Black Dahlia

Elizabeth Short

Short's September 1943 mugshot
Born (1924-07-29)July 29, 1924
Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died c. January 15, 1947(1947-01-15) (aged 22)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.[1]
Resting place Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, California
Occupation Waitress
Parent(s) Cleo Short (father)
Phoebe Mae Sawyer (mother)

The "Black Dahlia" was a nickname posthumously given to Elizabeth Short[2][3][4] (July 29, 1924 – c. January 15, 1947). She was an American woman who was murdered in Los Angeles, California in 1947. Her case became highly publicized as her corpse had been mutilated and cut in half.

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.[1]

Early life

Short was born in Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, the third of five daughters of Cleo and Phoebe May (Sawyer) Short. She grew up in Medford, a Boston suburb. Her father built miniature golf courses until the 1929 stock market crash, when he lost most of his money. One day in 1930, he parked his car on a bridge. As he disappeared and was not heard from for years,[5] many believed that he had committed suicide by jumping off the bridge into the water. Phoebe moved her family into a small apartment in Medford and worked as a bookkeeper to support them. It was not until she received a letter of apology from her husband that the family learned that he was alive and living in California.

Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr.
Arrest photo from 1943 for underage drinking

Troubled by asthma and bronchitis, Elizabeth was sent at 16 to spend the winter in Miami, Florida. During the next three years, she lived in Florida during the cold months and spent the rest of the year in Medford. At 10, she traveled to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, whom she had not seen since she was 6. He was working at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay.

Early in 1943, Short and her father moved to Los Angeles. She left him following an argument and took a job at the base exchange at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base), near Lompoc, California. She soon moved to Santa Barbara. She was arrested there on September 23, 1943 for underage drinking. The juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford, but she returned instead to Florida, making only occasional visits to Massachusetts.

While in Florida, she met Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated US Army Air Force officer at the 2d Air Commando Group. He was training for deployment to the China Burma India Theater of Operations of World War II. She told friends that he had written to propose marriage while he was recovering from injuries from a plane crash in India. She accepted his offer, but Gordon died in a second crash on August 10, 1945, less than a week before the Japanese surrender ended the war.

She returned to Los Angeles in July 1946 to visit Army Air Force Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, whom she had known from Florida. Fickling was stationed at the Naval Reserve Air Base in Long Beach. Short spent the last six months of her life in Southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area.

Murder and aftermath

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°00′59″N 118°19′59″W / 34.0164°N 118.333°W / 34.0164; -118.333) 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.[1][6] Bersinger initially thought she had found a discarded store mannequin.[1] When she realized it was a corpse, she rushed to a nearby house and telephoned the police.[1]

Short's severely-mutilated body was completely severed at the waist and drained entirely of blood.[7] The body obviously had been washed by the killer.[8] 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.[1] The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her buttocks.[8] The corpse had been "posed," with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart.[1][5]

Detectives found a cement sack nearby containing watery blood. There was a heel print on the ground amid the tire tracks.[1]

An autopsy stated that Short was 5 feet 5 inches (165 cm) 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 her 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.[9] 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."[10]

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.[5]

According to newspaper reports shortly after the murder, Short received the nickname "Black Dahlia" at a Long Beach drugstore in mid-1946 as wordplay on the film The Blue Dahlia. However, reports by investigators for the Los Angeles County district attorney state that the nickname was invented by newspaper reporters covering her murder. Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means, who interviewed Short's acquaintances at the drugstore, is credited with first using the "Black Dahlia" name.[11]

A number of people, none of whom knew Short, contacted police and the newspapers and claimed to have seen her during her so-called "missing week," between her January 9 disappearance and the discovery of her body, on January 15. Police and DA investigators ruled out each alleged sighting; in some cases, those interviewed were identifying other women whom they had mistaken for Short.[12]

