The Black Dahlia and The Blue Dahlia

Trelstad, Mondragon, Asher and Norton were significantly intoxicated late at night and were approached because they appeared to be easy prey. Elevated alcohol levels are critical factors in the Jeanne French and Evelyn Winters murders. Being sober didn’t save Elizabeth Short or Louise Springer or Gladys Kern. Alcohol plays no role in those deaths and to me that is indicative of a very different predator.

Elizabeth had fantasies of a husband to marry. The Black Dahlia Avenger had fantasies of a victim to torture.

I explore the death of Elizabeth Short with a mindful eye on the noir culture of the Los Angeles

Two very different front pages on January 16th 1947.

Welcome to the Black Dahlia and Blue Dahlia podcast. This is your host, Scott Tracy.

Jan 16th 1947 The Los Angeles Examiner has written the headline to remember. The Los Angeles Times has written a headline to forget. It’s difficult to conceive in today’s world how essential daily newspapers were to our culture in the 1940s. The second world war had turned Americans into news junkies. Every day there were stories on three fronts. From Pearl Harbor to the Atomic bomb, from Adolph Hitler to Alger Hiss; the future of civilization had been at stake and the excitement of war news created a public that became addicted to reading the paper like never before. The American public is still thirsty for news after VJDay. The impact of news you can hold in your hands has the greater reach in media. Although It is peacetime, American newspapers are still at war with their rivals. In 1947, Newspapers are either a morning or evening publication. The Los Angeles Times was the more successful morning newspaper. The Los Angeles Herald Express was the primary evening paper. The Hearst morning paper was the Examiner. Morning papers were delivered to the homes and offices. Housewives and businessmen could read the paper at their leisure. The Los Angeles Times was a white collar publication, very much a cheerleader of business interests. The Los Angeles Times is a historically anti-union publication. In contrast, the evening papers are sold to the worker class readers by sound and sight. At the newsstand, a paper needs big headlines to jump out so it can be read from a distance. The afternoon papers gives the public the news the morning papers doesn’t have; up-to-date stock market news, horse racing results and night baseball scores. Citizens read the paper at home at dinnertime commonly just as we might watch the TV news. Bold dramatic headlines were key to evening newspaper sales. A headline needs to grab the attention of the public. Newsies, 10, 11 year-old boys screamed out lurid headlines to sell papers at trolly stops and train stations. HEAD IN TORSO MURDER STILL MISSING was shouted out-loud by young boys on street corners on Jan 28th 1946. That’s a headline that grabs. Jane Doe number one would become the number one story of 1947. The Hearst newspaper offered one of the most successful headlines in history and the paper sold the most copies of any issue in the post war period. It is an expressive, shocking and descriptive headline. GIRL TORTURED AND SLAIN; Hacked Nude Body Found in L A Lot. The Herald gets everything right on that front page; Note the sequence is correct. Beth Short is tortured then killed then cut in half and displayed in the vacant lot. Remarkable in contrast, the headline in the Times is less successful; beginning with the fact that it’s on page 2. GIRL VICTIM OF SEX FIEND FOUND SLAIN it is a two column headline. When I was a journalism student I was given an example on how not to write a headline. The story as an example, discussed was about the undeveloped areas of Siberia. The headline was “Russian Virgin Lands” semicolon, “Short of Goal Again”. The problem was with the way the headline translates is when its shrunk into a one column story. So the first line is racy, Russian Virgin, the second line Lands Short, the third line— of Goal Again. Russian Virgin Lands; Short of Goal Again Put together, it seems to be a call for help. The Los Angeles Times Black Dahlia headline fails when the words are crammed in to two columns. First line reads Girl Victim of Sex. Second line reads Fiend Found Slain. As if the Fiend is murdered and the crime committed against the woman was sex. The sub-headline is troublesome as well. Nude mutilated body indicates; first line. Orgy of torture before murder; second line. The first word in the sub-headline is “nude” and the first word in the second line is “orgy”; those words jump out at the reader. The way the sub-headline bonds with the use of sex in the primary headline that strikes me as distasteful and heavy handed. Another copy editor might have chosen to say. Frenzy of torture, for example. I recognize that the killer pleasure from the controlled torture, but for the rest of us, orgy doesn’t fit. The headline draws the reader, but it creates an uncomfortable connection as if we, the readers, are meant to feel what the killer feels. The language has a pulp quality to it. An orgy of torture sounds like an illustrated cover article in a post-war men’s racy pulp magazine, like “Hostages in Hitler’s Passion Cave; Orgy of Torture Before Murder.” The two main papers use very different pictures as well. The Herald airbrushes a blanket over the hacked and nude body without explanation. The Times shows that location from safe distance and a very low height, the photo taken level with car’s lug-nuts, so that the grass on Norton Ave lot is tall enough to obscure the dead body. The reporters and police are taller than the telephone poles on the next block and stand with backs to the camera and eyes down on the unseen body as if the are praying. The significance of the success of the Herald headline was not lost on the Hearst newspaper syndicate. Detective Finis Brown spoke about the placement of the victim on the grass and the press coverage during the Grand Jury inquest in 1949. “the two halves were about a foot apart, but the legs were spread and the type of mutilation that was done would indicate a person – to my estimation who had a mania for publicity.  The newspapers up until the 23rd when things began to slack off and we only had one page in the newspaper – one column, the 23rd and the 24th – that night we received the belongings of the Short girl.   The next day it was full.  The papers was full of it then.  It continued that way until altogether about 33 days.  To my estimation, the person sent that in because they wanted publicity to gloat over the fact that they had been successful in their crime and got a kick out of it.” The reason to quote Detective Brown is to point out how important the press is to the killer and how important an ongoing crime story is to the afternoon papers in particular. The Killer sought anonymous notoriety, the papers needed everybody’s nickel; the relationship of the killer and the press is a courtship made in hell. One subscripted to the morning papers, they came automatically. The afternoon papers were bought on a whim. So competition is fierce. The Herald wrote better headlines or they went broke. This press coverage Detective Brown speaks of when he says 33 days, is referring to the Hearst newspapers. Not the Los Angeles Times. I mentioned that the murder story is on page two on January 16th 1947, the front page of the Los Angeles Times is concerned with the request of the Mayor for issuing 40 million dollars in bonds. London Strikers are creating the worst labor crisis in 40 years. Ford Motor Co is cutting the prices of new cars by $15 to $50. Quadruplets were born in France and Elenor Roosevelt driver’s license is being revoked. During this post war decade, the Black Dahlia story was NEVER front page news in the Los Angeles Times. Once again, A strike in London, Ford drops prices and Eleanor can’t drive. Front page news in the Times. For the Herald; Girl Tortured and Slain; Hacked Nude Body Found in L A Lot. The police canvas the Norton Avenue neighborhood and locate witness Bob Meyer who lived one street west of Norton Ave at 3900 South Bronson. Meyer told the police and the press that he saw an older Ford sedan, black in color, 1936 or 1937 park near the place where the body was found between 6:30 and 7 a.m. Sunrise is at 6:59 so not surprisingly Bob Meyer is not able to describe the driver from a block away. Mr Meyer observes the parked car on the street for four minutes then sees the driver speed away. Could this be the killer? Four minutes is not much time and Meyer doesn’t say he saw the man do anything. The coroner suggest ES has been dead for 10 hours she was discovered. Is the killer returning to crime scene? How suspicious is it that a car would speed away as the sun rises? Most likely, the driver of the older Black Ford saw something white in the grass from the road as the morning light struck the body and drove near enough to realize he should peel out. Given the isolation of the lot, it is understandable that no one else comes forward to say they saw the body placed or the killer drive away. Janice Knowlton in her book “Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer relates the tale of 38 year old LAFD captain Bill Nash test driving his tuned up Plymouth on Norton Ave accompanied by neighbor Roy Preston and comes upon what Nash thinks is a statue in the weeds. Could Nash’s Plymouth be the car that Bob Meyer saw drive away? Can Bob Meyer tells a black ford from a black Plymouth from a block away at the crack of dawn? Nash called the police when he got back home according to Knowlton, however, Nash’s account is not mentioned in any major newspaper. Interviews in the door to door Leimert Park neighborhood What are we to make of this story? It’s logical and fits many of the pieces as we know them, It is common for people to be curious about a large item others throw out. How similar is a Plymouth sedan to a Ford sedan? Rather similar. Is Nash’s story true? I’m not bothered by it not being in a major newspaper. † Knowlton tells a very detailed story, Nash has changed his spark plugs and is road testing his car. Preston vomits after they get back to Grayburn Ave. This is a fine example of the challenges one finds in telling the Black Dahlia story. How do I categorize the event? How do I decide to accept or reject? This is my hierarchy; Fact, Conjecture, Supposition, Assumption and Theory Fact would be well documented. Example— the autopsy Conjecture is highly probable unproven but accepted as all facts point in direction. Example— the body is displayed because killer seeks attention Supposition is a solid possibility, interpretation logical event. Example- Beth Short had a destination in mind when she headed south on Olive Street on January 7th. Assumption is interpretation makes sense; often presents emotional closure. Example Elizabeth she got her name because she often wears flowers in her hair emotional closure. Theory is solid guess requires weavings of assumptions and supposition. Example -my father is a serial killer. What should we believe when there are so many suppositions and assumptions in this case? The story of Bill Nash is illustrative of the difficulty one has when seeking a path to the truth. Did Janice Knowlton make the entire thing up? In her book she states she interviewed 84 year old Bill Nash on November 4th 1992. Nash speaks with clarity and remembers with many details. That seems truthful and believable. Knowlton says she read about Nash in the Hollywood Citizen News dated Jan 15th 1947. My initial search lead me to believe the Hollywood Citizen News ceased publication in 1944. But no, according to the Library of Congress the name changes to the Citizen News in 1944 then reverts back to Hollywood Citizen News in 1945. A lot of digging for on minor detail, but it showcases how far one has to go to reach the facts and how frustrating that the result is often more questions. The newspapers will remember Bob Meyer because of there is short dark man who paid Miss Shorts rent when she lived previously at a Hollywood hotel. He lived in Beverly Hills in an apartment on Crescent Drive and drove an old black Ford sedan similar to the one observed by the vacant lot a few hours before the body was discovered. The police make the first arrest. With the encouragement of Los Angeles Police psychologist Dr. J Paul DeRiver, the early investigative focus is on repeat offenders of sex crimes. The Headline in the Express is YOUTH GRILLED AS ‘WEREWOLF’ SUSPECT. The article in part reads: The modern counterpart of a medieval torture chamber in which a slim attractive young girl writhed for hours before her brutal murder by a “werewolf killer was sought by detectives today. … like the victims of predatory killers assuming the form of a wolf in ancient folklore, the body was gashed and mutilated almost beyond recognition.” That is quite a leap that Aggie Underwood takes to go from the Iron Maiden to Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Werewolf. This very much the pulp style of writing of this period. Arrested is ‘Cecil French, 23 year old man from Bakersfield, accused of molesting two girls at the bus depot. His car is examined for blood stains but results are negative and Cecil is released. The Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News states over 100 men are rounded up and questioned overnight then released before the locating Cecil French. These 100 men are not suspects based on day one clues, but J Paul DeRiver’s files, his catalog of sexual deviants. He was the first psychologist hired by an American police department and he created the first American sex offender registry. This is a time when the category of sex deviants extends to homosexuality; oral sex and sodomy are CRIMES that are prosecuted; Harassment of the gay community is common procedure for police. This becomes important as a few of the drinking establishments that Elizabeth Short frequents are gay bars, and the resistance to talk to the police inquisitors is expected. Reporters have better luck than the threatening cops. DeRiver receives credit for the first actionable profile of a killer in 1937. Let me tell you a bit more. In 1934 Dr. DeRiver volunteers to assist the Los Angeles the City Probation Department. as a consultant psychiatrist.DeRiver is working gratis because QUOTE “I was devoting my whole time to that because I was pioneering a new field, criminal psychiatry and …I was interested in it… There was nobody interested in the sex degenerate…. There was very little written in textbooks by anyone of authority so I went after it in a practical way.” In response to the murder of the three babes of Inglewood, June 1937. DeRiver viewed the bodies of the three little girls and the physical evidence at the crime scene, and wrote the following ” Look for one man, probably in his twenties, a pedophile who might have been arrested before for annoying children. He is a sadist with a superabundance of curiosity. He is very meticulous and probably now remorseful, as most sadists are very apt to be masochistic after expressing sadism. The slayer may have a religious streak and even become prayerful. Moreover, he is a spectacular type and has done this thing, not on sudden impulse, but as a deliberately planned affair. I am of the opinion that he had obtained the confidence of these little girls. I believe they knew the man and trusted him. This idea of forensic “profiling,” was well received. And indeed, with the exception of the age, it describes the likely killer fairly well. Two assumptions that may not apply to certain types of criminals, DeRiver deals with criminals who confess and feel remorse. Serial killers and psychopaths don’t have feelings for victims. There is no regret or desire to confess because psychopaths think victims were born to be victims. Returning to the crime, Other children in the park, remember a a man who would show children rope tricks, who drove a beat up truck and told little girls he could catch a rabbit for them if they would go with him. Fred Godsey was named the suspect. Quoting the front page of the Los Angeles Times of Saturday July 3rd 1937, Indian Hunted as Child Slayer Suspect Identified in Inglewood — Search Opened Throughout West for ex-Convict Fred Godsey, 34-year-old quarter blood Cherokee Indian and convicted felon, last night was the wanted suspect in the murder a week ago today of Madeline and Melba Everett and Jeanette Stephens in the Baldwin Hills near Inglewood. Godsey, who fits perfectly the composite description of "Eddie the Sailor," who was seen by several witnesses luring the three schoolgirls from Centinela Park to their horrible death, was being hunted by every law enforcement agency In the Rocky Mountain States and the Pacific Coast.  