Latest / The conspiracy / The Black Dahlia: Who Really Killed Elizabeth Short?

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The Black Dahlia: Who Really Killed Elizabeth Short? · The conspiracy

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Speaker 1: Thank you to PDS Debt for supporting this channel. In
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Speaker 1: another world, Elizabeth Short might have quietly slipped through history's fingers.
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Speaker 1: She was just one more hopeful woman drawn west by
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Speaker 1: Hollywood's glittering promises. Arriving in a city known for breaking
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Speaker 1: more hearts than it ever made stars. Another waitress rehearsing
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Speaker 1: lines between shifts, believing deeply in the widespread lies that
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Speaker 1: Los Angeles told dreamers desperate enough to listen. But fate
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Speaker 1: had different, darker plans. Because Elizabeth Short became immortal. Not
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Speaker 1: remembered for her charm or... the dream she chased, but
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Speaker 1: tragically defined by the brutality of her death. But before
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Speaker 1: the headlines labeled her the Black Dahlia, before her name
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Speaker 1: became synonymous with mystery and unspeakable violence, she was simply Betty. Crime, conspiracy, cults,
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Speaker 1: serial killers, and murder, all things that I love to consume,
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Speaker 1: and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, intellectually beautiful-minded...
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Speaker 1: And today we are talking about one of the most
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Speaker 1: infamous cold cases in all of history. And that is
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Speaker 1: the case of the Black Dahlia, otherwise known as Elizabeth Short.
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Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach
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Speaker 1: 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust
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Speaker 1: through the windshield into this cold case together. So on
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Speaker 1: July 29th, 1924, Phoebe Mae Sawyer Short delivered her third
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Speaker 1: daughter into the world, teetering on the edge of prosperity
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Speaker 1: and collapse. And Elizabeth Ann Short entered life as the
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Speaker 1: middle child among five sisters, Virginia Mae, Dorothea, Elizabeth, Elnora,
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Speaker 1: and a little Muriel yet to come. And their father,
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Speaker 1: Cleo Alvin Short Jr., had invested everything into a miniature
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Speaker 1: golf course business during the recreational boom of the 1920s.
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Speaker 1: What a coincidence. What a cool business. Can you imagine
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Speaker 1: your dad being a recreational miniature golf course business owner?
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Speaker 1: I love mini golf. But in October, 1929, everything would
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Speaker 1: change because the stock markets would collapse and obliterate anyone's dream,
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Speaker 1: including Cleo's miniature golf business. So his business would crumble
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Speaker 1: and then the weight of feeding five daughters and a
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Speaker 1: wife just became unbearable for him. So on a cold
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Speaker 1: morning in December of 1930, six-year-old Elizabeth Short woke up
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Speaker 1: to find her mother weeping at the kitchen table. And
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Speaker 1: she would tell her daughter that daddy's car had been
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Speaker 1: discovered abandoned at the Charleston Bridge, doors open and keys inside.
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Speaker 1: There was no note and no body. Just a 1926
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Speaker 1: Model T Ford sitting empty above the dark waters of
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Speaker 1: the Charles River. And police would assume it was a
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Speaker 1: slewer slide. And Phoebe, wanting to shelter her daughters from
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Speaker 1: the knowledge of their father committing that, told them that
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Speaker 1: their father simply drowned. So the family would have a
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Speaker 1: memorial service for a man whose body was never found
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Speaker 1: and whose death would later prove to be the first
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Speaker 1: of many lies that shaped Elizabeth Short's life. So Phoebe
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Speaker 1: Short would move her and her five daughters to a
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Speaker 1: cramped Medford, Massachusetts apartment, working as a bookkeeper while neighbors
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Speaker 1: whispered about the widow with too many mouths to feed.
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Speaker 1: And that's when Elizabeth's childhood would become a series of
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Speaker 1: doctor's visits and sleepless nights, because she developed severe asthma
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Speaker 1: that would actually seize her lungs without warning, leaving her
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Speaker 1: gasping while her sisters watched in complete terror. And bronchitis
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Speaker 1: would follow, each infection just weakening her respiratory system further.
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Speaker 1: So the medical bills just consumed what little money Phoebe had.
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Speaker 1: And Elizabeth would learn really early on in life that
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Speaker 1: her existence just cost too much. And at 15, doctors
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Speaker 1: would recommend surgery to remove part of her lung tissue.
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Speaker 1: So she would have the surgery, but that procedure would
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Speaker 1: leave deep scars across her back and a deeper understanding
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Speaker 1: that her body would always betray her. And the recovery
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Speaker 1: required her to be in bed for months on end.
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Speaker 1: So during this time, she would read movie magazines and
4:01
Speaker 1: just dream of a place where the air itself didn't
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Speaker 1: completely drown her lungs. And that's when doctors would recommend
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Speaker 1: that she actually moved to a warmer climate. And as
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Speaker 1: her mother, Phoebe, later told reporters, quote unquote, Betty was
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Speaker 1: a sophomore when she left high school in Medford. She
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Speaker 1: had asthma. Every winter, she would go south to Florida
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Speaker 1: as a waitress. Then she would come back home in
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Speaker 1: the summer. So Elizabeth began spending her winters in Florida
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Speaker 1: with relatives, breathing easier among palm trees and orange groves.
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Speaker 1: So the seasonal relocations kind of taught her to live
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Speaker 1: like a migrant, never fully settling anywhere and never calling
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Speaker 1: any place home. So at this point in her life,
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Speaker 1: high school kind of became impossible because she was moving
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Speaker 1: so much. And Elizabeth's absences multiplied as her health problems persisted.
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Speaker 1: So at 16, she would drop out entirely and her
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Speaker 1: formal education ended before it truly even began. So she
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Speaker 1: would spend most of her teenage years just reading ferociously,
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Speaker 1: educating herself through magazines and library books while her healthy
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Speaker 1: sisters pursued normal adolescence experiences. So she was kind of
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Speaker 1: left in the dark for the most part of her childhood.
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Speaker 1: But during this time, she just absorbed Hollywood gossip columns
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Speaker 1: like scripture, memorizing the names and romantic entanglements of screen
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Speaker 1: goddesses who seemed to breathe rarefied air. And it was
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Speaker 1: during these years where she thought to herself that she
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Speaker 1: could maybe be one of those women. So December of
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Speaker 1: 1942 would come around and it would redefine everything in
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth's life because a letter would arrive from Vallejo, California.
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Speaker 1: And the handwriting looked familiar, but impossible, like correspondence from
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Speaker 1: a ghost. Because by reading this letter, she would find
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Speaker 1: out that her father, Cleo Short, hadn't actually drowned in
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Speaker 1: the Charles River 12 years earlier. He had just walked
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Speaker 1: away from his debt and his wife and his five
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Speaker 1: daughters without even looking back. So while his family mourned
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Speaker 1: and struggled through the depression, Cleo had been living in
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Speaker 1: the California shipyards. So Elizabeth, being shocked as ever, would
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Speaker 1: write back to her father, expressing her desire to visit
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Speaker 1: and care for him. And Cleo would later say that
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Speaker 1: he sent his daughter $ 200, and in December of 1942,
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Speaker 1: 18-year-old Elizabeth made her way down to Vallejo, California to
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Speaker 1: reunite with her father that she once believed had been
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Speaker 1: dead for the past 12 years. And perhaps another girl
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Speaker 1: would have refused such a cruel reunion. But Elizabeth, however,
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Speaker 1: saw opportunity wrapped up in betrayal. Because her health still
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Speaker 1: demanded warm weather, and her prospects in Massachusetts remained pretty bleak.
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Speaker 1: No offense to Massachusetts. And California represented the closest she
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Speaker 1: would ever get to Hollywood without buying a bus ticket
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Speaker 1: to nowhere. So what did she have to lose, really?
