The Black Dahlia: A Real-Life Noir
It’s 1947 in Los Angeles, California. WWII is two years in the past as the Cold War becomes the burgeoning threat in America. Harry Truman has stepped into the shoes of his predecessor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, after his passing in 1945, and the push-back against communism and the USSR is only just beginning. A real estate boom is erupting across Los Angeles thanks to the passing of the new G.I. Bill. This allowed soldiers back from the war to buy up vacant lots that would soon transform into bucolic havens of subdivisions, homes, and families. The Baby Boomers began entering the world during this turbulent, yet prosperous time and they will watch the world change in so many ways over the years to come. With the decade nearing its end the fashions and pop culture of the day are about to be on their way out, making way for poodle skirts, rock and roll, and bad boys like Elvis Presley and James Dean. It’s in this time and place that Elizabeth Short gains the fame she always yearned for, but not in the way she bargained for.
For this post I read Black Dahlia: The Story of America’s Most Gruesome Murder by Roger Harrington on Amazon Kindle. His book does a great job of breaking down the case, the long list of false confessions, and the longer list of suspects. In the seventy-seven years since the Black Dahlia was discovered and earned her moniker she has become something of a Hollywood legend as well as a cautionary tale. It can be difficult to extract the truth from the fiction in what has morphed into a Greek tragedy, but Roger Harrington seems to have done a good job at parsing through the sensationalism and speculation.
January 15, 1947 was a breezy Wednesday in Southern Los Angeles when Betty Bersinger decided to put her three-year-old in a stroller and go for a walk through the Leimert Park neighborhood. Walking down Norton Avenue on a sunny and otherwise beautiful morning, she noticed something white lying in a vacant lot. The closer she got the more she could make out the features of what appeared to be a mannequin at first. A closer examination would reveal a grisly, horrifying, and traumatizing scene. The pale white, mutilated, bisected corpse of a young woman was posed explicitly in the grass. Betty fled the scene with her child as quickly as she could, running to a nearby house to call for help.
When Frank Perkins and Will Fitzgerald of the LAPD arrived soon after they were shocked and disgusted by what they saw. As quickly as the officers arrived on the scene, they still didn’t manage to beat the press. In an era where reporters were allowed to hang around police stations for quicker leads on good stories its not surprising they were able to get ahead so easily. The scene was already compromised as Los Angeles Examiner reporter Will Fowler and photographer Felix Paegel examined and photographed the body. Fowler closed the victim's eyes before the onslaught of officers and other reporters arrived.
Though the war between William Randolph Hurst and Joseph Pulitzer had waned by this point journalism hadn’t become any less competitive. With the biggest story in L.A.’s history ready to break reporters raced one another to be the first to arrive. The Los Angeles Examiner beat everyone else to the punch, taking credit for being the lead paper reporting on the case. The newspaper industry was at its height in the 40s, with every major publication producing morning, afternoon, and evening papers daily. The Examiner beat every other paper to the stands that afternoon with the first Black Dahlia headline, getting their afternoon edition out two hours earlier than all the others. Throughout the investigation they maintained their lead on the case, getting their hands on evidence and information before anyone else could. The Examiner worked just as doggedly as the police, but with the avaricious goal of selling papers. Their only interest in seeing the case solved was to sell more copies featuring eye-catching headlines of justice with a name for the public to latch onto.
The sight of Elizabeth Short’s body was gruesome and shocking. So much so that her pictures had to be edited before publication. They were made to look as though a sheet had been draped over her naked remains so not to disturb the public.
Lying on her back, the two halves of her body, separated at the torso, had been placed about a foot apart. Her hands were posed behind her head and her legs left spread wide open as if to demean her. Her intestines protruded from her body and were tucked underneath her butt. All of the blood had been drained from her body and she had been washed clean before being dumped, telling investigators that the crime occurred indoors at a location with running water and drains. A Glasgow smile had been carved into her cheeks, leaving her with a permanent smile even in death. With such deep cuts starting at the corners of her mouth and working their way up to her ears, she undoubtedly would’ve gone into shock at the amount of pain she experienced. One of her breasts were found to have been amputated with precision as though done by a surgeon. Sections of her skin were also peeled away from her body, including a section with a rose tattoo that she was known to show off.
The list of injuries and mutilations go on with the removal of her uterus. Her pubic hair was cut and shoved into her rectum and vagina along with the strips of peeled skin. Marks around her legs, wrists, neck, and right thigh indicate the use of restraints. Deep abrasions over her right eye had been caused by a blunt object that miraculously didn’t fracture her skull. As though she hadn’t endured more than any person should ever have to her autopsy revealed the most disturbing fact yet. Fecal matter was found in her stomach, indicating that she had been force-fed feces before her death. Though restraint marks were left around her neck there was no indication of strangulation. Her cause of death was determined by surgeon Fredrick Newbarr to be shock and hemorrhage.
Two cement bags thought to have been used in the transport of her remains were found nearby. A tire track on the curb, a spot of blood, and a military-style watch were the only other pieces of evidence left behind. It was also found that at some point before she was dumped face-up she had been left lying face-down for a period of time that is undetermined. As Newbarr conducted the autopsy he noted how clean and precise the cut to her torso was. The incision was made just above the waist, damaging none of the organs in the process, and neatly severing the spine. It was his opinion that someone with medical experience committed the crime. This was either a doctor, a surgeon, or a medical student.
Two bristles were found on her body during autopsy. One was found near the amputated breast, and the other among her organs. The LAPD asked FBI field agent R.B. Hood to send these off for forensic analysis at their technical lab in Washington. Just five days after receiving the bristles they had already sent back results. They were plant fibers made up of palm trees. The stiff, brown, thin, coarse bristles had been coated in a material that made them water repellent. It was determined that they came from some kind of cheap brush. They asked that if any brush thought to have been used by Elizabeth turned up that it be sent to them for testing.
At the time Elizabeth was found rigor mortis had not even set in yet. Though the grass around her remains was dry, underneath her body it was still wet from the morning dew. She had not been in that vacant lot long before Betty Bersinger came strolling by. Her autopsy revealed that she had only been dead for about ten hours before being left on Norton Avenue to be discovered. When she was found in her ghastly state no one knew who this girl could’ve been. Thankfully out of all the disfigurement she endured her fingerprints were left perfectly intact, making it easy for the FBI to identify her as twenty-two year old Elizabeth Short. It took them less than forty-eight hours to make their identification.
When reporters got a hold of her name one did something truly unthinkable in his boundless pursuit of a headline story. Elizabeth’s mother, Phoebe Mae Short, was sitting at home back in Medford, Massachusetts when she received a terribly misleading phone call from a reporter at the Los Angeles Examiner. It was one that clearly another man in the room didn’t approve of as he can be heard in the background, incredulous at the ruse being perpetrated. Phoebe was told that her middle daughter had just won a beauty contest and the paper was in need of background information for an article. Beaming with pride, she told them everything there was to know about Elizabeth, never questioning his story once. It wasn’t until after she gave them her biography that he finally caved and told her the terrible truth. Her daughter had been gruesomely murdered and mutilated. Left out in a grassy, vacant, nearly forgotten lot for some poor, unsuspecting soul to find.
Elizabeth Short was born in Hyde Park in Boston, Massachusetts on July 29, 1924. In a large family of five girls, she was smack in the middle. Her father, Cleo Short, had built golf courses before the historic stock market crash of October, 1929. The Great Depression would deal him a major blow as he joined countless others in losing everything he’d ever worked for. Then one day he just didn’t come home. His car was found abandoned on a bridge and it was assumed that like so many others in these trying times, he committed suicide. Elizabeth was only six years old when her father disappeared and didn’t have the kind of memories her older sisters had of him. This is why when he finally broke the silence and got in touch she was completely willing to salvage a relationship with him.
