Elizabeth Short: The Black Dahlia

The 22-year-old Short was last seen alive in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel at 5th Street and Olive in downtown Los Angeles on the evening of 9 January 1947.

One week later, on 15 January 1947, local housewife Betty Bersinger found Short’s body in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Bersinger was walking with her three-year-old daughter to the cobbler and initially thought the waxy white figure lying near the sidewalk was a discarded store mannequin.

The gruesome reality was that it was the naked, badly mutilated body of a woman, cut in half at the waist and lying face up in the dirt.

At 10:40 a.m., Bersinger ran to a nearby house to call the police, saying, "A person needs attending to," before hanging up without giving her name. She called again a few days later to identify herself as the caller.

Two detectives, Finis Brown and Harry Hansen, were assigned to the case, but by the time they reached the crime scene, it had been overrun by reporters and onlookers, all carelessly trampling the evidence.

Agnes Underwood, a reporter for the Los Angeles Herald Express, was one of the first to arrive at the scene.

The body had been positioned as though the killer wanted it to be discovered. The victim’s arms had been placed above her head at 45-degree angles, and her lower half lay about a foot away with her straight legs spread wide apart.

Her wrists and ankles bore rope marks, suggesting she had been tied up before her death and possibly tortured. Her mouth had been slashed three inches on both sides, creating a grotesque clown-like grin.

Her nipples had been cut off, and her vagina had been stuffed with grass. Her intestines had been removed and carefully placed beneath her buttocks, and her body had been washed clean of blood.

The detectives concluded that, because there was no blood on the body or the surrounding grass, the murder had taken place elsewhere.

From the dew still present beneath the body, they determined that it had been placed in the lot after 2:00 a.m. but before dawn, and that she had been dead for approximately ten hours.

They had no idea who the victim was, so her fingerprints were sent to FBI headquarters in Washington, where a match was found.

Short’s fingerprints had been taken on two previous occasions: once when she was arrested for underage drinking and again while working in the mailroom at a military base post office in California.

Short’s mother confirmed that her last known address was in Pacific Beach, San Diego.

The coroner’s office determined that the cause of death was massive internal hemorrhaging caused by blows to the head. No traces of sperm were found anywhere on her body.

The Black Dahlia murder investigation was conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department and was the largest since Marian Parker’s murder in 1927. It required officers from neighboring police departments to investigate everyone who had known Short, beginning with 20 of her former boyfriends.

These individuals, numbering in the hundreds, were all treated as suspects and had to be eliminated one by one.

In February 1947, as a direct result of Short’s murder, California became the first state to require the registration of convicted sex offenders. It was a breakthrough for LAPD psychiatrist Dr. J. Paul De River, who had advocated this legislation for several years.

The police devoted significant manpower to interviewing thousands of people, and the Biltmore Hotel’s registration records from December 1946 to January 1947 were examined, but none of the suspects’ names appeared.

A house-to-house search was conducted, with police looking for bloodstained clothing, but no substantial leads were found.

At one point, detectives believed the clean bisection of Short’s body indicated the killer possessed medical knowledge. They focused on medical students, and several doctors were added to the suspect list.

By June 1947, police had eliminated approximately 75 suspects, and by December 1948, that number had risen to 192.

Various witnesses reported seeing different vehicles in the area, including a black sedan driving slowly along the vacant lot at around 6:00 a.m. with its headlights turned off. The car stopped at the curb with its engine idling, but no one saw the driver.

Despite hundreds of suspects, extensive investigations, and countless interviews, the perpetrator was never identified.

The last person to see Short alive on 9 January 1947 was Robert "Red" Manley, a 25-year-old married salesman.

The pair reportedly spent one night at a local motel, and the following day Manley drove her to Los Angeles, where she checked her luggage into a bus station.

Short told him she was traveling to Berkeley to stay with her sister, whom she planned to meet at the Biltmore Hotel. Manley accompanied her to the hotel lobby but left at 6:30 p.m. to return to his family in San Diego.

Police identified him as a suspect but released him after he passed a polygraph examination. He was later administered sodium pentothal, the so-called "truth drug," and was cleared a second time.

Manley later suffered a mental breakdown and, after claiming to hear voices, was committed to Patton State Hospital by his wife in 1954. He died on 9 January 1986.

On 24 January 1947, nine days after the murder, an anonymous package was mailed to the Examiner newspaper. It still smelled strongly of gasoline, which the sender had used to remove fingerprints.

