In the morning of January 15, 1947 the Los Angeles dispatch center received a call, reporting an abandoned body. In the middle of suburbs, a woman's naked dead body was found. But that wasn't the only concerning part. The body was cut in half and drained off of blood. There were cuts on her forehead, each side of her mouth were cut and her right breast was also cut off. There was also a game of tic-tac-toe cut into her hip area. There were also rope marks on her neck, arms and legs. So who was this unfortunate woman? Let's break down.
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Other than her parents separating when she was young, she had a seemingly normal childhood. Elizabeth stayed with her mother in Massachusetts and grew up to be a beautiful young woman.
Like many teenagers Elizabeth felt as if she didn't belong in a small town. So she moved to her father's place in Vallejo. But Elizabeth was a bit of a rebel and would constantly break rules. So eventually after a very short period of time, her father kicked her out. But she didn't want to go back to her small town. Instead she found a job as a camp cook on the military base. After working there for 9 months she moved to San Diego.
There she met a woman by the name of Dorothy, who worked at an all-night theater. They connected well and Elizabeth told her that she didn't have any place to stay. Dorothy was kind enough to offer her place.
Elizabeth stayed with Dorothy for a month. While leaving she told Dorothy that someone named 'Red' was picking her up. Later she hopped into a Studebaker Coup and that was the last time Dorothy ever saw her. Few days later Elizabeth's body was found by a local woman. The woman, Miss Bersinger, was on a walk with her daughter and that is when she found the body lying around in the grass on the side of a road and she immediately went to a nearby house and called the police.
Once they made some DNA tests, they were able to identify the body. They contacted her father, Cleo but he really couldn't care less that his young daughter was murdered. Thankfully, when they contacted her mother back in Massachusetts she immediately flew to Los Angeles to identify the body.
Soon Dorothy was also informed. She told the police about the last time she saw Elizabeth and how a man, by the name Red, picked her up in his Studebaker Coup. The police searched for him everywhere and finally found him through a motel. His real name was Robert Manley. He was a sales engineer and lived in South Beach California with his wife.
Police found that on January 17th, 2 days after Elizabeth's murder, Manley took off to San Francisco with his friend Harry. The police went to Harry's place to find Robert and had to wait 2 days to find them. The police took Robert into custody. They were very confident about this but Robert took 2 polygraph tests but nothing came out of it. The police also searched his car but they found 0 evidence. They had nothing against him.
A month went by and the cops had no clue. The media pressure started increasing. The media loved the case because a beautiful young woman was murdered which caught a lot of public attention. That's when they gave her the name 'black Dahlia'.
Because of the insane public attention, many started coming forward, claiming to be the murderers of the Black Dahlia. But they had no real evidence that they had actually killed her. But then police also started receiving anonymous letters, whom they believed was the actual murderer because this person was sending the police some of Elizabeth's personal belongings.
By February, They arrested Red again but still, they had nothing against him. Then they found another suspect. George Hodel who was an infamous Hollywood doctor.
The police found a tip that Elizabeth was seen around George for a while. When the police dig up his past, he became a very strong suspect. So, allegedly Gorge sexually abused his own daughter but for some reason the charges were dropped against him. There were also other questionable reports against him.
But since he was financially well off, they knew it wouldn't be easy to arrest him. So they decided to bug his house and listen to his day to day conversations.
In February of 1950, George was speaking on the phone and a woman's scream was heard twice. The cops went to check inside the house but they didn't find anything. After they left George was heard making a phone call and he said something about covering her with a blanket and putting a pillow over her face. Then he was heard saying something along the lines of, "Supposing, I did kill the Black Dahlia, They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she is dead". (George's secretary was found dead from a drug overdose a few days back). Even Gorge's own son believed that he was the one responsible for the murder of Elizabeth and many more.
By April, the cops had enough evidence to arrest him, but by then he had already fled the US. In 2013, they tested the soil of George's home for human remains, and the results were positive. But again, there was nothing the police could do about it.
Then on November 24, 1950 the 27th confessor of the Black Dahlia murder, came forward. But this person was slightly different. A woman by the name of Christine Reynolds confessed to committing the murder.
According to her statement, Elizabeth and her were lovers. They met at a bar 3 years before Elizabeth's murder and she knew her as "Libby". 4 nights before the murder, Christine went out looking for Elizabeth and found her at a bar with another woman. They got into an argument and shortly after, left the bar in Christine's car. They continued to argue in the car and Christine said that she was so mad that she proceeded to choke Elizabeth. Elizabeth managed to get out of the car and started running. Cristine ran behind her and began to choke her again and eventually stabbed her with a pocket knife that she had. Then she left her body by the street.
The police didn't believe her story until she mentioned one detail that the police spared the public from. Christine said how she cut some of Elizabeth's hair off and then proceeded to insert it in her vaginal region.
But again her story wasn't fully aligning. So the police sat her down and asked her and she finally broke down and admitted that she was in fact lying. She said that she had a friend in the police department who told her about the intimate details. When the police asked her the reason behind her lies, Christine said how 2 days before Elizabeth's body was discovered, she had woken up with blood all over her. She couldn't remember what had happened the previous night due to heavy drinking. She went to the cops but no one took her seriously. But she really believed that she had killed or at least hurt somebody and the thought of it bugged her for years. So she decided to come forward.
Another strong suspect that the police had, was a serial killer, known as, 'The Cleveland Torso Killer' of Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland there was a series of disturbing murders and the evidence suggested that it was all done by one person. The bodies found there were very similar to the Black Dahlia's (cut in half). Many believe that she was his last victim. Many also believe that George Short was the actual Cleveland killer.
Regardless, the Black Dahlia case still remains unsolved.
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