CA CA - Elizabeth Short 'Black Dahlia', 22, Los Angeles, 15 Jan 1947

[Kat]

TRANSCRIPT OF INQUEST
HELD ON THE BODY OF ELIZABETH SHORT
AT THE HALL OF JUSTICE. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
JANUARY 22, 1947
At 10:30 A.M.

http://www.myprimerbeso.com/jetstreames03.html

 

[Cubby]

bump ..

 

[justthinkin]

I have been reading about this case online, and am currently mesmerized by it. So much has been written, it's sometimes hard to separate fact from fiction.

It has the earmarks of a serial killing, and yet, the way Elizabeth Short lived her life, I can see where being the tease she was, she might have angered a lot of men, perhaps one enough to kill her in this most horrible fashion.

In some ways she reminds me of Casey Anthony. I see Beth Short as a pathological liar, a user and taker. She could just have easily been called in life, Minnie the Moocher, after the old song by that name.

There are a lot of suspects in the case, but it seems to me opportunity is limited to someone who had access to a place where Beth was kept and tortured. And despite this case having the earmarks of a serial killing, I think she was killed by someone close to her, someone who knew how very much she wanted to be a movie star, someone who hated her, was disgusted by everything about her, someone she'd burned, and someone who'd fantasized doing the things to her that he finally carried out perhaps mocking her during her torture, telling her she was going to be a star alright, but not in the way she'd hoped. I think the movie, "The Blue Dahlia" played a huge role in Beth's death even though I have not yet seen that movie. These are just my opinions from reading.

I am very curious about the men in the drugstore, one of the places where she hung out, and who first referred to her as the Black Dahlia. Could it be that one of those men had already devised their own plot in which she would be killed in a spectacular manner, making her the star in death that she could never be in life with her bad teeth, and average body? Perhaps there was no lead on a suspect from one of the men at the drugstore or not one that panned out. So far, I've found no connection myself.

I guess my posting here is an effort to engage anyone else with a strong interest in this case to talk about the suspects, the whys and why nots of each, motive, opportunity, etc. I do believe if the case was solvable, it would have already been solved, but that doesn't stop us from doing our own sleuthing.

 

[Daisy1975]

If y'all can stand a little cursing now and then, check out James Ellroy's Feast of Death on showtime airing this month and next month. There is a detective on there that has an awsome theory about who murdered Elizabeth. Has anyone seen it???

I've seen that a few times and I think that suspect very interesting.

Like others here, I've been fascinated with this case for years. I read Hodel's book, but I can't say that he proved his case to me. I still thought a lot of it circumstantial. Although I guess after all these years no one could really prove beyond a reasonable doubt the killer could they?

 

[justthinkin]

Here is a series of videos worth watching on this case. Warning: They contain graphic images, and not for the squeamish!!

For some reason Youtube won't let me copy the urls so run a search for The Black Dahlia Murder Theory, parts 1, 2, and 3. Description from Youtube: A pleasant dinner between James Ellroy, LA Times writer Larry Harnisch and LAPD

Larry Harnisch's theory of the murder is presented in these videos, and it is quite compelling. Harnisch has a website: http://www.lmharnisch.com/main.html
He spent a number of years working on the case, and according to the videos just mentioned, and spent $25,000 of his own money in pursuing the case, going about it as an investigator would do.

 

[DollyPardonMe]

If any of you are familiar with Big Lots you can get some great deals there. I bought a $35.00 book for $1.99 called "Exquisite Corpse, Surrealism and The Black Dahlia" by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss. In it they try to bridge the world of art and crime waitasec It is a little too graphic for my taste and I never made it past the first few pages. If anyone is interested just say the word and I will mail it to you..Free- no charge..Just PM me if your'e interested.

 

[Richard]

I do not think that the killer of Elizabeth Short was someone whom she had enraged or in some way slighted.

Her murder was not a crime of uncontrolled anger and passion, as might have been seen by numerous stabs and random slashes. It was, rather, the work of a psychopath who did not care at all about his victim. He was cold and calculating and he worked methodically, not in an enraged and wild state. His cuts were carefully made and he took care to drain all blood from her body.

