The Black Dahlia killing – An ‘adventuress’ who ‘prowled Hollywood Boulevard’
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On the cold winter morning of January 15^th 1947, a young mother was on her way to a shoe repair shop with her 3-year-old daughter when she spotted in the grass what appeared to be a discarded mannequin. Ruble and trash abandoned roadside was not an uncommon scene in the area – the Leimert Park district of LA, a then partially developed suburban zone – and this stretch of the road was known as a lovers’ lane. As the approached the scene, the woman realized she had come across the severed naked body of young Elizabeth Short, 22 at the time. An hour later, dozens of LAPD detectives and media descended on the site ushering in a national furor over the shocking and brutal murder.

Short died of blunt force trauma to the head and blood loss due to gashes from both corners of her mouth to her ears – a Glasgow smile. Her stomach was filled with unknown green-brown granular material and feces, prompting some to stipulate that she had been forced to eat this. Her body was cut into two at her waist and carefully positioned, her intestines tucked neatly beneath her buttocks. The hemicorporectomy, which is a surgical procedure of cutting through the second and third lumbar vertebrae to avoid cutting through bones, was carried out with great precision. There were numerous lacerations inflicted to Short’s body and face. Her right breast was removed, there was a large cut from her umbilical to supra-pubic area, a large incision to her left thigh where she had a red rose tattooed with flesh removed and inserted into her vagina, a precise triangular incision near left nipple, scalpel lacerations to upper lip, and numerous lacerations to her vagina. She was sodomized using an unknown object and raped post-mortem. Her body was drained of blood and scrubbed clean with gasoline before being staged at Leimert Park.

In the days and months following the discovery of Short’s body, a frenzied media circus ensued. The killing was front page news for 35 days. TheHerald-Express and its owner William Randolph Hearst spearheaded what was in essence a sensationalist smearing campaign against Short. She was portrayed as a prostitute and a woman leading a promiscuous lifestyle, an "adventuress" who "prowled Hollywood Boulevard". The media went as far as to report Short was last seen wearing a tight skirt and sheer black blouse, rather than a black suit and white blouse. Black Dahlia was a moniker for Short, allegedly inspired by the movie The Blue Dahlia and Short’s love of black sheer clothing. Short was sexualized and exploited by the media in a manner not unfamiliar in modern times. People were transfixed by this mysterious fair-skinned and beautiful young woman who came to LA in pursuit of a glamourous lifestyle, just to end savagely murdered and discarded like trash. In the first few months of the investigation, more than 60 individuals made false confessions. Today, that number is higher than 500. Hundreds of people were investigated, dozens becoming official suspects, but to no avail – one of the largest police investigations in the history of the USA produced no results and ultimately frizzled as the headline-appeal of Short faded.

The investigation

Short was dead approximately for 10 hours prior to her body being discovered at approximately 11AM, placing her time of death likely in the early hours of January 15^th. Given the elaborate mutilation, sodomy, exsanguination, and placing of the body it is likely that the murderer(s) has been at work throughout the night to complete their work by morning of the 15^th. It was concluded that the body had been staged later than 2AM (based on the morning dew found under it). Witnesses walked past the lot where the body was found as late as 8:30AM without making the discovery, despite it being positioned only 3,6 meters away from the sidewalk. A partial footprint, tire tracks, and a cement sack containing watery blood were found nearby.

The last confirmed sighting of Short was in the late hours of 9^th of January, leaving almost a week unaccounted for. Short was last seen by Robert "Red" Manley, a 25-year-old married salesman she had been dating who left her at the Biltmore hotel on the 9^th, after giving her a ride to LA from San Diego. Short told him she will be meeting her sister who was visiting from Boston at the Biltmore. This was likely not the truth, as it has not been corroborated by the sister. By some accounts, although this had been called into question, staff of the Biltmore recalled having seen Short using the lobby telephone. Shortly after, she was allegedly seen by patrons of the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge at 754 South Olive Street, approximately (600 m) away from the Biltmore.

It is not known who Short called from the lobby of the Biltmore. Mark Hansen, a Hollywood nightclub owner at whose house Short had intermittently lived and who became a suspect in the investigation, provided a confusing and contradictory testimony regarding this call. Hansen stated that Short had called him on the evening of the 9^th to ask whether she could temporarily reside at his home. It’s not a matter of public record what Hansen replied but he gave contrasting accounts stating both that he did allow Short to stay but she never arrived at his home. And that he declined to help her as he was at the time residing with Short’s close friend Anne Toth who would have disliked that arrangement.

On January 21^st 1947, a person claiming to be Short’s killer called the office of the editor of the LA Examiner voicing their approval of the Examiner’s covering of the story and announcing the arrival of “some souvenirs of Beth Short in the mail”. Three days later a package posted to the Examiner and other news outlets continuing Short’s personal belongings (birth certificate, business cards, photographs, names written on pieces of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen embossed on the cover) was discovered. The packet has been scrubbed clean with gasoline. Several partial fingerprints were lifted but they were compromised in transit and not able to be properly analyzed. On the same day, Short’s suede handbag and a single shoe were found 3km from the crime scene. These were also whipped clean with gasoline. On January 26^thanother letter arrived stating the time and place where the sender will surrender themselves to the Police. Police waited in vain at the location. Instead, at 1PM, the Examiner offices received a further letter which read: "Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified."