After Cleo’s abrupt disappearance, Phoebe was forced to take a job as a bookkeeper to make ends meet as a single mother of five. Though she was completely uninterested in her husband’s apologies, she wasn’t going to keep his daughters from him. She still allowed the girls time with him and at the age of ten Elizabeth made the trip to Vallejo, California to visit him. Their relationship would maintain until she reached adulthood. Phoebe, however, would never forgive him for abandoning them in such a desperate time.
Elizabeth also went by Betty, Bette, or Beth. When she was child growing up in Medford she held dreams of one day gracing the silver screen. This was a small detail given by Phoebe, but one that the press seized upon. Though there are no records of her ever auditioning or working for any major movie studio at any time it didn’t matter. The fact that she wanted to be a star as a child and was found dead in L.A. was all they needed to morph the headline. Because ‘aspiring actress found dead’ sounds much more dramatic and sensational than ‘young woman found dead.’ This detail would make her story into a cautionary tale for young, aspiring actresses entering Hollywood.
Bouts of bronchitis and asthma began to plague her in her teenage years. In those times it was common for those with any kind of breathing trouble to be sent to warmer, drier climates when the weather turned cold. At sixteen she started spending winters in Miami, Florida and would continue to do so for the next three years.
Back in Medford, Elizabeth was loved by those who knew her. Though she was known for a good sense of humor and a sweet nature, these weren’t the first attributes people noticed. She was a great beauty that caused men to stare everywhere she went. As a matter of fact her looks were commented on far more often than her personality. A neighbor recalled the way truck drivers would stare as she walked by, amazed by the fact that she hadn’t yet caused an accident. Another neighbor from her hometown recalled the way Elizabeth soaked up all of the male attention she received. She adored the recognition and savored the admiration. Unfortunately this would be another detail seized up on by the press as her other qualities went woefully unremarked.
In 1943 Cleo Short moved from Vallejo to L.A. with his middle daughter following him there. If she was still suffering from bouts of asthma and bronchitis it’s likely that the warmer, drier climate of L.A. appealed to her. When she moved in with her father she was very likely looking forward to forming a bond they had previously been unable to for distance. The arrangement didn’t work out, though and Elizabeth moved out following a bitter argument. She was nineteen at this time, quickly finding work at the Post Exchange at Camp Cooke, now the Vandenburg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California.
Her boss at the Exchange, Inez Keeling, remembered her as a shy girl who never spoke with any of the soldiers. She never smoked, drank, or socialized with any of the men. This quickly changed as she broke out of her shell, a social butterfly drawn to men in uniform. She dated many soldiers and would go on to find that some men have a tendency towards jealousy. Several nights a week she would go out with different soldiers, where she started drinking. In 1943 she got caught drinking underage while out with a group of soldiers at the El Paseo restaurant. Charged with juvenile delinquency, her mug shot was taken with tousled hair, narrowed eyes, and a blank expression. After her death the picture became famous and can still be found through a quick Google search today.
Elizabeth was a sweet girl, but she always seemed to be down on her luck. Her friendly personality usually helped her to get by, though. She even managed to make friends with the officer that arrested her for juvenile delinquency. Officer Mary Unefer gave her a place to stay at her home for more than a week after the arrest. When Elizabeth finally left it was to catch a train back east. She was heading home to Medford. Unefer knew for sure that she made it there because she had received letters from Elizabeth posted from Massachusetts.
Though she had gone home, she didn’t stay for long, packing up and heading to Florida this time. From there she moved on to Chicago for a time before going back to Long Beach, California to meet a soldier named Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling in July 1946. The two were remembered for the tumultuous relationship they shared, but even after they parted ways they still wrote to one another and Fickling even continued to send her money. The Lieutenant was sent to North Carolina to work as a commercial pilot while Elizabeth decided to remain in sunny California. The last letter he ever received from her arrived just a week before her death on January 8, 1947.
Elizabeth was living in destitution in Hollywood by October 1946. Her hand-to-mouth existence left her vulnerable, depending on the kindness of friends, men, and strangers to help her get by from one day to the next. By this time she was sharing a hotel room with two other girls whose boyfriends would opt to take her out on their double dates and feed her. They later described her to police as “broke and hungry.” Immediately after these girls and their boyfriends read the first article about her murder they went to the LAPD to tell them everything they knew, which wasn’t much. They were, however, able to further identify her as Betty Short. The location of the hotel she’d been living at was also helpful as a clerk from the front desk remembered her well.
Elizabeth was regularly behind on her bill at the hotel. When this happened a “short, dark man” aged around thirty-five to forty would pull up in a black Ford sedan and pay her bill. A witness revealed that this exact same kind of car pulled away from the lot where she was found in the early morning hours of January 15. It’s thought by many, including investigators at the time, that this “short, dark man” was none other than Mark Hansen, one of the many suspects in her murder. Mark was a rich man that knew her well and even let her move into his house on occasion.
In late October 1946 the two girls Elizabeth shared a room with were seen packing all of their belongings into the same black Ford sedan belonging to the “short, dark man.” This is yet another unknown detail. No one knows for sure who this man was and no one knows where those girls went to when they left the hotel.
The sad truth is that Elizabeth was entirely dependent on others for food, shelter, and cash. She was beyond broke and seemed unable to flip her fortunes around in her favor. Without any kind of real income she lived with rotting teeth that she couldn’t afford to have fixed. To take care of the problem herself on the cheap, she would pack candle wax into her cavities. Poverty likely led her right into her killer’s arms without a fight, or even suspicion until it was too late. All it would’ve taken to lure her in was the promise of a hot meal and a place to lay her head for the night.
In an era where salacious and catchy headlines were a requirement for editors it didn’t take long for Elizabeth Short to earn a moniker that would endure. Accounts vary as to where the name actually came from. Some say that reporters from the Los Angeles Examiner coined the name, while others say that she had gone by the Black Dahlia for years before her murder due to her penchant for dying her hair black and wearing black clothes. Just nine months before she was killed, the movie The Blue Dahlia was released. Premiering in April 1946, the story centered around three naval officers freshly discharged at the end of WWII. While two of these men get an apartment together, the third finds his wife cheating on him with the owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub. His wife does not survive to the end of the movie. One can easily see how this film and its title likely inspired the moniker we know today.
Police and reporters alike scrambled to devise some kind of timeline, patching bits of information together here and there. When they stepped back to look at their collage they couldn’t ignore the missing pieces in the middle. An entire week of missing time before she was discovered on Norton Avenue. This most confounding part of the case remains unknown to this day. Was she held captive for that missing week? Or was she just lying low with a friend? Seventy-seven years after the fact we will likely never know.
Robert “Red” Manley was a former army musician who spoke with police shortly after she was found. The last time he saw Elizabeth was on January 9, a week before her discovery. On the 8th he’d given her a ride to Hollywood from San Diego, where they were both living at the time. The very next day she asked him to take her to the Biltmore to meet her sister, Virginia. At around 6:00 that evening he dropped her off, never to see her again. The last sighting of Elizabeth occurs shortly after she was dropped off as she made phone calls from the hotel lobby. No one saw her leave. No one saw her get into a car, or even talk to anyone that wasn’t on the other end of the phone.
From that hotel lobby Elizabeth disappears into obscurity until she’s found just a week later. Though forensic science was a burgeoning field in the 40s, it was nothing compared to the technological advancements of today. DNA samples weren’t taken because officers couldn’t conceive of how helpful they would one day become. Dental records weren’t even used in crimes yet. Fingerprints and observation were all the tools and technique available. While the state of the body could tell officers much this was a crime on another level. With autopsies getting better with time it was Newbarr who was able to provide the most information about the type of killer they were looking for.
