Elizabeth short (1924-1947), better known as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman aspiring actress, who rose to fame after being brutally murdered. His body was found mutilated and the investigations were never able to shed any light on the case. His murder inspired a large number of movies and books.
The nickname of Dalia Negra was due to the fact that a movie called La Blue Dahlia, in which its protagonist appeared dead; the obvious change from blue to black was due to Elizabeth always wearing black.
Article index
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Cleo Short and Phoebe Mae Sawyer. Father Cleo was a builder of miniature golf courses. Decided to abandon the family in the Depression of 1929.
Her mother, Phoebe, had to take care of the five daughters working in various trades simultaneously. However, the money to live came especially from public assistance. Years later the father, Cleo, appeared in California and wanted to return to his family; Phoebe flatly refused.
Short grew up with the conviction that she was a pretty girl. In front of the others she acted in a very easy-going way, everyone believed that she was older, she seemed very mature.
His great entertainment was the movies, a distraction the Short family could afford; despite suffering from asthma, according to his friends he was a person with incredible energy.
As he grew older, his father, Cleo, offered to go live with him in California. Although he had worked in a few restaurants, he knew he had to move to be a big movie star. So he packed his suitcase and went to his father.
Relationships did not go well, as Mr. Short criticized her for her laziness, bad habits and courtships. Finally, months later, he left the house. She was forced to earn money to live, so she got a job as a cashier.
The military were interested in her, but it was known that she was not an easy girl, because, although vulnerable, she was anxious above all to seal a relationship that would be consummated in a marriage.
In September 1943, Elizabeth had a confrontation with the police that did not escalate. I was with some friends and they made a lot of noise in a restaurant so the owners called the police.
Elizabeth was a minor and the police took pity on her case by sending her to Massachusetts. She would return to California with the firm intention of being a great actress. She fell in love with a pilot named Gordon Flicking and, although they made wedding plans, nothing prospered as the man had to travel to Europe.
Later she got some modeling jobs, but she wasn't sure of continuing her career. She started dating the military and fell in love with another pilot, Matt Gordon.
Gordon left for India but died there, leaving Short alone and heartbroken. In her loneliness she wanted to contact her ex-boyfriend, Flicking. He called him and fell in love again. He left Los Angeles on December 8, 1946, bound for San Diego.
In San Diego she became friends with Dorothy French. Short confessed to him that being a Hollywood star was quite complex with all the strikes from the actors. Finally, after that meeting, he ended up living for a couple of months in Dorothy's mother's house..
It was in January 1947 that the great tragedy occurred: Elizabeth Short was mutilated, cut in half in Los Angeles. The body was found in a vacant lot, who found it was a neighbor of the place, Mrs. Bersinger, who was walking around with her daughter and thought that the body was that of a broken mannequin..
Taking a closer look, he saw that it was a body split in two, and on his face there were cuts from the corner of the lips to the ears..
The Police Department officer who was contacted said it was hideous, he didn't know how someone could do that with another human being. Not only did the murderer mutilate and dissect the body, but he drained the blood and washed it.
The autopsy of the Black Dahlia corroborated the fury that the murderer had had with the girl, since apparently she had been tied up for three days and received numerous blows and lacerations, even cigarette burns. The cause of his death was the loss of blood from all the cuts received and a concussion.
On January 23, 1947, the murderer called Los Angeles Examiner and promised to deliver some of Short's items: photographs, cards, and his birth certificate.
Later this same man called the newspaper again and proclaimed himself "the avenger of the Black Dahlia." Men and women appeared from everywhere claiming to be Short's killers.
She even tried to frame her father, Cleo, who lived very close to where she was murdered. But when asked, he said that he had not known anything about his daughter for three years and had little interest in her life..
The murder of the Black Dahlia made the front page for several months in many of the major American newspapers. Then there were many false reports and confessions.
There was only one witness who claimed to have observed a black sedan parked at the scene in the early hours of the day, but could not testify anything else.
The case was not solved in part because the same reporters withheld information from the police, trampled on evidence, or when some citizens provided new information, they withheld it without apparent justification..
The case of the Black Dahlia became very frivolous in the media, as they exaggerated aspects of her life and called her an adventurous girl, when many of her close friends knew that Short did not smoke or drink.
Yet No Comments