SEVENTY-SIX years after aspiring starlet Elizabeth Short was found dead with her mouth slashed from ear to ear in Los Angeles, the Black Dahlia case is still unsolved.
Short received the Black Dahlia nickname after she was found cut in half in Los Angeles on January 15, 1947.
Short, who was 22 at the time, was an aspiring actress in Hollywood and moved to the City of Angels from Boston, Massachusetts just six months before her death.
She was working as a waitress to try to make her big-screen dreams come true.
But on the morning of January 15, 1947, a mother who was out for a walk with her child discovered the gruesome scene of Short's body.
The body was completely drained of blood and cut in half at her waist.
Her intestines had been removed from her body and placed under her buttocks.
Flesh had been cut from her thighs and breasts and her stomach was full of feces.
Because of the state her body was in, police believe the murder happened elsewhere.
The most disturbing part of her murder was the slits cut on her mouth from ear to ear that made it look like she was smiling.
Based on the way her body was cut up, investigators believed the murderer was well-versed in the medical world and skilled in dissecting a body.
An autopsy was performed on January 16, 1947.
Based on the marks found on her body, police suggested she had been beaten and tortured.
Police ruled her official cause of death as cerebral hemorrhage and shock.
Short was dubbed Black Dahlia by the press following her murder.
The nickname came from Short's apparent love for black sheer clothing and the Blue Dahlia film that was out at the time of her murder.
As the investigation continued, police were quick to identify Short's body because they had her fingerprints on file.
Short had previously applied for a job as a clerk at the commissary of the US Army’s Camp Cooke in California back in 1943.
For the application, she needed to send in fingerprints, which popped up in the FBI's system rather quickly.
Her fingerprints showed up a second time, along with a mugshot, because she was arrested for underage drinking by the Santa Barbara Police Department on September 23, 1943.
Authorities sent her back to her hometown in Massachusetts, but she ended up in Florida instead.
Short then made her way back to the West Coast three years later to chase her dream of becoming an actress.
While Short's identity was quickly discovered, police continued to struggle to find her murderer.
However, nearly a week after Short's body was found, reporters from The Los Angeles Examiner received a call from someone claiming to be the murderer.
They later sent a package in the mail with Short’s birth certificate, photos, business cards, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen on the cover.
Police thought this could be a break in the case, but since the items were all wiped down with gasoline, there were no fingerprints to be found.
The person sent several other letters to The Examiner and the police department, but there was no trace of fingerprints on any of the items.
Police interviewed over 150 potential suspects but ultimately never found any of them to be legitimate.
There have been several theories throughout the years about what happened to Black Dahlia.
Some detectives believe Black Dahlia's murder was linked to the Cleveland Torso Murders that took place in the '30s.
Others believe her murder was linked to the Lipstick Killer, William George Heirens, who confessed to killing three people.
Some even believe Black Dahlia's murder was a date gone bad.
However, the case remains unsolved to this day.
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Black Dahlia mystery remains 76 years after Hollywood hopeful Elizabeth Short’s body found sliced in half n… – The US Sun
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