While police waited on the autopsy results they checked every hotel, motel, apartment building, cocktail bar, lounge, and nightclub in L.A. They hung posters all over the city that described her as “very attractive,” noting her bad teeth and detailing her fingernails as chewed to the quick. Red Manley stated that when he last saw her, she was wearing a black suit, a cardigan-style sweater, a fluffy white blouse, suede high heels, white gloves, and a beige coat. She carried with her a black handbag that completed her ensemble. While some officers were looking over the crime scene again, others were questioning anyone they could find at all the bars and the Biltmore that remembered her. Meanwhile there were others still who were looking for an unidentified Army Lieutenant who Elizabeth said she was going to marry. There was also a Navy man from San Diego reported to have visited with her frequently that they were interested in speaking with.
Just a few days after receiving the cold-hearted phone call that informed her of her daughter’s death, Phoebe Mae Short arrived in California with Elizabeth’s sister, Virginia. Neither of them wanted to personally identify the body. By the time they arrived they had already heard all of the lurid details. However, Cleo Short flat refused to step up, leaving his ex-wife to do the impossible. She was forced to walk into that room all alone and make the identification of a girl that barely resembled Elizabeth by that point. The haunting image would etch itself into her memory as well as her soul, leaving her broken beyond repair. To compound her grief she was forced to live the rest of her life never finding justice for what was done to her child.
Eight days after making her traumatizing discovery, Betty Bersinger spoke with reporters at the Los Angeles Examiner. She lived only two blocks from where she found Elizabeth’s body, a fact that undoubtedly rattled her to the core. Running to the closest house for help, she was pretty sure that she had gone to a doctor’s house. She was right. This had been the home of Dr. Walter Bayley, who would also find himself on the Black Dahlia suspect list. When she called police that sunny Wednesday morning they only asked for the number she was calling from. Her address and phone number was never taken down, making it nearly impossible for police to track her down when they needed to get her statement. Even the paper that Bayley’s number was written on was lost for eight days after Elizabeth was found.
More than a month after the murder police finally started zeroing in on the theory that the killer was somehow involved in the medical field. By February 25 they were looking intensely at medical and dental students. Anyone studying anything to do with anatomy landed on their suspect list for at least a short time. They asked the University of Southern California to send a list of students involved in such studies. The school was reluctant to do so as they didn’t want their student’s names indexed within the case file. Once they were assured that the names would be kept private they sent a list of three-hundred students that police cleared much too quickly.
By March 3 they had determined the lead a dead end. Twenty-eight of the names provided didn’t have any fingerprints available at the department. Many of them had no criminal records to speak of. Only three of the names on that list had previous charges, but nothing relating to murder, so they were dropped before they were ever considered. With that the medical student angle was abandoned as police moved on to Elizabeth’s large circle of friends and love interests.
LAPD Officer Myrl McBride remembered speaking with a young woman who looked exactly like Elizabeth at a bus station on January 14, the day before her body was found. She recalled the woman being very nervous and upset as she waited for the 10:30 bus to arrive that night. She was waiting for a friend visiting from San Diego as she cried hysterically, venting her fears to the officer. Begging for protection, she said that a jealous ex-marine wanted her dead. McBride accompanied her to a bar, where she spoke with two men and a woman. The officer finally told her to go home, but she refused, insisting that she wait on her friend’s train. Officer McBride was forced to leave this distressed young woman, who was unwilling to leave the area of the bus station before her friend’s arrival. This very likely could’ve been the last sighting of Elizabeth Short.
Officers tracked down the woman she was staying with at the time of her murder. Dorothy French wasn’t able to provide much information on her love life. She said that Elizabeth had always been “very popular” with men, which wasn’t much of a revelation by this point in the investigation. However she did mention that a recent date of her’s had frightened her. Unfortunately she had no further details about the man that scared her off of him.
Dorothy was however able to point investigators in the direction of a trunk that Elizabeth left at an L.A. train station. For unknown reasons she stored the trunk there with some of her personal belongings inside. Is it possible that she was planning to flee California when she had the money to do so? Police immediately went in search of that trunk and found that with so many train stations in a busy city they would need help to locate it quickly. The Los Angeles Examiner was more than happy to help, for a price. They wanted access to the trunk and the items contained within before any other publication. Their ruthless pursuit to be the first knew no bounds. The Examiner would do anything to remain the lead paper on the Black Dahlia case.
When the trunk was finally opened it didn’t contain anything of use to police. There were some clothes, letters from old boyfriends, and pictures of her with various men, most of whom were identified without issue. Only one man out of those pictures was not identified, landing him a permanent place on the list of suspects, though there’s no name to put down.
In just six week’s time four very brutal crimes had taken place in L.A. A public eager for answers became a public overly eager to help. Getting those who thought they knew or had been witness to something to come forward didn’t seem to be much of a problem. Finding the right leads was the issue plaguing the brand new homicide squad of L.A.
On January 19 a handwritten letter was delivered to the LAPD all the way from Newark, New Jersey. A man calling himself “Arthur Stange” sent a bullet point note detailing all of the strangely specific traits they should be looking for in their killer. This stranger called “Stange” suggested that the killer was an ex-marine aged somewhere between twenty-eight and thirty. He said that this man, weighing approximately one-hundred-and-sixty pounds and standing exactly five feet, ten inches tall, would have red hair and be of either English or Irish descent. Stange directed police to check out every camp and hospital in the state of California. If they followed his guide, he promised, they would catch their man in two weeks. As odd as this letter was, the weirdest part was that it described Red Manley precisely, the last known person to have seen Elizabeth alive.
For some reason “Arthur Stange” was never tracked down to see why he thought he knew so much about a crime committed three-thousand miles away from his home. The amount of detail he put into that letter speaks to someone who knew more than they were willing to admit. It seems that his letter was largely regarded as the ramblings of an unwell man, though. His true identity was never revealed, leaving the world to wonder where his information came from.
A woman named Edith R. Thomas went far above the heads of the LAPD when she wrote to J. Edgar Hoover personally about her fears of a cover-up. On February 15 she informed the FBI’s director of her suspicious neighbor at the apartment building where they resided on S. Figueroa Street in L.A. Known to all in the building as the “old Policeman,” Mr. Hawkins lived in apartment 405, located on the building’s fourth floor. It was while talking with a neighbor in 403 that Edith learned of a terrifying ordeal that took place at Mr. Hawkins’s apartment. He was heard loudly cussing at a screaming woman when the building manager called the police. A dozen officers responded and hauled Mr. Hawkins away, covered in blood as the body of a woman was removed from his apartment. This body was said to have been cut up horribly, a Glasgow smile carved into her face.
Edith implicates the police in the dumping of Elizabeth’s body. She also accuses them of deliberate ignorance where the case is concerned to cover up for Mr. Hawkins. The residents of her building lived in fear, she said, unable to go to the police due to their obvious involvement. Hoover received the letter, read it, and responded by saying he appreciated the information. Nothing was done because he clearly didn’t believe her outrageous second-hand account.
Most might have left it there, but not Edith. She wrote another letter to Hoover informing him of Mr. Hawkins’s release from jail. He was back home at apartment 405, putting his neighbors on edge. Edith swore to see LAPD officers as well as members of the fire department working together to clean his bloody apartment before his return. The connection wasn’t made at the time, but in September 1946 Elizabeth had been staying at a building just blocks away from Edith’s. While it is possible that she could’ve run across this Mr. Hawkins living so close by for a time, there’s no way to know. Hoover once again thanked the woman for her letter, assuring her he would forward it to the police despite her pleas for outside help. Her tip was never looked into.
