Georgette Bauerdorf

Gordon Aadland, the sergeant whom she had given a ride a few hours before her death, recounted in 2012 that was riding a train on his way back to his base when he read about the murder in the newspaper. Aadland wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Police Department recounting his encounter with Georgette; he was later questioned by an officer from the provost martial's office, who took his testimony but never heard anything else.

Georgette aspired to be an actress and moved to West Hollywood in August 1944. She took an apartment at the El Palacio Apartments at 8493 Fountain Avenue and got a job working as a junior hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, where she danced with enlisted men.

On the night of October 11, 1944, Georgette left work at the Hollywood Canteen at around 11:15 p.m. She spent the next several hours dancing at a local club called the Palladium, leaving at around 2 a.m. Driving home, Georgette picked up a hitchhiking Army sergeant named Gordon Aadland, who had also gone to the Palladium; she told Aadland also that she was hurrying home to receive a telephone call from her boyfriend in Texas. This was possibly the last time she was seen alive.

The Ticket Out, a debut novel written by Helen Knode (wife of novelist James Ellroy) is very loosely based on Georgette Bauerdorf's life. The Santa Cruz Sentinel called it, "... like Ellroy's 'Black Dahlia,' based on a true Hollywood crime — the unsolved murder of Georgette Bauerdorf in L.A. in 1944".[sic]"

A 1936 Oldsmobile coupe, registered in the name of Georgette's sister, was missing from the scene. When the car was located, there was a dent in one of the fenders. Mechanics said the damage was recent and may have been the result of a collision with another car. The Oldsmobile was discovered abandoned on East 25th Street, just off San Pedro Street, where it had apparently ran out of gas.

Born in New York City, Georgette Bauerdorf was the younger of two daughters born to oilman George Frederick Bauerdorf and his wife, Constance Dannhauser. She had an older sister, Constance (known as Connie). Georgette initially attended St. Agatha's School for Girls in New York City; after the family moved to Los Angeles in 1935, she attended the Marlborough School and Westlake School for Girls. The death of Georgette's mother had preceded the move.

Georgette Elise Bauerdorf (May 6, 1924 – October 12, 1944) was an American socialite and oil heiress who was strangled in her home in West Hollywood, California. Her murder remains unsolved.