Black Dahlia. Elizabeth Short

In a letter to her mother, Betty wrote: “One New Year's Eve I met Major Matt Gordon. I'm sure I'm in love. He is wonderful, not like other men. And he asked me to marry him."

In the summer of 1945, when Beth decided to return home to Medford, her blouse wore a badge with the wings of American pilots. At this time, she became completely at home, preparing for the wedding, embroidering and sending letters to Matt in the Philippines.

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, she completely calmed down - this meant that Matt would not die in battle. So when the Western Union messenger's bike stopped at the gate of Short's house, she ran out into the street, believing that she was in for a surprise news from Matt.

The letter the messenger gave her was indeed about Matt, but it wasn't from him, it was from his mother. She reported that Matt died in a plane crash while returning from India.

Betty's grief knew no bounds. She cried for days as she read and reread Matt's letters. After the onset of cold weather, she returned to Miami, with Matt Gordon's obituary, carefully packed in a suitcase.

In Miami, to distract from longing, Short staged a parade of men. She could be found in the company of soldiers and entrepreneurs, gangsters and Hollywood producers. And she was always popular with all of them. Her influence on men was simply hypnotic. When she walked down the street in high heels, in a black dress, with flowing raven hair, men whistled after her, offered to treat her to dinner, to which Betty often agreed. And that was the problem. Because she agreed to dinner and courtship, but no more.

Men paid for food, bar visits, car rentals, clothes. They gave her money.

Regardless of the money that her acquaintances lent her, Short earned a living as a waitress and spent almost all the money on her wardrobe. She said it would be better to starve than wear bad clothes. She always dressed with a needle and personified the 40s with her style.

In July 1946 she returned to Southern California to be with Joseph Flicking, the handsome lieutenant air force with sensual dark eyes. They met in California two years ago, shortly before he was sent abroad. They had a rocky relationship from the very beginning. In numerous letters later seized by the police, Flicking expressed doubt that he occupied a higher place in Beth's heart than others.

Joseph Flicking

Probably, Betty could not - or did not want to - convince him of her love and they broke up. Flicking moved to North Carolina where he became a civilian pilot. However, they continued to keep in touch, and Joseph even sent her money, including $ 100 by bank transfer a month before Short's death. The last letter from Elizabeth Flicking received on January 8, 1947, that is, 7 days before her assassination. In it, Beth announced that she was going to go to Chicago, where she hopes to become a model.

For the last six months of her life, Elizabeth Short constantly moved from place to place, changing hotels, apartments, boarding houses and private houses in Southern California.

It is known that from November 13 to December 15, she lived in a cramped 2-room apartment in Hollywood with 8 other girls - waitresses, telephone operators and dancers, as well as visitors who hoped to get into show business.

Her neighbors told the LA Times after Short's death that she was unemployed at the time and was seen every night with a new "friend." “She went out every night to roam Hollywood boulevard,” they said.

There was something elusive in Short's life, she had no friends, neither men nor women. She preferred company strangers and constant change of environment.

With an unknown friend

The last person to see her alive was Short's recent acquaintance, 25-year-old salesman Robert Manley. According to press reports, Betty got into Manley's car on a street corner in San Diego.

Suspects
At the very beginning of the investigation, after the identity of the murdered woman was established, the detectives found out that Elizabeth Short had very extensive acquaintances, including in the Hollywood party.

Among such acquaintances was, for example, Frenchot Tone, a major film producer, who, when presented with a photograph of Elizabeth Short, hastened to tell the police that he was trying to seduce the girl. However, according to him, nothing came of it. From Ton, the detectives heard a number of other names of major Hollywood bigwigs with whom the deceased was on short leg.

Mark Hansen, the owner of an entire chain of nightclubs and cinemas, admitted that he was good friend deceased and personally introduced Elizabeth to major film distributors. During interrogation, Hansen claimed that he did not have an intimate relationship with the deceased and did not persuade her to have sex. At the same time, he stressed that Elizabeth often behaved incorrectly with men, first inciting lust and giving ambiguous promises, and then, as if dousing with indifference and coldness. According to Hansen, the deceased was very much in line with the image of a vamp woman, mysterious and inaccessible. Because of my love to dress in everything black elizabeth received the nickname "Black Dahlia" ("Black Dahlia" - Black Dahlia), which she was very proud of. The nickname she got came from the famous Hollywood movie of the 40s "The Blue Dahlia" with Veronica Lake and Alan Ledd in the lead roles.

Very informative was the interrogation of a certain Barbara Lee, with whom Short rented an apartment. She said that before coming to Los Angeles, she worked as a model: in Massachusetts, she showed clothes in a large department store. Having appeared in Hollywood, the girl began to desperately fight for her place in the film Olympus: she agreed to all screen tests, starred in extras, and did not spare money for photographers. She had a gift for making useful contacts. She brilliantly demonstrated it, having met in the dining room of one of the film companies with Georgette Bauerdorf. This surname, by the way, said a lot to the Los Angeles policemen: the owner of a fantastic fortune, the owner of huge commercial real estate (most importantly! - oil fields in Texas) Georgette Bauerdorf was killed in 1945 in her own pool. The offender raped her, and in order to drown out the screams of the victim, he pushed a towel down her throat, which led to asphyxia with a fatal outcome. Bauerdorf's death was never revealed.

On January 16, 1947, detectives found the first serious suspect in Elizabeth's murder. It was possible to find out that a certain Robert Manley very persistently pursued the deceased with his courtship and on the evening of January 8, 1947, took her away from a large company. Several people saw Manley put Elizabeth Short in his car. The girl did not return to the party and none of her friends saw her alive.

Robert Manley

A warrant was obtained for the arrest of Robert Manley, he was taken to the building of the police department and subjected to interrogation, which lasted more than two days. The suspect completely denied all charges; Manley insisted that he really intended to achieve intimacy with Elizabeth, but she rejected his claims. According to him, they rented a room in one of the motels, after which Elizabeth lay down in bed and stated that she did not feel well. She did not allow Manly to lie down next to her, and the discouraged Don Juan spent the night of January 9 sitting astride a chair. In the morning, the girl said that she should meet her sister at the Baltimore Hotel and asked her to take her there by car. Poor Manley, cursing everything in the world, took her to the hotel and parted from Elizabeth at 18.30 on January 9th.

Manley was twice tested on a polygraph, but in the end the police were convinced of his complete innocence. The staff of the Baltimore Hotel identified Elizabeth Short in the photographs presented. She really stayed in the hotel lobby until 21.00 and made several phone calls, after which she left in an unknown direction. No one was waiting for her and, of course, she did not meet with any sister for the simple reason that all of Elizabeth's sisters were in Massachusetts at that time. On January 18, Manley was released from custody.

During 1947, Los Angeles detectives seriously tested a total of 20 people who, for various reasons, could be suspected of being involved in the murder of Elizabeth Short. And in February 1948, luck smiled at them: an anonymous letter arrived from Florida, the author of which very colorfully described the circumstances of the murder of Elizabeth Short. The letter fell into the hands of detective John Paul de Rivera, who decided that before him was the fruit of the epistolary attempts of a real killer. It may seem surprising, but the detectives were able to trace the path of the letter and identify its author. It turned out to be a certain Leslie Dillon.

Last year he lived in Florida, but before that - in Los Angeles. At the time of Elizabeth Short's murder, Dillon was in California and could - theoretically at least! to commit this crime.

When this became known, the Los Angeles detectives decided to play a game with the suspect. A letter was sent to him, purporting to be from a recruiting company, in which Dillon was offered a high-paying job related to moving to another city. Dillon agreed. In order not to alert the suspect ahead of time, he was offered to come not to California, but to Nevada, a state neighboring California.

A whole team of Los Angeles police officers went to Nevada to arrest Dillon. This operation was actually illegal, since, according to American law, state police authorities cannot operate in the territories of other states. However, in this case it was decided to ignore this legal norm (in fact, the winners are not judged!). Fearing publicity, the Los Angeles detectives chose not to inform the Nevada police and acted at their own risk.

Poor Leslie Dillon was captured in a hotel room in Las Vegas and, like in a bad action movie, was taken out of Nevada in the back seat of a car, chained hand and foot. The police brought him to Los Angeles and placed him in one of the hotel rooms, where they began to intensively interrogate him. There was no warrant for his arrest, so without the scandalous publicity of the illegal arrest, he could not even be handed over to the police station.

It is difficult to say what would have been the fate of this man, but the inattention of the police guard helped him: Dillon managed to write a note while visiting the toilet: “Help, help! I'm being held in jail!" Then he threw it out the window. The note was picked up by a hotel worker and immediately reported the find to the police. It is not difficult to imagine what happened next - police patrols came in large numbers from the nearest site, which first blocked the hotel, and then took it by storm ...

The confusion was enormous. The city's police department was forced to admit that members of its homicide division had grossly violated a number of laws, both federal and local. Dillon, of course, was immediately released; the psychiatric examination carried out clearly showed that he was a schizophrenic. He learned about the murder of Elizabeth Short from a large publication in one of the Florida newspapers in February 1948. What he read made such a strong impression on him that he decided to help the police in the search and wrote a letter to California with his own thoughts about the circumstances of the crime. For that he paid.

Around the same time (i.e., late winter 1948), police officer John C. John, who until then had nothing to do with the investigation, told Sergeant Harry Hansen that an informant had given him information about a murder very similar to with the murder of Elizabeth Short. It turned out that some small-time criminal Al Morrison, in a state of drunkenness, talked about how he managed to lure a beautiful girl into his hotel room, whom he then raped, killed and dismembered. Sergeant Hansen was extremely interested in what he heard, because one detail gave credibility to the informant's story: according to him, the deceased wore a black ribbon around her neck, which the killer, who had destroyed the other clothes of the girl, left for himself as a keepsake. The investigation had information that Elizabeth Short on the evening of January 9 was wearing a black ribbon around her neck.

Police practice forbids the transfer of informants from one officer to another, so Sergeant Hansen himself did not have the opportunity to talk to the informant. However, he asked Jones to ask his informant as much as possible about this crime.

The informant found out that the place of the girl's murder, according to Al Morrison, was a small hotel on the corner of 31st and Trinity Streets.

Morrison allegedly invited the girl to his room and she agreed to go with him. In the room, she refused the offered liquor and stated that she did not expect Morrison to stay with her for the night. This angered the latter and he, knocking the guest to the floor, tried to rape her. As the girl began to scream, he stuffed her panties into her mouth and punched her in the head several times. Throwing a noose around the neck of his victim, he began to strangle her; in the process of struggle, he managed to commit anal intercourse with the girl. In the end, Morrison left the stunned girl on the floor and, after locking the door, went in search of a knife. Having obtained a butcher's knife in the kitchen, he returned to the room and struck the girl several times in the stomach. Pulling the panties out of the dying woman's mouth, he cut her mouth with a knife.

