Elizabeth Short was brutally killed and given the nickname “Black Dahlia” by the media after her naked body was found in two pieces from the waist up in an empty lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, in the early days of 1947. She had a challenging life because her father vanished when she was very little. Things did not get better once she reunited with her father after a 12-year absence, so she moved out to live on her own. She had a number of boyfriends and needed her waitressing job to support herself. Additionally, there are suspicions that she was a prostitute, which is why the murder has been classified as a sex crime. Elizabeth Short wanted to be a movie star but never had the opportunity to do so. Following Dahlia’s death, the editor of the Los Angeles Examiner received a call from a man claiming to be her killer and posted a message that said, “Here are Dahlia’s possessions,” using cut-out letters. Her pictures and other papers were in the mail. In order to qualify for the $ 10,000 reward for information regarding her killer, almost 150 people were questioned and numerous false confessions were made. All of the leads, however, came to a halt, and up until this day, no one is aware of who killed her.
Early Childhood & Life
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, to Phoebe Mae Sawyer and Cleo Short in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. She was one of five sisters, the third oldest. After briefly relocating to Portland, Maine, her family eventually made their home in Medford, Massachusetts, where she was raised.
Prior to the 1929 stock market crash, when he suddenly found himself broke, her father was a wealthy man. When his automobile was discovered abandoned on the Charlestown Bridge the next year, it was assumed that he had committed suicide by jumping into the river. After the incident, her mother relocated to a modest apartment in Medford and began working as a bookkeeper.
Elizabeth had severe bronchitis and asthma, which required lung surgery when she was 15 years old. She had to spend the winter in Florida with her family in order to avoid the cold, and the rest of the year in Medford. Due to her health, she was forced to leave Medford High School after her second year.
Her father made the announcement that he was still alive and leading a new life in California in 1942. At the age of 18, Elizabeth was informed of this and sent to live with her father in Vallejo. She moved out in January 1943 to take a job in the base exchange at Camp Cooke in Lompoc, California because she did not get along with her father.
She shared a home with a number of pals at this time, including an abusive Air Force sergeant. She finally moved to Santa Barbara in the middle of 1943, when she was detained in September 1943 for underage drinking. She was supposed to return to Medford by the juvenile court’s order, but she moved to Florida instead.
Here she met Major Matthew Michael Gordon Jr., a decorated US Army Force officer, who got down on one knee and proposed to her. He was preparing for his World War II assignment in the China-India-Burma theater. However, he passed away in an airplane accident in August 1945, shortly before the war came to a conclusion.
She relocated to Los Angeles in July 1946 when he passed away, where she later met Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, a naval officer stationed at the Naval Base in Long Beach. She began working as a waiter and rented a home close to the Hollywood Boulevard nightclub Florentine Gardens.
A Life Shortened
She visited her family in Los Angeles on January 9, 1947, after traveling to San Diego with married salesman Robert Manley. Manley dropped her off where she would meet her sister—the Biltmore Hotel in the heart of Los Angeles. She was spotted using the phone, according to the hotel workers. About half a mile from the hotel, on South Olive Street, she was last seen at the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge.
On January 15, 1947, at around 10 a.m., Betty Bersinger noticed what she initially assumed was a discarded mannequin in an empty lot in Leimert Park, Los Angeles; however, it was actually Elizabeth’s naked body, cut in half from the waist. She fled to the closest house after being startled and called the police to report what had happened.
It took some time for the police and journalists to get to the site because the region was fairly undeveloped and uninhabited. One of the first journalists to learn about the news and break it to the public was reporter Aggie Underwood of the Los Angeles Herald-Express.
When she was detained for underage drinking in 1943, her identity was established by comparing her fingerprints to her earlier police records. The corpse was positioned face-up on the ground with the hands raised above the head and a “Glasgow Smile” made by slicing the mouth from the corners to the ears. Legs were spread wide and the lower half of the body, from the waist down, was positioned one foot away.
According to the autopsy report, the victim suffered a severe concussion and hemorrhaged as a result of facial and brain injuries. According to estimates, the death occurred between late January 14 and early January 15.
Cuts were all over their body, and she had superficial tissue loss from her right breast in addition to extensive bodily mutilation. Her anus was dilated, and she had ligature marks on her neck, wrists, and ankles, suggesting that she may have been tied up and raped. It was clear that the lower part was cut off after she died and purposefully left in the position in which it was discovered.
Investigations of Black Dahlia
The editor of the Los Angeles Examiner received a call on January 21 from a man claiming to be Elizabeth Short’s murderer. He thanked the newspaper for its coverage of the murder and then posted a message that said, “Here are Dahlia’s possessions,” in letters that had been ripped out and adhered. Her business cards, ID, and photos were all in the envelope. A handbag and shoe that the tabloid claimed belonged to Short were included in another parcel they received.
The police were given the evidence, but they were unable to verify any fingerprints using their files. They had suspicions about Mark Hansen, who ran a nightclub and was known to have made unwanted sexual approaches to Short. They were unable to obtain any solid evidence against him, though.
One idea suggested that the murderer might have been a surgeon based on how the body was cut into two halves. However, a police investigation turned up nothing.
There was a $ 10,000 reward offered for information pointing to Short’s killer. In order to receive the reward, many fake confessions were made during the questioning of more than 150 individuals. However, every lead came to a halt.
Personal Legacy & Life
Due to her father’s absence when she was six years old, Elizabeth had a tough life. Her childhood problems were made worse by her health problems. Things did not get better once she got back together with her father when she was 18, so she eventually went out to live on her own.
She had multiple affairs while still an adolescent and had to work to support herself. She was attractive and aspired to be a movie star, but she was never given the opportunity to do so. She allegedly worked as a prostitute and had juvenile genitalia, according to rumors. Others assert that she was a lesbian who aroused men and then dumped them.
As she was last seen stalking Hollywood Boulevard in a tight black skirt and translucent blouse, the media painted her as an easy target after her death. They gave her the moniker “Black Dahlia” and classified the murder as a sex crime.
Black Dahlia’s Net Worth
Black Dahlia is one of the wealthiest and most well-known celebrities. Black Dahlia’s net worth is roughly $1.5 million, according to our analysis of information from sources including Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider.
Trivia
The Cleveland Torso Murders, in which victims were brutally slain in a similar manner between 1934 and 1938, have been linked to the murder of Black Dahlia. Additionally, it resembles the strategy used in the Chicago Lipstick Murder. The murder of the Black Dahlia and the murders of other women who lived in the same time period have been compared in numerous other ways.
One of the most horrifying murders of all time, according to some accounts, was that of Short. The Black Dahlia, a book by James Ellroy, and the Brian De Palma-directed movie of the same name are just two of the many books and films about the murder that have been produced.