Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – about January 14–15, 1947) was an American woman whose body was found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. She became known as the Black Dahlia after her death. Her case received much public attention because the crime was very violent, and her body was badly injured and cut into two parts.
Elizabeth was born in Boston and lived in New England and Florida before moving to California, where her father lived. Many people believe she wanted to be an actress, but there is no record of her working in acting during her time in Los Angeles. The nickname "Black Dahlia" was given to her after her death by newspapers that often used dramatic names for shocking crimes. This name may have come from the 1946 movie The Blue Dahlia. After her body was found, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) investigated the case for a long time. They looked into over 150 possible suspects but did not make any arrests.
Elizabeth’s murder remains unsolved, and many people have tried to explain what happened. Her life and death have been written about in many books and movies. Her case is often called one of the most famous unsolved murders in U.S. history and one of the oldest unsolved crimes in Los Angeles County. Historians also say her murder was one of the first major crimes after World War II that captured the attention of the entire country.
Life
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She was the third of five daughters to Cleo Alvin Short Jr. (October 18, 1885 – January 19, 1967) and Phoebe May Sawyer (July 2, 1897 – March 1, 1992). Her sisters were Virginia May West (1920–1985), Dorothea Schloesser (1922–2012), Elnora Chalmers (1925–2022), and Muriel Short (1929–2023). Elizabeth’s father was a United States Navy sailor from Gloucester Courthouse, Virginia, and her mother was born in Milbridge, Maine. The Short family married in Portland, Maine, in 1918. They briefly moved to Portland in 1927 before settling in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, that same year.
Elizabeth’s father built miniature golf courses until he lost most of his money during the 1929 stock market crash. In 1930, his car was found abandoned on the Charlestown Bridge, and it was believed he had jumped into the Charles River. Thinking her husband was dead, Elizabeth’s mother began working as a bookkeeper to support the family.
Elizabeth suffered from bronchitis and severe asthma attacks. At age 15, she had lung surgery. Doctors advised her to move to a milder climate during winter to avoid health problems. Her mother sent her to spend winters with family friends in Miami, Florida, for three years. Elizabeth left Medford High School during her sophomore year.
In late 1942, Elizabeth’s mother received a letter from her presumed-deceased husband, revealing he was alive and had started a new life in California. In December 1942, at age 18, Elizabeth moved to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, whom she had not seen since she was 6. At the time, her father worked at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard near San Francisco Bay. Arguments with her father led her to move out in January 1943.
Elizabeth took a job at the Base Exchange at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Space Force Base) near Lompoc, California. She briefly lived with a United States Army Air Force sergeant who reportedly abused her. She left Lompoc in mid-1943 and moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested on September 23 for drinking at a local bar while underage. Juvenile authorities sent her back to Massachusetts, but she returned to Florida instead, visiting her family in Boston only occasionally.
While in Florida, Elizabeth met Major Matthew Michael Gordon Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer who was training for deployment to Southeast Asia during World War II. She later said Gordon had written to propose marriage while recovering from injuries in a plane crash in India. She accepted his offer, but Gordon died in a second crash on August 10, 1945. Elizabeth’s sister, Dorothea, also served in the war and was assigned to decode Japanese messages.
In July 1946, Elizabeth moved to Los Angeles to visit Army Air Force Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, an acquaintance from Florida who was stationed at the Naval Reserve Air Base in Long Beach. She spent the last six months of her life in southern California, mostly in Los Angeles. Before her death, she worked as a waitress and rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. Some sources say she wanted to be an actress, though she had no known acting jobs or credits.
Murder
On January 9, 1947, Short returned to her home in Los Angeles after a short trip to San Diego with Robert "Red" Manley, a 25-year-old married salesman she had been dating. Manley said he dropped Short off at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where she was to meet one of her sisters visiting from Boston that afternoon. Some reports say hotel staff saw Short using the lobby telephone. Later, she was reportedly seen by people at the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge, about 3⁄8 mile (600 meters) away from the Biltmore.