ENDQUOTE By Monday the headlines are on the front page, a 34 year old school crosswalk guard Albert Dyer has confessed. Not only does Dyer not fit the profile, the mentally challenged man has been coerced into confessing, Dyer recants and then is pressured again. Dyer has the mental comprehension level of the children he walks across the street. His IQ is judged to be 60. In the language of 1937, a moron. When asked what country was south of the United States, Dyer says "Alaska," He has the process of a nine years old, can’t drive, doesn’t know rope tricks or know north from west. Because he is a crossing guard, he is at a loss that children he watches over have been kidnapped and killed. Dyer, sadly has no comprehension of the danger he is in, ”I hope I get probation so that I can go back to my wife and get a good job and buy her some pretty things." There is no physical evidence to link Dyer to the crime. But the police have a confession and that is the end of the search for Fred Godsey. The Everett Family is concerned, the children in Centinela Park knew Dyer and would have stated that he was the one who they saw with the children. Of course Dyer doesn’t drive so the police convince a jury that Dyer is a kind of Pied Piper that has three children walk behind him for miles thru thick brush and over steep ravines. Merle Everett said “My daughters didn’t walk from the park where they disappeared to the place they were killed, they were carried away in an automobile.” The Everett family and others are alarmed that a child killer is on the loose and will kill again and they petition to have Dyer released. Their insight and pleas have no effect. Albert Dyer is hanged at San Quentin September 16th 1938. Dr J Paul DeRiver assisted the police in attaining Dyer’s confession and testified that Dyer was capable to stand trial because he knew right from wrong. To read more on the Dyer case I recommend, Pamela Everett’s book; Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret.] DeRiver shapes the Black Dahlia investigation from day one. The focus on DeRiver is of importance for this reason, as opposed to than Man Ray theories or background antidotes like Elizabeth Short’s one date with Matt Gordon in Miami because we are following the evolution of the investigation in Los Angeles. When DeRiver says, There was nobody interested in the sex degenerate…. so I went after it in a practical way.” DeRiver literally means it on the simplest level, before the interview he measures everyone with a tape. Well-endowed Peter Hernandez kills because he thinks he can get away with it. Leslie Dillon is less well equipped and he kills to prove he is a man. However, sincere DeRiver’s intent, ultimately his ambition exceeds his Victorian skill set and innocent men are sent to death row as the direct result of his misguided sense of duty to his police masters. This is the day of the autopsy. Doctor Frederick Newbarr speaks QUOTE I performed an autopsy on Elizabeth Short on January 16th 1947, at the Los Angeles county Coroner’s mortuary and found the immediate cause of death; hemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain and lacerations of the face. There are multiple lacerations to the mid-forehead, in the right forehead and at the top of the head in the midline. There are multiple tiny abrasions, linear in shape, on the right face and forehead. There are two small laceration ¼” in length, on each side of the nose hear the bridge. Multiple blows to the head, however, no fracture of the skull. These tiny lacerations on each side of the nose are located where every person who wears glasses would know about, as the nose piece can leave a mark; in combination with the location of other abrasions to the head seems to indicate a type of restraint whose purpose would be to forcibly restrict movement of the the head, why else press against the bridge of the nose on both sides. Newbar continues There is a deep laceration on the face 3 inches long which extends laterally from the right corner of the mouth and a deep laceration 2 1/2 inches long extending lateral from the left corner of the mouth. The surrounding tissues are ecchymotic and blush purple in color. The discoloration indicates victim received these deep straight cuts on both sides of the mouth when she was alive. …There is no evidence of trauma to the ..thyroid …or tracheal rings. …There is a double ridge around her left wrist close to the hand. There is a double ridge depressed around the right wrist. The fingernails are very short, the thumbnail measuring 5/16th in length and the fingernails measuring 3/16th in length. Jane Doe #1 was not strangled. There is no conclusion as to the type of restraint on her wrists and legs; wire or rope. Dr Newbarr stats Elizabeth Short bit her fingernails to the quick during her lifetime. That has little to do with the crime. Of course the coroner hopes for evidence of her attacker under her nails. Newbarr states, The teeth are in a state of advanced decay. The two upper central incisors are loose and one lower incisor is loose. The rest of the teeth show cavities. Unrelated to her death, but this a significant because that is a dramatic amount of decay for a person of her age. This neglect, does it speak to self esteem issues? There is no polite way to say this but bad teeth means bad breath. Ignoring personal hygiene is a surprising choice for someone who was attempting to break into show business as a pretty face. Why not work as a waitress and take care of your smile? Newbarr continues. The trunk of the body is completely severed by an incision which is straight through the abdomen severing the intestine at the duodenum and through the soft tissue … passing through the intervertebral disk between the second and third lumbar vertebrae. There is very little ecchymosis along the track of the incision. The use of the word “incision” is instructive. The blade must slice between the 2nd and 3rd vertebra to allow for a clean cut that strikes no bones. This is not a common procedure nor it is common knowledge. The nature of the cut implies a significant level of skill. Returning to the autopsy, there is an irregular opening in the skin on the anterior surface of the left thigh with tissue loss. The opening measure 3 ½ inches transversely at the base and 4 inches from the base longitudinally… : This is the location of Elizabeth Short’s tattoo. One pound of flesh removed from the thigh and inserted in her vagina. Newbarr mentions during the inquest that the flesh was found and leaves it at that. The organs of the abdomen are entirely exposed there are lacerations of the intestine and both kidneys. The uterus is small and no pregnancy is apparent, the tubes, ovaries and cul-de-sac are intact... The stomach is filled with greenish brown granular matter, mostly feces and other particles which could not be identified. All smears for spermatozoa were negative. Frederick Newbarr MD chief autopsy surgeon This is an imperfect arena for Internet detectives. What are we to make of statements like, “particles that could not be identified”? There is no official autopsy report for us to read. Indeed why would there be? We are not officials; just curious folks. We can only know what was stated at the inquest. The body was washed and scrubbed before it was placed in the vacant lot. Coconut fibers were found on the body and the FBI investigated and concluded them to be common to cheap scrub brush bristles. Only a few drops of blood were recovered from the body. Type A/B. Police did request the vital organs be tested for chemical traces of narcotics. However this testing never happened. It is stated that there was a small amount of alcohol present,* Beth Short commonly did not drink. I wonder if a she had been given a Mickey Finn or sedative narcotic. It is difficult to read the mutilation done to Elizabeth Short. It is not a pleasant to think about her torture. Let’s move on to our Watson and Holmes observations. Watson is a Doctor, so we have to give him the autopsy. I think Watson would have expressed the similarities to the savage action of a London madman, Jack the Ripper. In doing so Watson would align himself with the 1947 police and the press do . Agnes Underwood calls the killer a werewolf it must have been committed by a monster. While the shock of the mutilation of the Ripper victims is equal to the shock present on Norton Ave, the significant connection to the Ripper case is fame not M.O. as the Black Dahlia case reaches back to Jack the Ripper murders and telescopes forward to the Zodiac Killer because of the taunting of the Police through the press. The Ripper mailed a kidney The Avenger mailed the contents of the Elizabeth Short’s purse. The Zodiac gave us his coded messages to solve. The Sherlock observation would focus on what is not present. Blood. Evidence. Motive. The autopsy reveals much of the damage below the neck happens after the victim is dead. In criminal profiling terms, a serial killer is categorized as Organized or Disorganized. The Black Dahlia is the act of an organized killer. The Ripper is disorganized. Time for our play along at home quiz. On this day the Herald leads with the headline; tortured hacked nude. The Times tells the citizens of Los Angeles Eleanor Roosevelt can’t drive, if you think this is front page news, raise your hand. More than one writer invests considerable paragraphs explaining Leimert Park. This only makes sense if the neighborhood plays a role in her death. There is no indication that is does. Why would a vacant lot have anything to do with the developer’s vision of a suburb and connecting shopping center? The thing to know about Leimert Park in 1947 was this. It was unknown to the the vast majority of Los Angeles citizens. Leimert Park is an isolated suburb at the outskirts of the city. If you are Downtown or Hollywood or Pasadena and going to the Veterans Hospital. Take Centinela. Going to the beach? Take Venice. Catching a flight at Mines Field? take Sepulveda. There was basically nothing on Sepulveda at but oil fields. Significant areas of Los Angeles were not developed in 1947. At this time, Los Angeles County was the largest agricultural producing county in America. That is so hard to get one’s head around that if you happen to be on the 405 right now as you listen to the podcast. The other side of the coin is that Los Angeles County was the #1 county in California for manufacturing at this time as well, The war had an exponential impact on population during the war, Even to this day there are more manufacturing jobs in Los Angeles County that in the state of Michigan. As these workers needed homes, the developers were buying up orange groves and bean fields to plant suburbs for the workers and families that the war industry has brought to Los Angeles. Still to anyone living in the city today, the amount of undeveloped land is something that jumps out when to see photos of the time period. There is a map on the black dahlia blue dahlia web page that illustrates how isolated the Leimert Park in 1947 is from the daily lives of the vast majority of the citizens Los Angeles. There is very little reason under any circumstances that most folks would be aware of a vacant lot at Norton Ave and 39th. At the end of the Los Angeles Times article, it states the body is not that of Diana Jean Heaney of Lynwood, reported missing Oct 16th 1946. The important thing to realize, the police are not looking for Elizabeth Short because no one reported her missing. After all Ms Short has no address, there is only one person who knows she is missing, her killer. There are other girls missing and police field many frantic phone calls from worried relatives. Police follow up on any leads given with no result. ONE MORE THING …. January in Los Angeles is most often a happy time. Very few things have the effect on those who grew up back east as January in Los Angeles. While most of America suffering with the cold twins of winter; snow and ice. Angelenos start the year with the watching the Rose Bowl in shirt sleeves. The year 1947 begins quietly on the news front. So when the Black Dahlia story breaks, there is no competition for column space. Armed bandits robbed the Mocambo Club on Sunset Blvd. reported on Jan 7th. The suspects are arrested 8 days later. Phyllis Ayers known as the Blond Venus, failed at love and at death the first week as the seductive Burlesque Queen attempts to overdose on sleeping pills after her break up with B movie actor Jack LaRue. Ayers is hospitalized. LaRue denies everything but will be arrested in the valley a week later for drunk driving. Ruth Dunty, 29, takes the stand in her divorce proceedings, and denies that she danced the “hootchy kootchy” at party as claimed by her husband Robert Dunty, 31. 14 year old Loraine Collins handed her father’s pistol to 15 year old Edward Eiesnhart at a teenage party. The pistol misfired and 15 year old Alan Gordon is struck in the chest, his dying words, “I’m shot in the heart.” The Los Angeles Times reporter refers to the pistol to as the “death gun”. And Paul Kittrelle, the nude burglar of Beverly Hills is caught. Go on ask me how they knew it was him! Jane Doe #1 is the first front page murder of 1947. The newspapers have been hungry for a big headline when Elizabeth Short suffers an Orgy of torture before murder. Thanks for listening. The next podcast will focus on the big news of January 17th: the FBI identifies the fingerprints of Elizabeth Short. The police interview hanger-ons at a drug store lunch counter in Long Beach and in crime news, a white man kills a black woman in Japantown. Until then.