He enjoyed inflicting pain and he enjoyed having total control and ownership of his victim. When finished with his killing and mutilating, he proudly displayed his "work" in an organized manner for all to see and be terrorized by. But, at the same time, he was careful not to leave any clues which would identify himself.

It is likely that he killed before and after Elizabeth's murder. So, the key to possibly identifying him would be to look for other similarly horrifying murders.

 

[Cubby]

If any of you are familiar with Big Lots you can get some great deals there. I bought a $35.00 book for $1.99 called "Exquisite Corpse, Surrealism and The Black Dahlia" by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss. In it they try to bridge the world of art and crime waitasec It is a little too graphic for my taste and I never made it past the first few pages. If anyone is interested just say the word and I will mail it to you..Free- no charge..Just PM me if your'e interested.

Did you try the book exchange thread here in the members only? If you are willing to offer it, perhaps some WS'rs would be willing to read it and pass it on.....

hth and thank you for offering it.

ETA: Here is the book exchange, it is members only, but someone might really be interested in this book. I think it is a bit too gory for me at this point. Besides all my 'book report' time these days is for getting my 2nd grader doing his homework and book reports properly.



bbs to add the link to the book thread, kiddo calling.

 

[justthinkin]

I do not think that the killer of Elizabeth Short was someone whom she had enraged or in some way slighted.

Her murder was not a crime of uncontrolled anger and passion, as might have been seen by numerous stabs and random slashes. It was, rather, the work of a psychopath who did not care at all about his victim. He was cold and calculating and he worked methodically, not in an enraged and wild state. His cuts were carefully made and he took care to drain all blood from her body.

He enjoyed inflicting pain and he enjoyed having total control and ownership of his victim. When finished with his killing and mutilating, he proudly displayed his "work" in an organized manner for all to see and be terrorized by. But, at the same time, he was careful not to leave any clues which would identify himself.

It is likely that he killed before and after Elizabeth's murder. So, the key to possibly identifying him would be to look for other similarly horrifying murders.

Oh there was rage alright, cold rage, and plenty of it. That's how she ended up as she did. Granted, this murder has all the earmarks of a psychopathic serial killer, but there really have been no other murders quite like her's. That's what makes this case so astounding. The closest murders to this one at the time were the Cleveland Torso killings, but that killer always beheaded his victims, and cut off their arms and legs.

There had also recently been other murders in LA, but nothing suggestive of a serial killer honing his skills with each successive murder worse than the last, culminating in the murder of Short.

I'd write more, but I've got to get to bed.

 

[Cubby]

Did you try the book exchange thread here in the members only? If you are willing to offer it, perhaps some WS'rs would be willing to read it and pass it on.....

hth and thank you for offering it.

ETA: Here is the book exchange, it is members only, but someone might really be interested in this book. I think it is a bit too gory for me at this point. Besides all my 'book report' time these days is for getting my 2nd grader doing his homework and book reports properly.



bbs to add the link to the book thread, kiddo calling.

Whoops forgot to add the link to the members book exchange.
here is the link.
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[passionflower]

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/yahoo-tv/...s-interest-black-dahlia-murder-210526069.html

for TV news on Black Dahlia

 

[CanManEh]

I read almoset every post so far but i havn't seen the stuff and the reason why says it was his dad. When his father died he was packing things up when he came across a photo album and thier was no names but he was sure they were of elizabeth short then he started thinking and putting 2and2 together his dad wasn't just an ordinary docter he had tons and tons of celeberity's come see him so he could give themtreatment on stuff they wanted kept private it was called the VDC and so he got to thinking maybe she came in for something or she just new to much about alot of celebs and he also exsplained how his father was a great surgieon and had done the spinal hisectomy or something like that which ment he had done the very same why she was cut he new how to do them . so that led him down the path of thinking his dad was the elizabeth short killer also i didn't see it mentioned that him self the son was a former lapd detective himself and thats pretty much all i remember.

 

[momtolil]

http://tv.yahoo.com/blogs/yahoo-tv/...s-interest-black-dahlia-murder-210526069.html

for TV news on Black Dahlia

Thanks for the link, Passionflower. I have been wanting to check out
American Horror Story since everyone is talking about it. Now I'm definitely going to set the DVR to start recording it! I wish I hadn't missed that particular episode.