In order to dismember the corpse, Morrison moved it to the bathroom. After all the blood had gone down the drain, the killer cut open the body and washed it with water. There were no traces of blood left. Using a waterproof shower curtain and a tablecloth, in two steps he carried the dismembered body into the trunk of his car, on which he took him out.

The informer was presented with photographs of Los Angeles criminals, among whom he identified the so-called. Al Morrison. It turned out that Arnold Smith, who was repeatedly convicted, aka Jack Anderson Wilson, was hiding under this surname.

The accompanying orientation stated that this man was being interrogated as a suspect in the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf, already mentioned in this essay.

Sergeant Hansen immediately contacted Detective Joel Lesnik, who had been investigating Bauerdorf's murder. They discussed the totality of the newly discovered facts and agreed that the informant's reports were very plausible. In his story, the detail connected with the feature of strangulation by the criminal of his victim was especially captivating: he pushed rags down the throats of women in order to make them soak. In the case of Bauerdorf, he used a towel for this purpose, in the description of the murder of Elizabeth Short, panties were used as a gag.

The police decided to arrest Wilson-Smith-Morrison and received a warrant from the district attorney's office. There was little left to do: to find the criminal himself.

Morrison aka Smith
aka Wilson

The informant met him several times in different places, but the circumstances were such that he could not report the meeting to the police without arousing suspicion. In the end, the police advised him to play a small combination: at the next meeting, the informant asked Smith for a loan and offered to immediately agree on the time and place of the return. Smith gave the money, but refused a personal meeting and said how he should repay the debt: the money should have been brought to the bar he named and left with the bartender.

The proposed option suited the police quite well - surveillance posts were placed around the bar and the police staged a multi-day ambush. But then Providence intervened.

At first, information appeared in local newspapers that the police were on the trail of the killer of Elizabeth Short. It was then clarified that the warrant for the arrest of the suspect was obtained on the basis of tape recordings of a certain police informant from the criminal environment. The informant, they say, did not provide any evidence for his statements, but the prosecutor's office, on the basis of unfounded accusations, considered it possible to issue an arrest warrant. And soon the ubiquitous newspapermen were able to name the suspect - Smith.

In 2006, Brian De Palma's film "The Black Dahlia" was released, which received the title "Black Orchid" in the domestic box office. The localizers of the film probably decided that "orchid" was more appropriate for the girl's nickname than "dahlia", but this is how the original title of the picture is translated: "Black Dahlia".

The literary source of The Black Dahlia is the noir novel of the same name by James Ellroy.

The novel and the film are based on real events that shocked America more than 60 years ago and continue to excite the minds of both professional detectives and amateurs, not only in the United States, but throughout the world. As Brian De Palma said, "The British have Jack the Ripper, the Americans have the Black Dahlia."

Elroy in the book, followed by De Palma in the film, used the most implausible version of what happened in 1947 in Hollywood. As the director himself admitted: “This is not the story of Elizabeth Short. This is a film about those who “fell ill” with this crime.”

broken doll

She dreamed of becoming Hollywood star but did not act in any film. Only death gave her what she longed for in life - fame.

It all started with the fact that on January 15, 1947 in Los Angeles, at about 10.30 am, passing through the park along with her 3 summer daughter one Betsy Bersinger, noticed a disassembled mannequin in the grass at the corner of 39th Street and Norton Avenue. As she approached, she realized with horror that it was a human body. Shocked, she did not even see who it belonged to in life, a man or a woman.

The body was female. The girl's body was completely bled, neatly cut in two and scraped out inside. His face showed traces of multiple beatings, his mouth was cut from ear to ear, forming a terrible “smile”. AT abdominal cavity gaped deep wound. Later, a version arose that the killer used her for sex, since the anatomical features of the murdered girl were such that she was not capable of traditional sexual intercourse. However, most researchers agree that this is one of the many legends generated by journalists to give the story more dramatic effect.

According to experts, the deceased was not pregnant. They were inclined to believe that she did not live a regular sexual life at all. The vaginal canal was undeveloped. At the same time, the anus was enlarged and had a diameter of more than 3 cm. The characteristic abrasions of the skin around it suggested the posthumous introduction of a foreign object into the anus, which was subsequently removed by the criminal. As such, there was no rape of the deceased - and this was one of the most paradoxical conclusions of experts. There were no traces of semen on the body of the deceased. Another very surprising was the explanation of the mechanism of dismemberment of the body. It turned out that the perpetrator did not use a saw or an ax (which, in fact, would seem logical), instead he carefully cut the body with a long, very sharp instrument, possibly a surgical or butcher's knife.

The incision was one, its line passed along the cartilaginous disc between the second and third vertebrae lumbar; the accuracy and accuracy of the cut suggested both the possible medical and surgical training of the killer, and his extraordinary self-control.

Considerable difficulty for the experts caused the conclusion about the time of death. The body was heavily bled, and this, as you know, can greatly distort the accuracy of the assessment of the moment of death. In the end, it was decided that the murder took place about a day before the discovery of the body, that is, in the morning of January 14, 1947.
The very next morning after the discovery of the body, it was identified. Elizabeth Short was killed.

After examining the crime scene, the detectives came to the first conclusions:

The location where the body was found was not the site of the murder. The crime was committed in another place and the already dismembered body was brought the night before, that is, from January 14 to 15, 1947;
- the offender performed complex manipulations with his victim: he tied him up, cut him, washed off the blood. The latter required especially a lot of effort, since with the injuries that the deceased received, there should be a lot of blood. However, neither on the ground next to the body nor on the body itself was any blood found;

The killer did his best to make it difficult to identify the corpse. The disfigured face was disfigured by hematomas and bore little resemblance to what it was in life. No things that belonged to the murdered, documents, as well as clothes were found;
At the same time, the killer was not interested in concealing the crime. The dismemberment of the body was undertaken by him, most likely, for the purpose of ease of transportation. The detectives decided that the criminal's actions were not chaotic, but differed in consistency and were subject to a certain plan.

Who was Betty Short?

She was born July 29, 1924, in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, to Phoebe and Cleo Short. The family soon moved to Medford, Massachusetts.

Cleo Short

Betty with her mother Phoebe Short

betty schoolgirl

In 1929 Cleo disappeared. Many believed that he committed suicide, as his empty car was found near the bridge. However, Phoebe later received a letter from him in which he apologized for leaving, but Phoebe did not allow him to return.

At 19, Betty moved to Vallejo, California to live with her father. However, this did not last long - she failed to improve relations with her father.

After leaving her father, Betty went to Santa Barbara, where she was soon arrested for drinking. After that, she was urged by the police to return to Medford, but Beth returned to Hollywood. Like many girls then, and now too, she dreamed of becoming a movie star. However, it was not so easy. Short had to try many professions: from a dishwasher to a model in a department store, but the dream of becoming an actress remained just a dream.

Photos after the arrest

Short frequented nightclubs. She was looking for useful contacts and was very successful along the way. She liked to dance, she was attracted by the atmosphere that reigned there. Betty didn't like to be alone and never was alone if she didn't want to be.

But on the last day of December 1944, her playgirl lifestyle changed when she met a young man who was then said to be all testosterone, a major in the Flying Tigers.

In a letter to her mother, Betty wrote: “One New Year's Eve I met Major Matt Gordon. I'm sure I'm in love. He is wonderful, not like other men. And he asked me to marry him."

In the summer of 1945, when Beth decided to return home to Medford, her blouse wore a badge with the wings of American pilots. At this time, she became completely at home, preparing for the wedding, embroidering and sending letters to Matt in the Philippines.

After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, she completely calmed down - this meant that Matt would not die in battle. So when the Western Union messenger's bike stopped at the gate of Short's house, she ran out into the street, believing that she was in for a surprise news from Matt.

The letter the messenger gave her was indeed about Matt, but it wasn't from him, it was from his mother. She reported that Matt died in a plane crash while returning from India.

Betty's grief knew no bounds. She cried for days as she read and reread Matt's letters. After the onset of cold weather, she returned to Miami, with Matt Gordon's obituary, carefully packed in a suitcase.

In Miami, to distract from longing, Short staged a parade of men. She could be found in the company of soldiers and entrepreneurs, gangsters and Hollywood producers. And she was always popular with all of them. Her influence on men was simply hypnotic. When she walked down the street in high heels, in a black dress, with flowing raven hair, men whistled after her, offered to treat her to dinner, to which Betty often agreed. And that was the problem. Because she agreed to dinner and courtship, but no more.

Men paid for food, bar visits, car rentals, clothes. They gave her money.

Regardless of the money that her acquaintances lent her, Short earned a living as a waitress and spent almost all the money on her wardrobe. She said that it would be better to starve than to wear bad clothes. She always dressed with a needle and personified the 40s with her style.

In July 1946, she returned to Southern California to be with Joseph Flicking, a handsome Air Force lieutenant with sensuous dark eyes. They met in California two years ago, shortly before he was sent abroad. They had a rocky relationship from the very beginning. In numerous letters later seized by the police, Flicking expressed doubt that he occupied a higher place in Beth's heart than others.

Joseph Flicking

Probably, Betty could not - or did not want to - convince him of her love and they broke up. Flicking moved to North Carolina where he became a civilian pilot. However, they continued to keep in touch, and Joseph even sent her money, including $ 100 by bank transfer a month before Short's death. The last letter from Elizabeth Flicking received on January 8, 1947, that is, 7 days before her assassination. In it, Beth announced that she was going to go to Chicago, where she hopes to become a model.

For the last six months of her life, Elizabeth Short constantly moved from place to place, changing hotels, apartments, boarding houses and private houses in Southern California.

It is known that from November 13 to December 15, she lived in a cramped 2-room apartment in Hollywood with 8 other girls - waitresses, telephone operators and dancers, as well as visitors who hoped to get into show business.

Her neighbors told the LA Times after Short's death that she was unemployed at the time and was seen every night with a new "friend." “She went out every night to roam Hollywood boulevard,” they said.

There was something elusive in Short's life, she had no friends, neither men nor women. She preferred the company of strangers and the constant change of environment.

With an unknown friend

The last person to see her alive was Short's recent acquaintance, 25-year-old salesman Robert Manley. According to press reports, Betty got into Manley's car on a street corner in San Diego.

Suspects

At the very beginning of the investigation, after the identity of the murdered woman was established, the detectives found out that Elizabeth Short had very extensive acquaintances, including in the Hollywood party.

Among such acquaintances was, for example, Frenchot Tone, a major film producer, who, when presented with a photograph of Elizabeth Short, hastened to tell the police that he was trying to seduce the girl. However, according to him, nothing came of it. From Ton, the detectives heard a number of names of major Hollywood bigwigs with whom the deceased was on a short footing.