† The Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News scooped the big papers with an edition published on the afternoon of the15th. It refers to a unnamed motorist seeing the body.

*http://www.lmharnisch.com/myths.html

 Could Nash’s Plymouth be the 1937 Ford that Bob Meyer saw drive away from a block away at dawn? 

1937 Ford Sedan

Jan 15th edition of the Metropolitan Pasadena Star-News.

“A passing motorist noticed the body lying just off the sidewalk in a vacant lot…”

Girl Victim Of Sex

The Everett family believed Dyer to be an innocent moron.

The Press photographers uses noir style lighting to demonize Dyer.

Orgy of torture before murder— not a good visual

Welcome to the 3rd podcast of the Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia, this is your host, Scott Tracy.

The Los Angeles Police expect to send Jane Doe’s fingerprints to the FBI by air, however, blizzards grounded flights on the east coast. Los Angeles Examiner City Editor James Richardson offered the LAPD an opportunity to use the Hearst newspaper exclusive Soundphoto, an early incarnation of the fax machine. A wire photo transmission of each fingerprint was enlarged and send to the Washington Herald where FBI agents wait for the large copies of each single fingerprint. Within hours the FBI identifies Elizabeth Short as the victim based on her employment at the Camp Cooke military base and her arrest for underaged drinking by the Santa Barbara Police at the age of 19 at the bar of the El Paseo Restaurant.  This arrest photo is the one commonly used on book covers and in magazines. One can easily understand why it would be chosen, as it is a striking image; Elizabeth Short is handsome, defiant and vulnerable. I am very drawn to the range of emotions visible in this photograph as there is chaos at the edge, Beth’s the wild dense hair and untidy bow tie frame her face. The use of make-up is restrained, atypical for Beth. The earrings are elegant. There is a compelling architecture to this face, her cheekbones are a force, her neck is noble, her jaw juts powerfully forward, challenging the camera. Her lips are slightly parted, tender and full, there is no expectation of words.  This is a mouth that is as likely to spit in your face as blow a kiss.  At the center of this the enigmatic photo, her imbalanced eyes; cautious and curious. These are the eyes of an animal captured at the moment of decision; to fight or flee; revealing an unexpected level of tension between Elizabeth and the camera. The beam of light that travels from her face to the lens is taunt as a rope. It is a photograph that captures the elusive essence of this beckoning and rebellious young woman, a visual that calls out equally to Bonnie Parker and Jane Russell. 

It is in every way an arresting picture; many of us struggle with our embarrassing driver’s license ID photos and here is Beth Short with what may be the most attractive mug shot in history. It’s a haunting familiar image as we know the horrific fate that awaits the Black Dahlia. 

This mug shot was taken by Santa Barbara arresting police officer, Mary Unkefer, Short stays with Unkefer in the days after the arrest until the juvenile court released Miss Short on probation.  Beth is send home on a bus on October 2nd 1943, heading east to Boston Massachusetts. Officer Unkefer noticed Elizabeth “had a rose tattooed on her left leg. Beth loved to sit so that it would show.” 

The Hearst newspapers are quick to act on their scoop. Reporters are sent to Santa Barbara to learn more about her time at the military base. James Richardson instructs reporter Wain Sutton call Beth’s mother, Phoebe Short in Medford Massachusetts. On instructions from his boss, Sutton informs Phoebe that Elizabeth has won a beauty contest to get more information before revealing the true reason for the contact. The newspaper learns that Elizabeth was in San Diego recently where she worked at Naval hospital, previously she had been in Hollywood working as a film extra 

It’s horrible for the newspaper reporters to lie to Phoebe Short about her daughter, ironically much of what the mother tells the reporter are lies Elizabeth Short told her mother, Beth never worked at the San Diego Naval hospital at Balboa Park, she never worked at all in California, she was never had acting parts in any Hollywood studio movie. The Hollywood myth begins with a lie in a daughter’s letter to her mother repeated to a newspaperman. 

It is compelling to compare how news framed the murder and the victim in the first days of investigation. Beginning 

Murder Of The Black Dahlia Laid To A Sex-Perverted Madman, Baltimore Sun 

The mutilation slayer of attractive 22 year old Elizabeth Short whose butchery was described by a police psychiatric as the work of a sex perverted  madman, was being sought on a nation-wide scale today with authorities trying to locate her several “boy-friends” Her suiters were many, said Police Captain Loren Q. Martin of Long Beach where she lived until recently. He added that ... hangers-on at a neighborhood drug store near where she lived, (they called her) “The Black Dahlia” because of her raven hair and the jet-black clothing she usually wore. 

As the newspapers grapple with the shock of the mutilation the story is framed by psychology. Who would do this?  A sex pervert. Then one wonders which one of her many boyfriends is a perverted violent sex killer. Note the police statement that it’s Hangers-on at a drug counter, not friends.

Boy Friends in Three Services… Police would particularly like to question an unidentified army lieutenant, described as “tall and handsome” Miss Short allegedly told friends she intended to marry him. She also was frequently visited at her Long Beach hotel by a navy man. Policewoman Myrl McBride asserted Miss Short once asked her for protection from a discharged Marine whom the girl described as “insanely jealous.”

Note that McBride says Miss Short asked her for protection from an insane serviceman. This will come back to haunt McBride as she did everything correctly given the circumstances but its unfortunate for the image of the LAPD that Elizabeth Short is brutally tortured and murdered just after she asks for police protection earlier that same day.

Continuing with the Baltimore Sun. “Shortly after she took a clerk’s job in the Post Exchange at Camp Cooke, near Santa Barbara where, said her former boss, Mrs Inez Keeling, she at first was shy and bashful and never dated soldiers. At that time she was a model employee in all respects, not smoking and seldom drinking. A few months later, said Mrs. Keeling she began to go out with the soldiers several times a week. 

The Baltimore Sun supposes the crime was committed by a crazy ex-serviceman. Let’s compare two other versions of the same news day story. 

24 Former Suitors of Slain L.A.Girl Sought SF CHRONICLE

 …Officers concentrated on locating … a supposed airline employee known as "Red" with whom Beth left San Diego a week before the killing. Also still unidentified is the "short, dark man" who paid Miss Short's rent when she lived previously at a Hollywood hotel. He drove an old black Ford sedan, similar to one observed by the vacant lot a few hours before the body was discovered. Still another suspect police want to question is a jealous marine suiter. A search for him was started after an incident related by Policewoman Myrl O. McBride. She related that the girl, so filled with terror that she was crying, run up to her at a downtown bus station and asked for protection against an "ex-marine boy friend who once, threatened to kill me if he found me with another man," Beth explained that she had just encountered the marine In a bar and had been so frightened that she had run out without her purse and wraps. Officer McBride went to the bar with the girl while she retrieved those articles. The policewoman advised Miss Short to go home, but the girl returned to the bus station, explaining: "My daddy's coming: in two hours from now." "Two hours from now" was the time a bus was due from San Diego. "Daddy" apparently referred to her boy friend, "Red," from whom she had received a telegram from San Diego.

The extent to which the city was shocked was reflected in the city council today when Lloyd Davies proposed a $10,000 reward for the conviction of the torture killer. 

Note how different papers impose a narrative and arrange the facts accordingly. One of the many issues of this case that only become clear when you read the newspapers each day to see how the story evolves. 

Looking back in time, we have no idea who “Daddy” might be. Certainly it’s not Cleo Short and it’s not Red Manley. Likely it’s a reassuring fib. Note Beth black dresses are now sheer black dresses. The source for the sheer comment is bartender at Four Star Grill in Hollywood. Buddy LeGore who remembered seeing Elizabeth January 10th, One of the so-called missing days where he says “ it looked like she had been sleeping in her clothes for days, Her sheer black dress was stained, soiled and otherwise crumpled quite a bit. Her hair was straggly and some lipstick had been smeared hit or miss on her lips.”  It is of importance that Myrl O. McBride is saying Beth was crying and filled with terror. McBride advised her to go home and Beth Short went back inside. Note the theme “Careless youth of America pay a price when they don’t listen.” 