Hoover received another letter from a different woman on May 7, 1947. This letter said that they were looking for a movie extra. The unnamed woman claimed that this extra had stolen $70 and her social security card from her after promising to make her a famous actress. While that may not seem like much money today, in 1947 it’s equivalent to $986.20. The mysterious movie extra was said to have a dark complexion, stand around five feet, six inches tall, and weigh about one-hundred-forty-five pounds. Just as he had with Edith, Hoover responded to the woman, thanking her for her letter. Nothing more was done.
On January 24 the Los Angeles Examiner received the first of thirteen letters from someone claiming to be responsible for Elizabeth’s death. Calling himself the “Black Dahlia Avenger,” he taunted police and the press. His first letter looked like any stereotypical ransom note from an old movie. Using newspapers, scissors, and glue, he fashioned a letter that he sent along with a package. The note read, “Here is Dahlia’s belongings. Letter to follow.” Inside an envelope was Elizabeth’s address book and her birth certificate. The letter that followed promised that he would turn himself in at 10:00 AM on January 29, but he did not. Instead of turning himself over to detectives he sent another letter stating that he’d changed his mind because he feared he wouldn’t receive “a fair deal.”
The day after the Black Dahlia Avenger’s first letter arrived a discovery was made. Elizabeth’s shoes and purse were recovered from a dumpster. Over the six days that followed the mysterious author continued to send letters. To this day the authenticity of some of those letters remain a question.
Police were busy trying to find connections between Elizabeth’s murder and similar crimes around the country. The one they focused the hardest on was committed just under a month later and only nine miles from where she was found. On February 10, 1947 Mrs. Jeanne Axford French, a nurse and pilot, was found murdered and mutilated on the 3200 block of Grandview Boulevard in West L.A. She was forty-five years old when she was hit with a club and stomped to death by the large feet of a man. Found naked, the words “Fuck B.D.” was found scrawled across her body in lipstick. Taken as a reference to the Black Dahlia, police immediately thought the murders to be connected somehow. Sadly Jeanne’s case file would gather as much dust as Elizabeth’s as it has continued to remain unsolved.
For a time investigators believed Elizabeth’s brutal killing to be the worst and the latest crime of an unknown San Diego serial killer operating around this time. By 1947 this killer had stymied police for sixteen years. His reign of terror began with the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl in February 1931. This was quickly followed up by three more killings; two of which were raped and killed while the other was stabbed seventeen times. A three-year cooling-off period was ended with four murders in quick succession. Though police never managed to connect Elizabeth’s murder with these killings it wasn’t for lack of trying. The only real connection they could ever find was her ties to San Diego.
Cleveland, Ohio suffered at the hands of another unknown serial killer in the 1930s. The Torso Killer has never been identified, but his crimes are well known to the true crime community to this day. At least a dozen people scattered throughout Northeastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania died in agony and torment as he hacked his way through the area. In the rarest occurrence of a killer without a victim profile, the Torso Killer was indiscriminate in his selection of prey. Killing both men and women, he hunted among the working poor and drifters of the area.
At odds with Elizabeth’s case, where she was bisected after death, the Torso Killer was known to bisect or behead his victims while they were still alive. Police would find that the only similarity between the cases was the fact that her body had been cut at the torso as his victims had been. Some of those discovered in Ohio and Pennsylvania had their skin coated with some kind of chemical. Their bodies were often hidden away for a year or better before finally being dumped, unlike Elizabeth, who was dumped within ten hours of being killed. While she was easily identified within forty-eight hours, only two of the Torso Killer’s victims would ever be identified, the rest going down as either John or Jane Does. The Torso Killer would taunt police by claiming to have an L.A. victim. When the location he gave was inspected no human remains were found, only animal.
While there are plenty of sound theories in this case, there are some crime writers who subscribe to probably the wildest and most far-fetched theory of all. In 1946 the murder of six-year-old Suzanne Degnan rocked Chicago and enthralled Elizabeth. She obsessed over every article written on the case, ironically never knowing that many would soon do the same with her’s. Serial killer William Heirens was convicted of the crime, among others, and was sentenced to life in prison. On March 5, 2012 he died at the University of Illinois Medical Center at eighty-three years old.
There are some crime writers that think William Heirens was responsible for Elizabeth’s death. They say the proof is right there at the scene of her discovery, left in small references that no one ever picked up on. These nods to the Degnan killing start with the position and place in which her body was found, three blocks west of Degnan Boulevard. They also think the ransom notes received in the Chicago case were similar to letters sent by the “Black Dahlia Avenger” in L.A. The “Black Dahlia Avenger” claimed to be Elizabeth’s killer as he taunted the press and police in a total of thirteen letters.
The first suspect on LAPD’s radar was the last person to see her alive. Robert “Red” Manley was a red-haired salesman, formerly an army musician. At the time Elizabeth was killed she was staying at the Bayview Terrace Apartments in San Diego. Red also lived in San Diego with his wife, who was the same age as Elizabeth. The two had struck up an affair in December 1946, but it seemed that Red was quite aware of her tendency to play the field.
To quickly review, Elizabeth asked Red for a ride to Hollywood on January 8, 1947. Then she asked for another ride to meet her sister at the Biltmore in L.A. the very next day. When he saw her last he was dropping her off in front of the hotel. A neighbor of Elizabeth and Dorothy’s recalled seeing her going out with a red-haired man on January 7. The pair got into a car with a sticker on the back that either said Huntington Beach or Huntington Park.
Red Manley was arrested from a fellow salesman’s house in connection with her murder on January 19. His black Studebaker was impounded after it was found stored in another salesman’s garage. Identified by a Railway Express clerk, Red had been with her when she asked about shipping a suitcase and a trunk to Ketchikan, Alaska. During two grueling hours of interrogation he admitted to knowing her, but denied having anything to do with her death. He suggested a blind date of her’s. Particularly a “dark, swarthy” man known to be quite jealous of her and the other men she saw. On one of her dates with him, he even scratched her arms until they bled out of spite for her going out with another man. Whoever this envious old flame was, he was never identified.
Red’s wife and father both rushed to his aid and provided an alibi. They both said he was at home, back in San Diego at the time. The Washington Post printed an article on January 19 that featured the account of a drive-in restaurant employee. This unnamed employee recalled waiting on Elizabeth and Red on January 14.
Polygraph tests were considered a breakthrough science at the time. Due to the misconception that all people become nervous when they lie it was believed that these tests were incredibly accurate. Red consented to two polygraphs and passed both. He was released from jail and erased from the suspect list based on these results.
Thirty-two-year-old Glen Thrope was arrested purely because of mumblings made in his sleep. He was heard murmuring “I forgot to cut the scar off her leg,” in his sleep and was called in to police and taken in for interrogation. He was quickly cut loose when it was found that he had a solid alibi for the night of the murder with witnesses willing and able to confirm his whereabouts. This obvious overreaction stemmed from LAPD’s desperation and the public’s over-eagerness. As everyone tripped over each other to report every odd thing they’d ever seen or heard the task dealt to detectives became increasingly more difficult.
Sergeant Peter Vetcher became a suspect when his information was found inside her address book. He was an Army Ranger who was thought to have been married to her after the discovery of a postcard from September 1946 signed ‘Elizabeth Short Vetcher.” However this postcard had just been intended to make another soldier jealous.
Serving in WWII, Vetcher had been captured by the Nazi forces in Italy on January 30, 1944. For a year and half he remained captive at the Stalag 3B prisoner of war camp in Fuerstenberg, Prussia, now Eisenhuttenstadt, Germany. On July 9, 1945 he took his first deep inhale of free air outside that camp. When he returned to the States the Army Ranger didn’t seem to have lost his drive for adventure. He began tracking down AWOL soldiers all over the country, bringing them back to Fort McClellan in Alabama to face their punishment. On September 20, 1946, he was in Downtown L.A. looking for deserters when he found Elizabeth Short. Like any man with a working pair of eyes, he was struck by her beauty as she walked by with a female friend.
