The Black Dahlia...

PC: Police Bulletin  Board

The infamous Black Dahlia is one of the unsolved crime in LA which was featured in many books and movies such as "The Black Dahlia" by James Ellroy and its movie adaptation. There are so many theories about this case and upto this date there is no certain solution. FBI has around 200 public files which you can find here if you are interested. This is also related to the famous Hotel Cecil and the nature of the murder and some theories are mind blowing. I spent a lot of time reading through the FBI files and several other articles written about this case to get an idea about this case in many perspectives. So now it is your turn to test your imagination and intelligence to comeup with a possible solution to this 70 years old cold case.

On 15th January 1947 Betty Bersinger was going to a shoe repair shop with her three years old daughter when she noticed a mannequin near the sidewalk, but she found it strange because its broken into two. It didn't took her long to realize that it's not a mannequin but a corpse of a female. She immediately contacted the local police. The police officers arrived at the scene witnessed a naked female body cleanely sliced into two. There were no blood present at the crime scene and investigators concluded that she was killed elsewhere, cleaned blood and dumped there. (Since the photos of the crime scene are very disturbing I will not publish them here but you can check it here.) I couldn't find her autopsy report but one website mentioned that there were multiple lacerations to midforehead, right forhead and at the top of her head. Anal opening was dilated and her mouth was sliced to extend her smile from ear to ear. There were rope marks on her wrists, andkles and neck which shows that she was tied down and tortured for days. A letter issued by FBI states that the method victims body was dissected has indicated the possibility that the murderer is somewhat experienced in medical work.

Using her fingerprints FBI identified the victim as Elizabeth Short, a 22 years old girl who also happened to be an aspiring actress. Her case was first called the werewolf murder according to the nature of the murder but later newspapers started calling her Black Dahlia because of the movie Blue Dahlia which was released prior to her death and her obsession with black clothes and her black hair.

Once the word about this horrible crime went out, around 50 people confessed that they did it but none were arrested or put on trial. The only person they arrested were a former army musician named Robert (Red) Manly but they had to release him because he passed all the lie detector tests and he had an alibi.

 However a policewoman named Myrl McBride stated that the victim looked like a girl she talked with on main street and the girl told her that someone wants to kill her. The policewoman has also stated that she later saw the girl entering a bar and emerge with two men and another woman.

There were no leads and newspapers started focusing on her private life until January 24th.  James Richardson, the editor of the Examiner received a phone call about the Black Dahlia case. The caller said " You seem to have run out of material, maybe I can be of some assistance? ". There was a special delivery to the Examiner office after the call, which was Elizabeth Shorts purse, her ID, birth certificate, business cards etc. However the most interesting piece of evidence found was her address book which contained  names and numbers of potential suspects and some pages of the book were torned out and the whole package was soaked in gasoline before sending to remove fingerprints. It is obvious that the killer is a highly skilled intelligent person with a weird sense of fun but he was never caught. 

There were a couple of prime suspects to the case and Leslie Dillon and George Hodell were two of the major suspects. Leslie Dillon was a 27 years old aspiring writer and he exchanged letters with an LAPD psychiatrist (Dr. J Paul De River) about the Black Dahlia case. Dillon never confessed to the murder but the psychiatrist strongly belived that he is the killer. For those of who are interested I will give a link to a complete account of Dillons several statements about the case. George Hodel was a medical doctor and he was accused of molesting his 14 years old daughter in 1949 which led LAPD to make him a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. They put him under surveillance in 1950 and installed two microphones in his home to see if he will make any commments about Elizabeth. Oneday he made a claim with someone saying " supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia, they couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead."  The secretary he mentioned,Ruth Spaulding had died from drug overdose and he was present when the secretary died. He had burnt some of her belongings before calling the police and later found that those documents he burned were about intentionally misdiagnosing patients and billing them for unnecessary tests and treatments. Hodel's son who was a former LAPD homicide detective strongly believes that his father is the killer and in 2003 he published the book " Black Dahlia Avenger: A genius for murder". He keeps a website where he updates about his findings so if you are interested you can read it for more information.

It's been more than 70 years now and we still don't know who the killer is. Most probably he must be dead now and even though the law couldn't punish him I hope karma treated him the way he deserves.