On the morning of January 15, 1947, Short’s body was found in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street in the Leimert Park neighborhood, which was mostly undeveloped at the time. Her body was completely cut in half at the waist and had no blood, leaving her skin pale. Medical examiners said she had been dead for about ten hours before being found, meaning she likely died during the evening of January 14 or the early morning of January 15. The body appeared to have been washed by the killer. Her face was cut from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating a mark known as the "Glasgow smile." She had cuts on her thigh and breasts, and the lower half of her body was placed a foot away from the upper half. Her intestines were neatly tucked under her buttocks, and her body was arranged with her hands over her head, elbows bent, and legs spread apart.
Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Aggie Underwood was among the first to arrive at the crime scene and took photos of the body and area. Detectives found a heel print near the body and a cement sack containing watery blood nearby.
An autopsy was performed on January 16, 1947, by Frederick Newbarr, the Los Angeles County coroner. Newbarr’s report said Short was 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) tall, weighed 115 pounds (52 kilograms), had light blue eyes, brown hair, and badly decayed teeth. There were marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck from something tight, and a shallow cut on her right breast. He also noted shallow cuts on her right forearm, left upper arm, and lower left chest.
Short’s body was cut in half using a method from the 1930s called a hemicorporectomy. The lower half was removed by cutting through the spine between the second and third lumbar vertebrae, which also severed her intestine. Newbarr noted little bruising along the cut, suggesting it happened after death. A long cut ran from her belly button to her lower stomach. The cuts on her face were about 3 inches (75 mm) on the right side and 2.5 inches (65 mm) on the left. Her skull was not broken, but there was bruising on the front and right side of her head, with some bleeding in the brain area, likely from blows. The cause of death was bleeding from facial wounds and shock from head injuries. Newbarr noted her anal canal was stretched, suggesting she may have been raped, but tests for sperm were negative.
Short was identified after her fingerprints were sent to the FBI, which had records from her 1943 arrest. Reporters from the Los Angeles Examiner called her mother, Phoebe Short, in Boston. A reporter named Wain Sutton lied to her, saying her daughter had won a beauty contest. Only after getting personal details from Phoebe did the reporters reveal the truth.
Jim Murray, a reporter, later described the phone call to journalist Larry Harnisch. He said Sutton asked many questions and took notes while Phoebe shared stories about her daughter’s past. Murray said Sutton asked, “Now, what do I tell her?” and another reporter suggested, “Now tell her.” Murray imitated Sutton saying, “You son of a bitch.” Murray said he was still upset by the incident. Phoebe did not believe the news at first but later confirmed it through the Los Angeles Police Department.
The Examiner newspaper offered to pay for Phoebe’s travel to Los Angeles to help with the investigation, but this was a strategy to keep her away from other reporters and police to protect their story. The Examiner and another newspaper, the Herald-Express, later exaggerated details about the case. One article described the black suit Short was last seen wearing as “a tight skirt and a sheer blouse.” The media gave her the nickname “Black Dahlia” and called her an “adventuress” who “prowled Hollywood Boulevard.” A report in the Los Angeles Times on January 17 called the murder a “sex fiend slaying.”
Investigation
On January 21, a person who claimed to be the killer of Short called James Richardson, the editor of the Examiner, to congratulate him on the newspaper’s coverage of the case. The caller said they planned to turn themselves in eventually but wanted police to continue searching for them. The caller also told Richardson to "expect some souvenirs of Beth Short in the mail."
Three days later, a suspicious manila envelope was found, addressed to "The Los Angeles Examiner and other Los Angeles papers." The envelope had words that were cut and pasted from newspaper clippings. A large message on the envelope read: "Here is Dahlia's belongings[,] letter to follow." Inside were Short’s birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen printed on the cover. The package had been cleaned with gasoline, like Short’s body, leading police to believe the killer sent it. Although police found partial fingerprints on the envelope, they were damaged during transport and could not be tested. The same day the envelope was received, a handbag and a black suede shoe were found on top of a garbage can in an alley near Norton Avenue, two miles from the crime scene. The items were also cleaned with gasoline, destroying any fingerprints.