Elizabeth noticed the Ranger insignia on his khaki uniform and immediately asked if he knew another Ranger by the name of John O’Neil. After a brief conversation he asked her out, and she accepted. She introduced herself as Betty, telling him that she was staying at the Figuearoa Hotel with another woman. The pair went to see a Tony Martin broadcast before having dinner at Tom Brenneman’s restaurant. They didn’t even have to wait for a table as it seemed that she knew the entire wait staff well.
Trouble arose when they got off the trolley near Elizabeth’s hotel. A black car pulled up on the couple as they walked down the sidewalk. The five men inside seemed to know her as they stopped beside them, three of them getting out as they cried, “There she is!” It’s not known if this assumption was based on skin tone or accent, but Vetcher later described these men to police as being Mexican. The pair managed to escape from the odd occurrence unscathed, returning to Elizabeth’s room. They had sex multiple times throughout the night with Vetcher noting Elizabeth’s lack of passion.
Though they had gone on a couple of dates that ended in sex Vetcher quickly cleared up the misconception that they were married. The postcard signed by Elizabeth was easily explained away as a prank that she intended to get under John O’Neil’s skin. John had been an ex-lover of hers with a jealous streak. Sending a postcard signed with another man’s name was meant to infuriate him. Vetcher also sent him a postcard informing him of their fictitious wedding.
He last saw her on September 21, 1946, when he took her out on a double date with her roommate and another man. During their night out Elizabeth walked out into the lobby with her roommate and promptly got into an argument with a “short, chunky, well-dressed man” somewhere between forty and forty-five years old. The nature of this argument is anyone’s guess.
Vetcher didn’t sit back and wait for the LAPD to come knocking on his door. He went to them as soon as he read the first article on her murder. The first he heard of her untimely and brutal death was after the discovery of her address book. Knowing he would feature within those pages, he went ahead and came forward with his story and alibi. Elizabeth had promised to write after he returned to Alabama and took his information down. Detectives found that he’d been assigned a posting at Camp McClellan just outside of Anniston, Alabama on July 19, 1946, remaining there until January 28, 1947. His most recent furlough had been for a couple of weeks in August. During the time of her murder they found that he had been on the other side of the country in Alabama.
Leslie Dillon was a former mortician’s assistant working as a bellhop in Florida in 1948. At twenty-seven years old he held a vast amount of knowledge and a deep interest in psychopathic cases, sadism, and sexual vagaries, which led him to LAPD psychiatrist J. Paul De River in October of that year. He wished to collaborate with the doctor on a book about the Black Dahlia case, which would’ve been the first book of its kind. Along with his morbid interests he harbored a vivid dream of becoming a writer. Formerly enlisted in the Navy, Dillon was discharged “irregularly” following an arrest for pandering in San Francisco in 1946. His aliases of Jack Sands and JF Dillon appeared quite suspicious to detectives, who already thought he knew too much as it was.
LAPD Chief CB Horall and De River both thought that this strange young man knew more about sexual sadism than he let on. His knowledge seemed to be far more than academic. The kind of insights he was able to provide on the crime was purely insider knowledge. The LAPD thought their leading suspect so far had walked right into their arms with the hope of publishing a book and profiting off of a crime that he may have committed himself. Even the Washington Post called him the “best suspect yet” in their report on his arrest.
Before his arrest on January 11, 1949 Dillon was met by De River and an undercover officer posing as the doctor’s chauffeur in San Francisco. They talked in detail for quite a while about the crime as Dillon revealed that he knew who the killer was. He named a friend of his named Jeff Conners. Initially De River and the officer thought this friend to be a figment of Dillon’s deranged imagination. Much like Brad Pitt in the cult classic Fight Club, they figured that Jeff Conners was an imagined companion that seemed just as real to him as they did.
The trio climbed into a car ready to ride to De River’s office to continue their conversation. On their drive the undercover chauffeur purposefully took them through the area where Elizabeth’s body was found, hoping to elicit a response from the strange young man. On their way through the neighborhood Dillon told them all of the side streets and alleyways to avoid for a lack of access. When they finally arrived at the very spot she had been recovered from the chauffeur pulled the car over and parked. De River and the officer sat back and watched as Dillon became noticeably nervous and agitated. The longer they stayed parked in that spot the more anxious he became. When it seemed that he could take it no longer they continued on to De River’s office.
Back at his office De River asked what Dillon thought would’ve been done with the victim’s peeled rose tattoo and trimmed pubic hair. He thought that it would’ve been flushed down the toilet. The newest suspect was taken for another drive after their lively conversation at the office. The undercover officer and De River wanted to help him track Jeff Conners down. At this point they still believed this man to be an illusion created by Dillon’s unstable mind, but were interested to see where the search led. They were shocked when it led to the door of Jeff Conners.
Dillon had repeatedly told the doctor that his friend knew too many intimate details of the crime to not be involved. When they actually found him in January 1949 they couldn’t believe it. Jeff Conners’s real name was Arthur H. Lane. He was a forty-year-old movie extra who claimed to be working for Columbia Pictures. When he was questioned by police he said that he’d been working with his ex-wife, actress Vicki Evans, on the night of the murder. When the young actress was questioned she was confused and incredulous. She didn’t even know who this man was, telling police that she’d “never seen the jerk.”
Further probing revealed that Lane did in fact have an ex-wife by the name of Grace Allen. When they were finally able to speak with her, she told them that he’d been working that night, but didn’t know why he would’ve had need of the stage name they initially found him under. She also had no idea why he would’ve claimed Vicki Evans to be his ex. A quick check with Columbia Pictures turned up no Jeff Conners or Arthur Lane on their payroll. Lane claimed to know Elizabeth “by sight,” but that was all. He said that he’d seen her at a bar once with one of her female friends.
Lane and Dillon were both cut loose and removed from the suspect list due to a lack of evidence. Upon his release Dillon filed a $100,000 lawsuit against the city of L.A., today worth a whopping $1,272,804.98. The suit was quickly dropped when it was revealed that he was the prime suspect in a bank robbery in Santa Monica. Though he never saw a dime of compensation for what he saw as an injustice, Dillon was dropped as a suspect. What little evidence they managed to scrounge up was incredibly thin. In an era where nothing was held back from the press, he could’ve read any detail he’d given police in any one of the news articles running nationwide. By February 1951 his name had been completely scrubbed from the investigation.
Mark Hansen immigrated to the States from Denmark in 1919, first moving to Plenty Wood, Montana. In 1921 he set his roots down in L.A., where he opened some very successful nightclubs and theatres. He quickly accomplished the American dream he had clearly set his sights on when immigrating. At fifty-five years of age, five feet, nine inches tall, and one-hundred-seventy-five pounds, his most pronounced physical feature was his posture as he was known to walk stooped over. According to some accounts Elizabeth worked for him as a waitress at one of his establishments, which could be how they initially met.
Elizabeth had shared a hotel room with actress Ann Toth near Florentine Gardens night club. The accounts vary as to which one of these women was dating Hansen, but Ann did have a boyfriend named Leo Hymes. It’s quite possible that both women were just using him for financial gain and a place to stay when they needed it. Elizabeth once mentioned to her former roommate that Hansen was a very jealous man with a short temper. Regardless of her feelings toward him, she would still spend the year of 1946 moving in and out of his house several times. She confided in Ann that she repeatedly had to dodge his sexual advancements and she could never allow him to see her boyfriends picking her up for dates.