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Speaker 1: You know, her father had already stolen her childhood. At
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Speaker 1: least now she could steal something back. So Elizabeth's train
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Speaker 1: would pull into Vallejo, carrying her possessions in two battered
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Speaker 1: suitcases and a head full of Hollywood fantasies. And at
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Speaker 1: 18 years old, Elizabeth possessed ethereal beauty. Pale skin, large eyes,
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Speaker 1: and dark hair that caught sunlight. But the reunion with
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Speaker 1: Cleo Short lasted long enough for both parties to realize
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Speaker 1: their big mistake. Because 12 years of separation had created
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Speaker 1: strangers who shared only genetics and mutual disappointment. Sounds like
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Speaker 1: my father. Ha ha ha. I don't want to talk
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Speaker 1: about it. Anyway, within the months, father and daughter reached
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Speaker 1: an unspoken agreement, really, and that was that they would
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Speaker 1: pretend to be family while actively avoiding each other. Again,
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Speaker 1: very simple. Well, my dad didn't pretend to be dead
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Speaker 1: for 12 years, so she does have that on me,
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Speaker 1: that's for sure. I wouldn't put him past him, though.
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Speaker 1: So eventually, Elizabeth would move out of her father Cleo's
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Speaker 1: house and support herself by waitressing and the occasional kindness
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Speaker 1: of men who found her mysteriously intriguing. because she would
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Speaker 1: tell different stories to different men. And sometimes her father
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Speaker 1: was dead and sometimes he was alive. She just kind
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Speaker 1: of like felt it out to see what kind of
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Speaker 1: story she would make up. And sometimes her health problems
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Speaker 1: would even disappear or multiply depending on the sympathy required
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Speaker 1: in the moment. So her background shifted from tragedy to
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Speaker 1: triumph as the situation demanded. Because at this point in
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Speaker 1: her life, truth became a luxury she just couldn't afford.
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Speaker 1: And the lies came very naturally because Elizabeth had learned
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Speaker 1: from a master, which was her father, the guy who
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Speaker 1: pretended to be dead for 12 years. But it was
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Speaker 1: during this time period that she would meet Major Matthew Gordon,
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Speaker 1: who was an Air Force officer with kind eyes and
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Speaker 1: genuine affection for the mysterious girl who seemed to drift
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Speaker 1: through his life. like smoke. And for perhaps the only
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Speaker 1: time in her adult life, Elizabeth allowed herself to believe
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Speaker 1: in permanence. And they would become engaged. But then came
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Speaker 1: the telegram. And it would say that Major Gordon's plane
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Speaker 1: had crashed during training exercises just days before the war's end. Oh, just... heart-wrenching, horrible, terrible.
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Speaker 1: This girl's dad was dead for 12 years, popped up,
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Speaker 1: is an asshole, and then she gets engaged, and then
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Speaker 1: he dies days before he's supposed to return. She just
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Speaker 1: literally could not catch a break. It was just another death,
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Speaker 1: another abandonment, and just another reason to stop trusting in
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Speaker 1: happy endings. So Elizabeth's response to losing Major Gordon revealed
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Speaker 1: the pattern that would define her remaining years, and that
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Speaker 1: was when life became unbearable, she simply left. She would
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Speaker 1: go to California, Florida, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Texas. So Elizabeth
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Speaker 1: Short just became this beautiful ghost haunting bus stations and
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Speaker 1: diners across America, staying long enough to catch her breath
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Speaker 1: before moving on. But the constant movement served multiple purposes,
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Speaker 1: because new environments couldn't suffocate her like familiar places. And
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Speaker 1: fresh starts meant fresh stories and clean slates. And most importantly,
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Speaker 1: staying in motion meant she never had to admit that
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Speaker 1: she was kind of going nowhere in life at this point.
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Speaker 1: And it was during these wandering years that Elizabeth perfected
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Speaker 1: the art of survival through charm and mystery. She would
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Speaker 1: learn which sad stories produced meals and which smiles earned
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Speaker 1: bus fares and which promises could be made without the
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Speaker 1: intention of keeping them. And her beauty just opened doors,
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Speaker 1: whereas her damaged health and tragic backstory kept them open
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Speaker 1: long enough to rest. So the pattern of intimacy followed
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Speaker 1: by abandonment just became a signature dance of hers. And
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Speaker 1: by July of 1946, she would be 22 years old
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Speaker 1: and she would face a choice between finding stability or
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Speaker 1: accepting permanent defeat. So she would give California a chance
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Speaker 1: once more. And this time, it would be different, she
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Speaker 1: would tell herself. This time, she would stay long enough
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Speaker 1: to make something happen. But as we know, she would
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Speaker 1: unfortunately be wrong. So in July 1946, Elizabeth Short would
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Speaker 1: step off the bus at Hollywood & Vine with $ 20
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Speaker 1: to her name and infinite belief in her own transformation.
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Speaker 1: And she would find a room behind the Florentine Gardens
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Speaker 1: nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. and she would be close enough
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Speaker 1: to hear music and laughter that represented everything she wanted
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Speaker 1: to become. And Elizabeth would make the rounds every aspiring
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Speaker 1: actress knew by heart, which was studio gates, casting calls,
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Speaker 1: and auditions that led to nowhere. Because Hollywood at this point,
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Speaker 1: and honestly now, operated on connections she didn't possess, and
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Speaker 1: talent she had not yet developed. So without training, experience,
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Speaker 1: or influential friends, her chances were essentially zero, especially in
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Speaker 1: this day and age. But Elizabeth Short had never required
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Speaker 1: realistic expectations to fuel her dreams, so she continued pursuing
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Speaker 1: auditions while working as a waitress. And her beauty would
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Speaker 1: attract attention, and that attention came mostly from men with
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Speaker 1: money and influence. So she would date frequently, but briefly,
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Speaker 1: moving from suitor to suitor. So the financial pressure was
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Speaker 1: mounting steadily. And with rent required as a regular payment
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Speaker 1: and food costs that she did not possess, she actually
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Speaker 1: began staying overnight with various men. Not necessarily for romance,
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Speaker 1: but just for basic survival. Because with these men, she
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Speaker 1: had a warm bed, a hot meal, and a temporary
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Speaker 1: reprieve from poverty's grinding demands. And it was during this
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Speaker 1: period where her clothing and her whole wardrobe basically turned
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Speaker 1: predominantly black. And whether this represented genuine fashion preferences or
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Speaker 1: practical necessity remains unclear. Maybe dark colors hid stains better
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Speaker 1: than light ones. That's why I wear them. Or black
12:07
Speaker 1: outfits could transition from day to night with minimal alteration.
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Speaker 1: There's many theories, but what we do know is that
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Speaker 1: the nickname, the Black Dahlia, emerged sometime during these final months.
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Speaker 1: but through its exact origin remains disputed. Some people also
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Speaker 1: say it could have come from her dark wardrobe matched
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Speaker 1: with her dark raven-like hair, and others suggested it's because
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Speaker 1: she had a habit of disappearing like shadows. And a
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Speaker 1: few even connected it to the 1946 film The Blue Dahlia,
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Speaker 1: starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. But the name captured
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Speaker 1: something essential about Elizabeth Short during her Hollywood period. Just beautiful, mysterious,
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Speaker 1: and tinged with darkness that people found simultaneously attractive and... unsettling.
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Speaker 1: So January 1947 arrived with unusual rain and growing desperation.
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Speaker 1: Because at this point, Elizabeth's financial situation deteriorated beyond casual
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Speaker 1: concern into genuine crisis. And her friends back in San
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Speaker 1: Diego reported that she seemed frightened during her final visits.
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Speaker 1: constantly looking over her shoulder as if she was expecting
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Speaker 1: some kind of pursuit from someone. And that's when something changed.