Mark Hansen, the owner of a whole network of nightclubs and cinemas, admitted that he was a good friend of the deceased and personally introduced Elizabeth to major film distributors. During interrogation, Hansen claimed that he did not have an intimate relationship with the deceased and did not persuade her to have sex. At the same time, he stressed that Elizabeth often behaved incorrectly with men, first inciting lust and giving ambiguous promises, and then, as if dousing with indifference and coldness. According to Hansen, the deceased was very much in line with the image of a vamp woman, mysterious and inaccessible. Because of her love of dressing in all black, Elizabeth received the nickname "Black Dahlia" ("Black Dahlia" - Black Dahlia), which she was very proud of. The nickname she got came from the famous Hollywood movie of the 40s "The Blue Dahlia" with Veronica Lake and Alan Ledd in the lead roles.

Very informative was the interrogation of a certain Barbara Lee, with whom Short rented an apartment. She said that before coming to Los Angeles, she worked as a model: in Massachusetts, she showed clothes in a large department store. Having appeared in Hollywood, the girl began to desperately fight for her place in the film Olympus: she agreed to all screen tests, starred in extras, and did not spare money for photographers. She had a gift for making useful contacts. She brilliantly demonstrated it, having met in the dining room of one of the film companies with Georgette Bauerdorf. This surname, by the way, said a lot to the Los Angeles police: the owner of a fantastic fortune, the owner of huge commercial real estate (most importantly! - oil fields in Texas), Georgette Bauerdorf was killed in 1945 in her own pool. The offender raped her, and in order to drown out the screams of the victim, he pushed a towel down her throat, which led to asphyxia with a fatal outcome. Bauerdorf's death was never revealed.

On January 16, 1947, detectives found the first serious suspect in Elizabeth's murder. It was possible to find out that a certain Robert Manley very persistently pursued the deceased with his courtship and on the evening of January 8, 1947, took her away from a large company. Several people saw Manley put Elizabeth Short in his car. The girl did not return to the party and none of her friends saw her alive.

Robert Manley

A warrant was obtained for the arrest of Robert Manley, he was taken to the building of the police department and subjected to interrogation, which lasted more than two days. The suspect completely denied all charges; Manley insisted that he really intended to achieve intimacy with Elizabeth, but she rejected his claims. According to him, they rented a room in one of the motels, after which Elizabeth lay down in bed and stated that she did not feel well. She did not allow Manly to lie down next to her, and the discouraged Don Juan spent the night of January 9 sitting astride a chair. In the morning, the girl said that she should meet her sister at the Baltimore Hotel and asked her to take her there by car. Poor Manley, cursing everything in the world, took her to the hotel and parted from Elizabeth at 18.30 on January 9th.

Manley was twice tested on a polygraph, but in the end the police were convinced of his complete innocence. The staff of the Baltimore Hotel identified Elizabeth Short in the photographs presented. She really stayed in the hotel lobby until 21.00 and made several phone calls, after which she left in an unknown direction. No one was waiting for her and, of course, she did not meet with any sister for the simple reason that all of Elizabeth's sisters were in Massachusetts at that time. On January 18, Manley was released from custody.

During 1947, Los Angeles detectives seriously tested a total of 20 people who, for various reasons, could be suspected of being involved in the murder of Elizabeth Short. And in February 1948, luck smiled at them: an anonymous letter arrived from Florida, the author of which very colorfully described the circumstances of the murder of Elizabeth Short. The letter fell into the hands of detective John Paul de Rivera, who decided that before him was the fruit of the epistolary attempts of a real killer. It may seem surprising, but the detectives were able to trace the path of the letter and identify its author. It turned out to be a certain Leslie Dillon.

The last year he lived in Florida, but before that - in Los Angeles. At the time of Elizabeth Short's murder, Dillon was in California and could - at least in theory! - to commit this crime.

When this became known, the Los Angeles detectives decided to play a game with the suspect. A letter was sent to him, purporting to be from a recruiting company, in which Dillon was offered a high-paying job related to moving to another city. Dillon agreed. In order not to alert the suspect ahead of time, he was offered to come not to California, but to Nevada, a state neighboring California.

A whole team of Los Angeles police officers went to Nevada to arrest Dillon. This operation was actually illegal, since, according to American law, state police authorities cannot operate in the territories of other states. However, in this case, it was decided to ignore this legal norm (in fact, the winners are not judged!). Fearing publicity, the Los Angeles detectives chose not to inform the Nevada police and acted at their own risk.

Poor Leslie Dillon was captured in a hotel room in Las Vegas and, like in a bad action movie, was taken out of Nevada in the back seat of a car, chained hand and foot. The police brought him to Los Angeles and placed him in one of the hotel rooms, where they began to intensively interrogate him. There was no warrant for his arrest, so without the scandalous publicity of the illegal arrest, he could not even be handed over to the police station.

It is difficult to say what would have been the fate of this man, but the inattention of the police guard helped him: Dillon managed to write a note while visiting the toilet: “Help, help! I'm being held in jail!" Then he threw it out the window. The note was picked up by a hotel worker and immediately reported the find to the police. It is not difficult to imagine what happened next - police patrols came in large numbers from the nearest section, which first blocked the hotel, and then took it by storm ...

The confusion was enormous. The city's police department was forced to admit that members of its homicide division had grossly violated a number of laws, both federal and local. Dillon, of course, was immediately released; the psychiatric examination carried out clearly showed that he was a schizophrenic. He learned about the murder of Elizabeth Short from a large publication in one of the Florida newspapers in February 1948. What he read made such a strong impression on him that he decided to help the police in the search and wrote a letter to California with his own thoughts about the circumstances of the crime. For that he paid.

Around the same time (i.e., late winter 1948), police officer John C. John, who until then had nothing to do with the investigation, told Sergeant Harry Hansen that an informant had given him information about a murder very similar to with the murder of Elizabeth Short. It turned out that some small-time criminal Al Morrison, in a state of drunkenness, talked about how he managed to lure a beautiful girl into his hotel room, whom he then raped, killed and dismembered. Sergeant Hansen was extremely interested in what he heard, because one detail gave credibility to the informant's story: according to him, the deceased wore a black ribbon around her neck, which the killer, who had destroyed the other clothes of the girl, left for himself as a keepsake. The investigation had information that Elizabeth Short on the evening of January 9 was wearing a black ribbon around her neck.

Police practice forbids the transfer of informants from one officer to another, so Sergeant Hansen himself did not have the opportunity to talk to the informant. However, he asked Jones to ask his informant as much as possible about this crime.

The informant found out that the place of the girl's murder, according to Al Morrison, was a small hotel on the corner of 31st and Trinity Streets.

Morrison allegedly invited the girl to his room and she agreed to go with him. In the room, she refused the offered liquor and stated that she did not expect Morrison to stay with her for the night. This angered the latter and he, knocking the guest to the floor, tried to rape her. As the girl began to scream, he stuffed her panties into her mouth and punched her in the head several times. Throwing a noose around the neck of his victim, he began to strangle her; in the process of struggle, he managed to commit anal intercourse with the girl. In the end, Morrison left the stunned girl on the floor and, after locking the door, went in search of a knife. Having obtained a butcher's knife in the kitchen, he returned to the room and struck the girl several times in the stomach. Pulling the panties out of the dying woman's mouth, he cut her mouth with a knife.

In order to dismember the corpse, Morrison moved it to the bathroom. After all the blood had gone down the drain, the killer cut open the body and washed it with water. There were no traces of blood left. Using a waterproof shower curtain and a tablecloth, in two steps he carried the dismembered body into the trunk of his car, on which he took him out.

The informer was presented with photographs of Los Angeles criminals, among whom he identified the so-called. Al Morrison. It turned out that Arnold Smith, who was repeatedly convicted, aka Jack Anderson Wilson, was hiding under this surname.

The accompanying orientation stated that this man was being interrogated as a suspect in the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf, already mentioned in this essay.

Sergeant Hansen immediately contacted Detective Joel Lesnik, who had been investigating Bauerdorf's murder. They discussed the totality of the newly discovered facts and agreed that the informant's reports were very plausible. In his story, the detail connected with the feature of strangulation by the criminal of his victim was especially captivating: he pushed rags down the throats of women in order to make them soak. In the case of Bauerdorf, he used a towel for this purpose, in the description of the murder of Elizabeth Short, panties were used as a gag.

The police decided to arrest Wilson-Smith-Morrison and received a warrant from the district attorney's office. There was little left to do: to find the criminal himself.

Morrison aka Smith
aka Wilson

The informant met him several times in different places, but the circumstances were such that he could not report the meeting to the police without arousing suspicion. In the end, the police advised him to play a small combination: at the next meeting, the informant asked Smith for a loan and offered to immediately agree on the time and place of the return. Smith gave the money, but refused a personal meeting and said how he should repay the debt: the money should have been brought to the bar he named and left with the bartender.

The proposed option suited the police quite well - surveillance posts were placed around the bar and the police staged a multi-day ambush. But then Providence intervened.

At first, information appeared in local newspapers that the police were on the trail of the killer of Elizabeth Short. It was then clarified that the warrant for the arrest of the suspect was obtained on the basis of tape recordings of a certain police informant from the criminal environment. The informant, they say, did not provide any evidence for his statements, but the prosecutor's office, on the basis of unfounded accusations, considered it possible to issue an arrest warrant. And soon the ubiquitous newspapermen were able to give the name of the suspect - Smith.

Although the mentioned surname was common, the very fact of its announcement could alert the alleged criminal and thus put the operation on the brink of failure. The informer became nervous and demanded that the police stop taking Smith, as this completely exposed him in the eyes of his friends from the criminal world. The police frantically began to prepare a different combination that did not threaten the informant with complications, but life decreed otherwise.

But life is often more sophisticated than any detective stories. Quite unexpectedly, information was received that Smith-Wilson had died: he burned down in his room at the Holland Hotel at the intersection of 7th and Columbia Streets, falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hands.

What happened looked like an imitation in order to get rid of police persecution, but a thorough check confirmed the preliminary information - Arnold Smith really burned down in the hotel room. All his belongings were destroyed in the fire, including those that could testify to the involvement of the deceased in the murder of Elizabeth Short.

In the United States, the question of whether Arnold Smith really was the killer of the Black Dahlia or was simply slandered by a police informant is still being actively discussed. By the way, the Los Angeles police hid the last name for decades. Only in 1981, after this man died, did the police name him - he turned out to be the recidivist thief Arnold Amit.

