As she walked a little further along, she caught a glimpse of something white over in the weeds. She was not surprised. It wasn’t uncommon for people to toss their garbage out into the vacant lot and this time, it looked as though someone had left a broken department store mannequin here. The dummy had been shattered and the two halves lay separated from one another, with the bottom half lying twisted into what was admittedly a macabre pose. Who would throw such a thing into an empty lot? Betty shook her head and walked on, but then found her glance pulled back to the ghostly, white mannequin. She looked again and then realize that this was no department store dummy at all -- it was the severed body of a woman! With a sharp intake of breath and a stifled scream, she took her daughter away from the gruesome site and ran to a nearby house. From here, she telephoned the police.

The call was answered by Officers Frank Perkins and Will Fitzgerald, who arrived within minutes. When they found the naked body of a woman who had been cut in half, they immediately called for assistance.

The dead woman, it was noted, seemed to have been posed. She was lying on her back with her arms raised over her shoulders and her legs spread in an obscene imitation of seductiveness. Cuts and abrasions covered her body and her mouth had been slashed so that her smile extended from ear to ear. There were rope marks on her wrists, ankles and neck and investigators later surmised that she had been tied down and tortured for several days. Worst of all was the fact that she had been sliced cleanly in two, just above the waist.

It was clear that she had been killed somewhere else and then dumped in the vacant lot overnight. There was no blood on her body and none of the ground where she had been left. The killer had washed her off before bringing her to the dump site.

The horrible nature of the case made it a top priority for the LAPD. Captain John Donahoe assigned his senior detectives to the case, Detective Sergeant Harry Hansen and his partner, Finis Brown.

Meanwhile, an examination of the body was started by the coroner’s office. It began to detail an incredible and horrifying variety of wounds to the young woman’s body, although the official cause of death was "hemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain and lacerations of the face."

An autopsy revealed multiple lacerations to the face and head, along with the severing of the victim’s body. It also appeared that the woman had been sodomized and her sexual organs abused but not penetrated. There was no sperm present on the body and most of the damage appeared to have been done after she was dead. The coroner also noted that her stomach contents contained human feces. Even the hardened doctors and detectives were shocked at the state of the girl’s corpse.

Elizabeth Short was an aspiring actress who usually dressed entirely in black. Thanks to her nice figure and attractive face, men easily noticed her. Her hair was black and her skin pale, providing a striking contrast and a look that got her noticed, even in Hollywood, where good-looking dames were a dime a dozen.

Like all of the other pretty girls before and since, Elizabeth (who preferred the name Beth) came to Hollywood hoping to make it big in the movie business. She was smart enough to know that looks weren’t everything and that to break into films, she had to know the right people. So, she spent most her time trying to make new acquaintances that she could use to her advantage and to make sure that she was in the right nightspots and clubs. Here, she was convinced, she would come to the attention of the important people in the business. Beth’s pretty face got her noticed. She had done some modeling before coming to Hollywood and men couldn’t keep their eyes off of her.

Beth soon became a part of this group, although her prospects for film work remained non-existent. She didn’t have much of an income and only seemed to eat and drink when others, usually her dates, were buying. She shared rooms with other people and borrowed money from her friends constantly, never paying it back. She never seemed to appreciate the hospitality given to her by others either, rarely contributing anything to where she was living and staying out most of the night and sleeping all day. She became known as a beautiful freeloader.

Around this same time, the film THE BLUE DAHLIA, starring Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd was released. Some friends of Beth’s started calling her the "Black Dahlia", thanks to her dark hair and back lacy clothing. The name stuck and Beth began to immerse herself into the glamorous persona that she had created -- and that may have led to her death!

Although she is remembered today as the "Black Dahlia", Elizabeth Short did not start out as a sexy vamp that "haunted" the nightclubs of Hollywood. She was born on July 29, 1924 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Her parents, Cleo and Phoebe Short, moved the family to Medford, a few miles outside of Boston, shortly after Elizabeth was born. Cleo Short was a man ahead of his time, making a prosperous living designing and building miniature golf courses. Unfortunately though, the Depression caught up with him in 1929 and he fell on hard times. Without a second thought, he abandoned his wife and five daughters and faked his suicide. His empty car was discovered near a bridge and the authorities believed that he had jumped into the river below.

