Haunted Portraits: Tamar Nais Hodel — a family, a story, and the quiet center

Basic Information

Family and personal relationships

If families were films, the Hodels would be a noir—shadowed, glamorous, and full of cutaways to whispered conversations. I spent hours threading together names and small scenes: a glamorous mother in mid-century Los Angeles; a daughter who later wrote her life into a memoir; a half-brother who took police training into private investigation; children who carried unusual nicknames and private histories. Here’s the cast, introduced plainly.

George Hill Hodel (father) — A Los Angeles physician and social figure whose life became entangled in one of America’s most enduring true-crime mysteries; often described in public accounts as a longtime suspect in the Elizabeth Short (Black Dahlia) investigation. His presence—literal and spectral—shapes much of the family story.

Dorothy (Grace) Anthony Barbe / Dorothy Barbe (mother) — Recorded in genealogies and family memories as Tamar’s mother; the quiet anchor and early context for Tamar’s life in a mid-century California world.

Steve Hodel (half-brother) — An ex-LAPD detective who later published books and investigations about the Hodel family and his father; in public life he is a persistent, controversial figure who has driven much of the renewed attention on the family.

Fauna Hodel (daughter) — Born August 1, 1951, Fauna became an author and public storyteller—her memoir and public appearances pulled Tamar’s story into the light and gave readers a human, complicated center to follow.

Other children — Family accounts reference additional children (sometimes appearing as nicknames or alternate names across interviews and online remembrances). These include a figure referred to in family material as Deborah or “Fauna II,” and other children who appear in small, intimate family notes as Peace, Love, and Joy—names that read like lullabies or titles in an experimental film.

The relationships are, in places, intentionally messy—overlapping names, nicknames, adoptions, and decades of private reinvention. I think of them as a constellation: points that move slightly depending on who tells the story, but still recognizable when you step back.

Public life, media and the cultural footprint

Tamar never cultivated a public résumé, but she became a public presence through story—the way a minor chord becomes the hook on a soundtrack. Her public life is less job titles and more narrative gravity: she appears in family interviews, memoirs, and in the wake of investigations and dramatizations about the Hodel family.

Numbers that matter to the public story:

• 1951 — Fauna Hodel is born (August 1), a date that becomes an anchor for later memoir and identity work.
• 2015 — Tamar’s death, which prompted obituaries and family remembrances that distilled decades of private material.
• 2019 — A television dramatization (I Am the Night) and a popular podcast (Root of Evil) brought wider audiences to the Hodel narrative, turning family recollections into serialized entertainment.

Tamar’s role in these retellings is often intimate—she’s the birth mother, the witness, the family voice. Her recollections and the family’s testimonies have been threaded into detective work, podcast episodes, and dramatized scenes; they function as primary material, not as celebrity acts. Think of her as the quiet narrator in the background of a film noir: she doesn’t always speak loudly, but when she does, the camera turns.

Career, finances, and public record

There’s no tidy ledger for Tamar—no corporate biography or filmography. In the public domain she is more an influence than a profession: a person whose life informed a memoir, who appears in family histories, who lived through years of private upheaval and private triumphs.

• Public career: No formal, sustained public occupation appears in the record; her life registers through relationships, family roles, and the later public storytelling of her children and relatives.
• Net worth: No verifiable public estimate or disclosure exists—Tamar’s life wasn’t cataloged in financial filings or celebrity evaluations.

That absence of fiscal detail can feel cinematic in itself—as if the money was never the point, or perhaps the records were never meant for the marquee.

Timeline (select highlights)

FAQ

Who was Tamar Nais Hodel?

Tamar was a member of the Hodel family whose life intersected with later public investigations and memoirs; she’s best known as the birth mother of author Fauna Hodel and as a figure in the family’s true-crime narrative.

What was her relationship to George Hodel?

George Hill Hodel is recorded as Tamar’s father; his life and the controversies surrounding him have been central to the family story’s public attention.

Who are Tamar’s children?

Public family accounts name Fauna Hodel as her most prominent child (born 1951), along with other children referenced in family material under various names and nicknames.

Did Tamar have a public career or net worth?

No formal public career or verifiable net-worth information is documented for Tamar; her presence in the public eye comes through family memoirs and media about the Hodel story.

Are there books or shows about her family?

Yes—memoir, podcast series, and televised dramatizations have explored the Hodel family story, bringing Tamar and her relatives into broader cultural conversation.

How reliable are the family stories?

Family accounts are rich in detail but not always uniform—names, dates, and memories vary across interviews and genealogical notes, so many public narratives combine memory, testimony, and interpretation.