On the one hand, it seems very plausible that Elizabeth Short was the victim of some casual acquaintance (since her inner circle was thoroughly checked; all her acquaintances proved their alibi with absolute reliability). But on the other hand, the assumption that Elizabeth could go to the hotel with an obvious marginal Smith seems rather strained. The girl was not so naive as not to understand what communication with this person is fraught with, especially at night. Smith's account (as reported by police informer Amit) markedly contradicted the autopsy data. Firstly, the forensic doctors argued that there was no rape, and this assertion was in no way consistent with Smith's account. Secondly, from what Smith said, it was completely impossible to understand at what stage and why there were signs of compression on the victim's legs. Smith said that he strangled the girl with his hands and tied her wrists with a rope, but he did not mention anything about tying her feet. Meanwhile, the traces of foot binding were quite distinct and suggested that the perpetrator left his victim completely immobilized for some time (up to two hours).

It seems very plausible to assume that Smith killed some other girl, but not Elizabeth Short. In addition, the assumption of Smith's possible self-incrimination, if only for the purpose of bravado, of a "bandit force" in front of Amit, as criminals in Russia say, cannot be neglected. Finally, one more plausible assumption should not be overlooked: Smith never said anything about the murder at all and was simply slandered by Arnold Amit. It is difficult to say for what purpose such a slander followed, but settling scores through false denunciations in the criminal environment is by no means uncommon.

In general, an attempt to reconstruct the circumstances of the murder leads to completely unexpected results. Indeed, Elizabeth Short disappeared on the evening of January 9, 1947. She was killed - tentatively - in the morning of January 14. Even if we assume that the examination in determining the moment of death was mistaken by a day (and this is a rather large error!), It still turns out that Elizabeth Short spent several days (January 10, 11, 12 and, possibly, January 13, 1947) is unknown where and with whom. It could hardly be a shabby hotel with hourly rooms. What we know about Elizabeth Short reinforces the idea that this girl was very selective in dating. Elizabeth perfectly understood the difference between respectable men and a downtrodden bastard. She could go on a visit for a few days to a luxurious villa, but she certainly would not have stayed for 3 days in a brothel. There is no reason to believe that last days throughout her life she was forcibly kept in isolation. The fact that she ate normally at this time makes it seem that Elizabeth was not a prisoner.

But where could she spend those days? It had to be a house, or an estate outside the city, that is, a place where no one could see or hear Elizabeth. It is unlikely that she could live these days in a hotel and not attract attention to herself. She would definitely be remembered by neighbors and hotel staff. Since no information was received from the hotels of the city after the beginning of the investigation, this strengthened the assumption that Elizabeth Short did not visit the hotels of Los Angeles after January 9, 1947.

The detectives proceeded from the fact that Elizabeth Short could have been killed somewhere nearby, and the body parts carried to the intersection of Norton Avenue and 39th Street in her arms. This version seemed to be completely dead-end, since, in principle, the place of the murder could be located very far, but given that other versions had already disappeared by that moment, this option should also be checked.
Detectives' attention was quickly drawn to 3959 Norton Avenue, literally a block away from where Elizabeth Short's body was found. This building was acquired in 1946 by a married couple - Walter Alonzo Bailey and his wife Ruth. But the spouses did not have a chance to live in it - soon a series of troubles of a very specific nature fell upon their heads.

I must say that until the mid-1940s, Walter Bailey was the embodiment of respectability and success. He was chief physician at the Los Angeles County Hospital and had an extensive private practice. His office was located at 1052 West 6th Street - it was a prestigious area of ​​the city! In addition, Bailey worked at the University of Southern California, was admitted to lecture. It was a sin for such a person to complain about the lack of public recognition ...

But in 1946 his biography took a strange and unexpected zigzag. One of the doctor's employees reported sexual harassment on his part, and soon similar confessions followed from several more young nurses. The women complained of persecution, which Dr. Bailey indulged in with almost maniacal persistence. The information about his behavior looked so unsightly that Ruth Bailey left her husband, and his personal file was reviewed by the commission on professional ethics that existed under the medical department of the state government. In order to somehow smooth out the extremely negative impression that this whole story made, Walter Alonzo Bailey hurried to marry the young nurse Alexandra von Patrick. However, this clumsy maneuver did not save his reputation and career - the surgeon lost his place as head physician and was forced to resign from the university.

In January 1947, 3959 Norton Avenue was empty. That is why at first he did not attract the attention of detectives. However, at that time it was quite residential - they carried out repairs there and Bailey himself visited this address from time to time. So, this house could well be the place where the womanizer invited the objects of his addictions. Elizabeth Short could be in this house, first in the position of a guest, and when her intransigence aroused the wrath of the owner, the victim. For a high-class surgeon, which was Walter Bailey, cutting the human body was not the slightest difficulty. And if he really decided to kill Elizabeth Short in his new home, then getting rid of the body would not have been difficult for him. All these considerations seemed important to the investigators.

The investigation did not have the facts incriminating Walter Bailey, but the detectives expected to get them during the interrogation and search of the house. Alas! Reality overturned all their expectations. When the police arrived at Bailey's house for questioning, they saw a man turned into a living ruin: Alzheimer's disease turned this once strong man into a half-idiot. One look at him was enough to understand that not a single psychiatrist would recognize him as capable. And this meant that even if Bailey's guilt was established, it would be impossible to convict him.

Over the next half century, American historians put forward about 50 more or less reliable versions related to last days the life of Elizabeth Short and the circumstances of her death. A kind of mythology has developed around the image of this girl. AT different time assumptions were made and substantiated about the personal acquaintance of Elizabeth Short with cult figures of various American eras: Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, etc. (all these speculations have not received reliable confirmation). In April 2003, Dateline NBC aired a short video filmed by an amateur movie camera on September 2, 1945, which allegedly showed Elizabeth Short kissing a sailor on a Hollywood hill. This material was presented as a sensation, since it is believed that Short was not in Los Angeles that day. Thus, to this day, the most contradictory judgments clash around the circumstances of the life and death of this girl.

But in all this rich palette, it is impossible not to single out Steve Hodel's monumental study, first published in 1995. Its considerable volume - 460 pages - testifies to the depth of study of the material, and the biography of the author - a retired homicide detective - involuntarily encourages special attention refer to his point of view. And it is not just paradoxical, but downright sensational.

Steve Hodel claims in his book that he knows the name and surname of the killer Elizabeth Short. And not only her, but also 20 other girls killed over 30 years in several US states and the Philippines. They were all victims of the same serial killer. The serial killer's name was...

George Hodel. It was the father of Steve, the author of the book. The son accused his father of killing two dozen women with his book! Agree, such a collision can make the book sensational!
George Hodel was an extremely versatile man. He was a great musician, poet, he was endowed with a literary gift for words and for some time worked as a crime reporter. George's IQ was over 140, which means he could be. talk like a man on the verge of genius.

In financial matters, in an administrative career, he was invariably lucky. In 1938, he joined the Los Angeles City Government Department of Health. A year later, Hodel completed his postgraduate studies in the specialty "venereology" and immediately became the head of a department in the same Department. And a year later he opened a private venereal clinic.
It was a direction of medicine highly demanded by society. Before the mass introduction of penicillin, sexually transmitted diseases spread like epidemics in California. And because George Hodel did not live in poverty.

The father of the author of the book was a "women's walker". According to Steve Hodel, Elizabeth Short was also among the objects of his father's persecution. Steve submitted three photographs from the family album, which showed Elizabeth in the company of George Hodel. He killed her both because she refused him intimacy, and because by 1947 he had already had a chance to kill women and he felt the charm of this occupation.

In 1949, George Hodel got into a very unpleasant story that spoiled him a lot of blood. In October of this year, his 14-year-old daughter Tamar ran away from home and made a statement to the police about her father's sexual harassment, forced abortion, repeated orgies with prostitutes and her - Tamar Hodel - participation. In addition, the daughter stated that her father killed Elizabeth Short. Tamar referred to several people who allegedly could confirm the validity of her words. In particular, she asked to interrogate Corrin Tarin, Fren Sexton, Barbara Sherman. Tamar's statement compromised 19 people to one degree or another. The most serious accusations (except for George Hodel himself) concerned Francis Ballard, a well-known gynecologist in Los Angeles, who, allegedly, with the knowledge of his father, performed an abortion on Tamar Hodel in September 1949.
Steve Hodel assessed his sister's testimony as very serious and well-founded. The fact that Tamar blamed her father for the murder of Elizabeth Short, he sees an indirect confirmation of family traditions.
The trial that took place in December 1949 was sensational. Tamar's mother, Dorothy Hodel, accused her daughter of slandering her father and said that two years earlier she had gone to a psychiatrist to check the health of her daughter, who systematically lied. Dorothy claimed that Tamar was "uncontrollable and incorrigible".

Documents were presented in court, according to which George Hodel, at the very time when he allegedly raped his daughter, was recovering in a sanatorium after a severe heart attack. A total of 14 people spoke in defense of the accused; in addition to his wife, George was defended by his mother-in-law, half-brother, friends, etc. All the witnesses for the prosecution changed their testimony under oath.

The verdict of the court, issued on December 23, 1949, turned out to be unexpected: all the persons accused by Tamar Hodel were released from suspicion, while Tamar herself was declared the victim of deliberate manipulations by ... 22-year-old Barbara Sherman, one of the three witnesses for the prosecution. The latter was sentenced to 3 years of probation, in addition, she was officially forbidden to have any contact with Joseph Hodel's family members and his friends.

Stephen Hodel, examining the circumstances of this trial, stated in his book that the court became the victim of unscrupulous manipulations of his father. Detectives from the police department warned Joseph Hodel that his phone was wiretapped, they also carried out the necessary work with the witnesses, as a result of which they changed the testimony given in the preliminary investigation in court. Stephen Hodel referred to the opinions of some detectives who admitted the possibility of the murder of Elizabeth Short by his father and suggested that a thorough investigation of this version be carried out. These proposals were not heard, moreover, Tamar's statements related to Elizabeth Short were not mentioned at all at the trial. Although technically Joseph Hodel managed to get away with it, many people in Los Angeles were skeptical about the court verdict; around Hodel there was a situation of general alienation and he was forced to leave the city. For 30 years, he was engaged in importing exotic medicines from Asia to the United States, earned a lot of money in this business and returned to his hometown only in 1979. By this time, most of the participants in the 1949 process were no longer alive. Joseph Hodel died in 1999 in complete insanity, he did not even know that his son had written a book about him.
This is the story in brief, as told by Stephen Hodel. Of course, the appearance of such a study, moreover, operating with little-known or long-forgotten information, was accompanied by an explosion of public interest in the “Elizabeth Short case”. As is often the case a new version found both harsh critics and ardent supporters.

Los Angeles Police Department officer Brian Carr tried to examine the photographs submitted by Steve Hodel from the family album, which allegedly depicted Elizabeth Short. The examination did not give an unequivocal result - the quality of the images was such that reliable identification of the people depicted on them was not possible.