Notice how the Oakland Tribune handles the same story.

QUOTE Los Angeles authorities today followed a trail of two dozen boy friends in their search for the murderer of Miss Elizabeth (Betty) Short, 22, whose nude body; was found bisected and badly mutilated in a Lovers’ Lane early Wednesday. Police said their number one suspect appeared to be a red-haired ex-Marine, who was seen with the young movie extra known as the "Black Dahlia" a week before she was strung up nude and tortured to death, probably by a jealously-mad denied suitor.

The Oakland Tribune is playing up the loose woman card. Lovers Lane is used as if to say, she went to the well too many times. She would be alive today if she had been a good girl and never gone to a Lover’s Lane. This bad girl side of the story is spelled out to Bay Area newspaper readers by Beth Short’s hairdresser.

QUOTE Alex Constance, 44, a Hollywood hair stylist who said he dressed the murdered girl's hair and sometimes took her out, said Beth had told him she was afraid of the marine but was afraid to turn, down dates with him because he was so jealous.

The paper  creates the idea that the Hollywood Marine is the same Marine downtown at the bar, Before the press has better information, the press and police assume there is one Marine as they attempt to winnow the list of suspects. There is a threatening  Marine in the Lompac area the threatening Marine in the bar downtown near the Greyhound station and the Red haired Marine in San Diego. 

QUOTE Constance said he once saw the man arrive at Elizabeth’s apartment driving a dark-colored 1937 sedan. Residents near the lovers lane where Miss Short's hacked and severed body, scrubbed clean and fitted together, was found Wednesday, reported seeing an old black sedan stop at the curb. Beth sometimes posed In the nude for a Hollywood photographer, her friend Constance said.  The hairdresser said she sometimes played her many men against each other; making dates ~ and then breaking then. "I warned her that would get her into trouble.”...

we don’t know the name of the man that paid the rent 

Indeed there is much we do not know, however that doesn’t mean the police did not locate interview and release the man 

Another friend questioned in the case is former Army -Flier Joseph Gordon Fickling, now employed by Twentieth Century Airlines, Raleigh, N.C.  Police said he is not a suspect; Fickling disclosed he received a letter from Miss Short written January 8, the day she disappeared, in which Beth said she hoped to go to Chicago to model and mentions a man named Jack. A wardrobe trunk of Miss Short's discovered in Union Station contained love letters from "Fickling which indicated he didn’t know whether she was more interested in him than in any other of her 20-odd boy friends.

Joseph Fickling is the man Elizabeth Short came to see in Long Beach in July of 1946. She tells some she plans to marry him. They register at the Washington Hotel on July 22nd signing in as Mr. and Mrs. There is a strict law at this time, given the issues with housing shortage, a guest can only stay at a hotel for five days. The couple moves to different  hotels  in Long Beach other check in at the Breevport Hotel in Hollywood. Beth and Joseph have played house in the various hotels then Beth strikes out on her own on August 27th.

Fickling never hears anyone call Elizabeth, “The Black Dahlia.”  (Her friends never called Elizabeth that name. Why would they? There is no such flower. No Dahlias are black, most dark dahlias are burgundy, some are purple, none are black. black and dahlia — those two words never existed next to each other in print until the January 1947. Elizabeth Short was not named after a flower that was not in her hair and did not exist by her friends, her  quote nickname end-quote derives from a current movie title because she is a wannabe actress and her lunch counter public that invents the nom du guerre for the new girl in town, it is lighthearted and mocking nickname for a naive wannabe. The Blue Dahlia in the movie is a nightclub. A place where action happens.  Not a woman, a nightclub. The famous film noir movie played for one week at the Fox West Coast movie theater at 333 East Ocean Ave. from July 31st, 1946 to Aug 5th. Elizabeth Short and Gordon Fickling lived one block east of the Movie Theater at the Washington Hotel on 53 Linden Ave. Lander’s drug store where Hangers-on at a drug counter give here the epithet, “The Black Dahlia” is at 102 Linden Ave.  corner of First Street, one half-block north of the hotel. That is how the Blue Dahlia mystery movie becomes the Black Dahlia newer moniker. 

Returning to the Oakland Tribune 

QUOTE Described as lovely, innocent and shy in 1943 when she first came to California for her health, police said, the black-haired beauty had changed to a man-crazy adventuress during three years of gay living in four Southern California cities. Homicide officers piecing together her career discovered their list of suspects was as numerous as the men she attracted in Santa Barbara. Long Beach, Hollywood and San Diego.

The Oakland paper highlights sex as the motive; a jealous mad suitor is denied sex and kills in rage. Adventuress sounds a lot like adulteress, doesn’t it? Note the dig about the evil cities of Southern California from a Northern California newspaper: Long Beach, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Hollywood dens of  man-crazy adventuress

QUOTE Cleo Short father of the dead girl. was located today in Los Angeles and told detectives: “I want nothing to do with this." He said that he had separated from his wife several years ago and left the family. Five years ago, Elizabeth wrote to me and I sent her some money to come out here. We set up housekeeping, but she wouldn't stay home. "In 1943, I told her to go her way, I’d go mine.”

There is has news about finding Elizabeth Short’s trunk at the station. Beth’s love letters are used against her. And Beth’s “Daddy” in this article is her Father, as Cleo is introduced as the disappointed and disapproving adult in this story. Amazing that Mr. Cleo Short could be the hero of any story. Cleo is the husband and father that abandoned his wife and five daughters during the depression by feinting suicide. He leaves his car at a bridge and walks away. Nine years later he writes to Phoebe who declines to speak to him. Beth corresponds and Cleo sends her $200. during the war for her to come and live with him in Vallejo. Cleo expects Beth to be his maid and cook, instead Beth is a typical teenager girl who hangs out with boys at night and sleeps late during the day.

Sounds like Beth was the same girl there as she would be in Hollywood and at the French’s in Pacific Beach. So she was dating in Vallejo before she was the good girl in Camp Cooke?

The newspaper narrative fails to hold. So does the often repeated story of Cleo throwing her out. Remember this fact, Cleo and Beth move from Vallejo to Los Angeles together.  Cleo Short’s acquaintance from Vallejo, Mrs Yankee, owns a house in Los Angeles on 36th Street near Exposition and they live there for three weeks, then Beth leaves for Camp Cooke. 

Ah, so it calls attention to the hollow myth that Beth wants to be a movie star. Note that Elizabeth leaves Mass and comes to Vallejo not Hollywood. Then to moves to Los Angeles for three weeks and then on Jan 29th 1943 she leaves for Lompoc, 3 hours north. Far from Hollywood. 

The young woman chooses men in uniform over a fantasy career. Indeed, the odds of finding a husband are solid than the lottery odds of a wannabe becoming a movie star. By the way, 1028-1/2 W 36 St Los Angeles is a four minute drive from the vacant lot on South Norton Ave. What does that mean? Likely, a mere coincidence. One can get caught up in the many associations and coincidences in this story. Suspects are often brought to the forefront of the mystery when they seem to have a potential connection to the murder however with research one realizes, no this is a coincidence is not a connection.  Cleo Short refuses to identify the body and is in a drunken stupor every time the police try to interview him they are stepping over empty wine bottles.

Stepping over empty booze bottles is the Los Angeles “gay” living that doesn’t make the Oakland Tribune. 

I have a witness to introduce to you. Tod Faulkner, has memories of Beth Short and Long Beach, he saw Elizabeth Short when he was a boy of 12. we know his story because he became a reporter for the Los Angeles Times when he grew up and in Tod 1971 interviewed retired LAPD homicide detective, Harry Hansen for an article about The Black Dahlia. Twenty four years previous, he and a friend, a newsboy, would to sit in front of Faulkner’s father's pinball concession at the entrance to the Long Beach Pike and, as boys will do, they boys watch people go by. One person they noticed multiple times, coming to and from a local bar and dressed for the ocean, was a young woman, whose face the boys would later recognized on the front pages. The Landers drug dounter is a common daytime visit for Beth, she meets an ex-serviceman from Boise, Robert Robertson at the breakfast counter at Lander’s soda fountain.  Robert told police the two of them would walk to the beach after breakfast. They did this multiple times.  They ride the trolley to Hollywood once, and Beth wrote to him at home for a period of time. As you recall, Beth is living with Joseph Fickling at this time. Lander’s drug store is a place one might purchase sun tan lotion not a dressy night club where Beth might wear her sheer black evening outfit. Beth is going to be seen. She wears her two-piece bathing suit and perhaps most 12 year old boys would be  excited to see a tattoo on pretty girl’s thigh for the first time. We have to remember the morals of this period. The bikini is a new concept, invented in 1946. Two pieces suits are risqué for many women. Even twenty years later Annette Funicello can wear a two piece suit to make surf movies but Annette can’t show her belly button. 

The nom de guerre The Black Dahlia is a result of a young woman who seeks attention from those who see her but do not know her was a person. 

Find her a bit obvious. Dress up. Rookie move out of towner the  naive overdress see stars sexy costumes on the red carpet and think that’s how the cocktail dress with glitter to Albertsons market. 

There is a lone woman murder in downtown Los Angeles on this day, January 18th 1947. A 37 year old black woman is found beaten and strangled with a stocking in bed Sunday morning by the manager of the Weller Hotel in Japantown. Asaichi Ujiri, who names her companion from the previous night to be a white man. Within two weeks, Mary’s husband, a black musician was arrested and released, six months later, a 40 year old white man, Oscar Johan Hallgren, a former film technician, is then identified as the man Ujiri saw and is arrested. Hallgren would be found not guilty at trial. In his book, Cases That Haunt Us.  John Douglas surmises this murder is a copy cat Black Dahlia killing. Nonsense. It is not a copy cat murder.

By 1949  the Long Beach Press-Telegram is including  the Tate Murder is one of the lone woman murders. When we compare the Black Dahlia to the majority of these Lone Woman Murders rarely do these other crimes intersect with all of the levels of the Black Dahlia murder mystery because the victimology is so different, so many of these other unsolved cases are contact is sexual and rape related not torture driven.

Laura Trelstad, Evelyn Winters, Alice Burns, Angela Loya, Loretta Robinson,  The commonality of the unsolved murders is they involved strangers. The police had no suspects. 

