In 1947, the disfigured body of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short was found in Los Angeles. The brutality of the crime made him a number one sensation in the press, and the victim received the romantic nickname "Black Dahlia". The mysterious murder of Elizabeth Short has excited the public and has served as the basis for several literary works.
The story of Elizabeth Short
Elizabeth Short was born in Boston in 1924. During the Great Depression, the global financial crisis of the 1930s, her family went bankrupt. In 1930, Elizabeth's father disappeared. It was assumed that the man committed suicide, but several years later it turned out that he was alive.
When the girl was 19 years old, she moved to California and began to live with her father. Their relationship did not work out, soon Elizabeth left home. She left for Santa Barbara, where she was arrested for drinking alcohol, after which she returned to Florida and worked there as a waitress for a while. There she also met a young man, a military man, with whom she began an affair. The plans for the wedding were interrupted by a tragedy: Elizabeth's fiancé died.
On January 15, 1947, Elizabeth's nude body was discovered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. It was cut into two at the waist and dismembered. This extraordinary brutality sparked the interest of the press. Various publications were ready to do anything to be the first to receive information. It was in the press that Elizabeth Short was first named "The Black Dahlia".
Investigation
Many wanted to become involved in the sensation. The police have received many from those who allegedly saw Elizabeth on the day of the murder. Reporters and ordinary people bombarded detectives with their versions of what happened. All this only slowed down the investigation.
More than 50 people confessed to the murder. Of these, the police considered 25 as suspects. At various times, the publisher of the famous newspaper Norman Chandler, the messenger Leslie Dillon, the doctor Patrick S. Reilly and many others were accused of the crime. Even the legendary director Orson Welles was accused in one of the books based on the murder.
Elizabeth Short's case remained unsolved. It is the oldest unsolved murder in Los Angeles to date.
The murder of Elizabeth Short in literature
The mystery surrounding Elizabeth Short's case worried writers. The famous detective writer James Ellroy wrote the novel "Black Dahlia" in 1987. This fiction book is the most famous of the novels based on the murder of Elizabeth Short. American writer John Gregory Dunn, based on the story of "Black Dahlia", wrote the novel "The Secret of Confession", based on which the film of the same name was filmed in 1981.
In 1995, a study was released by Steve Hodel, a former homicide detective. In his book, Hodel writes that the murder of Elizabeth is one of a series of atrocious crimes committed by one person. The sensationalism of the book in the name of the accused: the author calls his own father, George Hodel, the killer.
Jackie Daniel, daughter of one of the suspects, published The Curse of the Black Dahlia, in which she argued for her father's innocence.
