Elizabeth or Betty Shore as she was better known, was born on the twenty
ninth of July nineteen twenty four in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Elizabeth had four
sisters, too older, Virginia and Dorothea, and too younger, Eleanora and
Muriel. Her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Short. In nineteen twenty six,
the family moved to Medford, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth grew up in that town.
Her father, Cleo, made miniature golf courses until he lost most of
his savings in the nineteen twenty nine stock market crash. In nineteen thirty,
his car was found abandoned on the Charlestown Bridge, and it was assumed that
he jumped into the Charles River, but then it was not known if he
did in fact commits suicide or faked his own death. Believing her husband to
be deceased, shortsmother began working as a bookkeeper to support her daughters the modest
hone and Salem Street. Years had passed, though, and Cleo Short finally
wrote to Phoebe begging to be forgiven, admitting he did in fact fake his
death and was alive and well, but his apologies fell on deaf ears Elizabeth
Short was a pretty girl with blue eyes and brown hair. However, she
suffered with bronchitis and had severe asthma attacks, so at the age of fifteen,
Short underwent the lung surgery, after which doctor suggested she periodically relocate to
a milder climate to prevent further respiratory problems. Shortzmother sent her to spend winters
in Miami, Florida with family friends for the next three years, where she
worked as a waitress. Elizabeth returned to Medford into the spring. She would
end up going between Medford and Florida in nineteen forty one and nineteen forty two.
At the end of nineteen forty two, when she was eighteen, Elizabeth
moved to California to stay with her father. However, they did not get
on, which wasn't a big surprise considering the lengths he went to to avoid
providing for them. Shouted these arguments, Elizabeth ended up moving out. In
January nineteen forty three, Elizabeth got a job as a civilian clerk at Camp
Cook, an Army camp ten miles north of Lompoc. She worked there until
late August. However, in September nineteen forty three, aged nineteen, she
was arrested for underaged drinking in Santa Barbara. Elizabeth was sent back to Medford.
In the winter, she again moved to Miami Beach in Florida, where
she continued to work as a waitress. Despite her conviction for underaged drinking.
As an adult, Elizabeth did not drink or smoke. She was also a
courteous woman who did not swear well, not in public. At the end
of December nineteen forty four, Elizabeth Short met Major Matthew M. Gordon in
Miami Beach. Elizabeth was more in love than she taught possible, and soon
after the couple were engaged. However, in tragic circumstances, Major Gordon was
killed in a plane crash on the tenth of August nineteen forty five, just
days before the end of the Second World War. This changed Elizabeth inside and
she felt lost from here on. In July nineteen forty six, she visited
an old friend named Joseph Gordon Fickling, an acquaintance from Florida who was stationed
at a Naval Reserve airbase and Long Beach. Short spent the last six months
of her life in southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area, and
rented a room behind the Florentine Gardens nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. Elizabeth then stayed
in hotels and people's homes, never staying anywhere for very long. Unfortunately,
being homeless made Elizabeth vulnerable. In December nineteen forty six, Elizabeth went to
San Diego. On the eighth of January nineteen forty seven, a man named
Robert Manley, known as Red because of the color of his hair, offered
to drive her to Los Angeles. They spent the night in a motel,
but Manly was adamant they did not sleep together. The next day, Thursday
the ninth, Manley took Elizabeth to Los Angeles. He then escorted her to
the Builtmore Hotel, where he left her alone at roughly six thirty pm.
What Elizabeth did or whom she was with for the next six days is not
known, but what is now is that at some point in this timeframe,
Elizabeth met the person that would cut her life tragically short. On the morning
of January fifteenth, nineteen forty seven, Short's naked body was found in a
vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, midway between cul Siam
Street and West thirty ninth Street, in the neighborhood of Lamar Park, where
she had been severed into two pieces. Now, this was not a very
busy area, so one local resident, Betty Bursting Her, was out walking
her daughter. This was the last thing she thought she would find. She
discovered the body at approximately ten am, initially thinking she had found a storm
mannequin. She soon realized that what she stumbled upon was a dead body,
wherein she rushed to a nearby house to telephone the police. Shorts severely mutilated
body was completely severed at the waist and drained of blood exanguination, leaving her
skin a pale white. Medical examiners determined that she had been dead for around
ten hours prior to the discovery, leaving her time of debt either sometime during
the evening of January the fourteenth or the early morning hours of January fifteenth.
The body had apparently been washed by the killer, leaving no apparent clues or
fingerprints. Short's face had been slashed from the corners of her mouth to her
ears, giving her a Chelsea grin. She had several cuts on her tie
and breasts were entire portions of flesh had been sliced away. The lower half
of her body was positioned afoot away from the upper, and her intestines had
been tucked neatly beneath her lower body. Her body had been posed but her
hands over her head, her elbows bent at right angles, whilst her legs
were spread apart. Upon the discovery, a crowd of passer bys and reporters
began to gather. Los Angeles Hurled Express reporter Aggie Underwood was among the first
to arrive at the scene and took several photos of the corpse and the crime
scene. Near the body, Detectives located a heel print on the ground amid
the turret tracks, and a cement sack containing watery blood was also found nearby.