It should be noted that, in general, George Hodel did not really correspond to the psychological portrait of a serial killer. Severe injuries on the head of the deceased, her cut mouth, indicated the actions of a person who was in extreme anger (strictly speaking, not only a serial killer could act this way). If Elizabeth Short really killed a sex maniac, then the search psychological picture would make you look for a loser in Everyday life prone to routine work, possibly unskilled, seeking to realize himself through the humiliation of others. These similarities can be detailed, but it is clear that the intelligent and dexterous Joseph Hodel, successful in business and career, does not fit such a description.

Painting by Marilyn Manson

P.S. The murder of Elizabeth Short was the beginning of a change in California law. Now all sex offenders are subject to mandatory registration.

A photo

The terrible death of an American named Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, has passed for many years. However, the resonant murder still continues to arouse interest. The writer James Bartlet, who tells the story of the Black Dahlia, also became interested in her fate.

On the morning of January 15, when Betty Bersinger was walking with her little daughter through the new building area in Leimert Park, she noticed two halves of a tailor's mannequin, as she first thought.

But it wasn't a mannequin. Caution, we warn in the article there are photos that may shock you!

This beautiful 22-year-old brunette was last seen alive on January 9, 1947, in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Then few people paid attention to her, and even more so no one knew her name. But everything changed a week later, when the dismembered body of the girl was found in a vacant lot.

About Elizabeth Short found out and started talking all over America.

The short was neatly cut in half at the waist. All the blood was released, the internal organs were cut out, the mouth was cut from ear to ear with the "Glasgow smile", as it was first done in the criminal environment of the city. At the same time, the girl's body was thoroughly washed. And after that it was thrown into the wasteland.

After learning about this brutal, merciless murder, “gross, misogynistic and essentially ritual,” as former LAPD officer and now historian Glynn Martin said about him, the American press literally went crazy. During the investigation, more than 50 suspects, men and women, were interrogated, some of them even confessed to this crime. But the real killer was never found, which only added to the mystery of this story.

According to Glynn Martin, the death of Elizabeth Short in the minds of people has found a strong connection with Hollywood glamour, becoming a kind of "sad cliché, a warning story."

"Imagine an enthusiastic girl who comes to Hollywood dreaming of becoming an actress, but everything ends badly for her," says Martin.

The nickname also played its role, coined after the death of the girl by journalists by analogy with the film "The Blue Dahlia" released a year earlier, in which the main roles were played by Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Elizabeth's hair really did resemble that flower.

And then it began: they wrote about the Black Dahlia scientific work, created art projects, beat in video games and television shows. Even a death metal band was named after her.

In 2006, a film based on the best-selling book by James Ellroy was released, which, in turn, was inspired by the mysterious story of Elizabeth Short. (In the Russian box office, however, the film was called not "Black Dahlia", but "Black Orchid").

Ellroy himself says the culprit will never be named.

"This case will never be solved, because it was destined to be so from the very beginning," the writer believes.

One day, an old man declared that he was directly related to the Black Dahlia case.

"He said that as a boy he worked as a paperboy and one of the first to run to the scene of the crime. Before that, he had never seen naked women," says Cooper, "and that picture shocked him for the rest of his life."

The murder of Elizabeth Short, like the mysterious murders of the 19th century attributed to Jack the Ripper, continues to give rise to new theories.

Not so long ago, former investigator Steve Hodl, who specialized in investigating murders, said that the perpetrator was none other than his own father, a doctor by profession, who was responsible for other high-profile murders.

Allegedly, the bloodhound, who examined the former home of the Hodl family in 2013, smelled the smell of human remains. However, Short's body was found long ago.

“I was constantly asked to find literature on the Black Dahlia,” says Los Angeles Public Library senior photo librarian Christina Rice. “One day a woman came looking for maps from 1947 because she intended to use her clairvoyant gift to solve this murder.”

According to Rice, the only microfiche copy of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner for the second half of January 1947 was stolen from the library a year ago. By the way, Elizabeth was far from the only woman who died a violent death in California in the postwar years.

Once Short's body was discovered, the Los Angeles Herald-Express and the sensation-loving Los Angeles Examiner made full use of their friendly relations with the police department, which, however, was on friendly terms with all the local press.

In those days, it was customary to print photos of suicide notes and bloodied bodies on the front pages. There was also a photo of Short's naked body, however, the newspapers, as they would now say, "worked with Photoshop" and "covered" her with a blanket.

The Examiner did not hesitate to "correct" the story of the Black Dahlia by changing the description of the clothes that Elizabeth actually wore in her article. The newspaper wrote that the girl was in a tight skirt and blouse, hinting that she went in search of sexual adventures that ended badly for her.

The newspapers even went so far as to deceive Elizabeth's mother by telling her that Beth had won a beauty pageant. They brought Short's mother to Los Angeles, where they told the truth about the fate of her daughter and received an "exclusive": the mother's reaction to this tragedy.

Officially, Short's case is still open. And the Biltmore Hotel offers visitors a Black Dahlia cocktail, which includes vodka, raspberry-based Chambord and Kalua liqueur. The drink is very bitter, but in this case it is even appropriate.

As the portal "Know.ia" reported, Who turned out to be a terrible killer Jack the Ripper.

Murders. The culprit has not been named.

Hollywood history.
(online version*)

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Around 10:00 am on January 15, 1947, the Los Angeles Police Department's on-call service received a telephone message about the discovery of a dismembered human body at the intersection of Norton Avenue and 39th Street.

The first to arrive at the indicated address was a detachment consisting of policemen Frank Parkins and Will Fitzgerald. By a preliminary inspection of the scene and by interviewing witnesses, they established the following: the area at the intersection of Norton and 39th Street is not built up and is sparsely populated. In the grass, a few meters from the road, a completely naked female body, lying on the back and dissected in the waist into two parts; the arms of the corpse were raised and wound behind the head, the legs were wide apart. There were no traces of blood on the body and around it, the face bore traces of beatings, the mouth was torn to the ears. The report about the discovery of the corpse came from a certain Betty Basinger, who, along with her 3-year-old daughter, was heading to a shoe store for shopping. The deceased was unknown to her and did not live in the area; Basinger claimed that, until the appearance of the police, she did not even know whose body lay in the grass - male or female.
After receiving the first report from the scene, John Donahue, Chief of the Homicide Investigation Division of the City Police Department, assigned Sergeant Harry Hansen and Detective Finis Brown to investigate the murder.
By the time the detectives arrived at the site of the discovery of the dismembered body, a crowd of newspaper reporters and onlookers had already gathered there. The patrol officers clearly did a poor job of guarding the scene: the tracks around were hopelessly trampled, which caused the fury of Sergeant Hansen.


rice. 1-5: While examining the site of the discovery of a dismembered female body on Norton Avenue on January 15, 1947, a police photographer took several panoramic and detailed photographs.

After examining the location of the discovery of the body, the detectives came to the following conclusions:
a) The intersection of Norton Avenue and 39th Street was not the scene of the murder. The crime was committed elsewhere; the already dismembered body was brought here last night (that is, from January 14 to January 15, 1947);
b) the offender performed complex manipulations with his victim: he tied him up (this was indicated by rope marks on his ankles, wrists and neck), cut him, washed off the blood. The latter required especially a lot of effort, since with the injuries that the deceased received, the blood should be. be a lot. Meanwhile, neither on the body itself, nor on the ground next to it, traces of blood were found;
c) the killer obviously took care to make it difficult to identify the body. The face, disfigured by a torn mouth, was severely disfigured by monstrous hematomas and, apparently, looked little like what it was in life. No personal belongings, as well as documents, were found near the body. The clothes of the deceased were also missing. Hiding clothes made sense in only one case - in order to maximally interfere with the compilation of a verbal portrait of the deceased.
d) the killer was not at all interested in concealing the committed crime; the dismemberment of the body was undertaken in order to facilitate its transportation, and by no means out of a desire to get rid of it. The actions of the criminal were clearly not chaotic or meaningless, they were consistent and subject to a certain plan.
Sergeant Harry Hansen, in order to identify the body as soon as possible, decided to seek assistance from the US FBI. At that time, this organization already had the most complete fingerprint bank in the United States. It contained the fingerprints of more than one hundred and ten million people who violated federal law over the past 30 years, or who entered the public service during the same period. In addition to seeking help from the FBI, Hansen also sent the victim's fingerprint card to the California State Police Registration Department. A noteworthy nuance: in order to send a request to Washington (namely, the FBI headquarters were located there in 1947), the police had to turn to the newspaper for help - to transmit an enlarged image of fingerprints and palm prints, a telephoto camera was required, which the police department did not have at that time. Detective Brown used a telegraph camera owned by the Examiner newspaper.
Post-mortem examination was conducted by Dr. Newbarr and his assistant Si Falu.

rice. 6.7: An unidentified female body found on January 15, 1947 on Norton Avenue was taken to the mortuary the same day, where it was subjected to a forensic examination.
The immediate cause of the woman's death was "concussion followed by hemorrhage caused by blows to the face." It was stated that the deceased received a large number of blows to the head, which were grouped in the middle and upper thirds of the head in the occipital, parietal and facial parts.

rice. 8: Damage to the face of the deceased woman.
The deceased was not pregnant, moreover, she did not live a regular sexual life at all. The vaginal canal was undeveloped; Newbarr, when meeting with detectives, explaining his conclusion, said that he was inclined to think that the deceased was a virgin at all. At the same time, the anus was enlarged and had a diameter of more than 3 cm. The characteristic abrasions of the skin around it suggested the posthumous introduction of a foreign object into the anus, which was subsequently removed by the criminal. As such, there was no rape of the deceased - and this was one of the most paradoxical conclusions of experts; There were no traces of semen on the body of the deceased. Another very surprising was the explanation of the mechanism of dismemberment of the body. It turned out that the criminal did not use either a saw or an ax (which, in fact, would seem logical); instead, he carefully cut the body open with a long, very sharp instrument, perhaps a surgical or butcher's knife.

rice. 9: Diagram of the human spine from the American Medical Atlas. The segment A-A shows the location of the cut line.
There was only one incision, its line passed along the cartilaginous disc between the second and third lumbar vertebrae; the accuracy and accuracy of the cut suggested both the possible medical and surgical preparation of the killer, and his extraordinary self-control.
Considerable difficulty for the experts caused the conclusion about the time of death. The body was heavily bled, and this, as you know, can greatly distort the accuracy of the assessment of the moment of death. Newbarr eventually leaned towards the idea that the murder took place about a day before the discovery of the body, that is, in the morning of January 14, 1947.
Having received all the necessary information from the doctors, the detectives decided for the time being not to disclose the fact that the deceased was not raped. The fact that the body was found naked unwittingly suggested sexual assault as the most obvious result of the assault. Meanwhile, knowledge of the specific details of the injuries inflicted on the victim could be used to expose the perpetrator, or to expose self-incrimination. Therefore, for quite a long time in Los Angeles there was an opinion that the dismembered woman was raped.
Meanwhile, a request to the FBI made it possible to quickly identify the deceased. She turned out to be Elizabeth Short, who was born July 29, 1924 in the town of Hyde Park, Massachusetts.