On March 14, a suicide note written in pencil was found in a shoe near the ocean at Breeze Avenue in Venice. The note read: "To whom it may concern: I have waited for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but have not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so this is the best way out for me. I couldn’t help myself for that, or this. Sorry, Mary." The clothing found with the note included a blue herringbone tweed coat, trousers, a T-shirt, jockey shorts, socks, and moccasin shoes, size about eight. The clothes gave no clues about the owner’s identity.
Police quickly suspected Mark Hansen, the owner of the address book found in the envelope. Hansen was a wealthy nightclub and theater owner and a friend of Short’s. Some sources said Hansen confirmed the purse and shoe found in the alley belonged to Short. Ann Toth, Short’s friend and roommate, told investigators that Short had recently refused Hansen’s sexual advances, which could have been a motive. However, Hansen was cleared of suspicion. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) also interviewed over 150 men they believed might be suspects. Robert Manley, who had seen Short alive, was investigated but cleared after passing polygraph tests. Police also interviewed people listed in Hansen’s address book, including Martin Lewis, who had an alibi because he was in Portland, Oregon, visiting his dying father-in-law.
A total of 750 investigators from the LAPD and other departments worked on the case, including 400 sheriff’s deputies and 250 California State Patrol officers. Police searched storm drains, abandoned buildings, and areas along the Los Angeles River but found no evidence. Los Angeles City Councilman Lloyd G. Davis offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to Short’s killer. After the reward was announced, many people came forward with confessions, but most were dismissed as false. Some false confessors were charged with obstructing justice.
On January 26, the Examiner received another letter, this time handwritten, which read: "Here it is. Turning in Wed., Jan. 29, 10 am. Had my fun at police. Black Dahlia Avenger." The letter named a location where the killer would turn themselves in. Police waited at the location on January 29 but the killer did not appear. Later that day, the Examiner received another letter that read: "Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified."
The graphic details of the murder and the letters received by the Examiner led to intense media coverage. Many newspapers reported that Short was tortured before her death, but this was false. Police allowed the reports to circulate to hide the true cause of death—cerebral hemorrhage—from the public. Reports about Short’s personal life, including her rejection of Hansen’s advances, were also shared. A stripper who knew Short told police she "liked to get guys worked up over her, but she’d leave them hanging dry." This led some reporters and detectives to consider the possibility that Short was a lesbian, but this claim was never proven. The Herald-Express received several letters from the alleged killer, including one that read: "I will give up on Dahlia killing if I get 10 years. Don’t try to find me."
On February 1, the Los Angeles Daily News reported that the case had "run into a Stone Wall," with no new leads. The Examiner continued covering the murder and investigation, which was front-page news for 35 days after the body was found.
Lead investigator Captain Jack Donahue told the press that Short’s murder likely occurred in a remote building or shack on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and that her body was transported to the crime scene. The precise cuts and dissection of her body led the LAPD to consider the possibility that the killer had medical training. In mid-February 1947, the LAPD requested a list of students from the University of Southern California Medical School, located near where the body was found, but the university agreed only if the students’ identities remained private. Background checks yielded no results.
By spring 1947, Short’s murder had become a cold case with few new leads. Sergeant Finis Brown, a lead detective, blamed the press for hindering the investigation through unverified reporting. In September 1949, a grand jury criticized the LAPD’s homicide unit for failing to solve many murders,
Suspects and confessions
The fame of Short's murder has led to many people confessing to the crime over the years, though many of these confessions were found to be untrue. During the first investigation, police received 60 confessions, most from men. Since then, more than 500 people have confessed to the crime, some of whom were not even born when Short died. Sergeant John P. St. John, an LAPD detective who worked on the case until his retirement, said, "It is amazing how many people claim a family member was the killer."
