
The Black Dahlia Murder LA’s biggest Unsolved Case
Posted: 09.23.2020 | Updated: 02.05.2025
The Black Dahlia murder stands as one of the most infamous Hollywood murder cases in history. Nearly 80 years later, it remains one of the most talked-about and speculated cases in American mystery fiction. Its legacy endures as one of the most brutal and culturally significant crimes in American history, with Time magazine even classifying it as one of the most notorious unsolved cases in the world. For those seeking to delve deeper into its chilling history, Los Angeles ghost tours offer a haunting glimpse into the legacy of the Black Dahlia and the eerie mysteries that still linger in the city.
The case has sparked an immense body of work, inspiring thousands of books, podcasts, documentaries, and films. Among them is Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia, a cinematic portrayal of the real-life events surrounding Elizabeth Short’s tragic murder.
But beyond the chilling details of the crime itself, the case captivates because, as James Ellroy once observed, it touches on “the larger fields of politics, crime, corruption, and paranoia in post-war Los Angeles.” This complex web of intrigue has made the Black Dahlia murder a cornerstone of true crime in Los Angeles, shining a light on the darker side of the city’s otherwise glamorous history.
Ready for a spine-tingling experience with Los Angeles’ ghosts? Book a ghost tour with LA Ghosts today and uncover the haunting legacy of the Black Dahlia murder!
What Was The Black Dahlia Murder?

The name Black Dahlia is a noir film-inspired term—an era of movies that were hugely popular during the time of the killing—a portmanteau derived from Elizabeth Short’s name (July 29, 1924 – January 15, 1947). The lurid nickname may have originated from the 1946 murder mystery film The Blue Dahlia, released just months before her death. It was the press who bestowed this posthumous moniker on her.
Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress, was found murdered in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles, California. Her brutal case quickly became a sensational headline, broadcast widely by radio and other media, due to the explicit and disturbing nature of the crime. Her body had been mutilated and bisected at the waist.
Short’s unsolved murder, along with the mysterious circumstances surrounding it, has captivated public imagination for decades, sparking countless theories about the identity of the killer. Over 150 suspects were questioned, including several Hollywood celebrities, but none of the investigations led to a conclusion. The case remains one of the most haunting unsolved crimes in history. So, when was the Black Dahlia murder? It took place on January 15, 1947, sparking a decades-long mystery that continues to haunt Los Angeles to this day.
The Life of the Black Dahlia
Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924, in the Hyde Park section of Boston, Massachusetts, as the third of five children.
In 1927, the Short family relocated to Portland, Maine, before eventually settling in Medford, Massachusetts. Elizabeth’s father, who had been constructing miniature golf courses, faced financial ruin following the 1929 stock market crash, losing everything.
In 1930, her father’s automobile was found abandoned on the Charlestown Bridge, and he tragically committed suicide by jumping into the Charles River. This devastating event led Short’s mother to move with her five daughters into a small apartment in Medford, where she worked as a bookkeeper to support the family.
As Elizabeth grew older, she struggled with severe asthma attacks and bronchitis, leading to lung surgery at age 15. Doctors advised her family to move to a warmer climate, prompting their relocation to Florida.
Then, in late 1942, a shocking twist emerged. Elizabeth’s father, presumed dead, was discovered alive. He had faked his death and started a new life in California.
In December 1942, at the age of 18, Elizabeth dropped out of school and moved to Vallejo, California, to live with her father. However, the arrangement was short-lived. By 1943, she had left and started working near the Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay.
Elizabeth Short’s turbulent life, filled with personal struggles and constant change, led her to Los Angeles—a city where she would tragically meet her untimely end. Her connection to true crime in Los Angeles remains one of the darkest chapters in the city’s history, still captivating those who join Los Angeles ghost tours and offering a haunting look into the notorious Black Dahlia murder case.

The Tragic Life and Mysterious Death of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles
Elizabeth had a wild streak and seemed to constantly get into trouble. She was arrested for underage drinking at a local bar; the authorities shipped her back home.