I have been interested in the Dahlia Case for a long time. I've read several books on the subject and living so close to LA and Long Beach I've visited some of her old haunts.

As interesting as it is I have a feeling it's just one of those cases that will never really find justice.

 

[CanManEh]

If you read my above post about hodell's son On the show i talked about he had mentioned that thier was litteraly only a few pieces of paper in the evidence room left after awhile it was thought that either for money or for somewhat of a keepsake retiring police men and some that were still police at the time had taken they say lost but its been taken as a piece of history really .So your correct thier is no way they could ever solve it now not with a conviction at least and to be honest its so big now they dont want it solved . also the son of hodell says what his dad did was actually a piece of art with how he placed her body something called the mimitar thats what it was sapose to resemble .

 

[wfgodot]

Elizabeth Short disappeared 09 January 1947 and her body, sliced neatly into two parts, was found on 15 January of the same year. A brief essay here walks in Short's disappeared footsteps out of the last place she was seen alive - the Biltmore Hotel - and into - well, into Hell.

The Black Dahlia was found 65 years ago today in the Leimert Park district of Los Angeles; her face had been slashed from the edges of the mouth upward toward the ears, in what is known as a "Glasgow smile." Her body had been severed at the waist.

The Black Dahlia at 65 (ladailymirror.com)

I wandered over to the Biltmore on Monday night to keep my annual appointment. I’m not compulsive about being there, and I don’t bother when the date falls on a weekend, but if it’s convenient, I manage a stroll through the building about the time Elizabeth Short walked out the doors in 1947 and into the infinite fog of memory and myth.
---
The basic myth is easy: Once upon a time in the long-ago 1940s, a pretty, naive young girl from back East comes to Hollywood, sleeps with everyone but Elmer Fudd and ends up mutilated, cut in half and left in a vacant lot.

From there, people blend their own Black Dahlia martini from the gin of lousy books, the vermouth of Wikipedia, and an olive from one of those websites run by folks with tinfoil hats. They can even throw in the grenadine of George Hodel or the Kahlua of Orson Welles. As long as the last ingredient is the shot of bitters about her gruesome death giving her the fame she wanted all her life. And with a Black Dahlia martini, the facts are shaken and stirred.
---

Remembered - if imperfectly:

Elizabeth Short isn’t forgotten. She’s worse than forgotten, exploited by fast-buck writers and overrun with crackpots; turned into the patron saint of “lost gurls” in black who leave cigarettes at her grave although she didn’t smoke and buy the Biltmore’s Black Dahlia martini — even though she was pretty much a teetotaler.
---
In contrast, the old lobby was almost deserted when I wandered through on Monday about 6:30. Just one couple, a young man photographing a young woman in black.
---

The rest of the essay - by Larry Harnisch, who writes for the Los Angeles Times - at L.A. Daily Mirror link above.

 

[Reader]

I read a book about this case a long time ago...they never did figure out who killed her did they?

 

[wfgodot]

I read a book about this case a long time ago...they never did figure out who killed her did they?

No, still unsolved, though there has been many a theory. I think the last book(s) I read about the case proposed the George Hodel solution (mentioned in the essay above).

 

[kline]

Truly one of the most bizzare and intriuging unsolved murders of all time.
And yes that in the aftermath of numerous books,movies and theorists its not surprising that the Iconic image of the Dahlia(Think of the cover illustration of James Ellroy's book.) has long since obscured the real Elizabeth Short.
And it is debatable whether many more actually knew the real Elizabeth Short during her lifetime then know her now.

 

[Snick1946]

Can't recall the name of the book but one I read some time ago postulated that she was made pregnant by the playboy son of the LA Times publisher. She was trying to get money out of him and was abducted and murdered by the crime syndicate; Bugsey Siegel was alleged to have been involved.

 

[barrysgirl]

I read a book about this case a long time ago...they never did figure out who killed her did they?

They knew who killed her, just never proved it. This was back when the police were corrupt. The doc basically owned them. They never named him as the suspect. The family knew he did it though.

I took care of one of her cousins that grew up with her. He said they always knew it was him. I wish I could remember all that he told me but I can't, grrrr