Only a handful of in Los Angeles police officers and reporters knew the murder of Mary Tate in January 1947. There was no article in the Herald-Express, or the Long Beach Telegram or the Los Angeles Times or the Examiner about the death of Mary Tate on January 18th 1947. Or the 19th or any date in January or February or March or April or June. Nothing. Today, what a newsworthy story; A white man kills a black woman in Japantown—tell me more—. In 1947, only the black newspaper, the Sentinel writes about Mary Tate Murder and only when the husband, Terry being arrested in early February. Later in that same year, a white man, Oscar Hallgren, is arrested for the crime. This is July 1947, only then does the Los Angeles Times writes a story about the arrest of a white man for murder of a black woman. So very little is known about the facts in this violent crime because there was no ongoing press coverage. It’s not likely that it was a planned murder, given three eye-witnesses observed them together that night. Are Mary and Oscar lovers? Or was it a business transaction?  Or chance pick up gone wrong? There are too many unknowns. Was she raped? The only other women killed in hotels are prostitutes. The  cross racial element is concerning given the time period. Did she die because Oscar Hallgren thought Mary was disposable? It that the way the jury say the crime? The Mary Tate Murder has nothing in common with any of the unique the Black Dahlia signatures; Beth was tortured, slashed with a knife, then mutilated after death, washed and displayed in public. Mary Tate shares a few similar themes to other Lone Women Murders. The murder likely a result of an attempted rape. Her killer uses a weapon at hand to silence her screams. Mary is strangled with her stocking. Her body left at scene of the crime. Some similarities to Georgette Baurdorf’s murder who was killed with a cloth bandage but not at a hotel. But It can’t be a copy cat murder since it’s not a copy and no one is aware of the Mary Tate murder and everyone is aware of the Black Dahlia.

One more thing

The  changing post war world 1948 pageant magazine Good Girl or Bad? 

IF Beth Short is going out every night is this the behavior of a good girl? There has been a major shift in our culture pre and post world war II. The concept of a good girl someone who saves themselves for marriage A good girl is a virgin on her wedding night. WWII changes everything. The shortage of men brings a women to the workplace. Women experience new freedoms, it’s more than housewives go to work: Women driving cars! Women with paychecks!

Fewer Good girls wanted to wait, after all if your man is going overseas and might be killed that changes everything. Why wait? If sex is making love, why wait for love? Some good girls found that men were less willing to wait. If a woman stole your man thru sex, she would be called a tramp or a whore. But the bad girl would be going out on Saturday night and the good girl might be staying at home Beth Short wasn’t a “bad” girl but she acted like one and was judged accordingly by her boyfriends when she was alive and the police and the  press after her murder. 

In another time and place Beth would be a beatnik § or hippie. Wanderlust rather than “Prowling the boulevard.” There are significant culture changes a foot. 1947 Bettie Page goes to New York City to model. Edwin Land, took the first instant photo with his innovative Polaroid camera in New York at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The headline pop of the Black Dahlia spreads to other media. Sex and death motif film noir posters and pulp magazines women showing more skin, more active, power, an more predicament tied up  more bondage  greater physical threat read from pin up book photorealism style supplants the illustration style of the previous decade

prewar Rapunzel waiting for the Dick Tracy

postwar Brenda Starr working with Joe Friday

Thanks for listening. The next podcast the police discover a suspicious man who talks murder in his sleep.

 *this mug shot was taken by arresting police officer, Santa Barbara Independent, Thu Jun 07, 2018 The Black Dahlia Never Dies.

**Santa Barbara Independent, Thu Jun 07, 2018 The Black Dahlia Never Dies.

 ***Beth went to that drug store with Lt Col Fickling and later would met Bob Robertson from Idaho at the breakfast counter. 

**** The San Francisco Chronicle  18 Jan 1947, Sat  •  Page 9

§ error as it appears in newspaper, Short is bisected. NOT dissected.

§§The term "Beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, a portmanteau on the name of the recent Russian satellite Sputnik and Beat Generation. 

The Blue Dahlia plays on Ocean Ave and the Black Dahlia moniker is assigned on Linden Ave.

Pin-up girls and movie starlets wore two piece swimsuits for publicity shots.

Most women bought the modest one piece with strapped bras.

Welcome to episode 4 of The Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia podcast. This is your host, Scott Tracy.

On January 15th 1947, a body is discovered in a vacant lot; bisected and drained of blood. On the 17th the name of the murder victim is identified, On January 18th the press learns the Long Beach lunch-counter epithet and the legend of the Black Dahlia commands the headlines, In numbers, the victim is named Elizabeth Short for 22 years, 5 months  and 30 days. For a day and a half Jane Doe #1 is known as a victim of the werewolf killer. For 73 years, 7 months, 19 days and counting she is the Black Dahlia.

Aggie Underwood used the “Werewolf” to describe the killer on the first day of coverage. The name acknowledges the brutality of the mutilations and highlights the terror the killer inspires in Los Angeles as an inhuman monster is on the loose. Interestingly, other Hearst syndication newspapers such as the San Francisco Examiner do not pick up the use of the Werewolf name; that moniker is unique to movie town.

A Movie horror theme in this movie making town  seems most appropriate; as I look at the crime today, I might chose the Vampire as the monster instead of the werewolf? 

A Vampire is an organized hunter;  ensnaring victims in a web of seduction and manipulation. Drained of blood; sounds like A vampire. A wild Werewolf is an opportunity hunter.

Aggie was there observing the depth of the damage to the body of the victim, and she can not unsee the significant amount of overkill, which she reads as incomprehensible and vicious and she chose the name “werewolf”. As if a man had been so full of hate he acted like an animal, wild with the madness of rabies. The werewolf nickname is typical in that it refers to the Killer not the victim. That’s common.

I don’t remember Lizzie Borden’s mother’s name but I remember she got 40 whacks. Commonly, the Killer gets the moniker, the headline and the fame, not the victim, We are familiar with The Zodiac and with the Hillside Strangler. The idea that a monster is the killer becomes part of the problem.

The killer isn’t a werewolf.  The police are looking for a monster and don’t see him. The headline of the Washington Post on this day shows the degree to which the press picks up Dr.DeRiver’s birdseed. POLICE SEEK MAD PERVERT IN GIRL’S DEATH.

The news on this day 

A Greyhound rider gets off the bus in Fresno and tells police that another bus rider, mumbled in his sleep about how he should have cut the scar off the leg! Edward Glen Thorpe is pulled off a bus at Modesto and police find blood on his jacket. Thorpe is arrested. It gets worse for Thorpe.

It is revealed that he viewed the “Jane Doe #1” body in the morgue because he thought it could be his wife who had disappeared from Riverside. 

Thorpe is from Wyoming so the Des Moines Register calls him a cowboy. The truth is less romantic. The Oakland Tribune tells us he is a member of the Cook and Waiters union in San Francisco. The union helps him get Thorpe released after questioning. 

The Los Angeles Times locates a witness who believed he saw Beth Short made phone calls.

Quote …grocery clerk. Jack Fleming …said that, last Tuesday at about 10 a.m. a "pretty, tall" and slender girl" whom he recalls as exactly answering the murder victim's description came into the Daniel J. Regan market at 5833 S. Hoover St., clad in a gray pin-striped suit with short jacket, and made several telephone calls. ' "I changed a quarter for her," Fleming recalled, “…she did not seem at all excited or nervous, was very pleasant." Fleming said she went into one of several (phone) booths facing the street and remained near them for about 20 minutes, occasionally waiting outside the booth as if waiting for a busy line to clear. Later, according to Fleming, she came out of the market, adjacent to a corner service station, and crossed Hoover at 58th Street slowly “with an air as if she were waiting for someone.” Then she walked southward on Hoover, Fleming said. This is significant because Tuesday, the day Fleming says he sees the victim the day before she is tortured and killed.  Endquote

It sounds very much like Beth, her hovering by the phone booth is similar to her missed connections at the Biltmore Hotel. He does call her tall. How tall was Beth Short? 5’5”. Likely wearing heels. Note Fleming has Elizabeth wearing a gray pin-striped suit, not a black outfit.  One may question if Fleming saw Elizabeth Short or a look alike but it is clear Beth didn’t wear all black all the time,

At the Biltmore Hotel, Beth wore black shoes and suit, but white fluffy blouse, white gloves, camel colored overcoat and no flowers in her hair. Dr. Melvin Schwartz dentist with an office in the Cherokee Building on Hollywood Boulevard  dubbed her the lady in red as he and his nurse describes a woman in red dress who tries to gain favor by placing the doctor’s hand under skirt. John Egger, 20 years old usher, described Beth, "The thing is sir, we always notice a girl like that, she was a striking girl, with that raven hair, blue sweater or pink sweater, George Bacos picked up Beth one night and went for a drive, parking on the Sunset Strip and chatting. "She wore a black satin skirt with a sweater - a pink sweater. Not black on black and flowers but always tasteful, this is a girl who dresses fashionably yet did not always have money for rent. 

Returning to the news of the day— The press on this day, Jan 19th, introduces it’s readers to the French family in San Diego 

Miss Dorothy French works at the Aztec movie house as a cashier notices Elizabeth Short trying to sleep at the open all night theater. Dorothy took her home to meet her mother, Elvira French takes Beth in. Mrs. Elvira French informed the police that Miss Short claimed she was the widow of an air corps major who was killed in a plane crash. And Beth Short told her that bore him a child that later died. 

Mrs French says she was shown a newspaper article about the death of Matt Gordon but the article has a line crossed thru another woman’s name. Mrs. French is told that the newspapers made a mistake and Beth was the bride. 

A frequent caller was a red-haired ex-marine flyer, Elizabeth called him “Red” and sometimes “Bob”.  Recently Mrs. French got tired of boarding Elizabeth for nothing and told her she would have to leave. She said Elizabeth wired “Red” and that he came and got her. 

“Be there tomorrow afternoon late. Would like to see you. Red.” 

The Los Angeles Police sends out a Bulletin describing the red-haired suspect. His car is described as being possibly a 1940 Studebaker coupe, Cream or light tan in color, California license number…  Suspect is described as a white male American, approximately 25 years old 6 feet tall, weighing 175 pounds with red hair blue eyes and light-complexion. Robert Manley is a pipe salesman and an ex-army musician. Robert is not an angry jealous Marine. Manley was never at Camp Cooke. Red Manley is not the Marine that threatens Beth Short in downtown Los Angeles before Beth is saved by Officer Myrl McBride. Look if you have red hair, Red is a your nickname*, however, the press unfortunately attempts to tie everything to the last man to see Beth alive.

Reporters locate Beth Short’s “lost” Chicago trunk at the Los Angeles train station. Photos of Beth’s sisters are printed in the paper as well as a snapshot of Beth on the beach in Florida sunning herself wearing a two-piece black swimsuit.

An important telegram is pasted in Beth’s scrapbook, dated Aug 22, 1945, said: “Just received word that Matt killed in crash. Our deepest sympathy is with you. The wire was from Mrs.Gordon of Pueblo, Colorado. Her son, Matt Gordon died on the 10th . The end of the war is four days later. Phoebe Short says Matt Gordon is the only man I know Elizabeth truly loved. 

In letters addressed to Major Gordon, Beth wrote… 

Darling if only all men were like you. When you come home I’ll never let you go. It’s real love, because I have not had you out of my thoughts since we met. Now that I know that you love me, there could never be another man meant for me. Now that you have asked me to be your wife, I do not date.

This is a letter to Matt Gordon; it should be in Matt Gordon‘s belongings not in Beth’s keepsake album. This was never mailed.  Why not? Because it’s not true? After all, Beth crosses off the name of the other woman in the newspaper article.

Perhaps this letter it is a practice letter in case he says yes, after all Mrs Gordon doesn’t think they were engaged. Regardless if there was a ring or a promise; it has the same effect because Beth believes and hopes that this is the love of her life and she is never the same after Matt Gordon’s death. 