On January sixteenth followed the autopsy of Elizabeth Short, where it was disclosed
that there were ligature marks on her ankles, wrists, and neck, and
an irregular laceration with superficial tissue loss on her right breast. The pathologist Frederick
Newber also noted lacerations on her right forearm, b a left arm, and
the low left side of her chest. The body had been completely cut in
half by a technique taught in the nineteen thirties called hemi corporoctomy, where the
lower half of her body had been removed by transacting the lumbar spine between the
second and third lumbar vertebrae, severing the intestine and the duodenum. It was
noted there was very little bruising along the incision line, suggesting it had been
performed post mortem. The cause of debt was determined to be emerging from the
lacerations in her face and the shock from blows to her head and face.
Newbern noted the possibility of rape due to dilation of certain cavities, but tests
came back negative for male sperm. Elizabeth's father, Cleo Short, was contacted
after her fingerprints were taken and they found her identity unfiled from her previous arrest,
but refused to identify the body of his daughter at the morgue. That
task was left to her mother of Phoebe. Her father also refused to attend
her funeral. A massive investigation began as the last person to see Elizabeth's Short
alive red and Manley was an obvious suspect. However, he passed two light
detector tests, and he had an alibi. Gred Manley died in nineteen eighty
six and proclaimed his innocence until the end. On the twenty fourth of January
nineteen forty seven, nine days after Elizabeth's death, somebody sent a package to
the Los Angeles Examiner. It contained Elizabeth Short's birth certificate, social Security card
photos, a newspaper clipping about Matt Gordon, had an address book belonging not
to Elizabeth but to an acquaintance of hers named Mark Hanson, with some of
its pages torn out. Also in the package was a message made up of
words cut from newspapers. It said, here is Dalia's belongings and letter to
follow. These items were soaked in goasoline to remove fingerprints. It seems the
killer reveled in his notoriety. Later, somebody calling himself the Black Dahlia Avenger
sent several more letters. However, these other letters did not contain anything belonging
to Elizabeth. They may have been hoaxes. Unfortunately, many deranged people made
false confessions to their murder, which wasted a great deal of police time.
Meanwhile, on the twenty fifth of January nineteen forty seven, the purse and
one of the shoes belonging to Elizabeth Short were found in a dumpster several miles
away from where the body was found. They were identified as her his bay
a friend Robert red Manly. Whoever, they did not bring the police any
closer to finding the killer. On March fourteenth, an apparent suicide note scrawled
in pencil on a bit of paper was found tucked in a shoe in a
pile of men's clothing by the ocean's edge at the foot of the Breeze Avenue
Venice. The note read, to whom it may concern, I have waited
for the police to capture me for the Black Dahlia killing, but they have
not. I am too much of a coward to turn myself in, so
this is the best way out for me. I couldn't help myself for that
or this. Sorry Mary. The pile of clothing was first seen by a
beach caretaker, who reported the discovery to a lifeguard. Captain Captain L.
E. Christiansen of the West Los Angeles Police Station was immediately alerted. The
clothes included a coat and trousers of blue herringbone tweed, a brown and white
T shirt, white jockey shorts, tan socks, and a tan Mocasin leather
shoe size eight. The clothes gave no clue about the identity of their owner.
One hundred and fifty one potential suspects were interviewed in relation to their murder,
but this yielded no arrests. Seven hundred and fifty investigators from the LAPD
and other departments working on the case, including four hundred sheriff's deputies and two
hundred and fifty California's State Patrol officers. Many destinations were searched thoroughly for any
types of clues or evidence, but these were also fruitless efforts. By spring,
the case had become a cold case, with the media being blamed for
the lack of help and dead leads based on the false, sensationalized twist they
were putting on the story. In false reports, it was suggested that there
was a connection between the Short murder and the nineteen forty six murder and dismemberment
of six year old Suzanne Degnan in Chicago, Illinois. Captain Donahue of the
LAPD Police stated publicly that he believed the Black Dahlia and the Chicago lipstick murders
were likely connected. Among the evidence cited is the fact that shorts body was
found on Norton Avenue, three blocks west of Degnan Boulevard, Degnan being the
last name of the girl from Chicago. There were also striking similarities between the
handwriting on the Degnan ransom note and that of the Black Dahlia avenger letter.
Both texts used the combination of capitals and all letters. The degnanh note read
in part burned this for her safety, and boat notes contain a similar mishappened
letter P and have one word that matches exactly. Convicted serial killer William Herron's
served life in prison for Degnan's murder and claims he had nothing to do with
the Black Dahlia murder, and further claims he only pled guilty for the Degnan
murder due to being beaten and tortured into confession by the police. Whoever killed
Elizabeth is now almost certainly dead too, and it's unlikely we will ever know
who he or she was. And that brings us to the end of another
episode of ten podcast. Lane Am again, I just want to thank everyone
for a constant support and listening. It would really mean a lot if you
could leave an l five star review on Apple Podcasts and five stars on Spotify
as well. Hopefully. I'm not sure how it worked with that, I'll
boost me up the algorithms and I'm planning on entering the Irish Podcast Awards this
year as well, so keep an eye out for that and let me an
ll vote and check out Mix Chili Hot Sauce as well. And we have
a new discount code as well, Spooky twenty, which can be used until
the end of April for twenty percent off and seeing how that goes, we
might get a further one down the line as well, so as always stay
safe. A name for the bushes m M m m