In 2003, Ralph Asdel, one of the original detectives on the case, told the Times he believed he had interviewed Short's killer. A man was seen driving a sedan near the crime scene on January 15, 1947. A neighbor passing by that day saw the sedan parked with its right rear door open. The driver of the sedan was standing in the lot. The owner of the sedan approached his car, looked inside the window, and then returned to the car and drove away. The owner was followed to a local restaurant where he worked but was later cleared of suspicion.
People still being discussed as suspects by authors and experts include a doctor named Walter Bayley, suggested by former Times copyeditor Larry Harnisch; Times publisher Norman Chandler, whom biographer Donald Wolfe claims had a child with Short; Leslie Dillon; Joseph A. Dumais; Artie Lane; Mark Hansen; Francis E. Sweeney; folk singer Woody Guthrie, who was briefly a suspect but cleared; mobster Bugsy Siegel and filmmaker Orson Welles, neither of whom were ever suspects; George Hodel; Hodel's friend Fred Sexton; George Knowlton; Robert M. "Red" Manley; Patrick S. O'Reilly; and Jack Anderson Wilson.
Although he was never formally charged, George Hodel gained more attention after his death when his son, LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel, accused him of killing Short and committing other murders. Before the Dahlia case, George Hodel was suspected but not charged in the death of his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, and was accused of raping his daughter Tamar, but was found not guilty. Hodel left the country multiple times and lived in the Philippines from 1950 to 1990. Steve Hodel also mentioned his father's training as a surgeon as indirect evidence. In 2003, notes from the 1949 grand jury report revealed that investigators had wiretapped George Hodel's home and recorded a conversation between him and an unidentified visitor, in which he said: "Supposin' I did kill the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary 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."
In 1991, Janice Knowlton, who was 10 years old when Short was killed, claimed she saw her father, George Knowlton, beat Short to death with a claw hammer in the detached garage of her family's home in Westminster. She also wrote a book titled Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer in 1995, in which she made additional claims that her father sexually abused her. The book was criticized as "trash" by Knowlton's stepsister, Jolane Emerson, who said: "She believed it, but it wasn't reality. I know, because I lived with her father for sixteen years." Additionally, St. John told the Times that Knowlton's claims were "not consistent with the facts of the case."
The 2017 book Black Dahlia, Red Rose by Piu Eatwell focuses on Leslie Dillon, a bellhop who was once an assistant to a mortician; his associates Mark Hansen and Jeff Connors; and Sergeant Finis Brown, a lead detective who had connections to Hansen and was allegedly corrupt. Eatwell suggests that Short was murdered because she knew too much about the men's involvement in a plan to rob hotels. She also claims that Short was killed at the Aster Motel in Los Angeles, where the owners reported finding one of their rooms "covered in blood and fecal matter" on the morning Short's body was found. The Examiner stated in 1949 that LAPD chief William A. Worton denied the Aster Motel had any connection to the case, though its rival newspaper, the Los Angeles Herald, claimed the murder took place there.
In 2000, Buz Williams, a retired detective with the Long Beach Police Department, wrote an article for the LBPD newsletter The Rap Sheet about Short's murder. His father, Richard F. Williams, was a member of the LAPD's Gangster Squad investigating the case. Williams' father reportedly believed Dillon was the killer and that Dillon avoided extradition to California because his ex-wife, Georgia Stevenson, was second cousins with Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II, who contacted Oklahoma's governor on Dillon's behalf. Williams' article claimed that Dillon sued the LAPD for $3 million, but the suit was dropped. Harnisch disputes this, stating that Dillon was cleared by police after a thorough investigation and that the district attorney's files confirmed Dillon was in San Francisco when Short was killed. Harnisch claims there was no LAPD coverup and that Dillon received a financial settlement from the City of Los Angeles, but has not provided proof.