Police quickly deemed Mark Hansen, whose address book had been found amongst the items sent, a viable suspect. He remained a prime suspect until as late as 1951, but was eventually cleared of suspicion. In the ensuing weeks, Police investigated around 150 men, including Robert Manley and other men whose contacts were found amongst Short’s belongings. Numerous locations across LA were searched, yielding no additional evidence. By the spring of 1947, Short's murder had become a cold case with few new investigative avenues.

Modus Operandi and signature

The manner in which Elisabeth Short died and the socio-cultural context have fueled people’s interest in the case for decades. Several high-profile men, most notably Orson Welles and George Hodel have been suspected. Over the decades, there have been attempts to make connections between the Black Dahlia murder and other crimes that had captured the imagination of the masses (such as the Lipstick Murders, the Zodiac, the Cleveland Torso Murders, to name but a few). Clearly, people’s minds veered towards the astounding, amazing, shocking, and sensationalistic, perhaps in an attempt to make sense of who could possibly murder Short in such a gruesome way. The murder seemed to be a case of a film noire coming to life. Narratives about Short’s life and character have been permeating this investigation from the moment of the discovery of the body by an innocent mother and toddler is a row of suburban homes for young families. It is clear by the location and manner in which the body was staged that the killer had an intention to shock. This was accomplished to a degree which very likely compromised the investigation and any chance of discovering what happened to Short and by who’s hand.

The perpetrator was doubtless an organised offender, making the murder likely planned and premeditated. However, this doesn’t imply that the victim selection was planned very much in advance. For example, a killer might have a very meticulous plan and intention but is quite opportunistic in relation to victim selection (e.g., Ted Bundy). An organised killer leaves at the scene little (unintended) evidence and exerts strong control over the disposal of the body. Organized criminals are antisocial and often have psychopathic traits, but are not insane. They know right from wrong and they show no remorse. They are likely to be intelligent, attractive, in a stable relationship, educated and employed, orderly, well-spoken, charming, manipulative, and controlled. They are aware of their ability to hide in plain sight and will, at times, gain great narcissistic pleasure from tainting police by sending letters to the media or inserting themselves in other ways into the investigation. Due to their sense of superiority, they will most likely follow the media reports of their crimes and will often make their thoughts about media coverage and the Police’s inability to solve the crimes known by boasting in their correspondence to the media. Ted Budy, John Wayne Gacy, and Dennis Rader are prime examples of organised killers.

The Black Dahlia case has all the characteristics of an organized killer who uses the media to insert themselves into the investigation and reduce police morale and efficiency. However, by this logic, we must assume that the killer took great care in assembling the package of Short’s belonging he sent to the media. Firstly, his name is either not going to be found in her belongings or, alternatively, the killer allows his name to be found only to be prepared to be interviewed and ‘cleared’ by the investigation (likely offering a plausible but hard to nail down alibi). Secondly, it is no accident that the Police discovers Hansen’s address book, a lead that sees them pursuing Hansen and his connections, wasting considerable time and effort. By ‘offering’ Hansen up to the Police in this way, the killer demonstrates a good level of knowledge of Elisabeth Short’s affairs (thus knowing that he would be a suspect that would be seen as viable by the Police). This is significant because it means that the killer knew Short to sufficient degree and was thus very likely not a stranger to her, making this not an opportunistic murder (such as for example in the case of Ted Bundy who was organized but opportunistic).

It is possible, but speculative, that if the killer had relatively significant knowledge of Short and her relationships, there might be a further reason why they decided to implicate Hansen. This might be due to multiple (not mutually excluding) factors such as: there was some animosity between the killer and Hansen, Hansen sad previously in some ways thwarted the killers plans or has acted as Short’s protector. Either way, the killer might be someone who was relatively close not only to Short but to Hansen as well.

Organised offenders are very likely to work alone. However, it is possible that more than one person worked together to carry out this murder. Perhaps different individuals carried out the killing and the disposal of the body. Blunt force trauma is a statistically unlikely way of killing in cases where the body had been staged and posed, making the multiple killer scenario somewhat more feasible (in other words, Short might have died through the acts of a disorganized killer and her body was subsequently disposed of by an organised collaborator). Whilst possible, this is nevertheless unlikely unless supported by additional evidence. For example, one of the leading theories in relation to this case was that Short was killed in a brutal way at the Aster Motel by Leslie Dillon at the behest of Hansen. The problem with this theory, apart from other inconsistencies, is the clear disjoint between the death itself and the crime scene staged, including the acts of mutilations etc. following the death. In other words, the elaborate nature of post-mortem abuse of the body and the character of its staging make it unlikely that the person who carried the murder out did not get satisfaction from the act. Therefore, if the above Dillon theory was correct, the body would probably be disposed of in a less ritualistic manner.