Hansen would last see her alive on December 6, 1946 when they went out for dinner together. After their meal they retired to a hotel, where the night soured suddenly. Elizabeth started to cry, telling her overly insecure partner that she was going to visit her sister in Oakland. Upon her return to San Diego on January 8 she called Hansen asking to come back home with him to stay. Hansen would later give contradictory statements about his response. While one statement says he told her to come home, the other states that he said Ann wouldn’t have liked it if she did.
As Elizabeth stood at the Biltmore Hotel making phone calls on the day she disappeared, she called Hansen one more time asking to move back in. In the same statement he’s said to have told her yes, but also no, telling her to find another place to stay almost in the same breath. His reasoning for turning her away was just the same. Because Ann wouldn’t have appreciated her presence there while she was away. Shortly before Elizabeth turned up dead Ann had moved into Hansen’s house, staying there until shortly after the discovery of her friend’s body.
Mark Hansen and Ann Toth both came forward voluntarily to offer information upon hearing of her death. To avoid the media circus that had made themselves at home around the police department they demanded that their privacy be respected in this matter. Hansen would find himself in the position of prime suspect for a time, though strangely none of his properties or businesses were ever investigated for the presence of blood.
The Los Angeles Examiner received the belongings contained withing Elizabeth’s trunk on January 24, 1947. The items had been neatly packaged into an envelope and sent to reporters as part of their deal. In return for helping the LAPD locate the trunk they were given first dibs on the evidence inside. This evidence included an address book emblazoned with Mark Hansen’s name. Embossed in gold, his name stood out boldly on the book, which he said had been a gift from Denmark. The book had gone missing from his home and until it turned up in Elizabeth’s trunk he had no idea she had it. She apparently swiped it the last time she was at his house and was using it up until her death.
A grand jury convened against Hansen in 1949, but no indictment was ever handed down due to a lack of evidence. He had no criminal record and was never known by anyone to be a physically violent man. Later in 1949 he was nearly the victim of homicide himself when he was shot in a fit of jealousy at his Carlos Avenue home. Lola Titus had been a girlfriend of his. Working as both a dancer and a taxi driver, she was tired of toiling her life away just to get by. When she confessed to her crime, she told police “that he was either going to love me, marry me or take care of me or I was going to kill him.” The bullet she shot him with tore through his lung, but missed his heart by mere millimeters. He survived his brush with death, likely never realizing the irony of his situation.
Medical doctor Patrick S. O’Reilly was heavily considered as a suspect due to his background in medicine and his well-known violent tendencies. His training would’ve lent him the capability to dismember her body in the fashion it had been. O’Reilly was notorious for his untamed sex parties, which only made him appear to be a deviant in the eyes of the LAPD. Formerly married to the daughter of a retired LAPD captain, their union not surprisingly ended in a bitter divorce. It was also found that he had once taken his secretary to a hotel, where he savagely beat her to satisfy his sexual urges without the act of copulation. He was charged and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. He seemed like the perfect suspect in the Black Dahlia case.
George Hill Hodel Jr. landed on LAPD’s radar in 1949 when his teenage daughter accused him of rape. He was a doctor that specialized in public health and sexually transmitted diseases. Raised an only child in a Russian-Jewish home, he proved himself a genius as well as a musical prodigy from childhood. He played LA concert halls as he grew up, with piano composer Rachmanioff even coming to watch him play once. In adulthood his elevated status as a doctor landed him within the circles of L.A.’s elite as he befriended such socialites as director John Huston and photographer Man Ray.
His glimmering, glamorous life was turned over to reveal the darkness underneath when he was put under surveillance in 1950. For more than a month his house was bugged with microphones that picked up every word he spoke. Just the first day of surveillance provided a good deal of incriminating evidence, leading detectives to believe they had finally found their man. Eighteen detectives were assigned to monitor the recordings over long, tiresome shifts. Luckily the work was far from boring as almost everything he said in the comfort of his home was incriminating. There were plenty of references to police bribery, murder, and abortions, which were illegal during this time. He made a direct reference to Elizabeth on the first day detectives listened in, saying, “Supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They can’t prove it now.”
A reference made about his former secretary also raised many eyebrows as she had died under extremely suspicious circumstances with her boss the number one suspect. Ruth Spaulding died of an overdose in 1945 just as she was planning to out Dr. Hodel’s fraudulent scheme. He had been purposefully misdiagnosing patients with illnesses they didn’t have so he could overcharge them for treatments and medications they didn’t need. Hodel was recorded at his home saying that police wouldn’t be able to speak with his secretary anymore since she was dead and gone. He told someone over the phone that “they may have figured it out,” going on to say, “Maybe I did kill my secretary.” He was never charged in the death of Ruth Spaulding due to a lack of evidence.
Lillian DeNorak had been living at Hodel’s house around the time Elizabeth was killed. The Hodel family was known to take in boarders, which just goes to show how bold of a man the sinister doctor was. It’s stated in the DA’s file that Lillian knew him to spend time at the Biltmore Hotel. She even identified Elizabeth as a girlfriend of his. Though the DA file doesn’t mention the reason, Lillian was committed to the State Mental Institution.
Hodel’s own wife even suspected him of terrible things. She reported that she had once overheard him saying, “They’ll never be able to prove I did that murder.” Another boarder from the family’s house was able to provide police with a picture of him lying naked with a nude model. Detectives wondered if this woman would be able to provide a connection between the doctor and the victim, but it was another dead end. Meanwhile another acquaintance of his that knew Elizabeth well didn’t think that the two had ever been introduced. A dozen of his acquaintances were questioned with no connection ever being established between Elizabeth and George Hodel. That didn’t mean there weren’t plenty of people that thought him more than capable of committing this horrendous crime, though.
His son, Steve Hodel, grew up to become a proud officer for the LAPD. He rose up from beat cop to homicide detective, likely driven by the unstable early childhood he endured living with his father. Like his mother, Steve thought his father to be guilty of terrible crimes. More specifically, he was convinced that he was Elizabeth’s killer and the author of the notes written by the Black Dahlia Avenger. Taking things a very long step further, he also believed him to be the Zodiac.
George Hodel did the world as well as his family a favor when he died of heart failure in 1999. The task of clearing out his house fell to his son. While going through old pictures and memories better left in the recesses of the mind he found an interesting photograph. It pictured his father with a woman bearing a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Short. Though later he would show this picture to surviving family members of hers that didn’t think it looked a thing like her. From there the seasoned detective started putting puzzle pieces together. He became resolute in his theory that the man that terrorized his family hadn’t contained his violence to his own home.
The type of car that Hodel drove at the time of the murder matched the one seen driving away from the scene that morning. The handwriting on the Black Dahlia Avenger’s notes was nearly identical to Hodel’s as well. In 1950 he left the country and stayed away for forty years. Interesting as he spent a month of that year under surveillance before leaving. He came back to the States in 1990, living in quiet obscurity until his death. His son went on to publish some books, most notably The Black Dahlia Avenger. In this book he explains why he believes his father was responsible for Elizabeth’s murder. He wrote another in which he tried to tie Hodel to the Zodiac killings, but it just didn’t ring as true for many reasons starting with his age at the time and his location in another country.
Whether or not he killed Elizabeth is still a mystery, but we do know he killed. In 2014 the house that Hodel lived in between 1945 and 1950 was visited by forensic technicians. Soil samples were taken and tested, confirming what many who knew Hodel to be true. Evidence of human remains were found in the soil, vindicating everything Steve ever thought about him. Unfortunately we will never know who was buried there, or what happened to them. The hardest part to swallow is that these unidentified victims will never receive justice for the abrupt end to their lives.