Theories and potentially related crimes
Several crime writers and police detective Peter Merylo have thought there might be a connection between the Short murder and the Cleveland Torso Murders, which happened in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1934 to 1938. In 1947, original LAPD investigators studied the Torso Murders as part of their research into other murders before and after the Short killing. However, they later ignored any possible link between the two cases. In 1980, new evidence pointing to a former Torso Murder suspect, Jack Anderson Wilson, was examined by St. John in relation to Short's murder. He said he was close to arresting Wilson for the crime, but Wilson died in a fire on February 4, 1982. The possible connection to the Torso Murders got more attention in 1992 when the NBC series Unsolved Mysteries covered the case. During the episode, Eliot Ness biographer Oscar Fraley suggested that Ness might have known the identity of the killer responsible for both cases.
Crime authors like Steve Hodel and William Rasmussen have suggested a link between the Short murder and the 1946 murder and dismemberment of 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, Illinois. Captain Donahoe of the LAPD publicly stated that he believed the Black Dahlia murder and the "Lipstick Murders" in Chicago were "likely connected." Evidence cited includes the fact that Short's body was found on Norton Avenue, three blocks west of Degnan Boulevard, which shares the same last name as the girl from Chicago. There were also similarities between the handwriting on the Degnan ransom note and that of the "Black Dahlia Avenger." Both texts used a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters (the Degnan note read in part "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY" [sic]), and both notes included a similar misshapen letter "P" and one word that matched exactly. Convicted serial killer William Heirens served life in prison for Degnan's murder. He was initially arrested at age 17 for breaking into a home near Degnan's. Heirens claimed he was tortured by police, forced to confess, and made a scapegoat for the murder. After being taken from the medical infirmary at the Dixon Correctional Center on February 26, 2012, for health problems, Heirens died at the University of Illinois Medical Center on March 5, 2012, at age 83.
Between 1943 and 1949, more than a dozen unsolved murders occurred in Los Angeles involving the sexual mutilation of young attractive women. At the time, authorities believed these might have been the work of a single unidentified serial killer. In 1949, a Los Angeles County grand jury was assigned to investigate why law enforcement had failed to solve the cases. This led to further investigations, but none of the murders were ever solved.
Rumors and factual disputes
Numerous details about Short's personal life and death have been subjects of public debate. The public and press interest in solving her murder has made the investigation more difficult, leading to a complicated and sometimes unclear account of events. According to Anne Marie DiStefano of the Portland Tribune, many unconfirmed stories about Short have spread over the years: "She was a prostitute, she was frigid, she was pregnant, she was a lesbian. Instead of fading over time, the legend of the Black Dahlia has become more complicated." Harnisch has denied several rumors and disputed the accuracy of Gilmore's book Severed, claiming the book contains "25% mistakes and 50% fiction." Harnisch reviewed the district attorney's files (he stated that Steve Hodel and Times columnist Steve Lopez also examined some of them) and found that, contrary to Eatwell's claims, Dillon was thoroughly investigated and confirmed to have been in San Francisco when Short was killed. Harnisch suggested that Eatwell either did not find these files or chose not to use them.
Many people who did not know Short contacted police and newspapers, claiming they saw her during the week she was missing, between her disappearance on January 9 and the discovery of her body on January 15. Police and investigators dismissed these claims; in some cases, people identified other women they mistakenly believed were Short. Short's location during the days before her murder and the discovery of her body remains unknown.
After her body was found, several Los Angeles newspapers reported that she had been tortured before her death. Law enforcement denied these claims at the time but allowed them to spread to keep her actual cause of death secret. Some sources, like Oliver Cyriax's Crime: An Encyclopedia (1993), say her body had cigarette burns from when she was alive, though this is not mentioned in her official autopsy report.