There was speculation that the package had been sent by Short’s killer.

Inside were several of Short’s belongings, including her birth certificate, Social Security card, photographs, Major Matthew Gordon’s obituary, and an address book containing the names of 75 men.

All 75 men were traced, and their accounts were remarkably similar. They had met Short at a nightclub or on the street, bought her drinks or dinner, and never saw her again after she made it clear she was not interested in a physical relationship.

On 25 January 1947, Short’s black patent leather handbag and one of her black open-toed shoes were found in a dumpster several miles from the crime scene.

Manley identified the items as belonging to Short because the handbag still carried her distinctive perfume and the shoes were the same pair he had paid to have resoled in San Diego.

The police and newspapers were contacted by several people claiming they had seen Short during the week between her disappearance on 9 January and the discovery of her body on 15 January.

All reported sightings were investigated and dismissed. None of the witnesses had actually known Short, and in several cases the police identified other women whom the witnesses had mistaken for her.

Twenty-two final suspects were investigated by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office: Mark Hansen, Carl Balsinger, C. Welsh, Sergeant "Chuck" (surname unknown), John D. Wade, Joe Scalis, James Nimmo, Maurice Clement, a Chicago police officer, Salvador Torres Vera (medical student), Dr. George Hodel, Marvin Margolis (medical student), Glenn Wolf, Michael Anthony Otero, George Bacos, Francis Campbell, the "Queer Woman Surgeon," Dr. Paul DeGaston, Dr. A. E. Brix, Dr. M. M. Schwartz, Dr. Arthur McGinnis Faught, and Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly.

Mark Hansen, a 55-year-old Danish owner of the Florentine Gardens, a Hollywood nightclub featuring burlesque performances, was a major suspect.

He had known Short during her time in Los Angeles, and she had lived in his home on several occasions between May and October 1946.

Hansen received a telephone call from Short on 8 or 9 January, making him one of the last people known to have spoken with her. The address book included in the anonymous package sent to the Examiner newspaper bore Hansen’s name. He had never used it and had given it to Short.

Hansen remained a key suspect until 1951 and was linked to Dr. M. M. Schwartz, Dr. Arthur McGinnis Faught, and Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly. He had no criminal record or history of violence, and no charges were ever filed against him. He died of natural causes in 1964.

Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly was a physician who knew Short through Hansen. He reportedly frequented the Florentine Gardens and attended sex parties with Hansen.

O’Reilly had a history of violent, sexually motivated crime and had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, but no charges relating to Short’s murder were brought against him.

Physician Dr. George Hodel became a suspect in 1949 after his neighbor, Lillian DeNorak, accused him of molesting her.

He was placed under surveillance from 18 February to 27 March 1949 and was tried and acquitted in December 1949. Lillian was later committed to a state mental institution.

Hodel died in 1999. In 2003, his son, LAPD detective Steve Hodel, published the book Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder, portraying his father as a misogynist and sexual predator who held orgies at the family home and raped his 14-year-old daughter.

He further claimed that his father was the Black Dahlia killer and was responsible for several other unsolved murders over a period of two decades.

Suspects testified before the 1949 Grand Jury hearings.

The Grand Jury also investigated the possibility of police corruption in the case and requested that the 1950 Grand Jury continue the investigation.

On the advice of District Attorney Fred Henderson, it was agreed that the case would never be transferred to the District Attorney’s Office.

All evidence and case files would remain with the LAPD Homicide Division, which would provide progress reports.

The 1950 Grand Jury appeared to lose interest in the case and, by October 1950, had stopped issuing progress reports.

Chief H. Leo Stanley advised closing the investigation, but the unsolved case has remained an open file to this day.

Short was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, because she had loved the state and her sister lived nearby in Berkeley. Six family members and a few police officers attended the quiet ceremony.

Myths and misconceptions surrounding Short’s murder quickly spread. Soon after her death, newspapers reported that she had been nicknamed the "Black Dahlia."

The nickname was supposedly coined during her time in Long Beach in the summer of 1946 as a reference to the then-current film The Blue Dahlia, about an ex-bomber pilot suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife, starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.

Some believed the nickname referred to Short’s mysterious behavior, her black-dyed hair, her preference for black clothing, and her habit of wearing dahlias in her hair.

An investigation by the Los Angeles County District Attorney concluded that the nickname had been invented by newspapers covering the murder and that her friends had simply known her as Bette.