The crime scene was staged and the body was sexually posed. This is very significant because less than 1% of murders are sexually posed (i.e., the body was presented in a sexually provocative or enhanced way). Most often, sexual posing is not carried out to mislead the investigation, instead “the offenders' motivation was more often based on a psychological need for sexual fantasizing or to satisfy anger at the victim” (Geberth, 2010, p. 1). In this case the killer posed the victim’s body so that each of her arms was raised over her head at a 45-degree angle, the lower half of her severed body was positioned a foot over from her torso and her legs were positioned straight out, spread wide open, in a sexual way.

According to Geberth (ibid.), there are three motives why a killer poses or positions the victim’s body in a sexual manner: to satisfy a perverse fantasy (sexual sadist rely on fantasy and ritual to obtain sexual satisfaction) – 71% of cases, out of anger or retaliation towards the victim (using sex and posing as a weapon to punish and degrade the victim) – 22% of cases, or to mislead the investigation and make it appear to be sexually motivated – 7% of cases. 98% of victims of staged murders are woman, 69% being white. 44% are a victim of a serial killer, and 31% of rape/sodomy. The body is presented in nude in 69% of the cases.

The most common modality of death in sexually posed cases is through both manual and ligature strangulation (71%, Gabarth 2010). Although Short is believed to have died of blunt force trauma, there were signs of ligature on her body and she may have undergone a period of time being strangulated prior to being struck on the head. It is likely that there were multiple modalities that contributed to the death in this case. Combined injuries are common in cases of strangulation (77.3%), blunt trauma (64.3%) and sharp trauma (46.9%). Female victims died of combined injuries more frequently than males. This is likely because most femicides are cases of relational conflict causing extreme emotional outbursts and thus lead to the use of multiple aggressive traumatisations. The combination of the modalities of strangulation and blunt force trauma makes this murder likely to be personal, and more likely to be rage driven than phantasy driven.

In the cases where the motivation for posing was anger/retaliation, the body was typically posed by spreading open the victim’s legs to expose the genitalia, insertion of objects into sexual orifices, and exposing the breasts. Thus, the exact post-mortem mutilation and manner of staging in the case of the Black Dahlia would indicate that the motivation for staging was out of anger/retaliation towards Short. The killer’s aim was to humiliate and degrade the victim. The killer wanted to expose Short figuratively and literally.

This seems to be consistent with the killer’s communications to the media. The media was at the time in a frenzy of reporting about Short’s life in a campaign of victim-shaming, tied in with a macabre fascination with the killer. A good example of this fascination is George Hodel as a suspect - a dak and narcissistic figure shrouded in mystery and sexual allure. In their communications to the media, the killer congratulated to the editor of the LA Examiner on the coverage of the murder. More tellingly, there is an indication in his statement: "[I] Have changed my mind. You would not give me a square deal. Dahlia killing was justified." that he was wondering whether, perhaps, people will understand just why he killed Short should he surrender himself. In other words, it seems that the killer might have been entertaining the thought of surrendering himself because he understood that the public might agree with him as to the character of Short. This indicates anger/retaliation as the primary motive of the murder and staging of the body.

The hemicorporectomy and exsanguination of the body were leads the Police pursued in detail. The precision of the bisection led Police to believe the killer must have had some experience in handling cadavers, such as doctors, dentists, mortician’s, people working in slaughterhouses, etc. A number of doctors and medical students found themselves on the suspect list, including Dr Hodel. A striking element in this case is that the body and the personal belongings sent were washed using gasoline. It is not very likely that any of the above professionals would choose gasoline for this job, they would arguably opt for other modes with which they were more familiar in their line of working.

Looking at the situation in which the Police, and the public, found themselves from a psychological perspective could help us understand why these groups of people were so appealing as suspects. Being faced with a murderer who was this controlled in the manner of dealing with the body caused great deal of psychological distress. A good defense against the thought that a person can go about and do such a thing is the idea that they can do this if they’re protected by their professional identity. This helps because it wasn’t X who did it, it was the ‘doctor in X’. And since I am not a doctor, people like me (i.e., all the people I know and associate with) would not have been able to do it.

Thinking back to the socio-economic context of the crime, this was LA post WWII. There was a boom of optimism and a sense of a new beginning. Military personnel returning from the war were everyone’s heroes. Nobody at the time was too keen to think about the trauma these people have endured, this was best left unnamed. Prolonged traumatization or exposure to brutality is likely to leave people desensitized to the suffering of others. Witnessing bodies being maimed and brutalized is likely going to have a long-lasting impact on a person’s psychological make-up. Taken together, it’s safe to say that relying on the defense of professionalism and disregarding the traumatic social context of many men returning from warfare has hindered the investigation. Short was known to socialize with several soldiers in the months leading up to her death.