Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – about January 14–15, 1947), known after her death as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman whose body was found murdered in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became widely known because the crime was very disturbing, involving the cutting and separating of her body.
Born in Boston, Short lived in New England and Florida before moving to California, where her father lived. It is often said 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, as newspapers of that time sometimes used dramatic names for shocking crimes. This name may have been inspired by the movie The Blue Dahlia (1946). After her body was found, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) started a long investigation that looked at more than 150 people but did not result in any arrests.
Short’s murder, which remains unsolved, has had a lasting effect on culture. Many books and films have been made about her life and death. Her case is often considered one of the most famous unsolved murders in U.S. history and one of the oldest unsolved cases in Los Angeles County. Historians also note that her murder was among the first major crimes after World War II to gain national attention.
Life
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. She was the third of five daughters in a family with five sisters: Virginia May West (1920–1985), Dorothea Schloesser (1922–2012), Elnora Chalmers (1925–2022), and Muriel Short (1929–2023). Her father, Cleo Alvin Short Jr. (October 18, 1885 – January 19, 1967), was a United States Navy sailor from Gloucester Courthouse, Virginia. Her mother, Phoebe May Sawyer (July 2, 1897 – March 1, 1992), was born in Milbridge, Maine. The couple married in Portland, Maine, in 1918. The family briefly moved to Portland in 1927 before settling in Medford, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, that same year.
Short’s father built miniature golf courses until he lost most of his money in 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. After this, Short’s mother began working as a bookkeeper to support the family.
Short suffered from bronchitis and serious asthma attacks. At age 15, she had lung surgery. Doctors advised her to move to a milder climate during winter to avoid further health problems. Her mother sent her to spend winters with family friends in Miami, Florida, for three years. Short left Medford High School during her sophomore year.
In late 1942, Short’s mother received a letter from her husband, who had been presumed dead. The letter revealed he was alive and had started a new life in California. In December 1942, at age 18, Short moved to Vallejo, California, to live with her father, whom she had not seen since age 6. Her father was working at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard near San Francisco Bay. Disagreements with her father led her to move out in January 1943.
Short worked 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, Short met Major Matthew Michael Gordon Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer in the 2nd Air Commando Group, who was training for deployment to Southeast Asia during World War II. She later said Gordon had proposed 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. Short’s sister, Dorothea, also served in the war and was assigned to decode Japanese messages.
In July 1946, Short 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. Shortly before her death, she worked as a waitress and rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. Some sources describe her as an aspiring or "would-be" actress. While she had no known acting jobs or credits, she reportedly wanted to be a film star.
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 was 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 later that afternoon. Some reports say hotel staff saw Short using the lobby telephone. Soon after, she was allegedly seen by people at the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge, located 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 left, making her skin very pale. Medical examiners estimated she had been dead for about ten hours before being discovered, meaning she likely died sometime on the evening of January 14 or the early morning of January 15. Her 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 her lower body was placed a foot away from the upper half. Her intestines were neatly tucked under her buttocks. Her body was positioned with her hands over her head, her elbows bent, and her legs spread apart.
Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Aggie Underwood was one of the first to arrive at the crime scene and took photos of the body and the area. Detectives found a heel print near the body among tire tracks, and a cement bag containing blood was also discovered nearby.
An autopsy was performed on January 16, 1947, by Frederick Newbarr, the Los Angeles County coroner. The report stated 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. She had marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck from something tight, and a cut on her right breast. There were also 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 lower back area between the second and third lumbar vertebrae, which also severed her intestine. The coroner noted little bruising along the cut, suggesting it happened after she died. A long cut ran from her navel to her lower stomach. Cuts on her face extended from her lips to her ears, measuring three inches on the right and 2½ inches on the left. Her skull was not broken, but she had bruising on the front and right side of her head, with some bleeding in the brain area, likely from head injuries. The cause of death was bleeding from the face cuts and shock from the head injuries. The coroner noted her body showed signs of possible rape, but tests for sperm found no evidence.
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 over the phone. A reporter named Wain Sutton lied to Phoebe, telling her her daughter had won a beauty contest. Only after getting personal details from her did the reporters reveal her daughter had been murdered.
Years later, Jim Murray described the phone call to a journalist, saying Sutton pretended to be kind while asking questions. Murray said he was still upset about the call. Phoebe Short did not believe her daughter was murdered 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 trick to keep her away from police and other reporters to protect their story. The Examiner and another newspaper, the Herald-Express, wrote exciting but exaggerated stories about the case. One article called the black suit Short was last seen wearing "a tight skirt and a sheer blouse." The media nicknamed her the "Black Dahlia" and described her as an "adventuress" who "prowled Hollywood Boulevard." A Los Angeles Times article called the murder a "sex fiend slaying."