Film studios denied that Short had ever worked as an actress or even as a movie extra. Short’s sister, Muriel, claimed that one of Short’s last letters mentioned she was about to receive a screen test from an important film director, although Muriel could not remember the director’s name.

The horrific nature of the crime generated enormous public interest, and over time approximately 60 people, mostly men but including a few women, confessed to the murder.

Over the years, increasingly sensational stories surrounded the case. Fiction writers variously claimed that Short was a prostitute, lured her attacker, wanted to be killed, lived a lifestyle that made her an ideal victim, appeared in pornographic films, or was pregnant when she died.

None of these claims were true, and no evidence was ever found to support them. Newspaper coverage was consistently sensationalized and often inaccurate.

Another myth claimed that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of a condition known as infantile genitalia. However, the autopsy report described her reproductive organs as anatomically normal and confirmed that she was not pregnant.

Joseph A. Dumais, a 29-year-old soldier stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, confessed to the murder a few weeks after Short’s body was discovered. It was later established that Dumais had been at Fort Dix when the murder occurred, and he was cleared of any involvement.

Leslie Dillon, a 27-year-old bellhop and aspiring writer, began corresponding with LAPD psychiatrist Dr. J. Paul De River from Florida in October 1948.

Dillon, who had previously lived in Los Angeles, proposed another man, Jeff Conners, as a suspect. It was later determined that Conners had been living in Los Angeles at the time of the murder while Dillon had been in San Francisco, and both men were cleared.

One theory suggested that the perpetrator was a woman and that Short’s body had been cut in half simply to make it easier to transport because the killer lacked the strength to carry it intact.

One suspect is identified only as the "Queer Woman Surgeon" in the LAPD case files.

Newspaper reports claimed that Short was lesbian or bisexual, while the District Attorney’s files stated that "Short had no use for queers."

Public relations specialist and former professional singer Janice Knowlton accused her own father, George Knowlton, of the murder in her book Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer.

Although little reliable information exists about him, George Knowlton lived in Los Angeles at the time of the murder and died in a motor vehicle accident in 1962.

Janice Knowlton claimed that, through therapy, she recovered childhood memories of being forced to watch her father torture, murder, and dismember Short.

Her book was unsuccessful, and she died by suicide from a prescription drug overdose in 2004.

In the early 1980s, actor and crime writer John Gilmore accused Jack Anderson Wilson, an alcoholic drifter also known as Arnold Smith, of murdering Short.

In an interview, Wilson allegedly revealed details about the crime that only the killer would have known, including a vaginal abnormality that supposedly would have prevented Short from having sexual intercourse. Wilson had not been considered a suspect until Gilmore brought attention to him.

Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, was accused of involvement in Short’s murder by Donald Wolfe in his 2005 book The Mob, the Mogul and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. Wolfe also discussed Jack Anderson Wilson in the book.

Another suspect was Dr. Walter Alonzo Bayley, a Los Angeles surgeon who lived one block from where Short’s body was discovered.

Although Bayley did not personally know Short, his daughter was a friend of Short’s sister Virginia and brother-in-law Adrian and had served as maid of honor at their wedding.

Bayley was 67 years old at the time of the murder, had no known history of violence or criminal behavior, and died of degenerative brain disease in January 1948.

Folk singer Woody Guthrie was accused because of sexually explicit letters he had written to a woman he admired. Disturbed by the letters, the woman showed them to her sister in Los Angeles, who contacted the police. Guthrie was cleared of any involvement.

Mary Pacios, a childhood friend of Short, blamed film director Orson Welles because he had once performed a magic trick in which he appeared to saw a woman in half. She believed this inspired the killer.

A possible connection was suggested between Short’s murder and the Cleveland Torso Murders, also known as the Kingsbury Run Murders, committed in Cleveland between 1934 and 1938.

The Los Angeles Police Department investigated the theory in 1947 but concluded that the two cases were unrelated.

Crime writers also linked Short’s murder to the 1945 Chicago murder of Suzanne Degnan, whose body had been dismembered.

However, when Short’s body was discovered, William Heirens, known as the "Lipstick Killer," had already confessed to Degnan’s murder and was serving a prison sentence.

The unsolved status of Short’s murder has inspired dozens of books, a video game, and even an Australian swing band. Generations of amateur detectives have speculated about the killer’s identity.

Based on James Ellroy’s 1987 novel, Brian De Palma’s film The Black Dahlia, starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner as Elizabeth Short, was released in 2006.