rice. 10: Elizabeth Short. In Hollywood in the 40s, many knew her by the nickname "Black Dahlia".
In 1943, the girl worked as a cashier in the post office, located on the territory of the Camp Cook military base in California, and her fingerprints were taken during the admission process. That is why the fingerprint card of the deceased was in the archives of the US FBI.
The identification of the body made it possible to quickly move the investigation forward. From the mother of the deceased, who lived in the town of Medford, near Boston, good intravital pictures Elizabeth. The girl was very spectacular and this suggested her possible attempts to act in films. Los Angeles is the capital of the American film industry, thousands of beautiful girls from all over the USA came (and still come) to this city in order to make their career in Hollywood. Lucky, of course, only a few, but all applicants participate in screen tests and end up in the bottomless archives of Hollywood companies. Therefore, the decision to show photos of Elizabeth Short to employees of recruiting companies and modeling agencies looked quite logical.
The detectives expected immediate success. It turned out that many employees of Hollywood film companies knew the deceased well. Moreover, among the acquaintances of Elizabeth were people very famous in Hollywood.
Among them, for example, was Frenchot Ton, a major film producer, who, when presented with a photograph of Elizabeth Short, hurried to tell the police that he was trying to seduce the girl. However, according to him, nothing came of it. From Ton, the detectives heard a number of names of major Hollywood bigwigs with whom the deceased was on a short footing.
Mark Hansen, the owner of a whole network of nightclubs and cinemas, admitted that he was a good friend of the deceased and personally introduced Elizabeth to major film distributors. During interrogation, Hansen claimed that he did not have an intimate relationship with the deceased and did not persuade her to have sex. At the same time, he stressed that often Elizabeth behaved incorrectly with men, first inciting lust and giving ambiguous promises, and then, as if dousing with indifference and coldness. According to Hansen, the image of a vamp woman, intriguingly mysterious and inaccessible, was very much in line with the image of the deceased. Because of her love of dressing in all black, Elizabeth earned the nickname "Black Dahlia" ("Black Dahlia" - Black Dahlia), which she was very proud of. The nickname she received came from the famous Hollywood movie of the 40s "The Blue Dahlia" with Veronica Lake and Alan Ledd in the lead roles.
Another friend of Elizabeth Short - a certain Hal McGuire - spoke of Elizabeth's inherent demeanor with men as follows: "You quickly learned that you are not the one she has in mind. The same as if you got into a church . They often find themselves in very dangerous situations that end very badly for them, both in Russia and in the USA...)
Such stories, for all their entertainment, still did not answer questions related directly to the death of Elizabeth. In addition, it is well known that social life beautiful women often has little to do with everyday life. In this sense, the interrogation of a certain Barbara Lee, a woman with whom the deceased rented an apartment for a couple, turned out to be much more informative. Actually, it was to this woman that Elizabeth Short owed her first acquaintances in Hollywood.
Barbara Lee told the police that even before arriving in Los Angeles, Elizabeth Short had some experience as a model: in Massachusetts, she worked for a while, demonstrating clothes in a large department store. Having appeared in Hollywood, the girl began to desperately fight for her place in the film Olympus: she agreed to all screen tests, starred in extras, and did not spare money for photographers. She had a gift for making useful contacts. She brilliantly demonstrated it, having met in the dining room of one of the film companies with Georgette Bauerdorf. This surname, by the way, said a lot to the Los Angeles police: the owner of a fantastic fortune, the owner of huge commercial real estate (most importantly! - oil fields in Texas), Georgette Bauerdorf was killed in 1945 in her own pool. The offender raped her, and in order to drown out the screams of the victim, he pushed a towel down her throat, which led to asphyxia with a fatal outcome. Bauerdorf's death was never revealed.
After the first publications in California newspapers dedicated to the tragic death of Elizabeth Short, a man who identified himself as the father of the deceased unexpectedly appeared in Los Angeles. His appearance looked more than strange, given that none of Elizabeth's acquaintances knew anything about him: the girl repeatedly stated that her father had died. An inquiry to Medford and a police check on the spot gave a completely unexpected result.
It turned out that Elizabeth's parents - father Cleo and mother Phoebe - were very prosperous until the Great Depression of 1929. Cleo owned a very profitable golf equipment company, and his mother led the lifestyle of a wealthy housewife. collapse stock market ruined the family. Cleo, unable to bear the stress, committed suicide. So, anyway, everyone thought when in the fall of 1929 his empty car was found near the bridge. Phoebe formally declared bankruptcy and went to work as an usher in a movie theater. After some time, she trained as an accountant and managed to get a job as an assistant to the owner of a bakery. And although the former prosperity never returned to the Shorts' house, the mother was able to raise and put her four children on their feet. Meanwhile, her husband did not throw himself off the bridge - in 1934 he unexpectedly sent a letter from California and offered to restore the family. Phoebe could not forgive the treachery of her husband, who left her at a desperately difficult moment in her life, and refused to even meet with him.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Short has not forgotten that her father lives in sunny, God-blessed California. In 1943, at the age of 19, Elizabeth left the hateful miserable Medford and came to her father. He lived in the small town of Valleggio near San Francisco and worked as a civilian on the base navy on the island of Mar.
The relationship between daughter and father immediately went wrong. Already after the death of Elizabeth, her father said that her daughter was "lazy and untidy." Perhaps the way it really was, perhaps Elizabeth simply burdened her father - now it is difficult to judge this. But Cleo and Elizabeth Short very soon quarreled and broke up forever. The daughter, apparently, was only now able to understand the intransigence of her mother; Elizabeth Short did not forgive her father and struck him off the list of the living - since then she has told everyone that he died in a car accident.
When the Los Angeles detectives were convinced that the man who had come from Valleggio was indeed the father of Elizabeth Short, they offered him to identify the body and take it for burial. Cleo said that this is why he came to Los Angeles. But the identification with his participation unexpectedly failed: Cleo declared that the body presented did not belong to his daughter. This statement seemed very strange, since Elizabeth had already been identified by many of her Hollywood friends and girlfriends. A little more than three years have passed since the separation of Elizabeth and Cleo, during such a period the girl clearly could not change beyond recognition. In general, the behavior of Cleo Short seemed very strange to Harry Hansen and the sergeant called Elizabeth's mother, asking her to come to California as soon as possible to identify her daughter's body.
Meanwhile, on the evening of January 16, 1947, detectives came to the first serious suspect in the murder of Elizabeth. The detectives managed to find out that a certain Robert Manley very persistently pursued the deceased with his courtship and on the evening of January 8, 1947 took her away from a large company. Several people saw Manley put Elizabeth Short in his car; the girl did not return to the party and - moreover! - none of her friends saw her alive.
A warrant was obtained for the arrest of Robert Manley, he was taken to the building of the police department and subjected to interrogation, which lasted more than two days. The suspect completely denied all charges; Manley insisted that he really intended to achieve intimacy with Elizabeth, but she rejected his claims. According to him, they rented a room in one of the motels, after which Elizabeth lay down in bed and stated that she did not feel well. She did not allow Manly to lie down next to her, and the discouraged Don Juan spent the night of January 9 sitting astride a chair. In the morning, the girl said that she should meet her sister at the Baltimore Hotel and asked to be taken there by car. Poor Manley, cursing everything in the world, took her to the hotel and parted from Elizabeth at 18.30 on January 9th.
Manley was twice checked on a polygraph, but in the end, the police were convinced of his complete innocence. Staff at the Baltimore Hotel identified Elizabeth Short in the photographs provided; she really stayed in the hotel lobby until 21.00 and made several phone calls, after which she left in an unknown direction. No one was waiting for her and, of course, she did not meet with any sister for the simple reason that all of Elizabeth's sisters were in Massachusetts at that time. On January 18, Manley was released from custody.
The information received at the Baltimore Hotel was to be considered very important for another reason. After Elizabeth left the hotel (recall that this happened on the evening of January 9, 1947), no one else saw her alive. Meanwhile, an autopsy showed that the intestines of the deceased were filled with processed foods. This meant that until the day of her death, Elizabeth Short continued to receive food. Police practice shows that sex offenders in the case of kidnapping victims usually do not feed their captives. Even if we assume that the death of Elizabeth Short followed on January 13 (that is, a day earlier than the officially recognized date of death), it still turned out that she remained at large for several days. However, the police were never able to establish where and with whom Elizabeth Short spent the last days of her life after January 9, 1947.
Throughout the second half of January, Los Angeles newspapers placed on their pages publications dedicated to Elizabeth Short and her death. Interest in the crime turned out to be, so. pretty warm. When the sisters of the deceased arrived in Los Angeles on the 20th of January and her mother, they were met by a whole army of journalists, eager for exclusive interviews and unusual details of the deceased’s personal life. Recall: in the interests of the investigation, the police did not disclose information that Elizabeth Short did not live a sexual life, and therefore in most newspaper publications they wrote about the deceased as a girl of easy virtue, except that they did not call her a prostitute. It is clear that such interest to the relatives of the deceased was unpleasant and even directly offensive. During their stay in Los Angeles, Elizabeth Short's relatives did not give a single interview; The press was not allowed to attend the funeral, which took place at Oakland Mountain Cemetery. However, the writing brethren soon got wind of exactly where the burial was made and a real invasion of pilgrims began at the grave of Elizabeth Short. In the end, in order to protect the grave from vandalism, the cemetery administration had to change the division of the territory into sections and their numbering. (In the process of preparing this essay, the author happened to see two tourists discussing this issue on an English-language forum: one of them wrote that, knowing the site number - 938 Vostochny - he went around the entire cemetery, but did not find the grave of Elizabeth Short, the second, in response to this, told where this is what you should look for and described the landmarks, emphasizing that the current breakdown into sections does not correspond to the original one).
Los Angeles detectives, of course, did not fail to personally interrogate Elizabeth Short's relatives when they appeared in the city. The information received from them gave an impetus to the investigation in a new direction.
Elizabeth was literally obsessed with the idea of ​​​​marrying a military pilot - this was claimed by all her relatives. It is difficult to say what fueled such girlish romanticism - the shape of the pilots or the amount of their pay - but after parting with her father in 1943, Elizabeth went to work at the Camp Cook military base in California. By the way, it was then that she was fingerprinted. There were many military pilots at Camp Cook, and therefore work at the post office seemed unusually attractive to Elizabeth. At the local beauty contest, 19-year-old Elizabeth won first place, which earned the hatred of other applicants for male hearts. The base command was followed by several complaints about the behavior of Elizabeth Short and the girl had to quit.
In September 1944, Elizabeth left Camp Cook and headed for Santa Barbara. There she met Air Force Lieutenant Gordon Fickling. Elizabeth Short was ready to marry him, but the lieutenant did not propose. He went to fight in Europe, strengthening the "second front" with his heroism, and the potential bride was left with a sense of uncertainty about her future. However, there were other military pilots in Santa Barbara. With a group of young pilots, Elizabeth Short ended up in an unpleasant story: a military patrol detained cheerful company for drinking alcohol and disturbing the peace. Elizabeth, extremely frightened by what had happened, left California and returned to her family in Madford. In December 1944, she went to stay with her aunt in Miami, where, in new year's eve Met Air Force Major Matt Gordon. A stormy - but platonic! - a novel and Gordon went to India in February 1945, keeping a photograph of his bride Elizabeth Short under his heart. An active correspondence arose between the lovers, which, however, contained quite a bit of meaning. The most significant thing about it was that Matt and Elizabeth decided to marry in October 1945.
The wedding did not take place. Gordon died on his way back from India in a plane crash.
The incident had a rather peculiar effect on Elizabeth. Since that time, communicating with men, she sometimes began to talk about her unsuccessful marriage and the birth of a dead child. Enough unusual fantasy for a virgin! In addition, the agility of the potential bride did not decrease at all and she showed great perseverance in the "development" of potential suitors. Elizabeth Short managed to find Gordon Fickling (whose job in Europe she did not know) and give him a letter.
A lively correspondence arose between them, during which Elizabeth was able to convince Gordon of the tender feelings that he allegedly awakened in her. The young man did not think to ask why these tender feelings calmly hibernated whole year and have only now emerged. Gordon Fickling perked up and asked his superiors for a short vacation to travel to the States; for 2 days he came to Chicago, and Elizabeth also came there. She was gentle, romantic, cheerful and spontaneous, but she flatly refused the courageous lieutenant in intimacy. It is not difficult to understand what a vivid range of feelings the valiant defender of the American sky experienced! He was discouraged and felt betrayed in his expectations. It was worth flying across the Atlantic to eat ice cream and sleep with a pretty girl in different motel beds!
When the Los Angeles detectives learned of Elizabeth Short's behavior with Lieutenant Fickling, they immediately wanted to check his alibi. Not every man could dispassionately endure the manner of communication that Elizabeth imposed on her boyfriends! However, the response to a request sent to the Pentagon was discouragingly brief: during January 1947, Lieutenant Fickling did not leave the location of his unit in Germany, which means that he could not have committed an assassination on the other side of the globe.
On January 28, 1947, an envelope with an incorrectly indicated address was detained at the post office. At the top of the envelope was handwritten: "The Los Angeles Examiner and Other Editions", below were two inscriptions made from newspaper letters. They read: "This belongs to Dahlia" and "a letter follows."
Inside the strange envelope were: Elizabeth Short's birth certificate, her social security card, three photos of the deceased, half a dozen business cards with different names, a notebook that belonged to Mark Hansen with a lot of names and phone numbers, and a note typed from words cut from newspapers . The text read "So young! I will make him like I did the Black Dahlia" and the caption "Avenger for the Black Dahlia".