 What are we to make of these many letters?  Maybe Beth just changed her mind and decided not to send them. Are they early drafts of letters or true copies? I can’t pretend to know the answer. Was it common to have so many unsent letters as keepsakes? As the letters are found in her memory book, I interpret them as internal, for Beth’s personal consumption not an external message. †

Quoting from another letter:  Yes I’ve dated since I’ve seen you last, and most of them disgusted me. Naturally there are exceptions.  If you want to slip away and be married, we’ll do whatever you wish, darling.  I’ll wait no matter how long.” 

This is an example of diary style of letter that reflects what Beth may have felt at the time, but seems like an imaginary conversation. Why tell your fiancé that are dating other men who disgust you? 

In 1945 Beth gets the news that Matt dies in a crash in August.  Elizabeth quits her job in September. In December she leaves for Florida again but this time doesn’t get a job, In fact she never works again, Elizabeth visits Indianapolis and Chicago before continuing to Long Beach to reconnect with Joseph Fickling.

In April 1946, Elizabeth told her mother she was engaged to Joseph G Fickling, still an Army flyer in 46, in January 1947, he is  a commercial pilot at Charlotte, N.C. 

Quote En route here Mrs. Short learned that her husband, Leo,* missing for twenty years had turned up in Los Angeles, 

‘My goodness,” she said,  “what did he do? Just put in an appearance?”

She added, “I suppose he thought he’d better clear himself.” Phoebe said she had no desire to see him. 

Film actress, Anne Toth 24. who last summer lived In the same Hollywood, Cal., rooming house as Elizabeth Short, told police Saturday that during their acquaintance Miss Short went out with several men, but avoided introducing the men. Endquote.

The press prints a picture of bit player, Anne Toth and highlights the Hollywood connection. Ending the short article by saying,  “Miss Short's mutilated body was found 10 miles south of Hollywood  Wednesday.”

Just as one would look at similar crimes to understand this crime. There is quite a bit to her learned by looking at how other crimes are reported in the Los Angeles newspapers. A false generalization about the use of the Black Dahlia epithet is commonly repeated in books and articles today. The refrain goes like this “Los Angeles newspapers of the this time tended to create flower nicknames when the gruesome murders case had a female victim.”  The examples offered are the Red Hibiscus Murder and the White Gardenia Murder. There is also a name origin story involving Aggie Underwood who added color to a crime scene. 

This is a great story let me elaborate. Aggie removed a white carnation from a restaurant vase  and dropped it on the dead body of waitress on the floor who had been stabbed and Aggie instructed her photographer to take a picture. A policeman objects to Aggie disturbing the crime scene and Aggie socks the cop with her purse.

For a news story to have legs, the story has to have a continuation, mystery, drama and tragedy to connect readers to the event. A good nickname is an insufficient hook on its own. I mentioned previously that the Hearst papers had more successful and lurid headlines nicknames. One significant example would be the Los Angeles Times came up with a nickname for Richard Ramirez as the “valley intruder” and the Herald Examiner came up with “the night stalker”; very much the better name. There is a hint of classism in the LA Times nickname, “Valley Intruder”,  as if the crime is a valley exclusive problem.  As if to reassure the reader “Don’t worry this is a long way from the Wilshire Corridor.” Something that happens in the San Fernando Valley should not worry anyone in Beverly Hills. In fact, the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez very willing to travel; killing in San Francisco, Irvine, Monterey Park, Diamond Bar, Burbank, Northridge, Whittier and Sierra Madre. 

Nicknames were not exclusively about flowers, not in 1947 or any time period. More commonly nicknames arise from the some unique aspect of the violent crime or weapons of choice. I have complied a short history of murder related press names in Los Angeles. 

TIGER WOMAN. Woman hammers her rival to the ground. 

Clara Phillips buys a claw hammer on the afternoon of June 10th 1922 and batters the head of Alberta Meadows, a rival for her husband’s affection, then crushes victims chest with 50 pound rock, as an exclamation point.

BABES OF INGLEWOOD Location and age of victims 

The murder and rape of three girls, aged 10 and 11.

BRICKBAT MURDER Unusual murder weapon 

Serial killer Robert Nixon fatally strikes Edna A. Worden and her 12-year-old daughter, with a brick in Los Angeles on April 3, 1937. Press coverage was racist and highly inflammatory. White victims, Black criminal.

RED ROSE MURDER Cloth rose under body at crime site.

“B-girl” Alice Burns murdered Dec 28th 1939.  Burns leaves a skid row bar with down and out saxophone player, John Reavis, after midnight. They park in an east downtown abandoned coal yard. Burns is stabbed to death.  Reavis goes on the lamb. The story has a long life in the newspaper because Reavis successfully avoids capture for weeks and as long as he’s a fugitive, he’s in the headlines.

WHITE GARDENIA MURDER Crushed corsage under body at dump site.

Ora Murray, 42 years old, is happy to dance with a handsome younger man on the night of July 7th 1943. Roger Gardner suggests Ora come with him in his convertible to see the lights of Hollywood Blvd. In the morning her bludgeoned and strangled body is found in flowerbed at the edge of a golf course parking lot.

RED RIBBON MURDER    Woman shot five times in own car. Dies clutching ribbon.

Olive Gase Miller, 31, waitress leaves after her shift at the Turf Café at Pico & Figueroa, and is shot dead in her car in July 1944. Shocking phono of body with 10 wounds in car published. Very little follow-up stories in the press after husband is released. The red ribbon in her hand remains a mystery. 

L.A. RIPPER Vicious nature of mutilation of victims at two crime scenes

Otto Stephen Wilson mutilated working girl Virginia Griffin in the Barclay Hotel with butcher knife. Wilson goes to the Million Dollar Movie theater, watches a Boris Karloff movie then mutilated a second prostitute,  Lillian Johnson with razor at Joyce Hotel, slicing her from top to bottom. Wilson is arrested on the same day as he is chatting up a third woman at a bar a few doors away.  

TORSO MURDER — Shocking dismembered victim

Temple City sheriff Arthur Eggers spies his wife’s lover running out of the house, when confronted, Dorothy laughs at him. He shoots her in the heart. Arthur chops her head and her hands off and tosses the disembodied limbs and torso out the car window as he drives thru canyon roads.

RED HIBISCUS MURDER — Woman found dead in flower bush in public park. 

Naomi Tullis Cook 52 years old is drunk and sleeping at night on a public bench. She is bludgeoned, raped and slain then rolled into flower bushes in Lincoln Park, in east Los Angeles on Dec. 10th 1946. Minimal press coverage.  No follow up after hispanic youth gang charged then released.

LIPSTICK MURDER — Message on body at crime scene. 

On Feb 10th 1947 Jeannie French is stomped to death on a remote road and dragged  a few feet to a vacant lot. She had the nickname the “Flying Nurse” when she was alive. Jeanie French was 44 years old.

In the majority of these murders the name given comes organically from the crime scene. The cloth red rose is under the body, the white gardenia  corsage is under the body, the post mortem ripper butchery, the headless torso. Note that the press could have gone with Jeannie French’s real nickname, the Flying Nurse, but it was Lipstick on the dead body that makes the murder stand out. 

Again note how unique The Black Dahlia name is truly is; even the killer adapts the Black Dahlia name for himself. So the Black Dahlia Avenger is famous & anonymous

Often there is a word that makes a trial unique. The press can ride trial headlines for weeks. Examples of newspaper nicknames that arose situationally from the actions of the accused at trial

RATTLESNAKE MURDER  — Snake is murder weapon

August 1935, Robert S. James bought two rattlesnakes to kill his 25-year-old wife, Mary and collect the insurance money. The snakes bit but Mary was resilient. So Robert after waiting for hours, tires of watching Mary cling to life and drowns her in the bathtub. Name given to crime after arrest.

BAT MAN MURDER — tiny man has secret life in the attic

The diminutive lover of  Dolly Oesterreich, Otto Sanhuber 4’11”, hides at night in the Oesterreich’s Silver Lake attic reading pulp fiction and emerges during the day as as her lover. On Aug. 22, 1922 when "The Bat Man in the Attic," interrupts a loud argument with two handguns and murders Fred Oesterreich. Sadly, no joker smile in this batman murder. 

WHITE FLAME MURDER —  blind passion explodes on a piano bench. 

Paul Wright shoots his wife and her lover in 1932 when he finds them together at a piano bench at 4 a.m. and he claimed he was not sane at the time because of the white flame of passion. Defense attorney Jerry Giesler represents Wright who is acquitted of double murder.

THE BLACK DAHLIA  Film noir movie title word play.

As discussed The Blue Dahlia is the name of a nightclub on Sunset Blvd. where significant action takes place in the film noir movie released in mid-1946. No one wears flowers in their hair in the movie. Note the Black Dahlia name doesn’t originate from the crime scene or the method of murder. The name is not given by the newspapers, it was found by the reporters and police, given by the public. It is commonly suggested that it is ironic that Elizabeth Short dreams of being an actress however she achieves fame in death not in life. The statement is neither profound or true. Consider the mysterious deaths of true Hollywood stars, like Natalie Wood or Thelma Todd, that to me is the irony of this case that the American public is more fascinated by the mystery of the Black Dahlia than the deaths of famous stars.  Our culture has assigned a character arc to this young lost soul, this homeless dreamer and drifter. This resonates with American culture as it touches on the great American dream of a nobody who becomes somebody. The most common themes in American movies; from the simple plot of chorus girl who becomes mega star to complex stories like the GREAT GATSBY OR THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. Irony in the Black Dahlia case is that Elizabeth Short becomes the Los Angeles “angel of death”. 

So many lesser talents arrive in Los Angeles who believe the American dream will apply to them. The Black Dahlia epithet is spontaneously created by citizens of the culture of Los Angeles, who judge Short as a newbie. Yet another a stranger comes to town and tries too hard to be noticed.

Using a Flower name as the murder had no special value as a newspapers name. Look at our list above, any news reader will be thirsty to learn more about the Tiger Girl or the Rattlesnake killer than the Red Hibiscus Murder. Which is the more evocative name, the White Fame Murder or the White Carnation? When members of the press heard “The Black Dahlia” spoken they knew they had a seductive and mysterious nom du guerre for this young girl who had suffered horrific death.

I am going to spend a few minutes discussing the murder that speaks to the level of shock and fame equal in its day to the Black Dahlia in 1947.

This is the story of Winnie Ruth Judd who has become the Patron Saint of Death for Phoenix Arizona. Importantly, Mrs Judd made bold headlines in Los Angeles after she arrived by train in 1931 with two large trunks and a hatbox.

Winnie Ruth Judd, 26, suffering from tuberculosis has moved to Phoenix Arizona for her health and finds a job and new friends at the Grunow Memorial Clinic, working as a medical secretary. “Anne” LeRoi,  x-ray technician and ”Sammy” Samuelson, fellow tuberculosis sufferer, quickly become friends and roommates. The friendship between the girls becomes strained when likable married lumber baron Jack Halloran dates all three woman. High strung Winnie moves out.

