True Crime Collection

The Black Dahlia

Elizabeth Short was born on 29th July, 1924, in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Massachusetts, the 3rd of 5 daughters of Cleo and Phoebe May Short. Around 1927, the Short family relocated to Portland, Maine, before settling in Medford, Massachusetts the same year. This is where Elizabeth was raised and spent most of her life. Elizabeth's father built miniature golf courses until the 1929 stock market crash, when he lost most of his savings and the family became broke. In 1930, her father's car was found abandoned on tje Charlestown Bridge, and it was assumed that he had committed suicide by jumping into the Charles River. Believing her husband to be deceased, Elizabeth's mother moved with her 5 daughters into a small apartment in Medford and worked as a bookkeeper to support them.

Troubled by bronchitis and severe asthma attacks, Elizabeth underwent lung surgery at age 15, after which doctors suggested she relocate to a milder climate during the winter months to prevent further respiratory problems. Elizabeth's mother then sent her to spend winters in Miami, Florida with family friends. During the next 3 years, Elizabeth lived in Florida during the winter months and spent the rest of the year in Medford with her mother and sisters. In her sophomore year, Elizabeth dropped out of Medford High School.

In late 1942, Elizabeth's mother received a letter of apology from her presumed deceased husband, which revealed that he was in fact alive and had started a new life in California. In December, at age 18, Elizabeth relocated to Vallejo to live with her father, whom she had not seen since she was 6 years old. At the time, he was working at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Fransisco Bay. Arguments between Elizabeth and her father led to her moving out in January 1943. Shortly after, she took a job at the Base Exchange at Camp Cooke, near Lompoc, living with several friends, and briefly with an Army Air Force sergeant who reportedly abused her. Elizabeth left Lompoc in mid 1943 and moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested on 23rd September, 1943, for underage drinking at a local bar. The juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford, but she returned instead to Florida, making only occasional visits to Massachusetts.

While in Florida, Elizabeth met Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer at the 2nd Air Commando Group. He was training for deployment to the China Burma India Theatre of Operations of World War II. Elizabeth told friends that Matthew was recovering from injuries from a plane crash in India. She accepted his offer, but Matthew died in a second crash on 10th August, 1945, less than a week before the surrender of Japan ended the war.

She relocated to Los Angeles in July 1946 to visit Army Air Force Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickling, whom she had known from Florida. Joseph was stationed at the Naval Reserve Air Base in Long Beach. Elizabeth spent the last 6 months of her life in Southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area; shortly before her death, she had been working as a waitress, and rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. Elizabeth has been variously described and depicted as an aspiring or "would-be" actress. According to some sources, she did in fact have aspirations to be a film star, though she had no known acting job or credits.

On 9th January, 1947, Elizabeth returned to her home in Los Angeles after a brief trip to San Diego with Robert "Red" Manley, a 25 year old married salesman she had been dating. Robert stated that he dropped Elizabeth off at the Biltmore Hotel located at 506 South Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, and that Elizabeth was to meet her sister, who was visiting from Boston, that afternoon. By some accounts, staff of the Biltmore recalled having seen Elizabeth using the lobby telephone. Shortly after, she was allegedly seen by patrons of the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge at 754 South Olive Street, approximately 0.4 miles away from the Biltmore Hotel.

On 15th January, 1947 the naked body of Elizabeth Short was found at Leimert Park in Los Angeles California. A woman who was walking with her 2 year old daughter through a park when she saw what she thought was an abandoned mannequin. She soon realised that the body was a corpse and grabbed her daughter running for the nearest phone to call the police.

Elizabeth Short's body had been cut in half at the waist and her blood had been drained out. Her face had been cut from the corners of her mouth to her ears to give her what people would call today the "Joker smile". There were numerous cuts and bruises on her breast and thighs because of whole sections of skin that had been removed. Her body had apparently been washed by her killer. An autopsy showed that she had ultimately been killed because of lacerations and a haemorrhage on her head due to blows to her face.

After it had happened close to 50 men and women went to the LAPD claiming to be the killer, this made it very hard for police to determine the culprit. There were numerous suspects throughout the years, but there was never enough evidence to charge anyone. There were multiple theories on the murder and how it could've been linked to other murders. Some detectives believed that the same person that committed the Cleveland Torso Murders also killed Elizabeth Short. Another theory at the time was that Elizabeth's murder was linked to the Lipstick murders. Many believe that the main reason that the murder was unsolved was because of the media's interference in the investigation. Officers and detectives stated that reporters were walking over evidence and withholding information that they received from calls to their offices. At one point the reporters were in the LAPD station and were just freely answering phones that could've been tips for the investigation and withholding the information.

Elizabeth Short received the name the "Black Dahlia" as a play on words of the popular movie at the time called the Blue Dahlia. The name was created and popularised by the media and news reporters. A main misconception that was produced by many writers at the time was that she was a call girl, but there was no evidence of that.

The Black Dahlia murder is one of the most infamous unsolved murder cases in the world. The gruesome nature of the crime helped bolster its infamy. Over the years new evidence has been found, many still believe that it is a murder that will never be solved.