Dr. Walter Bayley was a sixty-seven year old man when Elizabeth was killed. Though he never landed on LAPD’s official suspect list, he was heavily considered by others after the theory was offered up by a copy-editor of the Los Angeles Times in the late 90s. As he worked on a piece for the Black Dahlia’s fiftieth anniversary he noticed some links between the doctor and the case. Bayley had lived in the very house that Betty Bersinger ran to for help that morning. In October 1946 he and his wife had gone through a divorce, leading him to move out. In January 1947 his ex-wife was still living there. An FBI profiler had said that the place in which she was dumped held some kind of significance to the killer. The spot being running distance from the house Bayley once shared with his wife was thought to possibly be the connection.
Some Black Dahlia experts have linked Elizabeth to the doctor by her sister, Virginia. Bayley’s daughter was friends with Virginia and likely met Elizabeth at least once. He specialized in hysterectomies, mastectomies, and the removal of fat during his career, which would’ve given him the ability to remove Elizabeth’s breast and uterus so adeptly. Elizabeth’s tendency to lie about losing a son to gain favors through sympathy was thought to be the motive. Bayley had lost a son of his own when he was struck and killed by a car. As Elizabeth’s remains were found so close to his old home just two days after his son’s birthday the theory grew into full form.
Dr. Bayley died of natural causes in 1948. An autopsy revealed some kind of neurological disorder, which begs to question how an elderly man with a deteriorating brain could’ve committed such a crime all alone. While some argue that neurological deterioration could cause a normally calm person to become violent, it still doesn’t explain how he would be physically able to commit the crime on his own.
Perhaps the wildest theory posited can be found on blackdahliasolution.org, created by a man from New Hampshire known only as J.D. He suggests that an ex-boyfriend of hers named Ed Burns committed the murder and staged it to look like the Degnan case of Chicago. Believing Ed Burns to be the unidentified man from her pictures, he also thinks that this name was merely an alias. His real name was apparently Maurice Clement, a name that does appear within the district attorney’s list of suspects.
Elizabeth lived in Chicago during the time the Degnan case was dominating local news. She had become obsessed with the news articles, regaling others with the details she gleaned while out at the bars. Her obsession didn’t remain in Chicago when she moved back to L.A. It followed her back to the West Coast, where J.D. believes she met Ed Burns. Ed had a few medical school credits under his belt from the University of Southern California, lending only the slightest amount of credence to J.D.’s theory. He thinks that the two would meet up in Hollywood, Elizabeth using him as a means to an end as he fell hopelessly in love with her. He would allow her to spend nights with him while also giving her money to help her get by.
J.D. theorizes that Elizabeth was constantly ducking Ed’s advancements toward a relationship with her. Driven over the edge by the beautiful woman that was right within his grasp, but somehow still unattainable, he snapped. Her relentless obsession with the Degnan case only drove him further as she talked endlessly on the subject. To end his humiliation as well as her fixation he decided to end her life in much the same way Degnan’s had been. J.D. is also the second person to connect the scene at Degnan Boulevard to the Degnan case.
Ed Burns committed suicide just two months after her body was discovered. On March 14, 1947 he ended his life, leaving behind a note that stated in part “To Whom It May Concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me.” Perhaps the most outlandish part of his theory is the cipher J.D. believes is contained within the suicide note. It’s his very strong belief that the LAPD knew Ed Burns was the killer, but didn’t know how to break his suicide to the public. Apparently he thinks the best solution they could come to was to leave it a cold case rather than tell the public the danger had taken care of itself. This theory sounds more cobbled together than anything else. J.D. seems to have taken all of the details of the case and molded them together into something he believed was sound.
The list of most famous suspects starts with mafia legend Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. There isn’t a clear motive for him to have committed the crime, though. At the time of her death Bugsy Siegel was known for his preoccupation with women. He was also quite busy with his hotel and casino in Las Vegas. There seems to be nothing tying him to the murder, but he still remains a suspect nonetheless.
Filmmaker Orsen Welles was offered up as a possible suspect by Short family neighbor Mary Pacios. She claimed that he had practiced on mannequins that resembled Elizabeth in an attempt to live out a famous magic trick that he himself performed for WWII soldiers. Mary had been told by others that Elizabeth and Orsen were seen together and believed the rumor wholeheartedly. The very day that the Examiner received the envelope containing her belongings he applied for a passport, taking off on an extended trip to Europe. He remained there for the next ten months before returning home. Orsen Welles was never mentioned as an official suspect because he doesn’t make a viable one. There’s nothing more than an unlikely second-hand account to tie him to her and nothing in his background would’ve lent him the capability to commit the murder.
Folk singer Woodie Guthrie was considered by LAPD after sending explicit letters and newspaper clippings to a woman he’d been stalking. He was only briefly considered, but the fact that he was looked at at all wasn’t revealed to the public until the release of his biography in 2004. He was cleared from the list of suspects just as quickly as he was added with no evidence whatsoever to connect him to Elizabeth.
At the time Elizabeth was killed LAPD’s homicide squad was still in its infancy. The detectives making up the force didn’t have the luxury of experience, or even the kind of crime scene training seen today. These detectives had been transferred from other areas within the department, most of them having never witnessed a murder scene before. The fact that they couldn’t even open a letter without a reporter over their shoulders, breathing down their necks for information didn’t help matters any. While inexperienced detectives were leading Elizabeth’s case straight to a dust-covered shelf the reporters of L.A. were jeopardizing it with over-sensationalism. From taking evidence from the scene to publishing tell-all interviews with key witnesses, the Los Angeles Examiner was doing more harm than good. R.B. Hood watched as detectives struggled to even take phone calls inside their headquarters due to the gaggle of reporters listening in. L.A. Mayor Fletcher Bowron was ready to involve the FBI despite their lack of jurisdiction in the hopes that they could finally solve it.
By the year 2004 forensic science was making breakthrough after breakthrough. These advancements could’ve meant a great deal to the Black Dahlia case, but unfortunately we will never know. That same year it was revealed by the LAPD that all of the evidence gathered in her case had gone missing. Elizabeth’s address book, purse, shoes, hair follicles, fingerprint cards, the men’s army-style watch found at the scene, and the letters mailed from the “Black Dahlia Avenger” all disappeared. The fact that one of these could’ve broke the case wide open is likely the very reason it hasn’t been found.
While false confessions are a common enigma in such cases, Elizabeth’s seemed to attract those who were either mentally unstable, or simply convinced that they deserved some kind of punishment. It is because of false confessions that police hold back information from the public today. Unfortunately no one thought of this when the Examiner was publishing every detail of the case for the public’s feverish consumption. This gave anyone in L.A. the ability to confess to the crime with details that only the killer and the police should’ve known. As though the task dealt to detectives wasn’t difficult enough they were then faced with an onslaught of false confessions from those who had been reading the papers too much.
The Washington News reported on the false confession of thirty-three-year-old Daniel S. Voorhees on January 28, 1947. The first of the many false confessors, he seemed “addled” to the detectives he spoke with. Voorhees couldn’t even remember exactly when he’d joined the army, giving both 1941 and 1943 as the year he enlisted. He said that he had dated Elizabeth back in 1941 and had taken her out on the day she was murdered six years later. When he called the LAPD on himself he also offered up a note he’d written stating “I did kill Beth Short.” It didn’t take police long to discount his confession and remove him from the list of suspects. It seemed to them that this man simply needed help.
In early February 1947 Army Corporal Joseph Dumais said that it was quite “possible” that he was responsible. His lackluster confession was given after an arrest for refusing to return money that he held onto for a fellow soldier. When the press seized on his confession they highlighted his “woman-beating past.” The Army wouldn’t allow any interviews with police or the press. It wouldn’t be necessary as his confession was proven false through Army records shortly after.
