I was reading about the Black Dahlia murder.

They actually used this magazine True Detective magazine.

They planted a story in here, knowing that it would get the attention of a suspect.

It actually worked.

The suspect read about it, contacted this police psychologist.

The True Detective was, in some ways, a law enforcement tool.

In some ways, and it just shows you the hunger that people have, buying these magazines by the tens of thousands each edition.

You do get the sense if you read a lot of these-- and they date from the mid-'50s through the mid-'60s or thereabouts-- the turmoil in L.A.

It's growing so fast, and there are people from all over the world trying to make a go of it.

There's a lot of stress and tension in the culture, and in the worst aspects of human behavior, that erupts with this kind of stuff.

What can we learn about Los Angeles by studying true crime?

People have been finding all kinds of ways to do dastardly things to one another across time and across space and geography.

But in L.A., you've got a lot of ingredients that lead to this kind of record.

You have explosive metropolitan growth.

You have the implicit or sometimes explicit promise of fame and glamour and fortune.

You certainly-- culturally and physically-- you have a lot of sunshine, but that creates a lot of shadow.

And so, you have the light and dark of human experience.

And then you have plenty of people trying to make a living out here as creatives with pens in their hands and typewriters at the ready.

So, it's a kind of alchemy that can produce this result.