The Black Dahlia

It's a cautionary tale for every young woman who comes to Hollywood with a dream. It's been called the murder that changed Los Angeles. Betty Short was an aspiring young actress from Massachusetts. She was the perfect stereotype of what you might call prey. She was attractive, young and naive. The year was 1946. 22 year old Elizabeth Short moved to Los Angeles from Massachusetts with visions of fame. She was not a hooker like many in the press claimed. She did dating for dinner which was popular in those days. She was outgoing and beautiful which may have ultimately led to her demise. She was a woman who was trying to survive in a very difficult time in a very difficult place. On the evening of January 14th 1947 Betty Short headed out for a night on the town. Short's mutilated remains were found six days later in a vacant lot by a young Mother who thought at first that it was a department mannequin. It was on of the most grusome slayings in Hollywood history.

Her mutilated body told a gruesome story. Her mouth had been sliced into a gruesome smile. Her nude body had been cut cleanly in half and drained of blood as if a Vampire had been involved. Her body had been placed on boards on top of a bathtub. The ankles had been tied together and her hands had been tied to the faucet handles. She was not absolutely dead when the killer cut the body in half. The killer obviously got off on the fact that he was torturing her and he derived a lot of pleasure out of dropping the body off where it would be found very quickly in a shocking manner. It's about the most heinous thing that you could do to a woman. They knew from the way she was cut in half that whoever killed her had surgical skills. It was evident from the lack of blood that Betty was killed elsewhere and dumped at the scene. But by whom and for what reason? It's open and there are street lights and people live a block away from where she was dumped.

Nobody was looking to hide this body, in fact it would appear that they wanted it to be found. From the start the LAPD was overwhelmed. This was at a time when crime scene investigation was in its infancy. There was a lot of crime scene contamination by people walking on the scene. Police were left with very few leads. Thousands of people were questioned but no credible suspects emerged. The LA Press labeled the raven haired Betty, "The Black Dahlia" because she always dressed in Black and wore flowers in her hair. Since 1947 more than 500 people have confessed to the murder. Police don't believe any of them. There is now nothing left of the physical evidence to compare today. If that evidence were available today they could try to do the DNA thing but that day has long since passed. Ironically, through her gruesome death, Betty Short achieved the fame that had so eluded her in life.

The Black Dahlia represents the sickest kind of murder where you have a victim isn't just killed but is also tortured and desecrated. Nobody has ever seen anything like it in the history of Hollywood which is why it still remains the most brital unsolved crime in Hollywood history.