Back in Florida, Elizabeth met Major Matthew Michael Gordon, Jr., a decorated Army Air Force officer at the 2nd Air Commando Group. He was training for deployment to the China Burma India Theater of Operations of World War II. Both fell in love and were going to get married… Gordon didn’t make it back from the war, the man’s plane crashed on August 10, 1945, a week before the surrender of Japan ended the war.
Distraught, Elizabeth moved back to California. She spent the last six months of her life in southern California, often in the Los Angeles area. She had been worked as a waitress and rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard.
Murder
by this time, The Balck Dahlia was 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighed 115 pounds, and had light blue eyes, brown hair, and badly decayed teeth.
On January 9, 1947, Elizabeth came back to her flat Los Angeles after a brief trip to San Diego with Robert “Red” Manley, a 25-year-old married solicitor she had been dating.
Manley later stated that he left Short off at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, where Short was to meet her sister. The staff recalled Short and, along with Manley’s description of events, their eyewitness accounts validated his statements and innocence.
Short was never again seen alive.
The Discovery
On the morning of January 15, 1947, the body of the Black Dahlia was discovered in a desolate lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, situated between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street in Los Angeles.
The gruesome scene was uncovered by local resident Betty Bersinger, who was walking with her three-year-old daughter around 10 a.m. At first, Bersinger mistook the horrific sight for an abandoned store mannequin, but the chilling reality quickly set in. This unsettling discovery marked the beginning of one of the most infamous crimes in history, and today, Los Angeles ghost tours invite visitors to explore the dark and mysterious locations tied to the Black Dahlia murder.
The Black Dahlia’s body was shockingly mutilated, split cleanly at the waist and drained of blood, leaving her skin a ghostly white. She had been dead for approximately ten hours. The killer had gone to extreme lengths to clean and bleach the body, leaving a chilling, deliberate appearance.
Elizabeth Short’s mouth had been cut from the corners of her lips to her ears, creating the infamous “Glasgow smile.” Her body also bore numerous cuts on her thighs and breasts, and large sections of her skin had been removed. The lower half of her body was placed a foot away from the upper half, with her intestines tucked beneath her buttocks—an eerie “pose” left by the killer.
Before authorities could secure the scene, passersby had already taken several photos of the crime, and Los Angeles Herald-Express reporter Aggie Underwood’s photographs garnered national attention, further sensationalizing the case.
Adding to the horror, a cement sack containing watery blood was discovered nearby, intensifying the gruesome nature of the crime.
This shocking and macabre scene would come to define the true crime in Los Angeles, cementing the Black Dahlia murder as one of the most infamous and haunting unsolved crimes in American history.
Autopsy
An autopsy of Short’s body was performed on January 16, 1947, by Frederick Newbarr, the Los Angeles County coroner.
Details are as follows:
Short had ligature marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck, and an “irregular laceration with superficial tissue loss” on her right breast.
The body had been sliced in two by a technique taught in the 1930s called a hemicorporectomy.
Newbarr’s report noted “very little” bruising along the incision line, suggesting it had been performed after death.
The cuts on each side of the face were measured at 3 inches on the right side of the face, and 2.5 inches on the left.
The skull was not fractured.
The COD cause of death was written up as hemorrhaging from the lacerations to her face and the shock from blows to the head and face.
Newbarr noted that Elizabeth had been raped.
The Media storm

When Elizabeth Short’s identity was confirmed as the Black Dahlia, reporters from William Randolph Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner wasted no time contacting her mother, who was living in Boston. They falsely told her that Elizabeth had won a beauty contest, using the ruse to pry into her personal life. Once they had gathered enough details, they callously revealed the devastating truth: her daughter had been murdered. Today, the dark history surrounding the Black Dahlia continues to captivate, and Los Angeles ghost tours offer a haunting look at the locations forever linked to this tragic story.
