Black Dahlia

Case Research Paper

Name: Rebecca Murray

Date: 11/20/16

Class: CJ-1350

Professor: A. Houghton
 Elizabeth Short, best known as the Black Dahlia was murdered at the age of 22. Her

body was found January 15, 1947. Elizabeth grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, the third of

five daughters. (Editors, 2016) Her life dream was to move to Hollywood and become an

actress. Elizabeth Short lived in many different places and towns while she was in California.

She moved from place to place where she could afford, lived with different people to help pay

for rent, and worked as a waitress to earn money. She also dated many different men; some

who would later become suspects. There is no certain known reason why she has been known

as the Black Dahlia. Some say that it is from all the dahlias she wore in her hair, or her sheer

black clothes for a movie she was going to be in (The Black Dahlia Murder, 2006), and a drug

store owner, Arnold Landers, stated that she already had the nickname by some customers

(Karadjis, 2014), but Los Angeles County district

attorney investigators report, that the reporter

covering the scene gave her that nickname but

dont know why. (Fun Trivia, 2008) There have

been many confessions of the killing to the case but

one way or another it led police to believe that the person was not the killer. There has been

more investigations about the case since the 1940s. This is in the top ten famous unsolved

cases. Many people have been a suspect at one point or another but the killer has still yet to be

identified.

Elizabeth was found with her body sliced in half at the waist and severely mutilated.

She was found in a vacant lot near Leimert Park, L.A. by a mother walking her child at 11 a.m.

January 15, 1947. The women stated that how she was posed, that she looked like a

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mannequin at first. (The Black Dahlia Murder, 2006) Her body was drained of blood and there

was not any blood at the scene, known to believe that she was killed somewhere else. (The

Black Dahlia Murder, 2006)

There has been many confessions of people killing Elizabeth themselves or in later years,

people are saying that they remember their parent doing the killing. One Man, Daniel S.

Voorbees admitted to killing Elizabeth Short. He had walked into the police headquarters and

told them Cant Stand It Any Longer, I want to confess to the Black Dahlias murder. (FBI,

2006, p. 25) Voorbees had been previously arrested in 1942 for a rape in Phoenix, Arizona. He

was later released to serve in the air force. (FBI, 2006, pp. 26-27) There were 22 suspects on

the DAs list that they believe could have been the killer.

Elizabeth was identified by her fingerprints. Her fingerprints were sent to Washington

via soundphoto, (FBI, 2006, p. 48) for identification and her prints were found in the

government agency. Her prints were

also found in police database for

underage drinking. (FBI, 2006, p. 44)

She had many wounds to her face so

she could not be identified by facial

recognition. Doctors said the cause of

death was from hemorrhage and shock.

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While she was still alive, she was cut at the mouth on both sides, up three inches. (FBI, 2006, p.

43) Also based on medical opinion, cause of death was blows to her head. They do state in

their opinion that other mutilation of the body occurred after her death.

Doctors Frederick D. Newbar and Victor Cefain autopsy surgeons reported finding three

deep abrasions on the forehead just over the right eye... Miss Short had been severely slugged

by a blunt instrument, which may have cause concussion. Her skull was not fractured (FBI,

2006, p. 46) Small pieces of flesh was also missing. Detective Les. Harry Hansen and F. A.

Brown stated that there was marks around the girls legs, wrists, neck and right thigh showed

she had been tied with rope or wire prior to death. (FBI, 2006, p. 46) They believe that she

was tied and tortured before the killer carried her to dispose of her body. John Gilmore in

Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia and the anonymous author of Infamous Murders

published by Chartwell Books in 1989 report that the homicide bureau speculated Short had

been tied up spread-eagled, either in a standing or supine

position or suspended head first by a makeshift system of

ropes and pulleys. That she was kept bound in this position

for the period of her internment, as in a coarse and crude

bondage session. (Karadjis, 2014) Detective Brian Carr

stated that In addition to dissecting and mutilating her body, Shorts killer had drained her

corpse of blood and scrubbed it clean. (Editors, 2016) With her body being wash and scrubbed

clean, police had no evidence of a sexual assault. (Karadjis, 2014) Elizabeth also was cut in a

criss-cross pattern over her pubic area, and pubic hair torn out by hand. (Karadjis, 2014) There

is no known scenario of what happened to Elizabeth Short, police and examiners believe what

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happened by what appeared on her body. The position her body was found, was her body cut

in half, slightly diagonal of each other, and body drained from its blood. Since the body was in

this condition, police believe that a doctor could have committed the crime due to blood loss

and the body cut in half.