Investigation
On January 21, a person who said they were the killer of Elizabeth Short called the office of James Richardson, the editor of the Los Angeles Examiner. The caller praised the newspaper’s coverage of the case and said they planned to turn themselves in eventually, but only after letting police chase 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 glued together 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 packet 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 and sent them to the FBI, the prints were damaged during shipping and could not be studied. 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 handwritten note in pencil was found tucked inside a shoe in a pile of men’s clothing 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.” A beach caretaker discovered the clothing and reported it to lifeguard captain John Dillon, who then informed Captain L. E. Christensen of the West Los Angeles police station. The clothing included a blue herringbone tweed coat, trousers, a brown and white T-shirt, white jockey shorts, tan socks, and tan moccasin shoes, size about eight. The items gave no clues about the owner.
Police quickly suspected Mark Hansen, the owner of the address book found in the envelope. Hansen was a wealthy nightclub and theater owner, and Short had stayed at his home with friends. 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, suggesting this might be a motive. However, Hansen was cleared of suspicion. In addition to Hansen, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) interviewed over 150 men they believed might be suspects. Robert Manley, who had seen Short alive, was also investigated but cleared after passing lie detector tests. Police also interviewed people listed in Hansen’s address book, including Martin Lewis, who had been an acquaintance of Short. Lewis provided an alibi, as 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 locations like storm drains, abandoned buildings, and areas along the Los Angeles River for evidence but found nothing. Los Angeles City Councilman Lloyd G. Davis offered a $10,000 reward (about $144,188 today) for information leading to Short’s killer. After the reward was announced, many people came forward with confessions, most of which police dismissed as lies. Some false confessors were charged with obstructing justice.
On January 26, the Examiner received another letter, 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 glued together from clippings, which read: “Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified.”
The violent nature of the murder and the letters received by the Examiner caused widespread media attention. Local and national newspapers heavily covered the case, some reporting false details about Short being tortured before her death. Police allowed these false reports to spread to hide the real cause of her death—brain bleeding. Other reports about Short’s personal life, including her rejection of Hansen’s advances, were shared. A stripper who knew Short told police that 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, though this claim was never proven. The Herald-Express also received letters from the alleged killer, one of which 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 for investigators. The Examiner continued to publish stories about the murder and the investigation, which was front-page news for 35 days after the body was found.
Lead investigator Captain Jack Donahue told reporters that he believed Short’s murder happened in a remote building or shack on the outskirts of Los Angeles, and that her body was moved to the location where it was found. Based on the precise cuts to Short’s body, the LAPD considered 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, which was near the body’s discovery site. The university agreed to provide the list, as long as the students’ identities remained private. Background checks were conducted but found no useful information.
By spring 1947, Short’s murder had become a cold case with few new leads. Sergeant Finis Brown, one of the lead detectives, blamed the press for harming the investigation through unverified reporting. In September 1949, a grand jury reviewed the LAPD’s failures to solve murders, including Short’s. After the grand jury’s review, detectives looked further into Short’s past, tracing her movements.
Suspects and confessions
The fame of Short's murder has led to many confessions over the years, many of which were later 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 surprising 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 spoken to Short's killer, a man seen with his car parked near the crime scene on January 15, 1947. A neighbor passing by that day saw a parked sedan with its right rear door open; the driver was standing in the lot. The car's owner approached, looked inside the window, 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.
Suspects still discussed 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 impregnated 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 officially 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 for the death of his secretary, Ruth Spaulding, and was accused of raping his daughter Tamar but was acquitted. Hodel fled 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 possible evidence. In 2003, notes from a 1949 grand jury report revealed that investigators had monitored George Hodel's home and recorded a conversation where he said to an unidentified visitor: "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 a former mortician's assistant; his associates Mark Hansen and Jeff Connors; and Sergeant Finis Brown, a lead detective who had links to Hansen and was allegedly corrupt. Eatwell suggests that Short was murdered because she knew too much about the men's involvement in a scheme to rob hotels. She also claims 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 the 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 Dillon sued the LAPD for $3 million, but the suit was dropped. Harnisch disputes this, stating Dillon was cleared by police after a thorough investigation and that the district attorney's files placed him 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 may be a connection between the Short murder and the Cleveland Torso Murders, which happened in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1934 to 1938. In 1947, the original LAPD investigators looked into other murders before and after the Short killing, including the Torso Murders, but later said there was no link between the two cases. In 1980, new evidence pointing to a former suspect in the Torso Murders, Jack Anderson Wilson, was studied by St. John in connection to the Short murder. St. John said he was close to arresting Wilson for the Short murder, but Wilson died in a fire on February 4, 1982. The possible link to the Torso Murders was discussed again in 1992 on the NBC show Unsolved Mysteries, where Oscar Fraley, a writer about Eliot Ness, suggested Ness might have known the killer responsible for both cases.