The Examiner offered to cover her airfare and lodging if she would come to Los Angeles to assist with the police investigation. However, upon her arrival, Hearst’s reporters went to great lengths to keep her away from the police and other reporters in order to maintain exclusive control over the story.
The media, eager to sensationalize the case, quickly dubbed Elizabeth Short the “Black Dahlia,” painting a picture of her as a glamorous “adventuress” who “prowled Hollywood Boulevard.” Some unverified newspaper reports even insinuated that she was a call girl, adding fuel to the already lurid narrative surrounding her death.
On January 17, the Los Angeles Times scandalously described the murder as a “sex fiend slaying,” further sensationalizing the case. The media frenzy surrounding Elizabeth Short’s death continues to be a defining element of true crime in Los Angeles, perpetuating the myths and intrigue surrounding the Black Dahlia murder for decades.
Possible Culprits
A few crime authors, as well as Cleveland detective Peter Merylo, have linked Shorts murders to those perpetrated by the Cleveland Torso Murders, between 1934 and 1938.
In 1980, new evidence implicating a former Torso Murder suspect, Jack Anderson Wilson, was looked into by Detective St. John concerning Short’s murder. The detective claimed he was close to arresting Wilson for Short’s murder; Wilson died in a fire on February 4, 1982.
Eliot Ness biographer Oscar Fraley suggested Ness knew the identity of the killer responsible for both cases.
February 10, 1947, the killing of Jeanne French in Los Angeles was also linked up by the media and detectives as possibly being connected to Short’s killing. French’s body was discovered in west Los Angeles on Grand View Boulevard, nude and badly beaten. On her stomach, in lipstick, “F%6k You B.D.”, and the letters “TEX” below. Some speculated that the B.D stood for Black Dahlia.
Crime authors like Steve Hodel and William Rasmussen have suggested a connection between the Black Dahlia murder and the 1946 murder and dismemberment of six-year-old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, Illinois. Captain Donahoe believed that The Black Dahlia and the Chicago Lipstick Murders could have been performed by the same serial killer.
In 1991, Janice Knowlton, a woman who was ten at the time of Short’s murder, told the press that she witnessed her father, George Knowlton, beat Short to death with a clawhammer.
To this day, the murder case of the Black Dahlia remains open.
“No lead had any conclusions. Once we’d find something, it seemed to disappear in front of our eyes.”
—Sgt. Finis Brown, on the various dead ends in the case.
Haunted Los Angeles
Los Angeles, celebrated for its vibrant entertainment scene and iconic landmarks, is also home to one of the most chilling mysteries in American history—the Black Dahlia murder.
At the heart of the city’s glamorous past lies the tragic story of Elizabeth Short, whose gruesome murder continues to haunt the public’s imagination. For decades, the unsolved crime of the aspiring actress has sparked endless theories and speculation, leaving a dark mark on the city’s legacy.
The mystery surrounding Short’s death is woven into the eerie fabric of true crime in Los Angeles. With ties to Hollywood’s golden age and a series of strange occurrences, her case has become a symbol of the city’s dark underbelly. For those captivated by the macabre, it’s the perfect tale to unravel. Are you ready to delve into the haunting details of one of Los Angeles’ most infamous unsolved crimes?
Book your Los Angeles ghost tours with LA Ghosts today and experience the city’s haunted history firsthand. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and keep reading our blog for more real California hauntings.
Source:
- https://filmobsessive.com/film/film-analysis/film-genres/drama-film/buried-treasures-brian-de-palmas-the-black-dahlia/
- https://www.novelsuspects.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-black-dahlia/
- https://www.britannica.com/list/americas-5-most-notorious-cold-cases-including-one-you-may-have-thought-was-already-solved
- https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/1929-stock-market-crash
- https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/organization-and-administration/historic-bases/mare-island.html
- https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/world-war-ii.htm
- https://derangedlacrimes.com/?tag=agness-aggie-underwood
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003999398901526
- https://derangedlacrimes.com/?tag=jeanne-french
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