rice. 11: Anonymous photograph signed "Avenger for the Black Dahlia".
The arrow pointed to a photograph of a man's face, which was handwritten: "next." The meaning of this message was rather vague. It was difficult to understand what exactly the author wanted to express. Many American historians have racked their brains to give any plausible interpretation of this collage.
Within a few days, it was possible to find out that the anonymous person used a photograph of 17-year-old Armand Robles. This young man was from a family of British Jews who had emigrated to Palestine. He had relatives in the USA (it was they who identified him in the photograph), but he himself had never been to America and had nothing to do with Elizabeth Short. Undoubtedly, the anonymous note was made in order to disorient the police in their search for her. It is possible that the author of this letter was indeed the perpetrator who killed Elizabeth Short, although this has never been proven. The police, despite their best efforts, have been unable to trace the path by which the Robles photograph fell into the hands of an anonymous person.

rice. 12: Photograph of 17-year-old Armand Robles and his mother in the Herald Express, January 31, 1947.

Upon careful examination of the sent notebook by Mark Hansen, it became clear that the last four pages had been neatly torn out of it.
The first thing that came to mind was that all the things sent were at the time of the murder under Elizabeth Short. It's impossible to imagine her giving away her social security card or birth certificate to anyone. On the other hand, these documents might. stolen from her before the murder. But in this case, a random robber or thief could not get their hands on Mark Hansen's notebook. It is highly unlikely that Short and Hansen were robbed at the same time; in any case, Mark did not report anything of the kind during interrogation by the police. The person who sent this letter clearly expected to cast a shadow on Hansen, and he partially succeeded. but at the same time, such a premise indirectly indicated that Hansen did not commit the murder of Elizabeth Short.
During interrogation by the police, Mark Hansen admitted that the notebook really belonged to him, but he could not explain in any way how it could have ended up in the wrong hands along with the documents of the deceased woman. Detectives interrogated Hansen very seriously, hoping to get a confession that he was robbed, but the producer did not make any confessions. Good legal support helped him avoid unscrupulous police tricks and, in the end, the investigators released Hansen.
Only a year later, Mark Hansen's mistress - a certain Ann Ton - told the police that the producer had indeed been robbed in December 1946. Then his notebook and a large amount of cash were stolen from him. The thief turned out to be... Elizabeth Short. Hansen was furious at what had happened and told people he met and crossed how the coquette had betrayed his trust. But when Short was found murdered a month later, Hansen instantly realized that he could easily turn into a suspect if he continued to talk too much. Therefore, when the detectives began to make inquiries about the disappearance of the notebook, Mark began to refer to forgetfulness and did not recognize the fact of theft.
Time passed. During 1947, Los Angeles detectives seriously tested a total of 20 people who, for various reasons, could be suspected of being involved in the murder of Elizabeth Short. And in February 1948, luck smiled at them: an anonymous letter arrived from Florida, the author of which very colorfully described the circumstances of the murder of Elizabeth Short. The letter fell into the hands of detective John Paul de Rivera, who decided that before him was the fruit of the epistolary attempts of a real killer. It may seem surprising, but the detectives were able to trace the path of the letter and identify its author. It turned out to be a certain Leslie Dillon.
The last year he lived in Florida, but before that - in Los Angeles. At the time of Elizabeth Short's murder, Dillon was in California and could - at least in theory! - to commit this crime.
When this became known, the Los Angeles detectives decided to play a game with the suspect. A letter was sent to him, purporting to be from a recruiting company, in which Dillon was offered a high-paying job related to moving to another city. Dillon agreed. In order not to alert the suspect ahead of time, he was offered to come not to California, but to Nevada, a state neighboring California.
A whole team of Los Angeles police officers went to Nevada to arrest Dillon. This operation was actually illegal, since, according to American law, state police authorities cannot operate in the territories of other states. However, in this case, it was decided to ignore this legal norm (in fact, the winners are not judged!). Fearing publicity, the Los Angeles detectives chose not to inform the Nevada police and acted at their own risk.
Poor Leslie Dillon was captured in a hotel room in Las Vegas and, like in a bad action movie, was taken out of Nevada in the back seat of a car, chained hand and foot. The police brought him to Los Angeles and placed him in one of the hotel rooms, where they began to intensively interrogate him. There was no warrant for his arrest, so without the scandalous publicity of the illegal arrest, he could not even be handed over to the police station.
It is difficult to say what would have been the fate of this man, but the inattention of the police guard helped him: Dillon managed to write a note while visiting the toilet: "Help, help! I am being kept in prison!" Then he threw it out the window. The note was picked up by a hotel worker and immediately reported the find to the police. It is not difficult to imagine what happened next - police patrols came in large numbers from the nearest section, which first blocked the hotel, and then took it by storm ...
The confusion was enormous. The city's police department was forced to admit that members of its homicide division had grossly violated a number of laws, both federal and local. Dillon, of course, was immediately released; the psychiatric examination carried out clearly demonstrated that he was a schizophrenic. He learned about the murder of Elizabeth Short from a large publication in one of the Florida newspapers in February 1948. What he read made such a strong impression on him that he decided to help the police in the search and wrote a letter to California with his own thoughts about the circumstances of the crime. For that he paid.
Around the same time (i.e., late winter 1948), police officer John C. John, who until then had nothing to do with the investigation, told Sergeant Harry Hansen that an informant had given him information about a murder very similar to with the murder of Elizabeth Short. It turned out that some small-time criminal Al Morrison, in a state of drunkenness, talked about how he managed to lure a beautiful girl into his hotel room, whom he then raped, killed and dismembered. Sergeant Hansen was extremely interested in what he heard, because one detail gave credibility to the informant's story: according to him, the deceased wore a black ribbon around her neck, which the killer, who had destroyed the other clothes of the girl, left for himself as a keepsake. The investigation had information that Elizabeth Short on the evening of January 9 was wearing a black ribbon around her neck.
Police practice forbids the transfer of informants from one officer to another, so Sergeant Hansen himself did not have the opportunity to talk to the informant. However, he asked Jones to ask his informant as much as possible about this crime.
The informant found out that the place of the girl's murder, according to Al Morrison, was a small hotel on the corner of 31st and Trinity Streets.

rice. 13: Modern photograph of the building at the corner of 31st and Trinity Streets in Los Angeles, which in 1947 was a hotel. Perhaps this is where Elizabeth Short was killed.
Morrison allegedly invited the girl to his room and she agreed to go with him. In the room, she refused the offered liquor and stated that she did not expect Morrison to stay with her for the night. This angered the latter and he, knocking the guest to the floor, tried to rape her. As the girl began to scream, he stuffed her panties into her mouth and punched her in the head several times. Throwing a noose around the neck of his victim, he began to strangle her; in the process of struggle, he managed to commit anal intercourse with the girl. In the end, Morrison left the stunned girl on the floor and, after locking the door, went in search of a knife. Having obtained a butcher's knife in the kitchen, he returned to the room and struck the girl several times in the stomach. Pulling the panties out of the dying woman's mouth, he cut her mouth with a knife.
In order to dismember the corpse, Morrison moved it to the bathroom. After all the blood had gone down the drain, the killer cut open the body and washed it with water. There were no traces of blood left. Using a waterproof shower curtain and a tablecloth, in two steps he carried the dismembered body into the trunk of his car, on which he took him out.
The informer was presented with photographs of Los Angeles criminals, among whom he identified the so-called. Al Morrison. It turned out that Arnold Smith, who was repeatedly convicted, aka Jack Anderson Wilson, was hiding under this surname.