Phoebe was left to deal with the bankruptcy and to raise the girls by herself. She worked several jobs, including as a bookkeeper and a clerk in a bakery shop, but most of the money came from public assistance. One day, she received a letter from Cleo, who was now living in California. He apologized for running out on his family and asked to come home. Phoebe refused his apology and would not allow him to come back.

Beth (known as Betty to her family and friends) grew up to be a very pretty girl, always looking older and acting more sophisticated then she really was. Everyone who knew her liked her and although she had serious problems with asthma, she was considered very bright and lively. She was also fascinated by the movies, which was her family’s main source of affordable entertainment. She found an escape at the theater that she couldn’t find in the day to day drudgery of ordinary life.

While she was growing up, Betty remained in touch with her father (once she knew that he was actually alive). They wrote letters back and forth and when she was older, he offered to have her come out to California and stay with him until she was able to find a job. Betty had worked in restaurants and movie houses in the past but she knew that if she went to California, she wanted to be a star. She packed up and headed out west to her father. At that time, Cleo was living in Vallejo and working at the Mare Island Naval Base. Betty hadn’t been in town for long before the relationship between she and her father became strained. He began to launch into tirades about her laziness, poor housekeeping and dating habits. Eventually, he threw her out and Betty (now Beth) was left to fend for herself.

Undaunted, she went to Camp Cooke and applied for a job as a cashier at the Post Exchange. It didn’t take long for the servicemen to notice the new cashier and she won the title of "Camp Cutie of Camp Cooke" in a beauty contest. They didn’t realize that the sweet romantic girl was emotionally vulnerable  and was desperate to marry a handsome serviceman, preferably a pilot. She made no secret of wanting a permanent relationship with one of the men with whom she constantly flirted. The word soon got around that Beth was not an easy girl and pressure for more than just hand-holding kept Beth at home most nights. Several encounters made her uncomfortable at Camp Cooke and she left to stay with a girlfriend who lived near Santa Barbara.

During this time, Beth had her only run-in with the law. A group of friends that she was out with got rowdy in a restaurant and the owners called the police. Since Beth was underage, she was booked and fingerprinted, but never charged. A kind policewoman felt sorry for her and arranged for a trip back to Massachusetts. After spending some time at home, she came back to California, this time to Hollywood.

At the Hollywood Canteen, Beth met a pilot named Lieutenant Gordon Fickling and fell in love. He was exactly what she was looking for and she began making plans to ensnare him in matrimony. Unfortunately though, her plans were cut short when Fickling was shipped out to Europe.

Beth then took a few modeling jobs but discouraged, she went back east. She spent the holidays in Medford and then went to Miami, where she had relatives with whom she could live for awhile. Beth began dating servicemen, always with marriage as her goal, but fell in love again on New Year’s Eve 1945 with a pilot, Major Matt Gordon. A commitment was apparently made between them after he was sent to India.

Beth wrote to him constantly and Gordon remained in touch with her. As a pre-engagement gift, he gave Beth a gold wristwatch that was set with diamonds and he spoke about her (and their engagement) to family and friends. Best of all, as far as Beth was concerned, he respected her wishes about waiting until their honeymoon to consummate their love. They would get married and have a proper honeymoon, he promised her, after he returned from overseas. One has to wonder how Beth planned to deal with the physical problems they would encounter once the relationship turned sexual, but perhaps she was too caught up in the moment to worry about it at that time. Beth went back home to Massachusetts and got a job, dreaming of her October wedding. Her friends often commented on how happy she was and after the war ended in Europe, she became ecstatic about Gordon returning home. Then came the dreaded telegram from Gordon’s mother...

As soon as it arrived, Beth tore the message open, believing that it was about plans for the upcoming wedding. Instead, Mrs. Gordon had written: "Received word War Department. Matt killed in plane crash on way home from India. Our deepest sympathy is with you. Pray it isn't true."

Sadly, it was true and we are only left to imagine what Beth’s life might have been like if Matt Gordon had returned home alive. The so-called "Black Dahlia" would have never come to be....