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Speaker 1: Because the confident drift that had sustained Elizabeth through years
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Speaker 1: of uncertainty had transformed into panicked flight. And she actually
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Speaker 1: spoke of hiding from someone, but she never revealed details
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Speaker 1: about it. So the mysterious nature that served as her
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Speaker 1: trademark became... desperate secrecy. And on July 9th, 1947, Robert
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Speaker 1: Red Manley drove Elizabeth from San Diego to Los Angeles,
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Speaker 1: dropping her at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA. And
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Speaker 1: she would carry a small suitcase with her and she
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Speaker 1: would promise him that she would stay in touch. So
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Speaker 1: Red would say goodbye and watch her walk into the
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Speaker 1: hotel's ornate lobby. But after that, No one can say
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Speaker 1: with certainty what happened during the next six days. Because
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short had vanished completely. And the hotel had no
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Speaker 1: record of her registration. And friends received no phone calls.
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Speaker 1: And the men who'd previously provided temporary shelter heard nothing
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Speaker 1: from her. So it was six days of absolute mystery.
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Speaker 1: Until the morning of January 15th, 1947. What a case
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Speaker 1: So on the morning of January 15th, 1947, Betty Bersinger
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Speaker 1: walked south on Norton Avenue in Leimert Park with her
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Speaker 1: three-year-old daughter, Anne, heading to collect her husband's work boots
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Speaker 1: from the repair shop. The vacant lot between 39th and
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Speaker 1: Coliseum Streets had become part of the neighborhood landscape, which
16:04
Speaker 1: was another empty space waiting for post-war development. And Betty
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Speaker 1: had passed it countless times without a second glance. But
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Speaker 1: at 10 a.m. this morning, something pale in the weeds
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Speaker 1: caught her eye. And her first thought involved practical annoyance,
16:18
Speaker 1: because she thought someone had just dumped another piece of
16:20
Speaker 1: furniture in the lot. And she thought probably a mannequin
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Speaker 1: from a downtown department store, broken and discarded like so
16:27
Speaker 1: much of post-war America's access. So Betty would approach the object.
16:31
Speaker 1: And the pale object would lay about 30 feet from
16:34
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, positioned too deliberately for casual dumping though. So
16:38
Speaker 1: as she drew closer, impossible details started to emerge. And
16:43
Speaker 1: that was that the mannequin had real hair. And the
16:46
Speaker 1: hair was black and lustrous and spread across the dirt.
16:50
Speaker 1: And it also had actual human flesh. Flesh that was
16:53
Speaker 1: alabaster white against the dark brown earth. And the truth
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Speaker 1: that would haunt Betty for the rest of her life
16:59
Speaker 1: was that this wasn't a mannequin at all. And Betty's
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Speaker 1: daughter Anne would later recall her mother's scream as the
17:05
Speaker 1: loudest sound she's ever heard. But the screaming came second.
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Speaker 1: Because Betty's first instinct was premonition. protection, and she would
17:12
Speaker 1: grab Anne and lift her away from the site completely,
17:15
Speaker 1: shielding the child's eyes while her own mind struggled to
17:18
Speaker 1: process what actually lay before them. And that thing was
17:21
Speaker 1: a woman's body bisected at the waist with surgical precision,
17:26
Speaker 1: with the upper half positioned 12 inches north of the
17:29
Speaker 1: lower half, arms raised above the head in a grotesque
17:33
Speaker 1: parody of ballet. And her legs were also spread in
17:37
Speaker 1: a V formation that suggested both vulnerability and display. And
17:42
Speaker 1: this positioning was just too deliberate for accident. It was
17:46
Speaker 1: too theatrical for impulse. Someone had arranged this corpse like
17:50
Speaker 1: a macabre art installation, ensuring maximum visual impact for whoever
17:55
Speaker 1: discovered it first. So Betty would run to the nearest
17:58
Speaker 1: house pounding on the door until neighbors answered and let
18:01
Speaker 1: her use the phone. And her hysterical call to police
18:04
Speaker 1: would take several attempts to decipher. And she would say,
18:07
Speaker 1: quote unquote, there's a body in the lot. A woman.
18:09
Speaker 1: She's been cut in half. so, so, it's just horrifying.
18:17
Speaker 1: And like, I can't even imagine coming across that with
18:20
Speaker 1: the daughter. Oh, it's a nightmare. So the desk sergeant
18:23
Speaker 1: initially assumed he was dealing with some sort of domestic
18:26
Speaker 1: disturbance or perhaps even a neighborhood prank because dismembered corpses
18:30
Speaker 1: did just appear in a middle-class residential area on Wednesday mornings.
18:34
Speaker 1: And he would say, quote unquote, Ma'am, are you certain
18:37
Speaker 1: it's a human body? And she would say, I'm looking
18:39
Speaker 1: right at it. And that simple confirmation to launch the
18:42
Speaker 1: largest homicide investigation in LAPD history. So Los Angeles in
18:48
Speaker 1: 1947 operated under unwritten rules that prioritize sensationalism over investigation.
18:53
Speaker 1: And newspaper photographers monitored police radio frequencies. And often, they
18:57
Speaker 1: would arrive at crime scenes before the detectives would actually
19:00
Speaker 1: get there. And the Black Dahlia discovery followed this pattern
19:03
Speaker 1: with keenness. catastrophic precision. And by 10.30 a.m. that morning,
19:07
Speaker 1: newspaper photographers had reached Norton Avenue, and their speed cameras
19:11
Speaker 1: would be clicking away while police cars remained blocks distant.
19:14
Speaker 1: And the Los Angeles Examiner and the Herald Express photographers
19:18
Speaker 1: documented the scene from every single angle, unknowingly destroying evidence
19:23
Speaker 1: with each footstep. Just f * * *. idiots. And
19:27
Speaker 1: the afternoon's editions would feature these images on the front page,
19:32
Speaker 1: forever defining how America visualized the Black Dahlia case. And
19:35
Speaker 1: police detective Harry Hansen finally reached the scene at 10.45 a.m.,
19:40
Speaker 1: discovering his crime scene had already been contaminated by journalists
19:43
Speaker 1: who had positioned themselves for optimal photography rather than evidence preservation.
19:48
Speaker 1: So Hansen's first official act in the investigation was to
19:51
Speaker 1: arrest every single reporter present. Well, threatened to, he didn't
19:54
Speaker 1: actually arrest all of them. Though the damage was already irreversible.
19:58
Speaker 1: Because at this point, the photographers had already trampled any
20:01
Speaker 1: potential footprints, disturbed soil samples, and established sight lines that
20:06
Speaker 1: drew attention to specific details while obscuring others. And their
20:09
Speaker 1: presence just guaranteed that any subsequent investigation would operate from
20:14
Speaker 1: a compromised foundation completely. And modern crime scene protocols actually
20:18
Speaker 1: exist specifically because of the disasters like January 15th, 1947.
20:23
Speaker 1: So Detective Hansen's initial examination revealed details that transformed a
20:28
Speaker 1: shocking discovery into something approaching the impossible. Because the bisection
20:32
Speaker 1: had been performed using a technique called a hemicorporectomy, which
20:35
Speaker 1: was the complete separation of the upper body and lower
20:38
Speaker 1: body at the waist. And in 1947, this procedure existed
20:42
Speaker 1: only in medical textbooks and the most advanced surgical suites.
20:46
Speaker 1: And the precision required for this procedure suggested someone with
20:50
Speaker 1: formal anatomical training and access to the appropriate instruments to
20:54
Speaker 1: do the procedure. And the cut would run cleanly through
20:57
Speaker 1: the lumbar spine at the L2-L3 vertebrae level, requiring both
21:01
Speaker 1: strength and knowledge of human skeletal structure. So whoever performed
21:05
Speaker 1: this operation understood exactly where to position their blade for
21:09
Speaker 1: maximum efficiency. But the surgical precision didn't just end with
21:12
Speaker 1: the bisection itself. because the killer had also carved a
21:16
Speaker 1: Glasgow smile extending from each corner of the victim's mouth
21:20
Speaker 1: to her ears. And there were also additional that removed
21:23
Speaker 1: flesh from both her thighs and her breast. Though those
21:27
Speaker 1: ones appeared more frenzied than systematic. And her internal organs
21:31
Speaker 1: had also been and positioned beneath her buttocks, suggesting ritualistic,
21:36
Speaker 1: rather medical motivation. And fecal matter would also be found
21:40
Speaker 1: inside of her stomachs. horrifying. So the combination of both
21:46
Speaker 1: surgical expertise and sadistic frenzy painted a portrait of someone
21:50
Speaker 1: operating under two distinct psychological impulses, and those were clinical
21:54
Speaker 1: detachment and explosive rage. Incomplete exsanguination presented the investigator's most
22:01
Speaker 1: puzzling element, and that is that the corpse contained absolutely
22:05
Speaker 1: no blood. not in the major vessels, not pooled in
22:09
Speaker 1: dependent areas. Like when a body is sitting somewhere for
22:12
Speaker 1: a long time, it kind of pools where it is sitting.
