The Black Dahlia Murder

On January 15th 1947, 10 am, the remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short were found on an empty lot on Norton Avenue, Los Angeles. She was found by Betty Bersinger who was taking her daughter to the shoe repair shop. Bersinger, went to a nearby house to call the police and then continued on with her errands. Later she would describe the moment she saw the body. “I glanced to my right, and saw this vert dead, white body… my goodness… it was so white. It didn’t look… look like anything more than an artificial model. It was so white and separated in the middle.”

Elizabeth Short was lying face up, naked, her body separated at the waist. She was oddly posed with her eyes open, her hands above her head, bent at the elbow and her legs straight and spread apart. Short had been hit over the head and pieces of her flesh had been cut out. Her face had also been mutilated with three-inch cuts from the corner of her mouth towards her ears on both sides. Her body had been drained of blood and scrubbed before being placed in the empty lot. Her injuries suggested that whoever had murdered Elizabeth Short had surgical training as there was no trauma to the internal organs or bones. 

The Los Angeles Police Department identified Short by her fingerprints with help from the FBI. After, they put out a flier calling for information. Short’s description read “5ft 6in., 118lbs., black hair, green eyes, very attractive, bad lower teeth, fingernails chewed to quick.” 

After the medical examination, the official cause of death was riled as haemorrhage and shock. The examination also noted that Short had marks on her legs, wrists, neck and right thigh which suggested she had been bound and tortured at some point. The slits at the corners of her mouth had been made whilst she had been alive. She had a concussion from the blunt force to the head. All the cuts on Short’s body were clean which further suggested that the murder had been done by someone with medical training.

Newspapers at the time often nicknamed murder cases. They called Elizabeth Short The Black Dahlia due to reports that she often wore sleek black clothing and had striking dyed black hair. The name stuck and it is what most people today, recognise. The Black Dahlia murder became a huge story and made the front page for an entire month.

Nine days after Short’s body had been found, The Los Angeles Examiner received a letter written with cut-outs from movie adverts. “Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers… here is Dahlia’s belongings… letter to follow.” The envelope contained Short’s social security card, her birth certificate, snapshots and an old address book with pages missing. Any fingerprints that may have been on Short’s belongings had been cleaned away with gasoline.

A handwritten letter followed and read “turning in Wed, Jan 29, 10 am, had my fun with police.” and was signed “The Black Dahlia Avenger.” In total, thirteen letters were sent to the press, many signed the Black Dahlia Avenger. A fingerprint was found on one of the letters, but it did not match any fingerprints in the FBI database at the time. 

During their investigation, the LAPD contacted seventy-five men who were in Short’s address book. The majority of them said that they’d met Short only briefly and had then been on a dinner date or to the movies before contact was cut off. Approximately, three hundred medical students from the University of Southern California were also investigated, but nothing was found. It is estimated that the police questioned and cleared hundreds of suspects.

The last sighting of Short is also debated. Many reports place her last known movements at the Biltmore Hotel in Downtown L.A. where she had been dropped off on January 9th. Other reports state that after checking in at the hotel (where it is rumoured that her ghost can be seen roaming the tenth and eleventh floors in a black dress), Short walked to the Crown Grill Bar, a couple of blocks away.

The Black Dahlia case remains open and has been officially listed as unsolved for seventy years. However, there are many, many suspects. Here is a small handful:

Robert Manley

Robert Manley was in a relationship with Short for roughly a month before her murder. He had seen her standing at a bus stop in San Diego and corralled her into letting him give her a lift home. After that, they went on several dates in San Diego. When the place Short was staying in San Diego fell through, Short asked Manley to pick her up. They then stayed in a motel at Pacific Beach together before he drove her to Los Angeles and helped her check into the Biltmore Hotel.

As the last person to, most definitely, see Short alive, Manley was considered a suspect. However, he had returned to San Diego a week before Short’s body was found. He also passed two polygraph tests and was given Sodium Pentothal, a truth serum, and was also found to be telling the truth under the truth serum’s influence.

In 1954, Manley was admitted to a mental hospital after hearing voices.

Thirty-nine years to the day after last seeing Short, Manley died after a fall in his Anaheim apartment.

