PlotFiles

The Black Dahlia Mystery

Posted on August 27th, 2007 by admin

As a housewife and her daughter strolled on the corner of Norton and 39th, the two passed by several vacant lots that were overgrown with weeds. She caught a glimpse of something white in the bushes, what first appeared to be a store mannequin. But as she looked closer she realized that was no dummy, it was the dead body of a woman. On January 15, 1947, the severed body of Elizabeth Short was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles, at 3800 Norton Ave, near 39th Street.

Three years earlier, the woman went to Hollywood the fulfill her dream of becoming an actress but ended up working a series of odd-jobs. She received all the fame she would have wanted, but after she died, being part of one of the most famous unsolved mystery in the USA.

Elizabeth’s body was soon taken to the coroner’s, to perform an autopsy. This revealed multiple lacerations to the face and head, along with the severing of the victim’s body. It was also shown that the woman had been sodomized and her sexual organs abused but not penetrated. The doctors also made a stunning discovery - her stomach contained human feces.

The Black Dahlia murder investigation by the LAPD was the largest since the murder of Marian Parker in 1927. The case was so complex that the police treated every of Elizabeth’s acquaintances as a suspect that needed to be taken off the list. About 60 people confessed to the murder, mostly men, as well as a few women. They were known as “Confessing Sams” at the time. According to Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Brian Carr, who inherited the case in 1996, all who confessed were ruled out as serious suspects.

By June of 1947 approximately 75 suspects had been eliminated by the police; by December of 1948 the total had reached 192. Every time a news article, a book, or a movie appears, the Los Angeles Police Department receives a plethora of tips. “It is amazing,” said Sgt. St John, a detective who had the case until his retirement, “how many people offer up a relative as the killer.”
It is highly unlikely the murder will ever be solved. Too many years have gone by, forensic evidence which had been negligible to begin with, has been lost. No matter who considers themselves an expert on the case and who does not, the truth is that no one was ever charged for the murder of Elizabeth Short and, as far as we know, her death has never been avenged.