The Black Dahlia

Elizabeth Short, known as “Black Dahlia” was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 29, 1924. She has four other sisters, her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Mae short. She has pursued the entertainment industry and wanted to become an actress from a very young age, so she moved to Los Angeles in her late teens hoping that she would break into Hollywood’s acting scene.  However, tragically on january 15th, 1947 at age 22, Elizabeth was brutally murdered in Los Angeles,with her body cut in half and severely mutilated. The case still remains unsolved today and it was one of Los Angeles’s most publicized crimes. Elizabeth Short got her nickname as the Black Dahlia because a year before she died, in 1946, a hit film was produced in Hollywood where the main character from the Blue Dahlia was murdered in ways that are similar to Elizabeth Short. As this high profile case was widely publicized, "LA Girl Slain; Body Slashed in Two" is a title frequently used in the newspaper referring to Elizabeth short. The case  was front-page news in all the local papers every day for nearly two months. So, basically Elizabeth short was reported missing since january 9th, although on january 15th, she was found in Leimert Park by Betty Bersinger, a local resident at around 10:00 am, as she was walking with her three-year-old daughter. Betty at first thought it was a discarded mannequin. When she realized it was a corpse, she rushed to a nearby house and telephoned the police.Elizabeth was found with with a severely mutilated body that was completely cut at the waist and drained entirely of blood. which shows that Short had several cuts on her thigh and breasts, where entire portions of flesh had been sliced away. So since her body was cut in half from here, The lower half of her body was positioned a foot away from the upper, and her intestines had been tucked neatly beneath her buttocks. The corpse had been "posed", with her hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, and her legs spread apart. The body obviously had been washed by the killer. Elizabeth's face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her ears, creating an effect called the Glasgow Smile. Detectives found a cement sack nearby containing watery blood. There was a heel print on the ground amid the tire tracks. Due to the notoriety of the case, over the years more than sixty men and women have confessed to the murder, with police receiving large amounts of information from citizens every time a newspaper mentions the case or a book or movie is released about it. About sixty people confessed to the murder, mostly men. Of those, twenty-five were considered viable suspects by the Los Angeles District Attorney. In the course of the investigation, most of the original twenty-five were eliminated. However in 2013, the Black Dahlia resurfaced to the headlines. Author Steve Hodel has long believed that his father, Dr. George Hodel is the Black Dahlia killer. So a team including Sergeant Paul Dostie and his police dog named Buster conducted an extensive search of Dr. George Hodel’s home. Buster detected the scent of human decomposition in several areas of the basement, according to reports. Other evidence against George Hodel, according to his son, includes an old recording of a conversation between the doctor and an unknown person, during which 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.”