Gordon’s death left Beth a little unbalanced. After a period of mourning in which she spent telling people that she and Matt had been married and that their baby had died in childbirth, she began to pick up the pieces of her old life and started contacting her Hollywood friends. One of those was former boyfriend Gordon Fickling, who Beth saw as a possible replacement for her dead fiancée. They began to write back and forth to one another and then got together briefly in Chicago when he was in town for a couple of days. Soon, Beth was in love with him again. She agreed to come to Long Beach and be with him, happy and excited once again. A short time later, Beth was back in California.

Her excitement over the new relationship didn’t last long. She had to stay in a hotel that was miles from the base where Fickling was stationed and he constantly pressured Beth for sex. She had no intention of giving herself to a man except in marriage, she told a friend, and Fickling had no intention of making such a commitment. She began dating other men and when Fickling found out, he ended their relationship.

In December 1946, Beth took up "temporary" residence in San Diego with a young woman named Dorothy French. She was a counter girl at the Aztec Theater, which stayed open all night, and after an evening show, she found Beth sleeping in one of the seats. Beth told her that she had left Hollywood because work was hard to find due to the actor’s strikes that were going on. Dorothy felt sorry for her and offered her a place to stay at her mother’s home. She meant that Beth could stay for a few days, but she ended up sleeping on the French’s couch for more than a month.

As far as the police could discover, only the killer ever saw her after that. She vanished for six days from the Biltmore before her body was found in the empty lot.

The investigation into the Black Dahlia’s murder was the highest profile crime in Hollywood of the 1940’s. The police were constantly harassed by the newspapers and the public for results. Hundreds of suspects were questioned. Because it was considered a sex crime, the usual suspects and perverts were rounded up and interrogated. Beth’s friends and acquaintances were questioned as the detectives tried to reconstruct her final days and hours. Every lead that seemed hopeful ended up leading nowhere and the cops were further hampered by the lunatics and crazed confessions that were still pouring in.

A few days after Beth’s body was found, a mysterious package appeared at the offices of the Los Angeles “Examiner”. A note that had been cut and pasted from newspaper lettering said "Here is the Dahlia’s Belongings.... Letter to Follow". Inside of the small package was Beth’s social security card, birth certificate, photographs with various servicemen, business cards and claim checks for suitcases she had left at the bus depot. Another item was an address book that belonged to club owner Mark Hansen. The address book had several pages torn out.

The investigation stalled once again although Aggie Underwood, an aggressive crime reporter for the "Herald-Express", urged the detectives to follow-up on the murder of a young socialite named Georgette Bauerdorf, which had occurred a few years before. Aggie believed the murder was connected to that of Beth Short. The two women had known one another from the Hollywood Canteen and Georgette had been strangled and raped before being dumped into a bathtub face down. Investigators surmised that Beth had been killed and then washed and severed in half over a bathtub.

The Bauerdorf case had never been solved and was under the jurisdiction of the sheriff’s department. The investigation had died when deputies were unable to locate a "tall soldier" who had dated Georgette. She had reportedly been frightened by him and had stopped seeing him. Investigators suspected that he was involved in her death but the links were never made between her death and that of Beth Short. Jurisdictional problems kept the two departments from working together and Aggie Underwood was ordered off the story by William Randolph Hearst, the publisher of the newspaper. As a friend of the wealthy Bauerdorf family, he didn’t want the sordid details of the girl’s murder stirred up again. This may have been a tragic misstep, as Georgette's car had been found abandoned not far from where Beth's body was eventually discovered.

Not surprisingly, the leads in the Black Dahlia case came to dead ends and the investigation fizzled, then came to a halt. The Short murder and the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf remain unsolved today, although it’s possible that a suspect did finally emerge. The possible killer first came to the attention of John St. John, a respected investigator for the LAPD who eventually took over the Dahlia case. St. John had worked many of the city’s most notorious murders and was the basis of the book and television series "Jigsaw John". He had been in charge of the Dahlia case for about a year when a confidential informant came to him with a tape recording that implicated the suspect in the murder. The suspect had also shown the informant some photos and personal items that he claimed had belonged to the Black Dahlia.