Crime writers such as Steve Hodel and William Rasmussen have thought there may be a connection between the Short murder and the 1946 murder and dismemberment of 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, Illinois. Captain Donahoe of the LAPD said publicly that he believed the Black Dahlia murder and the "Lipstick Murders" in Chicago were likely connected. Evidence 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 notes used a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters (the Degnan note read in part "BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY" [ sic ]), and both notes had a similar misshapen letter P and one word that matched exactly. William Heirens, a convicted serial killer, was sentenced to life in prison for Degnan's murder. He was arrested at age 17 for breaking into a home near Degnan's and said he was tortured by police, forced to confess, and made a scapegoat for the murder. Heirens was taken from the medical infirmary at Dixon Correctional Center on February 26, 2012, for health issues and 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, all involving serious injuries to young, attractive women. At the time, authorities thought a single unknown serial killer might have been responsible. In 1949, a Los Angeles County grand jury was asked to investigate why law enforcement had not solved the cases. Further investigations were done, 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 complicated, leading to a confusing and sometimes unclear account of events. According to Anne Marie DiStefano of the Portland Tribune, many unproven 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 even more complicated." Harnisch has denied several rumors and claims about Short and also questioned the accuracy of Gilmore's book Severed, stating the book contains "25% mistakes and 50% fiction." Harnisch reviewed the district attorney's files (he claimed 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 was 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 to have seen her during the week 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 had mistaken other women for Short. Short's location during the days before her murder and the discovery of her body remains unknown.
After Short's body was found, many 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, such as 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 writes that the coroner who performed Short's autopsy suggested she may have been forced to eat feces based on findings in her stomach. Harnisch denies this claim, and it is not mentioned in her official autopsy, though it has been repeated in some media.
According to newspaper reports from shortly after her murder, 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 say the media created the name because Short wore dahlias in her hair. The FBI's official website states the nickname came from the press "for her rumored preference for black clothing." However, district attorney investigators say the nickname was created by reporters covering her murder. Herald-Express reporter Bevo Means is credited with first using the name, though other reporters, Underwood and Jack Smith, are also named as possible creators. Some sources say Short used the name during her life, while others disagree. Both Gilmore and Harnisch agree the name originated during Short's lifetime, not from the press. Harnisch says it was a nickname from the Long Beach drugstore staff, while Gilmore names an A.L. Landers as the drugstore owner but does not provide the store's name. Before the "Black Dahlia" nickname, her murder was called the "Werewolf Murder" by the Herald-Express due to the crime's brutality.
Many true crime books, including Gilmore's Severed, claim Short lived in or visited Los Angeles in the mid-1940s, including working at the Hollywood Canteen. Harnisch disputes this, saying she did not live in Los Angeles until after the canteen closed in 1945. While some people described Short as a prostitute or call girl, Harnisch says the grand jury found no evidence she was ever a prostitute. Harnisch claims this rumor began in John Gregory Dunne's 1977 novel True Confessions, which is based on the case.
Another common rumor is that Short could not have sex due to a condition called gonadal dysgenesis, or "infantile genitalia." District attorney 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. Her 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 never pregnant, contradicting earlier claims.
Another rumor—that Short was a lesbian—began after Bevo Means was told by a deputy coroner that she "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 close to her daughter's grave. Phoebe returned to the East Coast in the 1970s, where she lived until she was in her nineties and passed away 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 creating a sex offender registry, and California became the first U.S. state to require sex offender registration.
Short's murder is considered one of the most violent and long-remembered crimes in U.S. history. Time magazine listed it as one of the world's most famous unsolved cases.
Short's life and death have inspired many books, television shows, and films, including both made-up stories and real-life accounts. One well-known fictional story is James Ellroy's 1987 novel The Black Dahlia, which also explored themes like politics, crime, and corruption in post-war Los Angeles, according to cultural critic David M. Fine. The novel was adapted into a 2006 film with the same name, directed by Brian De Palma. In the film, Short was played by actress Mia Kirshner. The book and movie are not based on true events. Michael Connelly's 2024 novel The Waiting includes a major subplot about the Black Dahlia case.
Short was also portrayed in fictional stories, such as in the 1975 television film Who Is the Black Dahlia?, starring Lucie Arnaz. She appeared in Season Four, Episode 13 of Hunter, played by Jessica Nelson. In the 2011 series American Horror Story, Mena Suvari portrayed Short in the episode "Spooky Little Girl." Short was also included in the 2018 episode "Return to Murder House" of the same series.