When the fingerprints came back as Elizabeth Short, a few people came forward and

talked to the police saying that they knew her or recognized her. Police quickly established the

last sighting of Elizabeth Short as being the night of January 9, at the time she left the Biltmore

Hotel. (Karadjis, 2014) With January 9th being the last day anyone saw Elizabeth, She could

have been taken any time between then or taken the 9th and was with the killer for those days.

J.H. Richardson, editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner at the time, had a telephone

call with a man claiming that he was the one that killed Elizabeth Short. He stated that he

would mail in proof that he was the killer. January 24, 1947 the man mailed the envelope

which stated on the outside in letters cut out of a daily newspaper, Los Angeles Examiner and

other Los Angeles Papers. Here! Is Dahlias Belongings, Letter to Follow. (Karadjis, 2014) It was

an 8x5 in. envelope that police opened carefully. Pacios in Childhood Shadows- The Hidden

Story of the Black Dahlia Murder itemizes the contents of the packet as a Greyhound claim-

check; Shorts birth certificate; a Western-Union telegram signed Red; some snapshots; an

assortment of business cards; a hand-sized, leather-bound address-book with the name Mark

Hansen embossed in gold lettering on the front cover; and newspaper clippings of Mat

Gordons obituary. (Karadjis, 2014) The same day the envelope was mailed, Elizabeths black

handbag and high heels that she had been seen wearing was found by the Los Angeles dump. It

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is believed that the man that had mailed the items was from Elizabeths handbag and that he

put the contents from the bag into the envelope and then later dumped that handbag and

shoes. There was a smell of gasoline on the envelope. There are two theories behind the

smell. The first is that the man that mailed it thought about burning the contents but sent it

after all; the second theory is that he soaked the envelope in gasoline to destroy fingerprints.

There was however, prints were found on the package but no identification of who mailed it. A

man named Robyak did the examination on the fingerprints. The SAC, Los Angeles, received

them February 3, 1947. There were four photos of latent impressions that could be examined.

No identifications were found but they have been kept for any further comparisons. (FBI, 2006,

pp. 22-23) The Homicide Bureau concluded that the man who sent the package had not been

arrested or fingerprinted to be cross-matched with. Since then, there still has been no match of

the fingerprints, which leads to the conclusion that the man has never broken the law since that

day.

There is always two theories behind who the killer could be. Either the person knows

them or they happened to be at the wrong place and the wrong time. These two theories apply

to Elizabeth Shorts homicide. FBI renowned criminal profiler John Douglas believes that the

killer knew Elizabeth. Douglas believes that the killer knew the victim well and held an

emotional attachment toward her. He sees the killer as someone who lived alone, had a high

school education, engaged in manual labor, and was under great personal and financial strain at

the time of committing the murder. (Karadjis, 2014) It was also suggested that the killer was

not eerie of blood, which meant he could have worked as a butcher or something similar as a

profession, or that he is familiar with hunting and/or as a child he would mistreated or abused

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animals. Douglas also stated that with the body being severed and being placed out in the

open for someone to find, that the killer knew her. His motive could have been from a jealous

boyfriend or that Elizabeth had done him a wrongdoing. Looking at the DAs list of 22, believing

that the killer knew Elizabeth, the list got shorter. From this list there were only seven

suspects who were proved to have known Short on a social or personal level. (Karadjis, 2014)

One person stood out on the DAs suspect list, George Bacos.

George Bacos worked at NBC studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood as head usher.

He met Elizabeth through her roommate, Lynn Martin, which he was dating at the time. Bacos

had taken Elizabeth out about a dozen times for the time she lived in Los Angeles. When

Elizabeth was identified, Bacos was brought in for questioning. His statement was "I used to

see her with a lot of people. As a matter of fact, for my part I tried to avoid her as much as

possible. I was new in radio and made contacts, and she dressed kinda cheaply, you know too

obvious and everything... I didnt want to kiss her because of all that goop she used on her face.

Im used to nice cultured girls." (Karadjis, 2014) With all the photographs of Elizabeth, you

can tell that she dressed nicely with nothing reveling and mostly black colored clothing, so she

looked elegant. There was no direct evidence the tied Bacos to the murder but he has always

been on the suspect list.

There has been many books and movies published since Elizabeth Shorts death. Many

of the books have a different view on the story of how everything happened. Some of the

books have things in common but there always a little different and have different suspects.

Authors have done their own research to write about the case themselves. In many of the

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books, a killer is mentioned by name but when other people go to research them, there is no

mention of them in any of the police suspects or that Elizabeth interacted with.