The suspect turned out to be a tall, thin man with a pronounced limp who went by the name of Arnold Smith. On the recording, Smith claimed that a character named "Al Morrison" was the violent sexual deviant who had killed and mutilated Beth Short. St. John suspected that Arnold Smith and Al Morrison were actually the same person!

The tape was a chilling and detailed account of how Beth had come to Al Morrison’s Hollywood hotel room because she didn’t have anywhere else to stay. According to Smith, Beth refused both liquor and sex with Morrison and became upset when he drove her to a house on East 31st Street near San Pedro and Trinity Streets. Here, he assaulted her and prevented her from escaping by beating her into submission. Even though Beth fought back, he was able to overwhelm her with his strength. While she was on the floor, Morrison stated that he planned to sodomize her and Beth began struggling once again. This time, he hit her so hard that she passed out.  The tape then went on the describe how Morrison had gotten a paring knife, a large butcher knife and some rope and had returned to the room to find Beth conscious again. She tried to scream, but he stuffed her underpants into her mouth and tied her up. While she was naked and bound, he began jabbing her over and over again with the knives, cutting and slashing her. One of the lacerations even extended both sides of her mouth and across her face. By this time, the girl was dead.

Morrison then laid boards across the bathtub and cut Beth in half with the butcher knife, letting the blood drain into the tub. He wrapped the two pieces of the body in a tablecloth and a shower curtain and put it into the trunk of his car. From there, he drove to the vacant lot and left the body to be found later that morning.

St. John discovered that this same suspect, Al Morrison, had also come to the attention of Detective Joel Lesnick of the Sheriff’s Department for the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf. He was thought to be the "tall soldier" that she had been dating. Lesnick had learned that both Al Morrison and Arnold Smith were aliases for a man named Jack Anderson Wilson, a tall and lanky alcoholic with a crippled leg and a record for sex offenses and robbery. Lesnick guessed that "as the years went on, Smith's ego drew him closer, not to confessing, but wanting to tell someone in a roundabout way what he got away with primarily through luck."

After hearing the record of events on the tape recordings, St. John became determined to track down "Arnold Smith". He checked into the story of "Al Morrison", the alleged violent pervert, and could find no proof that he existed, thus confirming the idea that Smith (Jack Wilson) was actually the killer. St. John began to leave no stone unturned in his pursuit to link Jack Wilson to Elizabeth Short.

In the midst of the investigation, word came that the press had gotten wind of the fact that a new suspect had emerged in the Dahlia case. Even after all of the years (at this point the mid-1980’s) that had passed, interest in the case was still strong. At this point, St. John realized that it was imperative that he move quickly before Wilson / Smith became spooked. The informant did not know where Smith lived, but left a message for him in a café. Several messages were left but Smith never returned them, possibly because he got wind of police surveillance of the restaurant. Finally, the informant received a reply and a meeting was set between he and Smith. It was set for a few days later and at that time, the police planned to pick Smith up for questioning.

Unfortunately, just before the meeting took place, Smith passed out while smoking in his bed at the Holland Hotel, where he was staying. He was burned to death in the flames, destroying the photos and belongings that supposedly belonged to Beth Short -- along with all hope that her murder would ever be solved.

A short time after Wilson’s body was released to the county for cremation, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office was presented with a file on the matter. The prosecutor’s office summed up the case by saying: "The case cannot be officially closed due to the death of the individual considered a suspect. While the documentation appears to link this individual with the homicide of Elizabeth Short, his death, however, precludes the opportunity of an interview to obtain from him the corroboration…Therefore, any conclusion as to his criminal involvement is circumstantial, and unfortunately, the suspect cannot be charged or tried, due to his demise. However, despite this inconclusiveness, the circumstantial evidence is of such a nature that were this suspect alive, an intensive inquiry would be recommended.  And depending upon the outcome of such an inquiry.... it is conceivable that Jack Wilson might have been charged as a suspect in the murder of Elizabeth Short -- also known as the Black Dahlia."

