now. Hello, Yes, I am here. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to be here. Alright. Trevor's hell everyone, a little
Speaker 1: bit about your amazing self. Sure. So, I am a
Speaker 1: supervising producer for I Heart Media's podcast network, and I've
Speaker 1: been here for a little over three years. I started
Speaker 1: in working with Tenderfoot TV on the second season of
Speaker 1: the Monster podcast and that was about the Zodiac Killer.
Speaker 1: Since then, I co created the follow up season, Monster
Speaker 1: DC Sniper. So a lot of true crime podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: also working on a number of other true crime shows,
Speaker 1: some of which I cannot talk about just yet, but
Speaker 1: you will hear about soon. Personally, I remember listening to
Speaker 1: Root of Evil when it came out in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I just had never heard anything like it.
Speaker 1: The openness with which you were able to tell your
Speaker 1: story and really share what you had gone through, what
Speaker 1: had happened to your family, and how that impacted you
Speaker 1: was utterly groundbreaking. I had never heard anything like that,
Speaker 1: and I really think it changed the podcast game. I
Speaker 1: think it blew open the doors in so many ways
Speaker 1: for what you know, we talk about and do every day,
Speaker 1: and I'm just so thankful you did that. I'm so
Speaker 1: thankful you were willing to share your story and open
Speaker 1: up the way you did. So when the opportunity came
Speaker 1: up to work with you two, I was absolutely thrilled
Speaker 1: and so I jumped at the opportunity. So we've been
Speaker 1: working together a little bit now, and it's been such
Speaker 1: a great experience for me to get to know you,
Speaker 1: to get to hear your story firsthand, and I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to see what you do with Facing Evil, what
Speaker 1: you do with this show. I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be fantastic and I can't wait for everybody to hear it.
Speaker 1: So we've loved working with Trevor so much that we've
Speaker 1: asked him to join us on the show each week.
Speaker 1: That's right, Trevor will be our on Mike producer and
Speaker 1: he's gonna help us stay on track because apparently sisters
Speaker 1: can get carried away sometimes you think, I mean maybe,
Speaker 1: So welcome to Trevor. We are so excited to have
Speaker 1: you on Facing Evil. Likewise, super excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you. At the end of each episode, I am
Speaker 1: so honored and excited to bring a special segment that
Speaker 1: we're going to be sharing with you. And it's called imua.
Speaker 1: And for those who don't know, Imua means onward and
Speaker 1: upward and to move forward. In Hawaii, imu is a
Speaker 1: call for healing, a ritual of sorts. It's where you
Speaker 1: sit with a family or friends, you talk story and
Speaker 1: you really share blessings of hope of how you can
Speaker 1: overcome and he from whatever it is you may be
Speaker 1: going through today. We want to honor and have our
Speaker 1: imua for survivors. Survivors like us, Survivors like our mom
Speaker 1: Fauna and her mother, our grandmother Tamar, all of us
Speaker 1: who stood our ground in the face of adversity and
Speaker 1: evil were all survivors and there are so many victims
Speaker 1: like tomorrow out there. Too many people are abused mentally, physically, verbally,
Speaker 1: emotionally sexually, and they don't know how they will ever
Speaker 1: rise above. We are here to tell you that you
Speaker 1: can survive and rise, and we hope that our Ohanna
Speaker 1: or our family story can be a guiding light for
Speaker 1: anyone who needs it, to show that no matter what
Speaker 1: you've been through, you are a survivor and that is
Speaker 1: truly beautiful and your life doesn't end there. Those experiences
Speaker 1: won't ever define you. Once you facetdy well, you can
Speaker 1: conquer it. Move onward and upward. Mahallau iloa or thank
Speaker 1: you so much everyone. We are so excited and honored
Speaker 1: to have you on this ride with us, and look
Speaker 1: out for episode one of Facing Evil next week. Facing
Speaker 1: Evil is a production of I Heart Radio and Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Russia Pecarero and a Vettel.
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick and Alex Williams are executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, with ducers Trevor Young and Jesse Funk.
Speaker 1: Donald Albright and Paine Lindsay our executive producers on behalf
Speaker 1: of Tenderfoot TV alongside producer Tracy Kaplan. Our researcher is
Speaker 1: Claudia Dafrico. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set. Find
Speaker 1: us on social media or email us at Facing Evil,
Speaker 1: pot at tenderfoot dot tv. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio or Tenderfoot TV, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows