The act of murder has always set a very haunting mark in the minds of people, so much so that
some people have panic attacks and anxiety simply listening to such cases. But the sad
fact is as long as we inhabit this planet murder won’t stop.
However, there is one case in the history books that even the strongest of the minds
deem too horrific to fathom. The Black Dahlia case is about Elizabeth Short, an aspiring
actress in Los Angeles, who was found brutally murdered in Leimert Park in 1947.
Before diving directly into the crime and the suspects, let’s take a quick look into
the life of the victim. Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in Boston Massachusetts.
She was born as the third daughter to Cleo and Phoebe Short, and her family would end
up expanding to seven total members with all five of the kids being daughters. Due to unforeseen
events, in 1929, the Short family went broke and in 1930, Cleo Park was believed to have
committed suicide which led to Phoebe moving her daughters to Medford and working as a
bookkeeper to keep the family going.
As a teenager, Elizabeth was not a healthy person and had a lot of breathing problems
due to respiratory diseases such as bronchitis and asthma. After having lung surgery at the
age of 15, Elizabeth spent three years in Florida in search of a climate that would
suit her condition. She did return for college but dropped out shortly after joining.
After completely relocating herself to California by 1942, Short was pursuing a career in acting
, although there are no records or mentions of her landing any acting-related jobs or
gigs, which says that she was working elsewhere to pay her bills.
On January 9, 1947, Short was returning to her place after her trip to San Diego, where
she had gone out with her boyfriend Robert Manley, who was a 25-year-old married man.
During interrogation, Manley revealed that he had dropped Short at the famous Biltmore
Hotel in Los Angeles, which was done at Short’s request as she had plans to meet with her
sister later that day. The staff at Biltmore Hotel did mention that they had seen Short
using the lobby telephone, but they did not recall any of her other activities, nor did
they notice anything suspicious. The last ever reported sighting of Short was at Crown
Grill Cocktail Lounge located at 754 South Olive Street, where the patrons claimed to
have seen her.
Even though the last time she was publicly seen was on the 9th January near the Lounge,
her body was discovered on the morning on January 15th, almost a week after she was
last seen, meaning it cannot be completely confirmed that she was killed on 9th of January
as she could have been abducted and kept captive for a couple of days before the murderer decided
to kill her.
Her naked body was found at Leimert Park by a local named Betty Bersinger. Bersinger stated
that she was out on a walk with her daughter when she came across this mysterious humanoid
figure just lying in the park in such a manner that she believed it to be an abandoned mannequin.
Upon closer look, she realized that it was a corpse of a woman and immediately rushed
towards the nearest telephone to notify the police.
According to the reports, the body was severed into two pieces, her lower half was separated
from her upper half, and it was clear that the body had been severed exactly from the
waist. Since the wound was so brutal and deep, Short’s body had lost almost every drop
of blood so the body was pale white when it was discovered.
Medical reports suggested that she had been dead for only a short period, for around 10
hours or so when her body was found, which further validates the point that she could
have been captured on January 10th and was killed later.
Medical examiners also said that her body had been washed by the killer using something
like gasoline. Her face had been cut from both ends of her lips to her ears, resembling
something like a Glasgow Smile. The Glasgow smile is the act of cutting a victim’s face
in such a manner that after the wound had healed, the scar would resemble something
similar to a disturbingly wide smile.
This isn’t even the beginning of what the medical reports discovered, as there were
numerous signs of tortures and other dreadful activities which authorities believe were
done to Short while she was still alive. She had a huge number of cuts on her breasts and
her legs, especially on the thigh, but these were not just mere cuts, as chunks and portions
of flesh had been sliced off her body and left horrible deep wounds.
Despite the insanity of Short’s wounds, one of the strangest things about the body
was actually the way it was posed, with many saying the killer wanted to symbolize something
with how they placed the body. Reports from the police say that her elbows had been bent
completely perpendicular to the ground and her legs were spread far apart from each other
and to top it all off, her hands were carefully placed over her head. But the most disturbing
part of them all is the fact that her lower half was placed exactly a foot away from her
upper half and her intestinal parts were tucked neatly under her buttocks.
But after the complete autopsy report and analysis, it came as a surprise to the public
and other authorities when they learned that the cause of her death was not because of
the severing but because of hemorrhaging due to lacerations on her face and constant blows
to her head. Reports also suggested that her anal canal was dilated, which led the authorities
to believe that she might have been sexually assaulted as well.
After a week of her body’s discovery, within which the autopsy reports had been made public,
a phone call was made to James Richardson, an editor working at the Los Angeles Examiner
and who was closely following the case.
The phone call was from a person claiming to be the killer of Elizabeth Short, and he
revealed something that heavily impacted the momentum in which the investigation was moving
forward. The man mentioned that he wanted to turn himself in but not immediately and
said that he would wait until the police pursue him further, turning the case into a game
of cat and mouse.
Calls like this are unfortunately common following any kind of tragedy, and most of them get
disregarded by police, but this one was different. Not only did the killer call and claim to
be the one who killed Short, but he also backed up his claims by telling Richardson to expect
some souvenirs of Elizabeth through mail.
On January 24th, a suspicious package was received at the US Postal Service and a worker
claimed that the parcel had been addressed to “The Los Angeles Examiner”, and had
a message written on it that said “Here is Dahlia’s Belongings, letter to follow”
The mail turned out to be legit as it contained Short’s Birth Certificate as well as her
business card and a piece of paper containing a lot of names.
The horrendous brutality highlighted in the crime made it especially juicy for the local
newspapers, who completely ran with the story. Aside from the numerous theories and deductions
made from relevant information, the media covered this case as if it was some sort of
conspiracy, there were baseless rumors, false accusations, and all sorts of unreliable information
and propaganda that was being published.
One of the major takes on the case was that the media and other news bodies widely believed
and supported the story that Short had been tortured for a long time before she was brutally
murdered. While the autopsy report does deny these rumors and claims, the police took no
legal actions against them and let these theories circulate which led to a huge divide between
the information coming from the press and the information coming from the authorities.
Since the case was burning hot in the eyes of the public with no signs of cooling down
for years, there were a huge number of confessions made throughout the years before the case
lost its head. The police report that over 500 confessions had been made throughout the
years and 60 of them came during the initial phases of the investigation with the majority
of these confessions coming from men.
While this all explains the contents of the case there is one mystery we have yet to address:
Where did the name Black Dahlia come from? An owner of a drugstore in Long Beach said
that she was given that name by the local men that resided nearby, which later found
its way to the media who made the name popular by naming Short’s murder case as the Black
Dahlia case.
The killer was unfortunately never found by the police but it is widely believed that
he committed suicide. Years after the murder a letter, which was said to be a suicide note
left by the killer claiming that he was too afraid to turn himself in, and was very bothered
by the fact that the police were incapable of coming close to him leading him to take
his own life.
The Black Dahlia case will always be remembered as one of the bleakest and most sobering acts
of murder in history, and its discussion has not ended even in today’s time, which proves
how heavily it scarred the public and how much of a devilish act it was.
Comment your own thoughts and theories about the case down below, and let us know about
any other topics you’d like to see us make a video about.