Over the years, other suspects for the murder have surfaced as well, along with a number of false confessions and ridiculous stories and theories. Because of the lurid and mysterious nature of the crime, it seems to be one of those sorts of cases that everyone has an opinion about. In addition, the initial investigation of the case revealed a number of suspects that all eventually played out over time. Aside from the Wilson / Smith suspect, no other really strong suspects have emerged. There have been some interesting theories within the police department to the possibility that the killer was the same culprit in the Cleveland Torso Murders a few years before.

During the original investigation, investigators ran across a number of leads and questioned many suspects, including nightclub owner Mark Hansen and Red Manley, who were later cleared. Red simply had the bad luck to get involved with a woman who turned out to be as complex as Beth -- and who ended up dead. Manley was given the "third degree" at police headquarters and only released after a polygraph test. He was exonerated but the case never really ended for him. Suspicion and mental problems plagued him for the rest of his life and in 1954, his wife had him committed to the Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino. Reporter Will Fowler would later state that the case "destroyed their life."

There were also many anonymous calls that turned up, including one that stated that Beth's killers had been two police officers and many false confessions. In at least three cases, landlords reported "suspicious behavior" on the part of tenants they were trying to evict and a woman in Barstow, California gave false information in hopes of getting back at two old boyfriends who had jilted her. Other time-wasting confessions included a pharmacist who told police that he "knew how to cut a body in half". He initially claimed to have killed Beth but later admitted that he "was kidding". A woman also confessed that Beth had stolen her boyfriend, so she had killed her. When she was unable to pick her out of a photo array however, it was confirmed that she had made the whole thing up.

One, more promising, lead involved an Army corporal and combat veteran named Joseph Dumais. He was reported to the military police by another soldier, who had argued with Dumais over money. After a 42-day furlough, the corporal was found with blood all over his clothing and a stack of newspaper clippings about the murder. He had little memory of what he may have done during his furlough. He told investigators:  "It is possible that I could have committed the murder. When I get drunk I get rough with women." Dumais was sent to a psychiatrist but was cleared of killing Beth.

Interest in the case continued for years and it has appeared in many books and periodicals over time. However, it was really not until 1987 (the 40th anniversary of the murder) and the release of James Ellroy's excellent novel about the murder, The Black Dahlia, that interest in the case was revived and the quest for the killer of Beth Short was renewed. Since that time, many theories have been created and new books have appeared on the market -- each, of course, claiming to have the case solved. Much of the research that has been done, notably by writers like John Gilmore and Larry Harnisch, has been thorough and compelling, but others fall far short in making a convincing case for a solution.

So, who killed the Black Dahlia? Author and former head of the FBI's behavioral sciences unit, John Douglas, had his own theories, based on his own past experiences profiling serial and dangerous killers. After reviewing the coroner's inquest, autopsy files and cases records, Douglas described Beth's killer as a white man, no younger than his late 20's and possibly older, with a high school education. He lived alone, worked with his hands and was comfortable with a knife and blood, like a butcher or slaughterhouse worker. He was also familiar with prostitutes and was compulsive, patient and deliberate. He was also a heavy drinker and under financial stress. He spent several days with the victim and, when drunk, let his personal stress and the alcohol combine into a murderous rage. He cut Beth's body in half to make transportation easier but also chose mutilation to make a personal statement about the rage that he felt towards her. Severing the body both dehumanized and defemininized her. Douglas also believed that the killer chose the dump site for a reason, as in a personal connection to the neighborhood, perhaps because of some financial setback caused by the fact that the construction in the area was halted because of the war.

Douglas believes that if the murder had been committed today, it would have been solved. He states that the killer would have given himself away by his behavior after the crime, when he sobered up. He also theorized that he might have become paranoid, fearing that he had left some clue behind, and would have become obsessed with the case, reading all of the newspaper coverage of it and collecting clippings. It's also likely that he would have kept some souvenir of the crime and when he became convinced that he would not be found out, he might taunt the police and newspapers with knowledge he had that no one else did. This might explain the letters and the items of Beth's that were mailed to the newspapers.

But why no other killings? Douglas believed that perhaps the killer was never under the same sort of stress again or perhaps he died. Most likely though, is that the murderer destroyed himself or was committed to a mental institution. Or perhaps simply faded into obscurity, sure that he would never be caught.

