The Story of Elizabeth Short

Elizabeth Short was born to Cleo and Phoebe May Short (nee Sawyer) on July 29th 1924 in Boston Massachusetts. She was the third of five daughters, and the family was met with their first tragedy with the stock market crash of 1929. Cleo lost all of his savings and disappeared, leaving his car near the Charlestown Bridge, and everyone to assumed he had jumped in. Phoebe then became the primarily breadwinner. At fifteen, Elizabeth was deeply sick with lung issues stemming from Bronchitis and Asthma and her doctors suggested the family move to a warmer, more humid climate for her health. Elizabeth was then sent to Miami, Florida for winters until the day the family received word that Cleo was in fact alive. He had relocated to California to start over, and Elizabeth was determined to join him. In December of 1942, Elizabeth made her way to the San Fransisco Bay area of California to live with her father. However arguments between them strained their relationship further and Elizabeth moved out in January of 1943.

Elizabeth couldn't catch a break after either, she entered an abusive relationship with a sergeant while working at an air force base near Lompoc, California, was arrest for underage drinking in Santa Barbara when she relocated there and was ultimately ordered to return to Massachusetts. However she instead went to Florida, but kept in contact with her family near Boston, and even visited a few times. While back in Florida, she met an air force officer who was shipping out for World War 2. He was in a plane crash, and Elizabeth said that when he was recovering from the crash in India, he wrote to ask for her hand in marriage which he happily accepted. However, he was killed in a second crash in August of 1945...just a week shy of the end of the war.

July of 1946 brought Elizabeth back to California, where she would remain until her tragic & mysterious murder in January of 1947. A murder that to this day is surrounded in mystery and speculation. Elizabeth worked waitressing jobs around Hollywood before her death, renting a couple different rooms in the area. She expressed to friends and loved ones that she aspired to be a star and hoped to make it in Hollywood. She had secured a few bit parts but nothing major.

On January 15th, 1947, Betty Bersinger bundled up her toddler daughter Anne for a morning walk around their Leimert Park Neighborhood. They were heading to a repair shop to pick up her husband's mended shoes. On the way, they walked past several abandoned, overgrown lots on Norton Ave. There was something in the brush that caught her eye, though it wasn't unusual at all for people in the area to use it as a dump site. Upon closer inspection it seemed to just be a broken mannequin from a department store. Betty tried to move on, pushing little Anne in her stroller, but something drew her to look again. Looking even closer, she realized the mannequin in two pieces wasn't a mannequin at all. It was a body. A mutilated, pale woman. She grabbed Anne and ran to the closest house, calling the authorities.

When the first two officers arrived, they called for assistance right away. The body seemed to be posed in an almost demeaningly sexual way. Her arms posed above her head as if she were modeling but her legs were spread in a vulgar way as if to degrade her. The lack of blood at the scene revealed that she was killed elsewhere, and her body parts moved after being desecrated. Her body had been completely drained of blood, and some of her organs removed and placed under her rear. Her mouth was sliced on both sides to give her a horrifying grin, she had lacerations all over her head and body, was bisected, she had rope marks on her wrists and ankles which led authorities to believe she had been bound and tortured for days. Her body had been cleaned with gasoline before it was dumped in the vacant lot.

Running the prints of the body revealed that it was Elizabeth Short, who was in the records for her previous work in the military commissary and later for her underage drinking arrest. They also were able to find her mugshot, which they released to the press. Once Elizabeth was identified, the sordid details about her and her past came flooding in. Her own mother didn't even know of her death until members of the press tricked her into giving them details about Elizabeth by lying and saying she won a beauty contest. The press pained Elizabeth as some sort of harlot, a teaser of men who had been with dozens of men before her death. She was nicknamed the Black Dahlia for her love of wearing black and often wearing a large blooming flower in her raven locks. Rumors spread that she spent time with so many men because she was a sex worker or that she was such a tease because she was actually a lesbian. They were painting her up to be some sort of sexual deviant, almost as if she were perhaps deserving of what horrifically happened to her.

About a week after she was discovered, someone claiming to be the murdered phoned the authorities to state that Elizabeth's belongings would be arriving in the mail shortly. Soon enough some of Elizabeth's personal items arrived, carefully cleansed in gasoline, much like her body. The package contained her birth certificate, some personal photos, a collection of business cards and an address book with the name Mark Hansen. There was a letter with cut out letters pieced together that stated Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers here is Dahlia’s belongings letter to follow. More notes like this would follow, but never led anyone any closer to finding a suspect. Over 150 suspects were connected to her murder, but no one has been convicted. Since her death, there have been HUNDREDS of confessions, but none of them ever proved absolute.

Two of the most popular theories are first, the Dr Hodel theory. Dr George Hodel was a physician who was a womanizer who was accused of sexually assaulting his own daughter Tamar. Hodel owned the famed Sowden House in Los Angeles from 1945 to 1950 where some, including his own son Steven , believe he may have killed Elizabeth Short. Hodel's home was once bugged in 1950 during an investigation and he stated "Supposin' I did kill the Black Dahlia. They can't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead. They thought there was something fishy. Anyway, now they may have figured it out. Killed her. Maybe I did kill my secretary." There is also the deathbed letter of a police informant, W Glenn Martin, who tied someone with the initials GH to both the Black Dahlia and Green Twig Murder that Hodel was questioned for. Coincidental or suspicious? Hodel died in 1999, so the world may never truly know if he had any involvement.

Larry Harnisch, a former Los Angeles Times writer & editor has been studying the Dahlia case since 1996. His research led him to conclude that Doctor William Bayley was the killer. Bayley's daughter was friend's with one of Elizabeth's four sisters, Virginia and even part of her wedding party. Bayley was in deteriorating health when Elizabeth was killed, dying of a degenerative brain disease that would often cause him to have violent outbursts. His health may have been one of the reason's to slice her body in half, as it would have been easier for the ailing man to transport. His surgical specialties included hysterectomies and mastectomies. His former receptionist said that his mistress and Bayley would watch surgical procedure films at dinnertime, but that the mistress was also attempting to blackmail Bayley with a terrible secret she knew. The dump site could even be tied to Bayley, as it was only a block away from his property his estranged wife owned. Some have stated that Elizabeth was one who liked to embellish and stretch the truth, and was often heard stating she had a son that tragically died for attention. This could have enraged William Bayley as he DID actually have a son that died when he was struck by a car at eleven years old. There's many ties to Bayley, but his death in 1948 make it difficult to know anything else from him.

It has been 75 years now since Elizabeth Short was discovered and yet her case has never been solved. Through the years, there have been many theories, many false leads, many imposters. There's been films, books and even a metal band named for the case. It's one of the most famous true crime stories in the United States....perhaps even the world, yet Elizabeth Short never got her justice. Some say that her spirit still lingers in some of the buildings she formerly boarded, or even wanders Norton Avenue, popping up supposedly at the Millenium Biltmore Hotel's Bar. Whatever the case, this 22 year old Hollywood hopeful did not deserve the horrific fate that befell her. The further we get from her death anniversary, it seems the further we get from the truth and actually solving her case for good.

In Memory of Elizabeth "Betty" Short (July 29, 1924 – approx. January 15, 1947)