22:15
Speaker 1: Like if it's on the back, it'll kind of pool
22:17
Speaker 1: in the midsection and not even trapped in smaller capillaries.
22:21
Speaker 1: Every single drop of her blood had been methodically drained
22:24
Speaker 1: using techniques that belonged in embalming parlors, not torture chambers.
22:29
Speaker 1: And the killer had also even washed her body before transport.
22:33
Speaker 1: So no trace of evidence remained under fingernails and hair
22:37
Speaker 1: or even on skin surfaces. And the soap residue suggested
22:40
Speaker 1: multiple cleanings with commercial grade detergents that were strong enough
22:43
Speaker 1: to remove DNA evidence that wouldn't be understood for another
22:46
Speaker 1: 40 years down the road. So this guy was meticulous.
22:51
Speaker 1: And it's interesting how meticulous he was, given that in
22:54
Speaker 1: 1947 forensic awareness bordered on the prophetic. They didn't have
22:58
Speaker 1: a lot going on in terms of forensic evidence. So
23:01
Speaker 1: the killer seemed to anticipate investigative techniques that didn't even
23:04
Speaker 1: exist yet. Taking precautions against evidence collection methods still decades
23:09
Speaker 1: in the future. And the positioning of her body reinforced
23:12
Speaker 1: the theatrical elements. Because the body lay precisely parallel to
23:16
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, with arms framing the head and legs spread
23:19
Speaker 1: in a perfect symmetry. So someone had spent considerable time
23:22
Speaker 1: arranging this display in an exposed location where discovery was inevitable.
23:27
Speaker 1: So the wrist suggested either extreme confidence or complete psychological
23:31
Speaker 1: detachment or Both. So at 1130 a.m. that morning, Detective
23:35
Speaker 1: Hansen would make a decision that would revolutionize criminal identification
23:39
Speaker 1: procedures forever. Because the victim's fingerprints remained intact despite the
23:43
Speaker 1: extensive mutilation. Suggesting the killer either overlooked this detail or
23:47
Speaker 1: deliberately preserved them. And Hansen would order a complete fingerprint collection.
23:52
Speaker 1: And then he would contact the FBI's newly established identification
23:56
Speaker 1: division in Washington, D.C., And what would happen next would
23:59
Speaker 1: represent a technological breakthrough that would become standard procedure within
24:03
Speaker 1: a decade. Because the FBI had recently installed sound photo equipment.
24:08
Speaker 1: It was basically a primitive fax system capable of transmitting
24:11
Speaker 1: photographs over telephone lines, which is pretty cool. And Hansen's
24:15
Speaker 1: fingerprint cards were photographed in Los Angeles. And then they
24:18
Speaker 1: were transmitted across the continent to the FBI's headquarters at 1.15 p.m.
24:23
Speaker 1: Pacific time that same day, which again, Very impressive for
24:26
Speaker 1: that time. And only 56 minutes later, the transmission contained
24:30
Speaker 1: a name. And that name was Elizabeth Ann Short with
24:34
Speaker 1: the date of birth, July 29th, 1924. And this identification
24:38
Speaker 1: would actually originate from a 1943 arrest in Santa Barbara
24:42
Speaker 1: for underage drinking. And because of that arrest, Elizabeth Prince
24:45
Speaker 1: had actually been filed with the FBI as part of
24:47
Speaker 1: a standard booking procedure. And by doing that would create
24:50
Speaker 1: a permanent record that survived four years until needed for
24:53
Speaker 1: the most famous murder case in American history. So the
24:56
Speaker 1: sound photo system would become the foundation for modern digital
25:00
Speaker 1: evidence sharing. But technology at this point could only provide
25:03
Speaker 1: a name. And everything else about Elizabeth Short's final days
25:06
Speaker 1: remained locked in a mystery that defied conventional investigation. So
25:10
Speaker 1: crime scene analysis in 1947 relied primarily on photography, measurements,
25:15
Speaker 1: and detectives' intuition. And forensic science existed in primitive form,
25:19
Speaker 1: lacking the sophisticated tools that would emerge during the following decades,
25:23
Speaker 1: as we know. Nevertheless, certain facts emerged that challenged basic
25:26
Speaker 1: assumptions about criminal behavior. And one of those facts was
25:29
Speaker 1: that the killer transported a 115-pound corpse to Norton Avenue
25:35
Speaker 1: and would position it in mathematical precision, then depart without
25:39
Speaker 1: leaving any traceable evidence. And this series of events would
25:42
Speaker 1: require planning, physical strength, and intimate knowledge of the neighborhood's
25:47
Speaker 1: traffic patterns. because this vacant lot offered no concealment during
25:50
Speaker 1: daylight hours and houses surrounded the space on three sides
25:54
Speaker 1: with clear sight lines from multiple windows. So it's crazy
25:58
Speaker 1: that no one saw this happening because no neighbors reported
26:02
Speaker 1: hearing anything unusual or seeing anything unusual during the evening
26:06
Speaker 1: or even in the morning. So both possibilities suggested local
26:09
Speaker 1: knowledge that extended beyond a casual familiarity. But the physical
26:13
Speaker 1: evidence still remained very sparse. But they would see a
26:16
Speaker 1: cement sack near the body that showed traces of blood.
26:19
Speaker 1: Though not enough to suggest the murder location, of course.
26:22
Speaker 1: And they would also find a heel print in the
26:24
Speaker 1: dirt that measured to about a size eight and a
26:26
Speaker 1: half men's shoes, though thousands of Los Angeles residents matched
26:30
Speaker 1: this specification. There would also be no murder weapon recovered
26:33
Speaker 1: despite extensive searches through storm drains and dumpsters throughout the area.
26:38
Speaker 1: So the instruments used for dismemberment had vanished as completely
26:42
Speaker 1: as the killer's identity. So by sunset on January 15th, 1947,
26:46
Speaker 1: investigators faced a crime that seemed to violate fundamental assumptions
26:49
Speaker 1: about human behavior completely. So they could only ask one question,
26:53
Speaker 1: and that was, where had Elizabeth Short spent the last
26:56
Speaker 1: six days of her life? So they would go to
26:58
Speaker 1: the Biltmore Hotel, but there would be no record of
27:01
Speaker 1: her registration despite witness accounts of her arrival. And friends
27:05
Speaker 1: would receive no contact despite her frequent communication with them.
27:08
Speaker 1: And the men she saw regularly didn't hear from her
27:11
Speaker 1: at all in those six days. So it begs the question,
27:13
Speaker 1: how had the killer gained Elizabeth's cooperation? Because there were
27:17
Speaker 1: rope burns on her wrists and her ankles that indicated
27:20
Speaker 1: prolonged restraint, but no defensive wounds that suggested she had
27:24
Speaker 1: submitted without struggle. So the implications range from drug-induced compliance
27:29
Speaker 1: to willing participant with someone she trusted. So where exactly
27:32
Speaker 1: did this torture and murder take place? Because this procedure
27:36
Speaker 1: required hours in a controlled environment with access to running
27:39
Speaker 1: water and surgical instruments and disposal methods for massive quantities
27:44
Speaker 1: of blood, as we know. And also, why choose this
27:47
Speaker 1: theatrical presentation? Because the killer could have disposed of the
27:50
Speaker 1: body permanently using methods that precluded discovery. Clearly, he was
27:54
Speaker 1: smart enough, as we know. But instead, they selected a
27:56
Speaker 1: very public location and arranged the corpse to ensure maximum
28:00
Speaker 1: visual impact. So each question just led to dozens more
28:04
Speaker 1: creating an investigation labyrinth that would consume thousands of man
28:08
Speaker 1: hours over the following decades. So Elizabeth's shorts from unknown
28:11
Speaker 1: victim to national obsession had finally begun. And afternoon papers
28:16
Speaker 1: would hit the street with banner headlines and crime scene photographs.