And while Douglas created a credible personality of the killer, there have been other claims made as well. The case was first analyzed by author Leslie Charteris, the creator of "The Saint", who wrote about the case just three weeks after it occurred -- but there have been many to follow. The story was written up by Jack Webb, creator of "Dragnet", in his book The Badge, in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon series and in Will Fowler's The Reporters.

The story has also appeared in countless books on unsolved mysteries and true crimes and there are entire websites devoted to Beth and her murder, including Pamela Hazelton's documentation of the crime.

Two relatively recent entries to try and solve the Black Dahlia murder include Black Dahlia Avenger and Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer, in which both writers blame their deceased fathers for the crime. The 1995 book by Janice Knowlton and respected crime author Michael Newton, Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer, was written after repressed memories surfaced for Knowlton. As an alleged victim of incest and child abuse, he kept her memories of her life with father -- and the murder of "Aunt Betty" -- below the surface for years. The book presents several well-known facts about the case but there is nothing to substantiate the story that her father was the killer other than the author's claims. Black Dahlia Avenger is unfortunately just as flawed. This book had many excited when it learned that the author, Steve Hodel, was a veteran police detective but his initial evidence in the case turned out to be some photographs that he found in his late father's estate that he believed were of Elizabeth Short. I wish that I could say that I thought the photos were genuine but I can't. The book is a well-written and well-researched investigation into the past of Hodel's father -- and his likely crimes -- but I don't think it a presents a great case that his father killed Beth Short.

Two of the best bodies of research that I have found into the case have been done by authors John Gilmore and Larry Harnisch. Gilmore is the author of the bo0k Severed, which I have always found to be one of the best and most complete investigations of the murder. Gilmore was the first to write about several aspects of the case that have since been taken for granted, including that Beth's sexual organs were undeveloped and that the Wilson / Smith scenario was the most likely solution for the crime. And while this book remains very readable (and recommended) it has, since it's release, been criticized for many errors. To be honest, I haven't really found them but then I have never claimed to be an expert on the case, as so many others claim to be. To this date, I continue to find Severed to be the most comprehensive and credible book on the case so far.

As mentioned though, some pretty compelling research has also been done by reporter Larry Harnisch into this case. Using John Douglas' profile of the killer, Harnisch has managed to track down not only a suspect who fits it but a doctor who lived in the neighborhood where Beth's body was found but who also had a connection to Beth's sister and by extension, to Beth herself. To this date, Harnisch has not published a book on the case (although I hope that he does) but you can read more about his theories and information on his website.

But no matter the number of theories, books and documentaries on the case, to this date it remains unsolved. No matter who considers themselves an expert on the case and who does not, the truth is that no one was ever charged for the murder of Elizabeth Short and, as far as we know, her death has never been avenged. She remains an elusive mystery from the dark side of Hollywood -- and the even darker side of the American landscape.

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And with all that has been written about the Black Dahlia, is it any wonder that she has inspired a ghost story as well? Click here to read about this tale and the haunting of the Biltmore Hotel
 

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© Copyright 2003 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
 

Sources & Bibliography:
Anger, Kenneth - Hollywood Babylon (1975)
Anger, Kenneth - Hollywood Babylon 2 (1984)
Austin, John - Hollywood’s Unsolved Mysteries (1970 /1990)
Bardsley, Marilyn - The Black Dahlia (2000)
Black Dahlia Website - Pamela Hazelton (see above)
Collins, Max Allan - Angel in Black (2001)
Ellroy, James - The Black Dahlia (1987)
Gilmore, John - Severed (1994)
Harnisch, Larry - "Heaven is Here" website (see above)
Heimann, Jim - Sins of the City (1999)
Hodel, Steve - Black Dahlia Avenger (2003)
Knowlton, Janice - Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer (1995)
Lamparski, Richard - Lamparski’s Hidden Hollywood (1981)
Los Angeles Public Library
Munn, Michael - Hollywood Murder Case Book (1987)
Mysteries & Scandals (E! Entertainment Television)
Taylor, Troy - No Rest for the Wicked (2001)