Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Black Dahlia (Part I)

Elizabeth Short (July 29, 1924 – January 14 or 15, 1947), known posthumously as the "Black Dahlia", was an American woman who was found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her case became highly publicized due to the graphic nature of the crime, which included her corpse having been mutilated and bisected at the waist.

A native of Boston, Short spent her early life in Medford, Massachusetts, and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived. It is commonly held that Short was an aspiring actress, though she had no known acting credits or jobs during her time in Los Angeles. She would acquire the nickname of the Black Dahlia posthumously (after the owner of a drugstore in Long Beach, California told reporters that male customers had that name for her), as newspapers of the period often nicknamed particularly lurid crimes; the term may have originated from a film noir murder mystery, The Blue Dahlia, released in April 1946. After the discovery of her body on January 15, 1947, the Los Angeles Police Department began an extensive investigation that produced over 150 arrests, but yielded no arrests.

Short's unsolved murder and the details surrounding it have had a lasting cultural intrigue, generating various theories and public speculation. Her life and death have been the basis of numerous books and films, and her murder is frequently cited as one of the most famous unsolved murders in American history, as well as one of the oldest unsolved cases in Los Angeles County. It has likewise been credited by historians as one of the first major crimes in post-World War II America to capture national attention.

Life

Childhood

Elizabeth Short was born in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Massachusetts, the third of five daughters of Cleo and Phoebe May Short (née Sawyer). Around 1927, the Short family relocated to Portland, Maine before settling in Medford, Massachusetts (a Boston suburb) the same year. This is where Short was raised and spent most of her life. Short's father built miniature golf courses until the 1929 stock market crash when he lost most of his savings and the family became broke. In 1930, her father's car was found abandoned on the Charleston Bridge and it was assumed that he had committed suicide by jumping into the Charles River. Believing her husband to be deceased, Short's mother moved with her five daughters into a small apartment in Medford and worked as a bookkeeper to support them.

Troubled by bronchitis and severe asthma attacks, Short underwent lung surgery at age 15, after which doctors suggested she relocate to a milder climate during the winter months to prevent further respiratory problems. Short's mother then sent her to spend winters in Miami, Florida with family friends. During the next three years, Short lived in Florida during the winter months and spent the rest of the year in Medford with her mother and sisters. In her sophomore year, Short dropped out of Medford High School.

Relocation to California

In late 1942, Short's mother received a letter of apology from her presumed-deceased husband, In which revealed that he was in fact alive and had started a new life in California. In December, at age 18, Short relocated to Vallejo to live with her father, whom she had not seen since she was six years old. At the time, he was working at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay. Arguments between Short and her father led to her moving out in January 1943. Shortly after, she took a job at the Base Exchange at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base), near Lompoc, living with several friends, and briefly with an Army Air Force sergeant who reportedly abused her. Short left Lompoc in mid-1943 and moved to Santa Barbara, where she was arrested on September 23, 1943, for underage drinking at a local bar. The juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford, but she returned instead to Florida, making only occasional visits to Massachusetts.