A Chilling Batch of Evidence Could Revive the Unsolved Black Dahlia Murder Mystery

Popular Mechanics ^ | March 13, 2024 | Michael Natale

[Macho MAGA Man]

Emerging clues may shine a new light on Hollywood’s darkest tale: the shocking 1947 death of Elizabeth Short.

On January 15, 1947, an aspiring 22-year-old actress named Elizabeth Short was found brutally murdered in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in Los Angeles, California, her nude, posed body cut in half and severely mutilated.

“It was pretty gruesome,” Brian Carr, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department who worked on Short’s case, later said. It was an understatement; Short’s killer had also drained her corpse of blood and scrubbed it clean. “I just can’t imagine someone doing that to another human being.”

In the press, Short became known as “The Black Dahlia,” and her case “took on a life of its own,” Carr said. “Early on, I think for two months it was front-page news in all the local papers every day.”

Seventy-seven years later, while the Black Dahlia Murder may not be front-page news, it’s still generating new true-crime investigations, fictionalized retellings, and even grisly in-person tours of the victim’s final known locations. That’s because the Black Dahlia’s killer was never found, and no one has satisfactorily offered proof for who committed the most infamous, sadistic act of unsolved murder in Hollywood history.

But people are still searching for that answer. And now, more than three-quarters of a century later, time might help us finally find it.

[Macho MAGA Man]

I've always been fascinated with this case. What happened to her was unfathomable.

[lefty-lie-spy]

The old Dragnet radio show from 1949 to 1957 even had an episode based on this case. It’s a really interesting one for sure.

[Chode]

so what was it?

[Bob434]

Me too- seen a movie or 2 based on the case-

[devere]

Nobody knows. The article is click bait.

[Chode]

*

[Equine1952]

There are as many suspects in this murder as there are in the “Jack The Ripper “ murders. It’s about as gruesome too. The absolute truth beyond a reasonable doubt for either case after all these years seems pretty unrealistic. I have my opinion and my thoughts on motive, but it’s still a guess.

[Robwin]

I’m not going to search for it, but I thought some guy provided rather good evidence his father, a doctor, was the killer.

[Equine1952]

The best account I’ve ever read was a book called “Severed The True Story of The Black Dahilia” by John Gilmore. He never claimed to have solved the crime. He just gave all the facts about the case and his best guess at a solution. It’s a great read if you’re up to it and not looking for something light. It’s a who done it, that will always be a who done it. IMO

[Ge0ffrey]

Popular Mechanics?

[oldplayer]

Ofc. Matthew Gordon was a P-51 pilot stationed in Burma in WWII. My dad was the Chief Engineering Officer of the 1st Sqd. 2Nd Air Commandos and new Gordon well. He got letters from Short frequently. At the end of the war Gordon intentionally flew his P-51 into the ground. No suicide note was found, but there is little doubt that he did this intentionally.
Obviously, Gordon wasn’t the killer of Short. My Dad passed on his interest in the case to me.

[Fiji Hill]

The place where her body was found is about a block from Kim's Chinese restaurant in Leimert Park, where I have occasionally stopped for lunch.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

FBI says she accidentally killed herself in a woodworking accident.

[ifinnegan]

What’s the “chilling batch of new evidence”?

[SunkenCiv]

• Black Dahlia killer unmasked: Notorious case of aspiring starlet who was cut in half and had 'Joker smile' carved into her face is finally solved, despite 'cover-up by LAPD' [07/15/2021]
• Man Says He Has More Evidence His Father Committed Infamous Black Dahlia Murder [08/23/2013]
• William Heirens, known as the 'Lipstick Killer,' dead [03/06/2012]
• The REAL Black Dahlia [08/14/2006]
• Casting Questions Around 'The Black Dahlia' [02/09/2005]
• Ex-Cop Claims His Father Was 'Black Dahlia' Killer [04/11/2003]

[who_would_fardels_bear]

You have to read to the very end and the only "new" evidence is a letter from a police informant from the time that claimed the person who killed her had the initials 'GH'.

This is more evidence that George Hodel might be the killer.

I still believe it was a very young Lee Harvey Oswald.

[Tacrolimus1mg]

That poor woman. I cannot imagine being in her position, knowing that the kind of suffering she must have endured while knowing they were her final moments. I don’t recall it being mentioned, but I’d hazard she was sexually assaulted in one way or another.

That aside, there is a theory that H.H. Holmes is Jack. It is admittedly convincing - he killed many here in Chicago, and was in London at the same times the Ripper murders occurred. He made two separate trips, if I recall. He had anatomical knowlege and some training, and was an obvious sadist.

If it wasn’t him, I wouldn’t doubt that he was at least affiliated with Jack.

[Equine1952]

It seems odd the things that attract our attention. I’m a history buff, and love the old 87th Precinct books too. I am familiar with John St John and his work in homicide cases and on the Dahilia case. Things that are disconnected like the Custer Battle, Midway in WW2. Etc etc. Each thing that has caught my eye or piqued my curiosity over the years stays with me and reignites my interest. Reality surpasses fiction in all things. You can write fiction but it will never be as compelling or surprising or interesting as reality. I blame all of what I’ve related on my mother. She encouraged me to read everything. I now read and it’s like I’m living it. It’s a gift. I just have to keep it varied. I find reading too much of reality affects my out look on life. I need to come up for air sometimes. Balance is the key. Regards

[wintertime]

Gruesomely funny.

[TalBlack]

“Folk singer Woody Guthrie was also questioned in the Black Dahlia murder investigation, due to obscene sexual letters he had been mailing to other women during a mental health episode, according to Black Dahlia, Red Rose.”

Woody we hardly knew he.

The conviction grows day by day that they’re all fecking perverts. All of them.