Many years after the murder, the files are not entirely public and that there is a

gatekeeper to insure that no one has access to them. The LAPD did however go under a grand

jury convenes early in the year of 1949. The investigation went for the entire year. The jury

was to investigate the corruption of the LAPD and how they have failed to solve the case of

the Black Dahlia. The jury did find corruption and that much of the information was not

passed on that could have been crucial to the investigation. (Karadjis, 2014) Also, back in the

40s they did not have as much technology that we have today and evidence may always be

reexamined to find the killer. However, since there was no blood at the crime scene and

Elizabeths body was scrubbed clean, there is not much evidence to go on. Everyone has a

theory but the only two people who really know what happened was the killer and Elizabeth

Short.

There is one man that believes it was his father. Steve Hodel is convinced that his

father, Dr. George Hodel, was the Black Dahlia killer. Steve states that he found a photo of

Elizabeth Short in his fathers possession. In 2013, Steve teamed up with a former police

officer, Paul Dostie, to search for evidence. Paul had a sniffer dog, buster, whom they took to

Snowden House, potential crime scene in Los Angeles, to look/smell for evidence. The house is

also, where George grew up. Buster smelt of human remains and blood in four different areas

of the basement. (Wakeman, 2015) Steve Hodel believes that his father had killed Elizabeth

while the rest of the family was out of town. Steve looked into the dates and found that the

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dates that the family was gone lined up with when Elizabeth was murdered. There is some

evidence, that Steve indicates is that there is a recording of a conversation between George

and another person. During the conversation, Dr. Hodel allegedly stated, "Supposin' I did kill

the Black Dahlia. They couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary because she's

dead." (Editors, 2016) It is not an absolute item of evidence to the crime.

The Black Dahlia case may or may never be solved. There has been more recent

opening of the case to look into it more but the killer has still yet to be identified. There is not a

lot of physical evidence which makes it hard to tie anyone there at the scene or who could have

killer Elizabeth. The police do know that since there was not blood at where Elizabeth was

found, that that was the dumping location and she was killed and drained of blood somewhere

else. There also seems that there were no fingerprints at the scene as though fingerprint

search was also done on paper cards and not in computer databases. With the growing

technology, there is always a chance that evidence can be relooked and a killer may be found.

With so little evidence, this is what makes the case so hard to solve. Without a lot of physical

evidence, there is not much people can do to solve the case. In speculation, the man or women

that killed Elizabeth Short is an intelligent person. For killing someone with little evidence left

behind and kept hidden for so long, it would have to be someone intelligent and organized.

Many of the people who knew Elizabeth and the people who worked on the case are old and

many who could be dead by now. The killer may still be alive.

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 References

Editors, B. (2016, Sept. 21). Black Dahlia Biography. Retrieved Nov. 20, 2016, from The
Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/black-dahlia-21117617

FBI. (2006, Oct.). Black Dahlia (E Short) Part 01 of 02. Retrieved Noiv. 20, 2016, from The FBI
Fedral Bureau of Investigation: https://vault.fbi.gov/Black Dahlia %28E Short%29 /Black
Dahlia %28E Short%29 Part 01 of 02/view

Fun Trivia. (2008, 7 17). Retrieved Nov. 15, 2016, from

http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question97630.html

Karadjis, S. (2014, Feb. 3). The Murder of the Black Dahlia: The Ultimate Cold Case. Retrieved
Nov. 21, 2016, from Crime Magazine: http://www.crimemagazine.com/murder-black-
dahlia-ultimate-cold-case

The Black Dahlia Murder. (2006, 10 20). Retrieved November 15, 2016, from THE FBI FEDERAL
BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION:
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2006/october/dahlia_102006

Wakeman, G. (2015, Jan. 16). Black Dahila Murder Solved: New Evidence Unveiled on 68th
Anniversary. Retrieved Nov. 21, 2016, from INQUISITR:
http://www.inquisitr.com/1761211/black-dahila-murder-solved-new-evidence-
unveiled-on-68th-anniversary/

The Black Dahlia Murder:

https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2006/october/dahlia_102006
Fun Trivia: http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question97630.html
FBI:
https://vault.fbi.gov/Black%20Dahlia%20%28E%20Short%29%20/Black%20Dahlia%20%
28E%20Short%29%20Part%2001%20of%2002/view
Editors: http://www.biography.com/people/black-dahlia-21117617
Karadjis: http://www.crimemagazine.com/murder-black-dahlia-ultimate-cold-case
Wakeman: http://www.inquisitr.com/1761211/black-dahila-murder-solved-new-
evidence-unveiled-on-68th-anniversary/

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