On Episode 109 of "Unsolved with Steve Gregory", Steve looks into the murder of Elizabeth Short a.k.a " "The Black Dahlia"
On the morning of January 15th, 1947 at approximately 10 AM – the remains of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short a.k.a “The Black Dahlia” were discovered by Betty Bersinger on a morning walk on the block of 3800 S. Norton Avenue in Los Angeles.
Short’s body was cut in half, split at the waist. The body was so pale that Bersinger believed it was a mannequin. She quickly realized it was indeed a body and ran to contact police.
There was no blood at the scene, an implication she was moved to this location after the murder.
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) was able to identify Short by her fingerprints. She had several marks on her body that suggested that she had been bound and tortured.
A few days later on January 24th, 1947, a suspicious envelope that was addressed to the Los Angeles Examiner as well as other Los Angeles publications was discovered.
The envelope contained a letter that spelled out, “Here is Dahlia’s belongings” – written out using cut-out words from other newspapers.
The envelope also contained Short’s birth certificate, photographs, business cards, names written on a piece of paper, and an address book. All of the contents had been cleaned using gasoline to remove fingerprints, similar to how Short’s body had been cleaned.
Due to how Short had been found, investigators believed the suspect to be a person involved in the medical field. She had been mutilated with such precision and her body was cleaned using gasoline, something most would not know.
75 years later – this case remains unsolved. Steve talks to retired LAPD Homicide Detective and author Steve Hodel. In his numerous books about the murder of the Black Dahlia, he lays out his own theory, that his father Dr. George Hodel murdered Elizabeth Short.
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