On Wednesday, January 15, 1947, in Los Angeles, a housewife running her errands near Norton and 39th Street saw a broken department store dummy that had been discarded and was lying in one of numerous vacant lots in the area. The mannequin had its arms raised over its shoulders, its legs spread eagle. It looked like some kids from the neighborhod had had their fun cutting it open in half at the waist, and slashing its face and body repea-tedly. Except this was no plastic doll… It was the body of a woman.

This is the Story of Black Dahlia

By the time the detectives arrived at the scene, the place was abuzz with reporters, photographers and a crowd of curious bystanders. Rope marks on the mysterious woman's ankles, wrists and neck suggested a very nasty scene before she died. There was no blood on her body nor on the ground where she lay. It appeared as though her bruised and broken body had been washed clean of blood before it had been dumped.

An FBI fingerprint later revealed the identity of the already infamous corpse. The victim of this brutal murder was a 22-year-old woman named Elizabeth Short who was born in Hyde Park, Massachusetts on July 29, 1924. Her friends nicknamed her after the movie The Blue Dahlia starring Veronica Lake. Because her hair was jet black, her skin was very pale and her nail polish and lipstick very red, she was named the Black Dahlia. The contrast of these colors, combined with her nice figure and very attractive face, created a most dramatic effect even in a place like Hollywood.

Men couldn't keep their eyes off her. "She was a natural vamp," her friend said, "one who brings out the wolf in all men, no exceptions, and she didn't even have to try...."

The Black Dahlia liked to socialize and loved the Hollywood nightlife. She wanted to go to the "right places" and "be seen", forever hoping for her big break. She dreamed of becoming a movie star.

Although after her death, rumors flew that she was a prostitute who had been killed during a kinky trick, Dr. Newbarr, who performed the autopsy found that most of the lacerations to her genitalia, including the dilation of the anal opening, were done after her death. Furthermore, it was impossible to tell if she was raped because traces of spermatozoa were negative. Tests also indicated that the Black Dahlia, as beautiful, extroverted, lively, and seductive as she was could possibly have been a virgin until she met her killer. The murder of the Black Dahlia was about as high-profile a crime as you could get. The Police was inundated by calls from people who had known the Dahlia, if only by sight. It put a major strain on police personnel to follow up on the avalanche of information. The Black Dahlia sparked the biggest manhunt in California history where suspects were in the hundreds, including at one point famous director Orson Welles.

The employees of the Biltmore hotel, where she was supposed to meet her sister, may have been the last people to see her alive. As far as the police could tell, after leaving the hotel, she disappeared for six days before her body would be found on the vacant lot.

Not long after her death, a package was sent to the "Los Angeles Examiner and Other Papers." A note created from newspaper lettering said, "Here is Dahlia's Belongings," and "Letter to Follow." Inside the package were Elizabeth Short's social security card, birth certificate, photographs with various servicemen, business cards and claim checks for suitcases she had left at the bus depot. When the police tried to lift fingerprints off the items they found that everything had been washed in gasoline to remove any trace of prints. It created a staggering job for the police to trace every one of the names in the address book and on the business cards.

An aggressive crime reporter for media tycoon William Randolph Hearst's Herald-Express saw a connection between the murder of the Black Dahlia and the murder of young socialite Georgette Bauerdorf a few years back. Bauerdorf had known the Black Dahlia through the Hollywood Canteen. She had been strangled and raped before she was dumped in her bathtub, face down. A piece of towel had been wedged in her throat to keep her from crying out.

The Bauerdorf case remained unsolved and the Sheriff's deputies were never able to locate the very tall soldier who had dated the attractive wealthy Georgette. According to friends she had been frightened by this man and had broken off her relationship with him.

There were some similarities in the two murders, but various factors kept the LAPD and sheriff from working together. Also, Hearst, out of deference to the prominent Bauerdorf family, killed the story.

Eventually all the leads came to dead ends and the investigation slowed to a crawl. Naturally, the newspapers faulted the police for incompetence

Although neither the Black Dahlia murder nor the Bauerdorf murder was ever officially solved, a good suspect who may have committed both murders finally emerged. The suspect first came to the attention of John St. John, one of the most highly acclaimed police officers in the LAPD.

St. John had been in charge of the Dahlia case for about a year when an informant came to him with a tape recording implicating a certain Jack Anderson Wilson in the murder. Wilson was a very tall, thin man with a pronounced limp who was in the habit of bragging that he knew the real murderer of the Black Dahlia. He had shown the informant pictures and other possessions from the murdered woman and also had gruesome details about how the body had been drained of blood (it had been cut in half inside a hotel bathtub) before being dumped in the vacant lot.
Wilson also had a history of sex offenses and robbery. He had been interviewed in connection with the Bauerdorf case. The police tried to arrest him but before they could get to him, the alcoholic suspect passed out in his bed and set the place on fire with his lit cigarette. He was burned to death in the flames, which also probably consumed any photos and personal effects of the Dahlia's that he had shown to the informant.

The Black Dahlia has become a true Hollywood legend and the subject of many books. The best one by far is Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder by John Gilmore, the most complete and credible nonfiction book on this subject. It was also made as television movie in 1975, starring Lucy Arnaz as the Black Dahlia.