Many true crime books claim that Short lived in or visited Los Angeles at various times in the mid-1940s; the claims have never been substantiated. They are refuted by the findings of the law enforcement officers who investigated the case. A document in the DA's files, titled "Movements of Elizabeth Short Prior to June 1, 1946," states that Short was in Florida and Massachusetts from September 1943 through the early months of 1946 and gives a detailed account of her living and working arrangements during this period. Although some of her acquaintances and many true crime authors described Short as a call girl, a contemporaneous grand jury proved that there was no existing evidence that she was ever a prostitute. It attributes the claim to confusion with another woman with the same name. A widely-circulated rumor holds that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of a congenital defect that resulted in "infantile genitalia." Los Angeles County district attorney's files state that the investigators had questioned three men with whom Short had engaged in sex,[13] including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect in the case.[14] FBI files on the case also contain a statement from one of Short's alleged lovers. Found in the DA's files and in the LAPD's summary of the case, Short's autopsy describes her reproductive organs as anatomically normal. The report notes evidence of what it called "female trouble." The autopsy also states that Short was not and had never been pregnant, contrary to what had been claimed prior to and following her death.[13]

Suspects

The Black Dahlia murder investigation was conducted by the LAPD, which enlisted the help of hundreds of officers borrowed from other law enforcement agencies. The nature of the crime and the sensational and sometimes-inaccurate press coverage all attracted intense public attention to the case.

About 60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men. Of them, 25 were considered viable suspects by the Los Angeles DA. In the course of the investigation, some of the original 25 were eliminated, and several new suspects were proposed. Suspects remaining under discussion by various authors and experts include Walter Bayley,[15] Norman Chandler, Leslie Dillon, Joseph A. Dumais, Mark Hansen, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, George Hill Hodel, Hodel's friend Fred Sexton,[16] George Knowlton, Robert M. "Red" Manley, Patrick S. O'Reilly, and Jack Anderson Wilson.[17]

Some crime authors have speculated on a link between the Short murder and the Cleveland Torso Murders, which took place in Cleveland, Ohio between 1934 and 1938.[18] As part of their investigation into other murders that took place before and after the Short murder, the original LAPD investigators studied the Cleveland murders in 1947 but later discounted any relationship between the two cases. In 1980, new evidence implicating a former Cleveland torso murder suspect, Jack Anderson Wilson (a.k.a. Arnold Smith), was investigated by Detective John P. St. John in relation to Short's murder. He claimed he was close to arresting Wilson for Short's murder, but that Wilson died in a fire on February 4, 1982.[19]

Crime authors such as Steve Hodel (son of George Hill Hodel) and William Rasmussen have suggested a link between the Short murder and the 1946 murder and dismemberment of six-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, Illinois.[20] Captain Donahoe of the LAPD stated publicly that he believed the Black Dahlia and the Lipstick Murders were "likely connected."[21] Among the evidence cited is the fact that Short's body was found on Norton Avenue, three blocks west of Degnan Boulevard, Degnan being the last name of the girl from Chicago. There were also striking similarities between the handwriting on the Degnan ransom note and that of "the Black Dahlia Avenger." Both texts used a combination of capitals and small letters (the Degnan note read in part "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY" [sic]), and both notes contain a similar misshapen letter P and have one word that matches exactly.[22] Convicted serial killer William Heirens served life in prison for Degnan's murder. Initially arrested at 17 for breaking into a residence close to that of Degnan, Heirens claimed he was tortured by police, forced to confess, and made a scapegoat for Degnan's murder.[23]

After being taken from the medical infirmary at the Dixon Correctional Center on February 26, 2012 for health problems, Heirens died at the University of Illinois Medical Center on March 5, 2012, at 83.