28:19
Speaker 1: And radio stations interrupted programming with hourly updates. And the LAPD,
28:24
Speaker 1: unprepared for a media attention of this magnitude, found themselves
28:27
Speaker 1: conducting both a criminal investigation and just managing a public circus.
28:32
Speaker 1: And back at LAPD headquarters, Detective Harry Hansen studied crime
28:36
Speaker 1: scene photographs that were spread across his desk. And each
28:39
Speaker 1: image would reveal details that defied explanation. Positioning too perfect
28:43
Speaker 1: for hasty disposal, mutilations too systemic for passion alone, and
28:47
Speaker 1: forensic awareness too sophisticated for 1947. So he knew that
28:52
Speaker 1: someone had planned this murder with military operation. and executed
28:56
Speaker 1: with surgical precision and theatrical sensibility. So Hansen would pull
29:00
Speaker 1: out a notebook and write across the first page, quote unquote,
29:04
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short, Black Dahlia case, January 15th, 1947. And he
29:09
Speaker 1: had no way of knowing that he had just titled
29:11
Speaker 1: the most famous unsolved murder in American history. And 16
29:15
Speaker 1: detectives were assigned to what photographs had already dubbed the
29:18
Speaker 1: Dahlia case. And phone lines would buzz from reporters, amateur sleuths,
29:22
Speaker 1: and attention seekers claiming knowledge of the victim or the killer.
29:25
Speaker 1: And the questions would haunt investigators for decades. Who possessed
29:28
Speaker 1: the medical knowledge, the psychological detachment, and local familiarity necessary
29:33
Speaker 1: to transform Elizabeth Short into America's most notorious murder victim?
29:37
Speaker 1: And the answer lay somewhere in Los Angeles. protected by
29:41
Speaker 1: six days of silence. And that silence was about to
29:43
Speaker 1: be shattered by the largest criminal investigation in the city's
29:47
Speaker 1: history and by the killer himself, who would soon contact
29:51
Speaker 1: the newspaper directly with evidence that should have remained forever secret.
29:55
Speaker 1: So on January 16th, 1947, the LAPD Chief Clements Harrell
29:59
Speaker 1: announced the largest criminal investigation in LA history to a
30:03
Speaker 1: room packed with detectives, reporters, and politicians. And he said,
30:06
Speaker 1: quote unquote, we will find Elizabeth Short's killer. No expense
30:10
Speaker 1: will be spared. And it definitely wasn't. And by month's end,
30:14
Speaker 1: 750 investigators worked on the case. Detectives would abandon other
30:18
Speaker 1: homicides to chase leads that led to nowhere. Laboratory technicians
30:22
Speaker 1: processed evidence that revealed nothing. And within six months, Chief
30:26
Speaker 1: Harrell would resign in disgrace. And within a year, key
30:29
Speaker 1: evidence would begin disappearing from police storage. So the investigation
30:34
Speaker 1: that began with unprecedented resources would end up in complete failure.
30:38
Speaker 1: And in January of 1947, optimism ran high. Because how
30:42
Speaker 1: difficult could it be to solve one murder in a
30:45
Speaker 1: city of two million people? And the answer would redefine
30:48
Speaker 1: everything LA understood about criminal investigation. And on January 16th, 1947,
30:52
Speaker 1: the LA examiner's phone would ring at 1147 a.m. And
30:57
Speaker 1: the person on the other line would say, this is
30:59
Speaker 1: the man who killed the Black Dahlia. I want to
31:02
Speaker 1: give myself up, but not to the police. I want
31:05
Speaker 1: to surrender to you. And the person that picked up
31:07
Speaker 1: the phone was city editor James Richardson, whose reporter's instincts
31:11
Speaker 1: overrode any sort of caution. And he would pick up
31:14
Speaker 1: a pencil and he would say back to the person
31:16
Speaker 1: on the phone, where do you want to meet? And
31:18
Speaker 1: the person on the phone would say, I'll contact you
31:20
Speaker 1: again soon. Watch for a package. And then the line
31:24
Speaker 1: would go dead. Leaving Richardson with the first direct communication
31:27
Speaker 1: with Elizabeth Short's killer. And the beginning of the media
31:29
Speaker 1: circus that would destroy any chance of solving the case.
31:33
Speaker 1: Because what happened next violated every principle of criminal investigation
31:37
Speaker 1: that would be codified for another 30 years. So Richardson
31:41
Speaker 1: would call the LAPD headquarters, reporting the conversation to Detective
31:45
Speaker 1: Harry Hansen. But he also alerted every single reporter in
31:50
Speaker 1: the building, like a moron. And within hours, the examiner
31:54
Speaker 1: had announced the killer's phone call on the front page,
31:57
Speaker 1: complete with speculation about the voice's accent and psychological profile.
32:01
Speaker 1: Just horrible media practice. Because if the caller was indeed
32:05
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short's murderer, he now knew the police were monitoring
32:09
Speaker 1: newspaper communications. So the tactical advantage belonged entirely to someone
32:14
Speaker 1: who performed theatrical games over straightforward confession. But the examiner's
32:18
Speaker 1: decision to publicize the contact represented just the beginning of
32:22
Speaker 1: the media interference that would ultimately sabotage the entire investigation.
32:27
Speaker 1: So on January 24th, 1947 at 1.30 PM, a United
32:31
Speaker 1: States postal service clerk at the Los Angeles terminal noticed
32:34
Speaker 1: an unusual package that was addressed to, Los Angeles Examiner,
32:39
Speaker 1: and other Los Angeles papers. Very specific. But the envelope
32:43
Speaker 1: addressed in letters cut from newspapers and magazines and contained
32:47
Speaker 1: items that should have remained forever secret. And those items
32:51
Speaker 1: were Elizabeth Short's social security card, a birth certificate, photographs,
32:56
Speaker 1: and an address book belonging to Mark Hansen, the owner
33:00
Speaker 1: of the Florentine Gardens nightclub. And the accompanying message assembled
33:04
Speaker 1: for magazine clippings read, quote, Here is Dahlia's belongings letter
33:08
Speaker 1: to follow. So f * * * ing scary and creepy.
33:14
Speaker 1: Oh my God. And every item had been soaked in
33:17
Speaker 1: gasoline to remove any sort of fingerprint. And this was
33:20
Speaker 1: a forensic countermeasure that demonstrated sophisticated criminal thinking. This guy
33:25
Speaker 1: was playing chess. He was thinking 10 steps ahead in
33:28
Speaker 1: every move he made. But the package's most significant element
33:32
Speaker 1: wasn't what it contained necessarily, because the killer had mailed
33:35
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's personal effects to newspapers rather than police, ensuring maximum
33:40
Speaker 1: publicity while maintaining complete control over information flow. This guy
33:44
Speaker 1: just wanted to be in the headlines. So Detective Hanson
33:47
Speaker 1: would arrive at the examiner building to find reporters already
33:49
Speaker 1: photographing the contents. Stop! Stop photographing everything! And they're also
33:55
Speaker 1: handling potential evidence without gloves, of course, and speculating about
34:00
Speaker 1: meanings that would influence public perception for decades. So the
34:04
Speaker 1: killer at this point, and just through the entire case,
34:06
Speaker 1: had completely outmaneuvered professional investigators by understanding something they hadn't
34:12
Speaker 1: yet learned. And that was that in media-saturated crimes, publicity
34:16
Speaker 1: can be weaponized against law enforcement. And we see this
34:20
Speaker 1: in cases in the future, in the 60s, in the 70s,
34:23
Speaker 1: in the 80s, in the 90s, to present. So by
34:25
Speaker 1: February 1947, LAPD headquarters received 12 confessions daily saying, quote unquote,
34:31
Speaker 1: I killed the Black Dahlia. And this became Los Angeles'
34:34
Speaker 1: most popular false admission. And attention seekers and mentally ill
34:38
Speaker 1: individuals claim responsibility with elaborate stories. And detectives spent thousands
34:43
Speaker 1: of hours investigating confessions containing no verifiable details. But the
34:47
Speaker 1: most elaborate one came from Daniel S. Voorhees, who provided
34:51
Speaker 1: a 17-page handwritten account of torturing and killing Elizabeth Short.