The girls still work together and remain cordial.  On the night of Oct 16th 1931, Annie and Sammy invite Winnie back to her old apartment for cards and conversation. Winnie defers, she has a date with Jack.  When Jack doesn’t show, the emotionally wounded Winnie decides to visit after all. What was to be conversation and cards around a table, goes badly then gets much worse. Ruth’s jealousy and resentment fueled by alcohol and luminal reach a crescendo amid scandalous accusations of syphilis and sapphic love. 

Luminal, a barbiturate, is primary prescribed as a medication that controls seizures. In Judd’s day it was an over the counter pill advertised to help with a wide swath of complaints including drug addiction, insomnia and insanity. In fact it is a highly addictive drug that promotes anxiety, nightmares and mood swings. It is a decidedly poor choice of medicine for anyone suffering from depression or a bipolar disorder.

Ruth will argue with her friends and this results in a lengthy three way struggle with an ironing board and a .25 caliber pistol that leaves three wounded and two dead. Ruth is shot in the hand. Adding to the mystery, Jack Holloran’s car was seen on the street. What did he know? What did he do? What sort of game is he playing? Is he playboy or pimp? Annie LeRoi had been recently arrested for pandering at the prestigious Monroe Hotel in Phoenix. 

Now the question for Winnie, what to do with the bodies? Her solution does seem like an idea a drug addict would come up with.  (A savvy businessman like Jack Hollaran would likely take one of his lumber trucks to the middle of the desert at night and let the bodies turn to dust and bones. Ruth although she is slight and wounded, finds the strength to bisect Sammy and disembowel Annie and place their body parts into a heavy trunk and several large suitcases. The scope of the job suggests she might have had help with a man with a saw so Hollaran is suspected. Three men have to help Winnie get her trunks on the truck to the train station. Ruth borrows $10 from an acquaintance for the ticket and takes her problems with her on the night train to Los Angeles where her husband and brother live. She expects they will help her dump the bodies of the victims in the deep water of the Pacific ocean. The SanteFe train arrives at 7:45 a.m. at Union Station. Winnie locates her younger brother Burton McKinnell at the USC campus where he is a junior. Burton brings his car to the train station to help Winnie with her baggage. Burton has no idea Winnie needs help with dead bodies. 

Commonly, hunters try to sneak game meats onto the train. Baggage agent Arthur Anderson smells off-odors and sees blood leaking out from the trunk assumes it to be illegal venison and asked Ruth what was in the trunks. “Just personal things,”  She replied. “There is something wrong with them,” Anderson said.

QUOTE Burton said, “One of the boys I knew during the time I worked there last year met us. Sister took out her baggage checks. We went over to the trunks and they asked us if we smelled anything. I was amazed—horrified, Sister was calm though and told the baggage men she couldn’t open the trunk there because she didn’t have the keys. she said she would telephone Dr. Judd but I said, “Oh let’s drive to Santa Monica and get them. We walked outside I hardly dared look at sister. “Listen Burton” she leaned over and said “the less you have to do with this the better off you will be.”

I said, Now, if you are in trouble I’ll do anything to help you. 

All right how much money have you, she asked . I have $5 and change. She said, Let me have the $5. She said this will be all right at this corner. That was at Seventh and Broadway. It was half past noon. I said,  “Beat it, that’s the best thing you can do.” She got out of the car and faded into the crowd.

By 4:30 that afternoon, tired of waiting for Judd to return, Anderson called the LAPD to report the bloody trunks. Detective Lieutenant Frank Ryan arrived at Central Station, and met Anderson in front of the trunks. Detective Ryan broke open the larger trunk. Nestled between bedding, papers and knickknacks, “We saw the head of a woman in a corner of the trunk.”

The largest police manhunt to date ensues, as they seek the “Trunk Murderess”

Headline:

GREATEST POLICE HUNT IN HISTORY OF WEST FAILS, 

AS MATE PLEAS OVER RADIO FOR SURRENDER. 

The police interview the husband, Dr Judd In Santa Monica, and re-interview the brother. Nothing is learned. Police discover Burton has a cabin and find un-eaten food; two slices of cream pie and four sandwiches. They wait for Winnie at the cabin but she doesn’t show. There are sightings, Winnie is hitchhiking on PCH, Bunburring at the Westminster Hotel in downtown, lounging in Beverly Glen with her brother and flying to Marshfield, Oregon, for some reason. Winnie is claimed to be making threatening phone calls to witnesses in Phoenix. None of this is true. Winnie Ruth Judd is not seen or heard. The headlines are fantastic. STRANGE TRIANGLE REVEALED IN PHOENIX TRAGEDY — Because all three girls lived together there are hints of sex parties, PRIVATE LIVES OF TRUNK MURDER PRINCIPALS CHECKED FOR LINK TO FIENDISH NARCOTIC RING— because they worked at a Medical Clinic.

Then something interesting begins, culturally speaking. The longer Winnie Ruth Judd avoids capture the more she becomes a sympathetic character in the eyes of the public. Like Robin Hood or Bonnie and Clyde, after a while, citizens begin to root for Ruth and the nickname evolves from Trunk Murderess to the Velvet Tigress. What a fabulous upgrade.

The tigress surrenders on the 23rd of October. She meets her estranged husband, Dr. William Judd at the Biltmore Hotel and he whisks her away to a nearby mortuary where she surrenders to police. The Hearst newspapers are so enthralled with the headlines that Hearst pays for Dr. Judd’s exclusive story.

Where did Winnie hide? She was broke and her picture is on every front page. 

Winnie walked 13 miles, a five hour journey on foot, from the downtown train station to La Pina Sanitarium in Altadena where she had stayed previously as a tuberculosis patient. Winnie, with her hand bandaged, and harmless demeanor, looks very much like a patient so no one noticed when she finds an empty room and lies down in the bed. She stayed there undiscovered for four days sneaking milk from another patients refrigerator. After agreeing to surrender to her husband, she hitched a ride back to downtown and walked in the Broadway Department store where she had once worked. 

QUOTE “I stood around staring at the people I knew or who knew me. I was in such a stupor that I got locked up in the store all night. I slept in the furniture department under a rug. When I awakened the next morning people were rushing all about me going about their business.”

I think that should be the question of the day

RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU EVER SLEPT UNDER A RUG.

Typically. a rug is involved in a murder story to rolled up the dead body to remove it from the house.

William Randolph Hearst inserted himself further into the story, helping to pay for Judd’s defense and supplying her with a new attorney. A trial is a much better news story than a plea. Because there will be news everyday for a month in a courtroom. The Randolph Hearst lawyers seek a trial. Is Ruth guilty?  Insane?. Judd is found guilty of the first-degree murder by a jury of 12 men. Women are not allowed on juries in Arizona at this time. Judd was sentenced to be hanged. However, her death sentence was overturned after being found mentally incompetent by the state. Winnie was then sent to Arizona State Asylum for the Insane. She escapes from the institution six times between 1933 and 1963. Of course she does, she is the Velvet Tigress. 

The severed body of the Black Dahlia in 1947 refreshes the memory of the 1931 crime in the minds of the police, press and public.  Sammy Samuelson’s bisected body fuels the theory that a woman could have killed the Black Dahlia. Police and a number of reporters invested many hours seeking witnesses at various lesbian bars for insight and suspects especially for Short’s secretive last days. The most significant difference is that the Black Dahlia was tortured, drained of blood, severed and displayed as a trophy. While Winnie Ruth Judd dismembered Sammy Samuelson in order to hide evidence. The body needed to be transported in a trunk. This 1931 murder may be what Mindhunter John Douglas is thinking about when he suggests that Elizabeth Short was bisected because the killer is injured or weakened and needs to cut the body in order to lift and transport. In both cases a commitment of police resources created a high level of expectation for quick results. Police methods of the time are shocking in comparison to modern methods; interviews with suspects could be violent. When Winnie Ruth Judd had the bullet removed from her hand, Los Angeles police kicked her lawyers out of the hospital room and asked Mrs Judd questions while she was under sedation. 

I am confident that a person who has lived in Los Angeles in the previous decade would be very aware of the front page headlines given to bloody work of the Trunk Murderess and The trunk murderess resulted in the biggest headlines and largest manhunt in Los Angeles history.  It is very clear the Black Dahlia Avenger desired notoriety. Cutting a body in half insured that. Perhaps the killer remembered that blood was the downfall of Winnie Rudd and therefore drained the body over a bathtub. I acknowledge this is supposition on my part, to suggest the killer knew of the Trunk Murderess, however, the Black Dahlia Avenger’s need for publicity is well documented and the attention to media is consistent with an organized killer.

There is an untold angle to the White Carnation story,  I have One More thing to say.

The White Carnation Murder is famous as an Aggie Underwood antidote but forgotten as a murder.

If you Google “white Carnation murder“ in quotes, you’ll get five hits of the story of Aggie Underwood dropping a white Carnation on a dead waitress. You will get no hits whatsoever on the white Carnation murder itself, I can’t find the name of the victim or who might have killed her in newspaper archives. The White Carnation Murder has vanished.  There is no special magic in adding a flower to a dead body on the floor or adding a flower to the headline. The fact is that Aggie hitting a cop with her purse is the better story than a murdered nameless waitress and Aggie being Aggie is the story that survives today. Giving a crime a nickname isn’t sufficient to make that crime a news story, much less a legend like the Black Dahlia. It’s a small inoffensive myth that flower headlines are common, or significant or useful for the press, but I am pleased to dismiss it.

At the end of this day, Robert “Red” Manley is located and arrested at the home of his boss, Harry Palmer. The sought after Studebaker is found in Mr. Palmer’s garage as they have taken Palmer's car on sales calls in northern California. Manley is described as well dressed and willing to take a lie detector test. 

Thanks for listening. The next podcast will focus on  the police and press treatment of witness Robert “Red” Manley.

Until then…

* There are 72 million men in America in 1947, if 2% are redheaded, that’s 1,440,000 red heads. All called red at some point, no doubt. 

** error as written in S.F. Examiner Jan 19th 1947 

† see longer letter filled with fictional accounts that was never sent to Fickling about baking cakes and imaginary bosses at the hospital job on the web site.

The newspapers “frame” Robert Manley with the dramatic camera angles and lighting associated with movie villains.

Beth written letter found in trunk. Dated December 13, 1946

(unmailed letter to Joseph Fickling): Fictional statements in Bold

Honey: Today has been quite busy for me. However, I always find time to let you know that my thoughts are of you. I have just made a chocolate cake and topped it off with white fudge frosting. I also added chopped nuts and cocoanut. Everyone approved because it is nearly gone now. I made hot coffee and it all tasted good. As I wrote, I am spending the holidays with my girl friend whom I worked with in Hollywood. Her mother has a home here in San Diego. She and I feel the same about Hollywood. I couldn't bear to be alone during the holidays, so she and I are spending it with her mother. We all get along fine and I am happy for now.