Fictional portrayals

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Black Dahlia.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Gilmore, John (2001). Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Amok. ISBN 978-1-878923-17-2.
  2. ↑ "Investigation : Birth Certificate". Blackdahlia.info. Archived from the original on October 14, 2007. Retrieved February 2, 2010. Copy of Short's registered birth certificate showing that no middle name was included
  3. ↑ Coroner's Inquest Transcript Inquest Held on the Body of Elizabeth Short, Phoebe Short testimony (Hall of Justice, Los Angeles, California January 22, 1947).
  4. ↑ "Common Myths About the Black Dahlia and Their Origins". Larry Harnisch. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  5. 1 2 3 Harnisch, Larry. "A Slaying Cloaked in Mystery and Myths". Los Angeles Times. January 6, 1997.
  6. ↑ "Black Dahlia (Notorious Murders, Most Famous)". trutv.com. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved July 22, 2010.
  7. ↑ McLellan, Dennis (January 9, 2003). "Obituaries: Ralph Asdel, 82; Detective in the Black Dahlia Case". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
  8. 1 2 Scheeres, Julia. "Macabre Discovery". The Black Dahlia. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved October 8, 2013.
  9. ↑ Haugen, Brenda (2010). The Black Dahlia: Shattered Dreams. Capstone Publishers. pp. 9–12. ISBN 978-0-7565-4358-7.
  10. ↑ Reppetto, Thomas A. (October 18, 2013). American Police, A History: 1945–2012: The Blue Parade, Vol. II. Enigma Books. pp. 154–. ISBN 978-1-936274-44-4.
  11. ↑ Rob Leicester Wagner (2000). "Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers, 1920–1962". Dragonflyer Press. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  12. ↑ "Excerpts From Grand Jury Summary", BlackDahlia website; Access date: November 4, 2007.
  13. 1 2 "Fact Versus Fiction" BlackDahlia.info. Archived February 18, 2013, at Archive.is
  14. ↑ "District Attorney Suspects" BlackDahlia.info.
  15. ↑ "The Black Dahlia Murder Theory Part 2/3". YouTube. September 30, 2009. Archived from the original on July 5, 2015. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  16. ↑ Hodel, Steve. Black Dahlia Avenger. Arcade. New York. 2003.
  17. ↑ Suzan Nightingale (January 17, 1982). "Black Dahlia: Author Claims to Have Found 1947 Killer". Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
  18. ↑ Bardsley, Marilyn. "The Cleveland Torso Murders aka Kingsbury Run Murders - Eliot Ness Case - Crime Library on truTV.com". Crimelibrary.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2014. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  19. ↑ Rasmussen, pp. 80–97
  20. ↑ "The Black Dahlia: The Unsolved Murder of Elizabeth Short — Black Dahlia Intro — Crime Library on". Trutv.com. April 11, 2003. Archived from the original on January 9, 2010. Retrieved August 12, 2010.
  21. ↑ Rasmussen, p. 101
  22. ↑ Rasmussen, p. 122
  23. ↑ Rasmussen, pp. 48–70
  24. ↑ Fine, David M. (2004). Imagining Los Angeles: A City in Fiction. University of Nevada Press. pp. 209–210. ISBN 0-87417-603-4.
  25. ↑ Mayo, Mike (2008). American Murder: Criminals, Crimes, and the Media. Visible Ink Press. p. 316. ISBN 1-57859-256-9.

Cited sources

Further reading

  • Daniel, Jacque (2004). The Curse of the Black Dahlia. Los Angeles: Digital Data Werks. ISBN 0-9651604-2-4. 
  • Fowler, Will (1991). Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman. Minneapolis: Roundtable Publishing. ISBN 0-915677-61-X. 
  • Gilmore, John (2006) [1994]. Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia. Los Angeles: Amok Books. ISBN 1-878923-17-X. 
  • Hodel, Steve (2003). Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1-55970-664-3. 
  • Knowlton, Janice; Newton, Michael (1995). Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer. New York: Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-88084-5. 
  • Nelson, Mark; Bayliss, Sarah Hudson (2006). Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder. New York: Bulfinch Press. ISBN 0-8212-5819-2. 
  • Pacios, Mary (1999). Childhood Shadows: The Hidden Story of the Black Dahlia Murder. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse. ISBN 1-58500-484-7. 
  • Richardson, James (1954). For the Life of Me: Memoirs of a City Editor. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. (ISBN unavailable). 
  • Smith, Jack (1981). Jack Smith's L.A. New York: Pinnacle Books. ISBN 0-523-41493-5. 
  • Underwood, Agness (1949). Newspaperwoman. New York: Harper and Brothers. (ISBN unavailable). 
  • Wagner, Rob Leicester (2000). Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers, 1920–1962. Upland, Calif.: Dragonflyer Press. ISBN 0-944933-80-7. 
  • Webb, Jack (1958). The Badge: The Inside Story of One of America's Great Police Departments. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-09-949973-8. 
  • Wolfe, Donald H. (2005). The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 0-06-058249-9. 
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