34:56
Speaker 1: and his narrative included specific crime details and surgical techniques.
35:00
Speaker 1: Detectives would spend six weeks verifying his story before discovering
35:04
Speaker 1: Voorhees had copied every detail from newspaper accounts. Thank you, media,
35:09
Speaker 1: you f * * * ing idiots again. And he'd
35:11
Speaker 1: actually been incarcerated in New York during Elizabeth's murder, so
35:14
Speaker 1: it was just another dead end. And when confronted, Voorhees
35:17
Speaker 1: even admitted that he did everything because he wanted to
35:20
Speaker 1: be famous. Idiot. And by year's end, LAPD had processed
35:25
Speaker 1: 67 false confessions, but this number would eventually exceed 500,
35:31
Speaker 1: making this the most falsely confessed crime in American history.
35:35
Speaker 1: And each bogus admission required investigation, consuming resources that could
35:39
Speaker 1: have pursued legitimate leads. So just. Idiot people wasting time,
35:44
Speaker 1: wasting precious time. So the surgical precision of Elizabeth Shorts
35:47
Speaker 1: by section convinced investigators that her killer possessed formal anatomical training.
35:52
Speaker 1: So Detective Hanson ordered comprehensive background checks on every medical
35:56
Speaker 1: professional student and technician in Los Angeles County. So the
36:00
Speaker 1: University of Southern California Medical School became ground zero for
36:03
Speaker 1: an investigation that would scrutinize scalpels, class schedules, and students'
36:08
Speaker 1: psychological profiles. And UCS administrators provided complete enrollment records dating
36:13
Speaker 1: back five years. And investigators would eventually interview 412 medical students,
36:18
Speaker 1: and 89 faculty members, and 156 hospital residents. Meanwhile, they
36:24
Speaker 1: would examine laboratory access logs, equipment inventories, and disposal procedures
36:28
Speaker 1: for anatomical specimens. And the hemicorporectomy technique used to bisect
36:33
Speaker 1: Elizabeth's body had been developed in the 1930s for treating
36:36
Speaker 1: specific cancers and traumatic injuries. And in 1947, fewer than
36:41
Speaker 1: 50 surgeons in Los Angeles possessed the training necessary to
36:45
Speaker 1: perform this specific procedure. So investigators would create a master
36:49
Speaker 1: list of these qualified surgeons, and then they would begin
36:52
Speaker 1: the painstaking process of verifying each individual's whereabouts during January
36:56
Speaker 1: 9th to January 15th of 1947. And they would look
36:59
Speaker 1: at hospital schedules, surgery logs, and witness statements, and slowly
37:03
Speaker 1: eliminate suspects one by one. But this entire investigation would
37:07
Speaker 1: just reveal something very troubling. And that is that the
37:09
Speaker 1: killer's anatomical knowledge exceeded what could be learned through casual
37:14
Speaker 1: medical exposure. And whoever dismembered Elizabeth Short's body understood human
37:19
Speaker 1: circulatory systems and tissue composition at a professional level. But
37:24
Speaker 1: medical training alone couldn't explain the killer's sophistication because the
37:27
Speaker 1: complete exsanguation required embalming knowledge typically possessed only by morticians
37:33
Speaker 1: and medical examiners. And the forensic awareness just demonstrated advanced
37:36
Speaker 1: understanding of evidence collection and preservation as well. So the
37:39
Speaker 1: killer represented a convergence of medical expertise, mortuary science, and
37:44
Speaker 1: criminal sophistication that basically shouldn't have existed in 1947. So
37:48
Speaker 1: who the could know all of this? So of the
37:52
Speaker 1: 150 suspects questioned by LAPD over the decades, Four names
37:57
Speaker 1: stood out because each possessed surgical knowledge, opportunity, and connections
38:02
Speaker 1: to Elizabeth Short that made seasoned detectives take notice. And
38:06
Speaker 1: the first one was the genius doctor, George Hill Hodel Jr.
38:11
Speaker 1: And George possessed an IQ of 186 and worked as
38:15
Speaker 1: a prominent Los Angeles physician. He was born in 1907,
38:19
Speaker 1: and he moved in elite social circles and possessed the
38:21
Speaker 1: medical expertise for a hemicorporectomy, the surgical technique used to
38:26
Speaker 1: cleanly separate Short's upper body from her lower body. And
38:29
Speaker 1: the specialized procedure appeared only in 1930s medical textbooks, and
38:33
Speaker 1: the timeline converged in October 1949. Because Hodel's teenage daughter
38:37
Speaker 1: actually accused him of SA, triggering an investigation that actually
38:41
Speaker 1: revealed connections to Elizabeth Short stretching back to 1946. And
38:45
Speaker 1: eyewitnesses even claimed knowledge of their relationship. And the LAPD
38:49
Speaker 1: district attorney's office assembled an 18-man task force. And for
38:52
Speaker 1: two months, from February through March 1950, investigators would bug
38:57
Speaker 1: Hodel's home with electronic surveillance equipment. And the operation recorded
39:01
Speaker 1: all conversations inside the house. And on March 14th, 1950,
39:05
Speaker 1: the equipment captured Hodel saying, quote unquote, Suppose Anak did
39:09
Speaker 1: kill the Black Dahlia. They can't prove it now. Excuse me?
39:12
Speaker 1: And the surveillance would continue after this non-confession confession. And
39:17
Speaker 1: Hodel's recorded conversations revealed intimate knowledge of the murder's details
39:21
Speaker 1: that were never released to the public. Red flag! Because
39:25
Speaker 1: he would discuss the positioning of the body, the surgical
39:28
Speaker 1: techniques employed, and the theatrical stage. designed to shock and terrorize.
39:32
Speaker 1: But within days of the district attorney preparing arrest warrants, Dr.
39:36
Speaker 1: George Hill Hodel Jr. boarded a plane to the Philippines,
39:40
Speaker 1: and he would never return to Los Angeles soil. Red flag!
39:45
Speaker 1: Just saying. Decades later, his son, Steve Hodel, a retired
39:49
Speaker 1: LAPD detective, discovered photographs hidden in his father's belongings. And
39:54
Speaker 1: some researchers believe that these images show Elizabeth Short, alive
39:59
Speaker 1: and posed, before her transformation into the Black Dahlia. But
40:04
Speaker 1: others dismiss them as complete coincidence. And this genius doctor
40:09
Speaker 1: would die in 1999, taking his secrets to the grave.
40:12
Speaker 1: He's a top one for me. Too much suspicion. But
40:15
Speaker 1: that brings us to suspect number two. And that is
40:18
Speaker 1: the mortician's assistant, Leslie Dillon. So Leslie Dillon worked as
40:22
Speaker 1: a bellhop, a aspiring writer, and a mortician's assistant. These
40:26
Speaker 1: were jobs that gave him familiarity with corpses and embalming techniques.