Joseph Dumais

Joseph Dumais, an army corporal, claimed that he had been blackout drunk with Short in San Fransisco, only a couple of days before her body was discovered. He also confessed to her murder.

After some investigation, it was found that Dumais had been on his military base the day of Short’s death.

George Hodel

George Hodel was a wealthy doctor, who was said to be well connected. He was highly intelligent and had studied surgery in medical school. He also ran LA County’s venereal disease clinic which gave him the knowledge of a wide variety of sexual lives, from prostitutes to movie stars. 

Steve Hodel, George’s son who was only five at the time of the murder, believes his father was the murderer. Steve worked as an LAPD detective and worked on over three hundred murder cases before he retired. 

Hodel had a secret room in his house that his children were not allowed to enter. When his father died, Steve found three photos of a woman that looked like Short. A forensic artist examined the photos and said they were eighty-five per cent sure that the woman in the photos was not Elizabeth Short. However, in 2014, a different forensic artist used facial recognition to run the photos. The facial recognition resulted in a ninety to ninety-five per cent chance that the woman in the photos was Elizabeth Short. Overall, the result was inconclusive. It was rumoured that Hodel had a romantic relationship with Short and that they had been seen together at a hotel in Downtown LA.

Steve also believes that his father is responsible for the murder of Jeanne French on the 10th February 1947, three weeks after Short was found. French was found in an empty lot one morning, posed oddly with blunt force trauma to the head. However, the initials BD were left on French’s body in red lipstick.

Steve believes his father’s handwriting matches the letter sent to the Los Angeles Examiner. Several experts reviewed the handwriting and results ranged from probable to inconclusive. However, one expert decreed that the handwriting was a match to the letters and the initials on French’s body.

On the 9th January 1947, Hodel had bags of concrete delivered to his home for remodelling. Steve claimed that similar bags were found near Short’s body that were suspected by the police to be what moved Short’s body.

Hodel also drove a black 1936 Packard, which looked similar to the description of the black car that was spotted near the empty lot on the morning that Short’s body was found.

The positioning of Short’s and French’s bodies were similar to the pose used in one of Hodel’s friend’s art. Man Ray was a surrealist artist and the carved smile and mutilation bared a resemblance to a couple of his pieces. Steve has said that his father idolised Ray’s work and these murders could have been his twisted foray into art.

Hodel’s daughter Tamar, remembers huge parties held at her father’s house with guests that included Man Ray and movie stars. Tamar also claimed that as a child she had posed naked for Man Ray to photograph. In 1949, Tamar ran away from home and reported her father to the police, saying that he tried to teach her about oral sex at age eleven, offered her to friends at age fourteen and also that Hodel had sex with her. At age fifteen, Tamar gave birth to a baby girl, Fauna, who was adopted. Hodel was acquitted of all charges after several other family members testified that Tamar was lying. Many think that this was because Hodel was the breadwinner of the family.

The LAPD became suspicious of Hodel and placed listening bugs in his home. The bugs were recording for forty days. Although the tapes mysteriously vanished, the transcripts still exist. Hodel is recorded as saying “Supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn’t prove it now. They can’t talk to my secretary anymore because she’s dead.” Another transcript may have described the sound of a woman being attacked in the basement.

In 1950, the investigation into Hodel was dropped unexpectedly with the LAPD climbing that the transcripts cleared Hodel. It is thought that Hodel had knowledge of the corruption happening in the LAPD at the time. Another of the transcripts supports this theory. “This is the best payoff I’ve seen between law enforcement agencies. And I’d like to get a connection made in the DA’s office.” All physical evidence from the Hodel investigation is missing.

In 1950, Hodel moved to the Philippines. In 1967, a woman was found posed and dissected in an empty lot just half a mile away from where Hodel was living. He returned to the USA in 1990 and died in 1991.

In 2012, Steve went back to his childhood home with police dogs and they picked up the scent of human remains on the property and in the alleyway behind the house. Soil samples were taken from the alley and came back positive for human remains. As this evidence is not directly linked to the Black Dahlia case, the LAPD have refused to follow-up on this new evidence.

In 2003, LA District Attorney, Stephen Kay, speaking for himself and not the DA’s office said: “Based on the results of Steve’s investigation, I would have no reservations about filing two counts of murder against George Hodel.”