In Severed, Gilmore wrote that the coroner who performed Short's autopsy suggested she may have been forced to consume feces based on findings in her stomach. Harnisch denied this claim, and it is not listed in her official autopsy, though it has appeared in other media.
Newspaper reports from shortly after the murder say Short was called "Black Dahlia" by staff and customers at a Long Beach drugstore in mid-1946, as a play on the film The Blue Dahlia (1946). Other rumors suggest the media created the name because she wore dahlias in her hair. According to the FBI's website, the nickname came from the press "for her rumored preference for black clothing."
However, reports from district attorney's investigators say the nickname was created by newspaper reporters covering her murder. Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means, who spoke to Short's acquaintances at the drugstore, is credited with first using the name "Black Dahlia," though other reporters, Underwood and Jack Smith, are also named as possible creators. Some sources say Short used the name during her life, but others disagree. Both Gilmore and Harnisch agree the name originated during Short's lifetime and was not made up by the press. Harnisch claims the nickname came from the drugstore staff, while Gilmore names an A.L. Landers as the drugstore owner, though he does not provide the store's name. Before "Black Dahlia" became popular, her murder was called the "Werewolf Murder" by the Herald-Express due to the brutality of the crime.
Many true crime books say Short lived in or visited Los Angeles in the mid-1940s, including Gilmore's Severed, which claims she worked at the Hollywood Canteen. Harnisch disputes this, stating she did not live in Los Angeles until after the canteen closed in 1945. While some people and commentators described Short as a prostitute or call girl during her time in Los Angeles, Harnisch says the grand jury found no evidence she was ever a prostitute. Harnisch claims this rumor started with John Gregory Dunne's 1977 novel True Confessions, which is partly based on the crime.
Another common rumor is that Short could not have sexual intercourse due to a birth defect called gonadal dysgenesis, also known as "infantile genitalia." District attorney's files show investigators questioned three men who had sex with Short, including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect. FBI files also include a statement from one of her alleged lovers. Short's autopsy, published in Michael Newton's 2009 book The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, notes her uterus was "small," but no other details suggest her reproductive organs were not normal. The autopsy also states she was not and had never been pregnant, contradicting earlier claims.
A rumor that Short was a lesbian has also spread. Gilmore says this started after Bevo Means was told by the deputy coroner that Short "wasn't having sex with men" because of her "small" genitalia. Means interpreted this as evidence she had sex with women, and he and Herald-Express reporter Sid Hughes searched gay bars in Los Angeles for more information.
Legacy
Short is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. After her younger sister, Elnora, grew up and married, their mother, Phoebe, moved to Oakland to be near her daughter's grave. Phoebe returned to the East Coast in the 1970s, where she lived until she was in her nineties and died in 1992. On February 2, 1947, two weeks after Short's murder, Republican state assemblyman C. Don Field introduced a bill inspired by the case. This bill called for the creation of a sex offender registry, making California the first U.S. state to require sex offender registration.
Short's murder is considered one of the most brutal and long-remembered crimes in U.S. history. Time magazine listed it as one of the most famous unsolved cases in the world.
Short's life and death have inspired many books, television shows, and films, both true and fictional. One well-known fictional story is James Ellroy's 1987 novel The Black Dahlia, which also explores themes like politics, crime, corruption, and fear in post-war Los Angeles, according to cultural critic David M. Fine. The novel was turned into a 2006 movie with the same name, directed by Brian De Palma. In the film, Short was played by actress Mia Kirshner. Both the book and movie are not based on real events from the case. Michael Connelly's 2024 novel The Waiting includes a major story line about the Black Dahlia case.
Short has also been portrayed in fictional stories, such as the 1975 TV film Who Is the Black Dahlia? starring Lucie Arnaz, in Season Four, Episode 13 of Hunter featuring Jessica Nelson, and in the TV series American Horror Story. In the 2011 episode "Spooky Little Girl" and the 2018 episode "Return to Murder House," Short was played by Mena Suvari.