40:30
Speaker 1: And in 1948, he actually wrote an unsolicited letter to
40:32
Speaker 1: the LAPD psychiatrist, Dr. J. Paul DeRiver. And the letter
40:36
Speaker 1: contained details of Elizabeth Short's murder that had never been
40:39
Speaker 1: released to the public. And Dylan claimed that a friend
40:42
Speaker 1: had committed the killing, and he described the surgical techniques
40:45
Speaker 1: with clinical precision. So he knew about the rope burns
40:48
Speaker 1: on Short's wrists, and the forced ingestion that filled her
40:52
Speaker 1: stomach with fecal matter, and the hours of torture that
40:54
Speaker 1: preceded her death. So LAPD investigators brought Dylan to Los
40:58
Speaker 1: Angeles for questioning, naturally, and the mortician's assistant displayed intimate
41:02
Speaker 1: knowledge of the crime scene's theatrical staging. And he would
41:05
Speaker 1: know the positioning of Short's arm above her head and
41:07
Speaker 1: the wide V formation of her legs and the complete
41:10
Speaker 1: exsanguination that drained every drop of blood from her body.
41:13
Speaker 1: And even more disturbing, if we can get there, is
41:17
Speaker 1: that Dylan possessed connections to Mark Hansen, which was the
41:20
Speaker 1: nightclub owner whose address book was found soaked in gasoline
41:25
Speaker 1: alongside Short's belongings in that package sent to the newspapers.
41:28
Speaker 1: Puzzle pieces are puzzle piecing. And his alibis crumbled under scrutiny.
41:32
Speaker 1: And his behavior during interrogation set off alarm bells among
41:35
Speaker 1: seasoned detectives. Yet after extensive questioning, the LAPD officials cleared
41:40
Speaker 1: Dylan of suspicion. Somehow. And the mortician's assistant sued the
41:44
Speaker 1: department for false arrest and won. You know, what do
41:47
Speaker 1: they know? Maybe it was just all a coinkydink. Maybe
41:49
Speaker 1: it was all a coinkydink. I don't know. And in 2017,
41:52
Speaker 1: author Pew Itwal published Black Dahlia, Red Rose, presenting evidence
41:56
Speaker 1: that Leslie Dillon orchestrated Short's murder. And the book argues
42:00
Speaker 1: that previous investigators dismissed crucial connections linking Dillon to the crime.
42:04
Speaker 1: But the bellhop mortician just eventually vanished into obscurity. And
42:08
Speaker 1: his intimate knowledge of death and dismemberment just faded into
42:11
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles criminal archives. And that brings us to
42:14
Speaker 1: suspect number three. And that is Jack Anderson Wilson. So
42:18
Speaker 1: between 1934 and 1938, the Cleveland Torso Murders claimed 12
42:23
Speaker 1: victims in Ohio. And each showed surgical dismemberment and theatrical
42:27
Speaker 1: body positioning, techniques identical to those of Elizabeth Short's murder.
42:30
Speaker 1: But the killings stopped abruptly in 1938, and Jack Anderson
42:34
Speaker 1: Wilson became the prime suspect in both the Cleveland murders
42:37
Speaker 1: and the Black Dahlia case, because he possessed medical training,
42:41
Speaker 1: surgical knowledge, and he relocated from Cleveland to Los Angeles
42:44
Speaker 1: around the time of the Ohio killings ending. So in 1980,
42:48
Speaker 1: LAPD detective John St. John reopened the Black Dahlia case
42:52
Speaker 1: and focused intensely on Wilson, because the detective believed he
42:55
Speaker 1: stood on the verge of solving the Los Angeles most
42:57
Speaker 1: famous cold case, and he would prepare arrest warrants. So
43:00
Speaker 1: he would gather evidence linking Wilson to both the Cleveland
43:03
Speaker 1: murders and Short's death. But on February 4th, 1982, Jack
43:07
Speaker 1: Anderson Wilson would die in a house fire. And the
43:10
Speaker 1: timing just seemed impossibly convenient. Just as authorities had closed in,
43:16
Speaker 1: the prime suspect perished in flames that consumed potential evidence
43:19
Speaker 1: along with his body. Before Wilson's death, author John Gilmore
43:23
Speaker 1: claimed that suspect provided a deathbed confession. And that confession,
43:27
Speaker 1: he admitted to the Block Dolly murder and described the
43:29
Speaker 1: details that matched the crime scene's horrific reality. But Detective St.
43:33
Speaker 1: John would take his suspicions to the grave, just convinced
43:36
Speaker 1: that Wilson's death robbed Los Angeles of justice for Elizabeth Short. So...
43:41
Speaker 1: Who knows? All of these suspects, it's like, they could
43:44
Speaker 1: be them. I have no idea, and we'll probably never know.
43:47
Speaker 1: But that brings us to suspect number four, and that
43:50
Speaker 1: is Mark Hansen. So Mark Hansen, as we know, owned
43:54
Speaker 1: the Florentine Gardens nightclub where Elizabeth Short rented a room
43:56
Speaker 1: behind the building her final months in Los Angeles. And
44:00
Speaker 1: the nightclub owner's connection to Short extended beyond landlord and tenant,
44:04
Speaker 1: because friends actually reported romantic involvement between Hansen and the
44:07
Speaker 1: aspiring actress. And she would also work at his establishment
44:11
Speaker 1: and she moved in the same social circles as him.
44:13
Speaker 1: And she trusted him enough to list his contacts in
44:16
Speaker 1: her personal address book. And that address book surfaced in
44:18
Speaker 1: the package sent to the newspaper in January 24th, 1947.
44:21
Speaker 1: So someone had carefully selected Hansen's business contacts and included
44:26
Speaker 1: them alongside short's birth certificate and social security card and
44:29
Speaker 1: the items were as we know soaked in gasoline to
44:31
Speaker 1: remove any sort of fingerprints so lapd investigators would subject
44:35
Speaker 1: hansen to extensive questioning and they would also surveil his
44:38
Speaker 1: home and they would examine his alibi on the night
44:41
Speaker 1: of short's disappearance and the six days between january 9th
44:44
Speaker 1: and january 15th 1947 and hansen would provide inconsistent statements
44:49
Speaker 1: about his relationship with short And he would kind of
44:51
Speaker 1: downplay their connection while evidence suggested a deeper involvement. And
44:55
Speaker 1: his business operated in Hollywood's shadow economy, where young women
44:58
Speaker 1: traded companionship for security, similar to what Elizabeth Short was doing.
45:03
Speaker 1: But despite intensive investigation, authorities never charged Hansen for Short's murder.
45:07
Speaker 1: And no definitive evidence linked him to the crime or
45:11
Speaker 1: the surgical dismemberment that required medical expertise. So the nightclub
45:14
Speaker 1: owner just kind of faded into Los Angeles history, leaving
45:17
Speaker 1: behind questions about his role in Elizabeth Short's final days,
45:21
Speaker 1: or if he had any sort of connection to her
45:23
Speaker 1: actual killer. Because I really don't think that he was
45:26
Speaker 1: the actual killer, but could have been involved. Who knows?
45:29
Speaker 1: And several other suspects drew police attention over the decades,
45:32
Speaker 1: including Dr. Walter Bailey. He had surgical skills and lived
45:35
Speaker 1: near Short's last known locations. And then there was Bugsy Siegel,
45:39
Speaker 1: and he represented the organized crime angle behind though the
45:42
Speaker 1: theatrical nature of Short's murder didn't really match typical mob killings.
45:46
Speaker 1: And Orson Welles, he was actually accused by a childhood friend,
45:49
Speaker 1: Mary Passios, who claimed the director's artistic temperament and anatomical
45:54
Speaker 1: knowledge enabled such calculated violence, but investigators gave the theory
45:57
Speaker 1: very little credence. And then there was George Knowlton, who
46:00
Speaker 1: was accused by his daughter Janice in her book, but
46:03
Speaker 1: DNA testing later discredited her claims completely. But there was
46:05
Speaker 1: also a wider pattern, because the Black Dahlia murder didn't
46:09
Speaker 1: happen in isolation. And between 1934 and 1949, other women
46:14
Speaker 1: across America were being surgically dismembered with techniques that required
46:19
Speaker 1: medical training and specialized knowledge. On top of these bodies
46:22
Speaker 1: being positioned for maximum visual impact. And also drained of
46:26
Speaker 1: their blood completely. So Elizabeth Short's killer might have been
46:29
Speaker 1: practicing these techniques for years before January 1947. And the
46:33
Speaker 1: surgical precision that shocked investigators in Los Angeles had appeared before.
