The Gruesome Black Dahlia Murder

This article is about Elizabeth Short and her murder.

The "Black Dahlia" was a nickname posthumously given to Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – c. January 15, 1947). She was an American woman who was murdered in Los Angeles, California in 1947. Because her corpse was mutilated and cut in half, her case became highly publicized.

Newspapers of the period often nicknamed particularly lurid crimes, and they posthumously called her the "Black Dahlia", a term that may have been from a film noir murder mystery, The Blue Dahlia, released in April 1946. Short's body was found on January 15, 1947, in the neighborhood of Leimert Park. Her unsolved murder has been the source of widespread speculation, with many potential suspects. Several books and television and film adaptations have been based on this case. Short's murder is one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles history.

On the morning of January 15, 1947, Short's naked body was found in two pieces on a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, midway between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street (at 34.0164°N 118.333°W) in Leimert Park, Los Angeles. Local resident Betty Bersinger discovered the body at about 10:00 a.m. while she was walking with her three-year-old daughter. Bersinger initially thought she had found a discarded store mannequin. When she realized it was a corpse, she rushed to a nearby house and telephoned the police.

Short's severely-mutilated body was completely severed at the waist and drained entirely of blood. The body obviously had been washed by the killer. Her face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, which created an effect, the Glasgow smile. Short had several cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been sliced away.The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her buttocks. The corpse had been "posed," with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart.

Detectives found a cement sack nearby containing watery blood. There was a heel print on the ground amid the tire tracks.

An autopsy stated that Short was 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 m) tall, weighed 115 pounds (52 kg), and had light blue eyes, brown hair, and badly-decayed teeth. There were ligature marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck. The skull was not fractured, but Short had bruises on the front and right side of her scalp, with a small amount of bleeding in the subarachnoid space on the right side, consistent with blows to the head.[1] The cause of death was determined to be hemorrhaging from the lacerations to her face and the shock from blows on the head and face.

Following Short's identification, reporters from William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner contacted her mother, Phoebe Short, and told her that her daughter had won a beauty contest. It was only after prying as much personal information as they could from Phoebe that the reporters told that her daughter had been murdered. The newspaper offered to pay her airfare and accommodations if she would travel to Los Angeles to help with the police investigation. That was yet another ploy since the newspaper kept her away from police and other reporters to protect its scoop. The Examiner and another Hearst newspaper, the Los Angeles Herald-Express, later sensationalized the case. They described the black tailored suit Short was last seen wearing as "a tight skirt and a sheer blouse." They nicknamed her as the "Black Dahlia" and described her as an "adventuress" who "prowled Hollywood Boulevard."

On January 23, 1947, a person claiming to be Short's killer called the editor of the Los Angeles Examiner, expressing concern that news of the murder was tailing off and offering to mail items belonging to Short to the editor. The following day, a packet arrived at the Examiner containing Short's birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen embossed on the cover. Hansen, an acquaintance at whose home she had stayed with friends, immediately became a suspect. One or more other persons wrote letters to the newspaper, signing them "the Black Dahlia Avenger." On January 25, Short's handbag and one shoe were reported to be seen on top of a garbage can in an alley a short distance from Norton Avenue. They were finally located at the dump.

The grave of Elizabeth Short

Because of the notoriety of the case, more than 50 men and women have confessed over the years to the murder. Police receive large amounts of information from citizens every time a newspaper mentions the case or a book or movie is released about it. Sergeant John P. St. John, a detective who worked the case until his retirement, stated, "It is amazing how many people offer up a relative as the killer."

Short was buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. After her younger sisters had grown up and married, their mother, Phoebe, moved to Oakland to be near her daughter's grave. She finally returned to the East Coast in the 1970s, where she lived into her nineties.

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