rice. 14: Morrison, aka Smith, aka Wilson.
The accompanying orientation stated that this man was being interrogated as a suspect in the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf, already mentioned in this essay.
Sergeant Hansen immediately contacted Detective Joel Lesnik, who had been investigating Bauerdorf's murder. They discussed the totality of the newly discovered facts and agreed that the informant's reports were very plausible. In his story, the detail connected with the feature of strangulation by the criminal of his victim was especially captivating: he pushed rags down the throats of women in order to make them soak. In the case of Bauerdorf, he used a towel for this purpose, in the description of the murder of Elizabeth Short, panties were used as a gag.
The police decided to arrest Wilson-Smith-Morrison and received a warrant from the district attorney's office. There was little left to do: to find the criminal himself.
The informant met him several times in different places, but the circumstances were such that he could not report the meeting to the police without arousing suspicion. In the end, the police advised him to play a small combination: at the next meeting, the informant asked Smith for a loan and offered to immediately agree on the time and place of the return. Smith gave the money, but refused a personal meeting and said how he should repay the debt: the money should have been brought to the bar he named and left with the bartender.
The proposed option suited the police quite well - surveillance posts were placed around the bar and the police staged a multi-day ambush. But then Providence intervened.
At first, information appeared in local newspapers that the police were on the trail of the killer of Elizabeth Short. It was then clarified that the warrant for the arrest of the suspect was obtained on the basis of tape recordings of a certain police informant from the criminal environment. The informant, they say, did not provide any evidence for his statements, but the prosecutor's office, on the basis of unfounded accusations, considered it possible to issue an arrest warrant. And soon the ubiquitous newspapermen were able to give the name of the suspect - Smith.
Although the mentioned surname was common, the very fact of its announcement could alert the alleged criminal and thus put the operation on the brink of failure. The informer became nervous and demanded that the police stop taking Smith, as this completely exposed him in the eyes of his friends from the criminal world. The police frantically began to prepare a different combination that did not threaten the informant with complications, but life decreed otherwise.
But life is often more sophisticated than any detective stories. Quite unexpectedly, information was received that Smith-Wilson had died: he burned down in his room at the Holland Hotel at the intersection of 7th and Columbia Streets, falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hands.

rice. 15: Contemporary photograph of the former Holland Hotel where Smith-Morrison-Wilson died.
What happened looked like an imitation in order to get rid of police persecution, but a thorough check confirmed the preliminary information - Arnold Smith really burned down in the hotel room. All his belongings were destroyed in the fire, including those that could testify to the involvement of the deceased in the murder of Elizabeth Short.
That. the end of this criminal story was open. In the United States, the question of whether Arnold Smith really was the killer of the "Black Dahlia" or whether he was simply slandered by a police informant is still being actively discussed. By the way, the Los Angeles police hid the last name for decades. Only in 1981, after this man died, did the police name him - he turned out to be the recidivist thief Arnold Amit.
On the one hand, it seems very plausible that Elizabeth Short was the victim of some casual acquaintance (since her inner circle was thoroughly checked; all her acquaintances proved their alibi with absolute reliability). But on the other hand, the assumption that Elizabeth could go to the hotel with an obvious marginal Smith seems rather strained. The girl was not so naive as not to understand what communication with this person is fraught with, especially at night. Smith's account (as reported by police informer Amit) markedly contradicted the autopsy data. Firstly, the forensic doctors argued that there was no rape, and this assertion was in no way consistent with Smith's account. Secondly, from what Smith said, it was completely impossible to understand at what stage and why there were signs of compression on the victim's legs. Smith said that he strangled the girl with his hands and tied her wrists with a rope, but he did not mention anything about tying her feet. Meanwhile, the traces of foot binding were quite distinct and suggested that the perpetrator left his victim completely immobilized for some time (up to two hours). Third, Smith allegedly claimed to have killed his victim with multiple stab wounds to the stomach. The autopsy, however, unequivocally stated the death of Elizabeth Short from head bruises, while the wounds on the abdomen were not recorded at all.
It seems very plausible to assume that Smith killed some other girl, but not Elizabeth Short. In addition, the assumption of Smith's possible self-incrimination, if only for the purpose of bravado, of a "bandit force" in front of Amit, as criminals in Russia say, cannot be neglected. Finally, one more plausible assumption should not be overlooked: Smith never said anything about the murder at all and was simply slandered by Arnold Amit. It is difficult to say for what purpose such a slander followed, but settling scores through false denunciations in the criminal environment is by no means uncommon.
In general, an attempt to reconstruct the circumstances of the murder leads to completely unexpected results. Indeed, Elizabeth Short disappeared on the evening of January 9, 1947. She was killed - tentatively - in the morning of January 14. Even if we assume that the examination in determining the moment of death was mistaken by a day (and this is a rather large error!), It still turns out that Elizabeth Short spent several days (January 10, 11, 12 and, possibly, January 13, 1947) is unknown where and with whom. It could hardly be a shabby hotel with hourly rooms. What we know about Elizabeth Short reinforces the idea that this girl was very selective in dating. Elizabeth perfectly understood the difference between respectable men and a downtrodden bastard. She could go on a visit for a few days to a luxurious villa, but she certainly would not have stayed for 3 days in a brothel. There is no reason to believe that the last days of her life she was kept in isolation by force. The fact that she ate normally at this time makes it seem that Elizabeth was not a prisoner.
But where could she spend those days? It had to be a house, or an estate outside the city, that is, a place where no one could see or hear Elizabeth. It is unlikely that she could live these days in a hotel and not attract attention to herself. She would definitely be remembered by neighbors and hotel staff. Since no information was received from the hotels of the city after the beginning of the investigation, this strengthened the assumption that Elizabeth Short did not visit the hotels of Los Angeles after January 9, 1947.

Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia (July 29, 1924 - January 15, 1947) was the victim of an unsolved crime that occurred around Los Angeles in 1947. The murder of Elizabeth Short was and remains one of the most brutal and mysterious crimes committed in the United States.

Life

Elizabeth Short, raised with four sisters by her mother in Massachusetts, moved at age 19 to Los Angeles, California, to her father, who left the family, with whom, however, she did not have a relationship. After a short wandering, Short moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested for drinking alcohol as a minor and sent back to Massachusetts. For the next few years, she lived mainly in Florida, where she earned money as a waitress.

In Florida, she met US Air Force Major Matthew M. Gordon, Jr., whom she told her friends about as her fiancé: Gordon himself was on a flight exercise in India, from where Short wrote letters. One way or another, the marriage plans were not destined to come true, since Gordon died in a plane crash on August 10, 1945 before he could return to the United States and marry Short.

Short later claimed that she and Gordon were already married at the time of his death, and that they had a child who died in infancy. The fact of the engagement was at least confirmed by Gordon's colleagues; however, Gordon's family has strongly denied Gordon's connection to Elizabeth Short ever since her murder took place.

In 1946, Short returned to California to see her former lover, Lieutenant Gordon Fickling, whom she had met in Florida. For the remaining six months of her life, she remained in southern California, mostly in Los Angeles, staying in countless hotels, rented apartments and private homes, never staying anywhere for more than a couple of weeks.

Elizabeth Short was last seen alive on January 9, 1947, in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. At that time, Short was 22 years old.

Death

On January 15, 1947, the mutilated body of Elizabeth Short was found on a derelict property along South Norton Avenue in Leimert Park, near the city limits of Los Angeles. The body was cut into two parts in the waist area and dismembered (the external and internal genital organs, as well as the nipples, were removed). The woman's mouth was cut open from ear to ear.

The killer of Elizabeth Short was never found by the police, and the Black Dahlia case remains unsolved to this day. Short herself was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, and not in Massachusetts (because her elder sister lived in Berkeley and because, in her words, "Elizabeth loved California").

"Black Dahlia"

Immediately after the discovery of the body of Elizabeth Short, a number of people contacted the police, stating that they had seen the girl in the period between her last appearance in public on January 9 and the discovery of her body. However, each time it turned out that the witnesses mistakenly took other women for Short (none of those who contacted the police knew Short during her lifetime).

The media, which widely covered the crime, reported that Short, shortly before her death, received the nickname "Black Dahlia" (a kind of play on the then popular movie "The Blue Dahlia" with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in the lead roles). The Los Angeles police have repeatedly stated that the press invented this story only in order to "brighten" the name of the murder case in their articles. In confirmation of these words, people who knew Short during her lifetime had never heard of such a nickname for her.

In addition, according to an official statement from the District Attorney of the City of Los Angeles, and contrary to numerous quasi-documentary investigations that called the victim a "call girl", Elizabeth Short was not a prostitute.

Another popular myth was Short's allegedly undeveloped genitals from birth, as a result of which she was not able to have sexual intercourse. Los Angeles District Attorney's file contains interrogation transcripts three men with whom Short had a sexual relationship (including one police officer from Chicago). The final materials of the case indicate that Short had "normally developed reproductive organs." The results of the autopsy also stated the fact that at the time of the murder, Short was not pregnant (and also, in principle, did not become pregnant and did not give birth).

The investigation into the murder of the "Black Dahlia" by the Los Angeles police with the involvement of the FBI became the longest and largest in history law enforcement USA. Due to the complexity of the case, the operatives of the original investigation team took on suspicion every person who knew Elizabeth Short in one way or another.

Several hundred people turned out to be suspects, several thousand were interrogated. The sensational and sometimes completely falsified reports of the journalists who covered the investigation, as well as the horrifying details of the crime committed, attracted close public attention. About 60 people confessed to this murder (among them several women). 22 people in different periods investigations were declared to be the killers of Elizabeth Short.

Life after death

The famous author of detectives James Ellroy based on the murder of Elizabeth Short wrote in 1987 the novel "The Black Dahlia". This book was the first of his L.A. Quartet, describing the mores of Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as the corruption and depravity that reigned there.

In 2006, a big-budget film adaptation of Ellroy's novel under the same name was released on the screens of the world (in the Russian box office, the name was changed to The Black Orchid). Directed by Brian De Palma. In the role of Elizabeth Short - famous television actress Mia Kirshner. Popular actors Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, as well as two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank starred in the rest of the roles.

In 2002, rock singer Marilyn Manson released a series of watercolor paintings based on the Short murder.

The murder of the "Black Dahlia" was reflected in numerous references in music: songs about the Black Dahlia were sung by artists such as Anthrax, Lamb of God, Lisa Marr, Bob Belden, "Hollywood Undead". There is also a death metal band called The Black Dahlia Murder.

In August 2006, Variety reported that New Line Cinema had acquired film rights to another book about the Black Dahlia murder, a novel titled Black Dahlia Avenger written by Los Angeles private detective Steve Hodel. According to his own investigation, Short's real killer was Hodel's own father, who after his death left his son a photo album, where one of the photographs depicted the torn body of Elizabeth Short. Hodel tried to trace the father's connection to the victim and concluded that he was a serial killer and that Short was not the only one among his victims. No specific release date for the film has yet been announced. It is also known that Kevin Spacey and Johnny Depp became interested in the project.