46:38
Speaker 1: In Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities where similar crimes were unsolved.
46:43
Speaker 1: including the Cleveland Butcher, who operated between 1934 and 1938.
46:48
Speaker 1: And they had 12 victims who were dismembered using advanced
46:51
Speaker 1: surgical techniques. And the investigation focused on Dr. Francis Sweeney,
46:55
Speaker 1: who disappears into a mental hospital system and is just
46:58
Speaker 1: never heard from again. And then the Los Angeles murder cluster.
47:00
Speaker 1: And this happened between 1943 and 1949. So in the
47:04
Speaker 1: same time zone as the Black Dahlia case. And these
47:06
Speaker 1: murders were also done with surgical expertise and complete exanguation
47:10
Speaker 1: and theatrical body positioning. And then there was the Chicago Connection,
47:14
Speaker 1: which was the lipstick murders, which happened in Chicago in 1946,
47:19
Speaker 1: which victims included Suzanne Degnan, who was dismembered using identical
47:23
Speaker 1: hemicorporectomy techniques. And the killer also demonstrated the same medical
47:27
Speaker 1: knowledge and theatrical staging. But even with all that, with
47:30
Speaker 1: all these suspects, with all these pretty good leads, we're
47:34
Speaker 1: left with nothing. Nothing. And in October of 1949, the
47:37
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County District Attorney William E. Simpson conveyed a
47:41
Speaker 1: grand jury to investigate the Block Dahlia case, acknowledging what
47:45
Speaker 1: everyone already knew, and that is that the LAPD investigation
47:48
Speaker 1: had failed catastrophically. So the grand jury would spend 18
47:51
Speaker 1: months examining evidence and interviewing witnesses and reviewing investigative procedures.
47:56
Speaker 1: And their final report would be released on April 1951.
47:59
Speaker 1: And it just documented a comedy of errors that were
48:03
Speaker 1: completely laughable because evidence had been lost, misfiled or damaged
48:08
Speaker 1: through improper storage. Crime scene photographs showed contamination from the
48:11
Speaker 1: first hours of investigation and witness statements contained contradictions that
48:15
Speaker 1: were never resolved. and there was detective notes that completely
48:19
Speaker 1: disappeared from files without explanation. And as we know, the
48:22
Speaker 1: media had compromised this investigation from day one, publishing information
48:26
Speaker 1: that allowed the killer to stay ahead of police efforts.
48:29
Speaker 1: And there was also the false confessions that had completely
48:32
Speaker 1: consumed investigative resources, and that should have been pursuing legitimate leads.
48:36
Speaker 1: And the most damaging of all was that the grand
48:39
Speaker 1: jury discovered that certain high-profile suspects had received protection from
48:43
Speaker 1: investigation due to political connections and financial influence. So the
48:48
Speaker 1: Black Dahlia case hadn't just gone unsolved. It had been
48:52
Speaker 1: sabotaged by incompetence, corruption, and a system that prioritized publicity
48:57
Speaker 1: over justice. So by 1960, curious detectives attempting to review
49:01
Speaker 1: the Black Dahlia case discovered that the key pieces of
49:04
Speaker 1: physical evidence had disappeared from the LAPD storage facilities completely.
49:08
Speaker 1: And those included crime scene photographs, Elizabeth Short's personal effects
49:12
Speaker 1: that were returned by the killer, plaster casts of footprints
49:15
Speaker 1: found at the scene, laboratory reports analyzing blood traces and
49:18
Speaker 1: fiber samples, and the evidence hadn't been destroyed through official
49:22
Speaker 1: channels or transferred to other jurisdictions. It had just simply vanished,
49:27
Speaker 1: leaving investigators with incomplete files and fading memories. So what
49:30
Speaker 1: remained told the story of investigative failure rather than criminal success.
49:35
Speaker 1: Hundreds of false leads, thousands of witness statements that led
49:38
Speaker 1: to nowhere, and decades of speculation that generated publicity rather
49:43
Speaker 1: than answers. And the Black Dahlia murder just became a
49:45
Speaker 1: case study in how to not conduct a homicide investigation.
49:49
Speaker 1: Because every mistake, literally every mistake that could have been
49:53
Speaker 1: made was made in this case. And every procedure that
49:57
Speaker 1: could have been corrupted had been corrupted. So the Black
50:00
Speaker 1: Dahlia case changed criminal investigation procedures nationwide. And crime scene
50:04
Speaker 1: preservation protocols emerged directly from the Norton Avenue disaster. and
50:08
Speaker 1: media relation guidelines developed to prevent journalistic interference as well.
50:12
Speaker 1: And evidence storage procedures improved to prevent mysterious disappearances that
50:16
Speaker 1: plagued the Short case specifically. And most importantly, the investigation's
50:21
Speaker 1: failure demonstrated that publicity could be more dangerous than helpful
50:25
Speaker 1: in complex cases. And Elizabeth Short's murder became required reading
50:29
Speaker 1: at police academies. Not as successful detective work, of course.
50:32
Speaker 1: but as a cautionary tale about everything that could go
50:35
Speaker 1: wrong when ego, incompetence and corruption converged around a high
50:38
Speaker 1: profile crime. And the case also revealed something darker about
50:42
Speaker 1: post-war American society. And that is that public fascination with
50:46
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short's torture and mutilation suggested that there was appetites
50:50
Speaker 1: that transcended normal interest in criminal justice and that Black
50:54
Speaker 1: Dahlia became entertainment rather than just a tragedy. And Detective
50:58
Speaker 1: Harry Hansen retired in 1968 without solving the case that
51:01
Speaker 1: defined his career. And in his final interview, he admitted,
51:04
Speaker 1: quote unquote, we never came close. Not really. Whoever killed
51:08
Speaker 1: that girl was smarter than all of us. And the
51:10
Speaker 1: Block Dahlia investigation ended with recognition that some crimes just
51:14
Speaker 1: transcend the capabilities of their time. And Elizabeth Short's killer
51:17
Speaker 1: understood the limitation and exploited it with surgical precision. So
51:21
Speaker 1: the Block Dahlia case occupies a unique position in American
51:24
Speaker 1: criminal justice. It's too famous to ignore and too compromised
51:28
Speaker 1: to solve. And most experts acknowledge that the case will
51:31
Speaker 1: never be solved through conventional means. Physical evidence has degraded
51:34
Speaker 1: beyond forensic usefulness, witnesses have died, suspects have been buried
51:39
Speaker 1: for decades, and legal standards of proof remain impossibly high
51:42
Speaker 1: for circumstantial cases. But justice extends beyond legal conviction, and
51:47
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Short's murder sparked improvements in crime scene preservation, evidence handling,
51:52
Speaker 1: and media relations that have helped solve thousands of subsequent cases.
51:56
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, the woman who
51:57
Speaker 1: wanted to be remembered as a famous actress became America's
52:02
Speaker 1: most famous murder victim instead. But I'm going to choose
52:05
Speaker 1: to remember her as Betty, the girl who chose to
52:09
Speaker 1: chase her dreams and had her life taken away. That
52:13
Speaker 1: is the end of the video. If you want to
52:16
Speaker 1: give me any other cases to deep dive into, let
52:18
Speaker 1: me know down below. I always read your comments. This
52:21
Speaker 1: was kind of a little Saturday bonus video. It was
52:23
Speaker 1: supposed to be short. It was not in at all.
52:27
Speaker 1: So there's that, but I appreciate you hanging around. Please
52:31
Speaker 1: be safe out there and I will see you beautiful
52:32
Speaker 1: face in the next video. Okay. Bye.