Dumais claimed that he had taken Elizabeth on a date the day she was killed and blacked out at some point while they were together. When he came to, he was sitting at Penn Station in New York City. At the time of the murder he was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey. He’d been seen by other sergeants on base on January 10, 1947 following a forty-five-day furlough. The same sergeants confirmed his whereabouts for January 13th, 14th, and 15th. They had no problem recalling as Dumais made his presence hard to forget that day. He was reprimanded for wearing the uniform of a counter-intelligence officer. There was just no possible way he committed the crime and jetted back across the country that quickly. LAPD homicide squad Captain Jack Donahoe said that Dumais would’ve had to have taken a constellation plane to make that trip.
Dumais was examined by a psychiatrist, who recommended that he be hospitalized. The unwell man was walking around with what appeared to be blood stains on his pants pocket while carrying around newspaper clippings of Black Dahlia articles. Oddly he also claimed that his first wife had died under mysterious circumstances, but this didn’t turn out to be the case. She was alive and quite well, living in Tilton, New Hampshire.
Twenty-three-year-old Melvin Bailey’s account was quite easily put to rest. In March 1947 he was arrested for auto theft when he inexplicably confessed to the murder. He was from Lemay, Missouri visiting sunny L.A. when he met Elizabeth and went out drinking with her. The night became an indecipherable blur when Bailey blacked out on Benzedrine and amphetamine. All he claims to remember from that point was cutting her up with his commando knife. The pair had apparently planned to return to Missouri together, but Elizabeth changed her mind, opting to go with two soldiers instead. Enraged and fueled by drugs and alcohol, he claims to have killed her. Although the date he gives for this crime is far before the date she was actually killed on.
Bailey wasn’t the only confessor whose incorrect details upended their claims. Charles Lynch was a twenty-three year old painter who claimed to have met Elizabeth at Camp Cook while he was stationed there. She was waiting tables at a nearby cafe when he first laid eyes on her. On January 14 he saw her again at a bar. The pair went back to a hotel room to smoke some weed together when he claims the night turned ugly. He blames the influence it had on him for the murder, claiming that he killed her with a surgical knife stolen from Camp Cook once they had taken off their clothes. However the manner in which he claims to have killed her doesn’t match up at all with the autopsy results. Considering that all of the case’s details were made public knowledge through the press it’s hard to believe these men couldn’t get their stories straight.
In the middle of all the tips and false confessions came two women claiming to have murdered her. The first, Emily E. Williams, told police that she shot Elizabeth in the LAPD parking lot. Police knew this confession was false as she was never shot. Williams was suffering greatly from mental illness and was never looked at as a viable suspect. The next female confessor, Mannie Sepulvada, clearly hadn’t read the first article on the case as she knew nothing about it save the victim’s name. Sepulvada was discounted almost as quickly as she walked in when she failed to give the first correct detail.
In 1950 a mysterious letter arrived from an inmate at the Danbury Correctional Institution in Connecticut. The letter simply stated that a “Spanish fellow from Puerto Rico named Fredy” had killed her. There’s no mention of this tip ever being looked into, but that’s likely because it wasn’t taken seriously.
The last false confession came nearly nine years after her brutal murder. Forty-four-year-old Ralph Von Hiltz had spoken with police shortly after her body was discovered, on January 18, 1947. Nine years later he walked in the LAPD headquarters to turn himself in. He’d been friends with a sailor named Daniel James, who was stationed at the Naval Base in San Diego at the time. Before her death, Elizabeth had been spending time with James so it seemed natural to take her along for a night out. As they drove the streets of L.A. James accused her of seeing another man behind his back. Angered and taken aback by the accusation, she got out of the car intending to walk away from the situation. James wouldn’t allow this, getting out and shooting her in the stomach with a .22 caliber semi-automatic.
James then turned to Von Hiltz for help. He asked his friend to cut up the body and he agreed. No sooner than he claimed to have seen her shot was his confession tossed out the window. Elizabeth was never shot. That would’ve been a much kinder way to go than what she faced.
There has been plenty of speculation about a cover-up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. This is mainly based on the theory that one of the case’s most dogged reporters was taken off the story. Agnes Underwood was one of very few female reporters of that era and she worked hard to get to the truth. Right in the middle of her pursuit of the Black Dahlia case she was given a promotion and moved to the city desk. While there are those that believe this was to keep her distracted and away from the case, it seems that her Black Dahlia articles simply earned her a promotion after years of hard work in a male-dominated field. Once her one-on-one interview with Red Manley hit the press she was moved up to bigger and better things at the Herald Express.
Two years after Elizabeth’s murder a twenty-one-member grand jury was convened though they had no suspect to look at. The best suspect they had was rendered untouchable after a police misconduct case against him. However they were convinced they had found the murder scene on L.A.’s busiest street. The exact location is about the only detail never made public in this case. All we know is that it was located only fifteen minutes from where Elizabeth’s body was dumped. Inside one of the rooms bloody sheets and bloody clothing of her size was discovered.
Not surprisingly the LAPD found themselves being investigated by the grand jury to see if corruption existed within the department. As the department was founded on miscrupulousness it’s not shocking that plenty was found with little effort. Misconduct, jurisdictional disputes, departmental infighting, and an increase in unsolved murders as a result appalled the grand jury. Intense fighting between officers led to information in the case being withheld from some that needed to know. Their lack of professionalism and rampant corruption is likely what led to the case going cold. The unsettling revelations made by the grand jury forced their chief into resignation. Without enough evidence there was no indictment, but the jury maintained that Leslie Dillon was their prime suspect.
Elizabeth Short’s murder remains frigidly cold without a living suspect, witness, or even evidence to test using today’s advanced technology. As the years passed with no solution those once tied to her in one way or another were forced to go on with their lives never knowing what really happened. Her friends, family, and even former lovers would remember her quick wit and endearing personality for the rest of their lives after hers was abruptly ended. While most were able to painfully move on not everyone was so lucky. Red Manley suffered a series of mental breakdowns that landed him in a mental institution. On January 16, 1986 a trip-and-fall accident claimed his life in his twilight years. It was though he’d spent nearly forty years languishing in guilt after dropping her off to her doom.
Nearly twenty years after the gruesome discovery that launched a thousand headlines Mark Hansen died of natural causes. On June 14, 1964 he breathed his last without anyone to pass the torch of his success to. All of his nightclubs and theatres except for one closed down after his death. Florentine Gardens still stands on Hollywood Boulevard today, a pulsing dance floor reacting to the Latin beats spun by DJs.
Hollywood processed the brutal crime committed in their backyard the only way they knew how. Through art and expression. The creative souls that have found inspiration in the case have cemented the Black Dahlia in American pop culture forever. Her story has grown into legend as authors and screenwriters have adapted it in several different forms. John Gregory based his novel, True Confessions, on the case and saw immense success when it was adapted for film with Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall taking on the starring roles. Crime fiction writer James Elroy wrote a fictionalized version of the story for his book, The Black Dahlia. Joyce Carol Oates even won the Horror Writers of America Bram Stoker Award for her book, Black Dahlia and White Rose. Her ingenious retelling goes through the multiple accounts of multiple narrators throughout.
Though the movie called The Black Dahlia had nothing to do with the case it certainly took on the name she had already made so famous. In 2006 her case even appeared on America’s Most Wanted as pleas were made for the return of the missing evidence that could finally help solve it. Countless books and television shows have also referenced her murder. Most notably American Horror Story featured the case in season one as Elizabeth Short joins the gaggle of ghosts haunting the Murder House.
With so many decades between us and Elizabeth’s murder it’s highly unlikely we will ever know the truth. Inexperienced detectives working in a toxic environment is probably the very reason we will never know. The lack of professionalism shown by the LAPD and the press of 1947 led her case straight to the cooler almost from the beginning. The only thing we can know for sure is that whoever committed this crime was willing and able to ensure that it remained a mystery forever.