I want to go to Florida in the new year, and stay there. I've lost a great deal of work here, and when I was able to work, I had to pay a great deal for medicine and doctor bills. Rather discouraging, I should say!!! I honestly did believe that I would be well here in the West. Time has proved differently to me. My girl friend's mom works at the Navy hospital here. I found myself a very nice job there also. I've worked for the past few days and I'm crazy about it. I am a receptionist and stenographer combination. I work for a lieutenant commander and he is very nice to me. He has asked me to spend New Year's Eve with him.

All of the doctors on the staff at the hospital have made plans to get a party together at the country club here. I feel quite flattered because he asked me when we first met. He's certainly a nice boss. Everyone has been real nice to me.

I had hoped that we would be together by this time this year. It isn't possible, but I do hope that you find a nice young lady to kiss at midnight New Year's. It would have been wonderful if we belonged to each other now. Most sweethearts celebrate together on New Year's Eve. I so wish it could have been different for us.

My boss told me that he would find me a house through the Navy housing if I would stay here. I would never be happy in a house alone. I want the kind of happiness everyone else has. I'm working for now and I'll plan something else later. I am so unsettled and discouraged. Perhaps Matt was my man, that is why I've been so miserable. I'll never regret coming West to see you. You didn't take me in your arms and keep me there, however, it was nice as long as it lasted. You had a great deal on your mind and I was just an extra burden. I'll never be settled unless I find my own happiness, as everyone else does with the man they love.

Perhaps there is someone now, because I've never been able to call you "all mine." I've just about made my mind up to forget you and try and be happy some other way. I'm miserable because you are not around. Yet I knew you never will be. Why go on, for if I let myself, I am sure that I could find someone else and love them. I'm human, dear, so much so but you can't understand it. I want someone all for myself. Don't you? I'll close for now, and have a nice holiday and be happier than I am.

Always, Betty.

Notice how they pose. Beth presents herself openly, and Marge Dyer is more modest.

Welcome to episode #5 of the Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia podcast. This is your host Scott Tracy.

The search for “Red” is over.  Robert Manley is under arrest and co-operating with the Los Angeles Police.

Manley is called “the last person to see Elizabeth Short alive” in the press. It’s not true. Beth is seen exiting the Hotel three hours later. The last person to see her was her killer. The press and police use the tag “last man to see her alive” to shoehorn Red into the role of murderer. The photos taken for the newspapers do him the disservice of making him look like a convict.  I recommend you look at the film noir comparison photos on my web site. One can find books and web articles that still offer Red Manley as a suspect based on the initial police enthusiasm for his culpability. You may ignore those articles. Red Manley is a victim in this investigation; he is not a suspect, he’s not a criminal. No one with a solid foundation of the facts of the Black Dahlia case considers Red Manley a valid suspect. The police expected him to come forward earlier, but of course, Manley has hesitated because he hopes to not lose his marriage because of an affair. Manley admitted to a flirtation with Elizabeth Short  in San Diego “I had a date with her … and kissed her a few times but that's all.”

Police question Manley for 12 hours without an attorney and without charging him with a crime. Manley is drowsy and the polygraph test is declared inconclusive. Manley’s Studebaker is checked for blood. There is none. There is nothing on his clothes. 

The press quotes Robert Manley’s mother, Mrs. Morris Manley declared, “It’s ridiculous. He’s a wonderful son. He’s never been in any trouble in his life. They are just questioning everyone with red hair, that’s all it is.* Naturally they have to find out who did it.  Everyone with red hair gets the nickname “Red.”

Manley’s wife, Harriet, and another couple maintain he is playing cards with them the night in question. His story is believable. He passes the second polygraph. Robert Manley is interviewed by Agnes Underwood. The police are playing bad cop, good reporter; with the hope a woman might get a better result. Indeed there is a helpful clue and a new fact that changes things. The clue is that Robert Manley remembers a phone call Beth made from a San Diego restaurant to an unknown person. In time it will be learned this was a phone call to Mark Hansen on January 8th  at his home requesting to stay there when she returned. Not until Anne Toth comes back was Hansen’s reply.

The important fact: Manley tells Aggie it was him that mentions the Biltmore. Beth never says take me to the Biltmore Hotel. 

Manley admitted to Aggie that he told Beth he was married, during the evening, and said she had told him she had been married to 'a Major Matt somebody," who had been killed. "When I walked her to the door, I told her I might be down that way again and asked if it would be all right to wire her when I was arriving. She said yes. 

“… on January 7, about 3 p. m. I sent her a wire that I was arriving next day. …”She asked me if I would drive her to Los Angeles. I said yes, but I told her I couldn't leave until (tomorrow).… (returning north) we drove to Laguna Beach. There we stopped and got gas. En route she asked whether she could write to me. She said she was going to meet her sister from Berkeley, Mrs. Adrian West. “I asked where she was going to meet her, and without waiting for her to answer I said, “The Biltmore?” and she answered “yes.”

“She wrote my name and business address in her notebook, so she could write to me.

“When we got in to Los Angeles, she wanted me to take her to the Greyhound Bus Station so she could check her bags before she met her sister. I drove her to the Greyhound bus station and carried her bags in. I had to go out to move my car, but told her I would drive around and pick her up and take her to the Biltmore. I didn’t want to leave her in that neighborhood.

“When we got to the Biltmore, she said she had to go to the restroom and asked me if I would check at the desk on whether her sister had arrived.…She hadn’t.
That is the last time I ever saw Betty Short. I'll take the truth serum or anything they want to give me. And, I'll swear on a stack of Bibles and tell my minister too, that was the last time I ever saw Betty Short. I did not kill her. "But, brother! I'll never cheat on my wife again!”

A couple of points related to the interview: One, Manley makes the comment about the Greyhound bus station because the location is adjacent to skid row. He is being a gentleman. Two, The Biltmore is an emotional touchpoint for the Black Dahlia legend but the Hotel holds no more significance to the destiny of Elizabeth Short than it does for Winnie Ruth Judd; it is a place both women pass thru. There is no more of a black dahlia ghost at the Biltmore than a black dahlia ghost at the greyhound bus station. For the most part, Robert Manley gets a raw deal from the press. His mistake is his own doing and he pays for it the rest of his life; Elizabeth Short is an attractive girl, Harriet Manley is a beautiful woman.

After the Aggie Underwood’s exclusive article in the Evening Herald Express, Manley is released. Aggie later writes in her autobiography, Newspaperwoman, that she was “removed” from the Black Dahlia case.  Partially true. She was promoted to city editor. One Black Dahlia writer suggests her removal is evidence of a police cover-up. Eatwell writes, “Who was trying to take the star reporter off the biggest newspaper story of the decade? Who wanted her of their back? Why?”

Eatwell doesn’t answer any of the three questions she poses in her book. ** Let me do that now. The answer to these questions is no one. Nor does Eatwell make any specific claim stating the LAPD told the Hearst Newspaper to take Underwood off the Dahlia case. How would the LAPD order the Los Angeles newspaper to remove a reporter? Aggie taken off the case—there is not much truth to that, that’s how Aggie felt. So maybe 10% true. The 90% part is that it’s a significant exaggeration to suggest this is of any importance. Firstly, this case was not the story of the decade five days in. The Hearst newspaper just stated the investigation was going to focus on a violent San Diego date who scratched Beth’s arms. There is no one for Aggie to interview in Los Angeles. At this point in the crime investigation, there is little reason to assume the murder of Elizabeth Short will be a bigger newspaper story than the Red Rose Murder, the B girl stabbed repeatedly until the knife broke off in her back or the Red Hibiscus Murder where a mother of three WWII veterans is hit with a five inch bolt, raped and dumped in a public park. 

No one, on the 21st of January 1947 could assume this case will be talked about in March or April of 1947, much less 70 years later.  Especially with Manley released, there is no clear investigation path forward. However, if Aggie had any valuable information to follow up with, she was now the city editor. She could assign reporters anywhere she wanted. If this is a conspiracy to silence Aggie Underwood, why would she be given more authority and more independence? She loses the byline but gains a surprising position of power in the newspaper industry; this is only the second time in American history that a woman had been in charge. Let’s celebrate that. 

There is no conspiracy to silence anyone in 1947. The conspiracy conversation that Aggie is thinking about has its beginnings in 1949. Later in life, Aggie makes comments that suggest she knows who killed Elizabeth Short. This comment is likely based on DeRiver’s 1949 false entrapment and interrogation of suspect Leslie Dillon. Not based on what Aggie Underwood knew on January  21st 1947.  No one has heard the names of Leslie Dillon or George Hodel in January of 1947, for example.

Returning to the fate of Robert Manley, he admits to the police that he slept with Elizabeth Short. Something he denied to Aggie, In time police will locate two other men who slept with her.§ All spoke of a lack of passion on Elizabeth Short’s part.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE Tuesday jan 21st 1947

SEARCH IN TORSO KILLING SWITCHED TO SAN DIEGO

With "Red" eliminated as a suspect, police turned to a lead supplied by him. Manley related that the second time he met the Short girl she had "bad scratches" on both arms above the elbows" which she said had been inflicted by her boy friend, a black-haired Italian who lived in San Diego and who, she said, "had been mean" to her.

Police return to Norton Ave to canvas the neighborhood with two questions: Do you know anyone in the neighborhood who is mentally unbalanced? And do you know any medical students? The common answers were No and No. Medical students: the police theory is that a young  man who was rejected sexually turns violent in a fit of blood thirsty rage. A frustrated medical student would have the knife skills to bisect a body. 

These two questions bifurcate dramatically. Perhaps that should be the question of the day, raise you hand if you know any mentally unbalanced medical students in your neighborhood. The violent destruction of a life is perceived to be done by an evil madman with the soul of a wild animal, could that be the same person who commits years the to study of medicine in order to save lives? It doesn’t make sense. Yes, doctors have murdered their wives or husbands and lovers. There have been four famous serial killer who were doctors. §§ My point is the question, do you know anyone who is mentally unbalanced, returns us to the werewolf conversation. If I think of a crazy med student in the neighborhood; I have a mental image of a werewolf in a lab coat that reminds me of the Warren Zevon song, Werewolves of London. His hair is perfect.

There is solid logic in considering medical students The LA ripper, Otto Stephan Wilson and the Torso Killer, Arthur Eggars both considered bisecting their victims but found the task too difficult and gave up. The LAPD with the help of the FBI discover one USC pre-med student who knew Beth, however that lead, ex-Navy Medical Corps veteran Marvin Margolis does not develop into a serious suspect.  

Phoebe Short, Elizabeth’s mother, is flown out to California, the Hearst papers buy her a ticket to get an exclusive. Phoebe said her daughter loved Hollywood movies. 

”Betty was a sophomore when she left high school in Medford, Mrs. Short recalled. "She had asthma. Every winter she would go south, to Florida, and work as a waitress. Then she would come back home in summer. When she was away, she always wrote me once a week. The last I heard she was working in San Diego at a hospital." But the slain girl's latest ambition, according to her mother, was to crash into the movie business. Betty had told her she worked as an “extra”.

Records at both Central Casting and the Screen Actors Guild gave no indication that Miss Short ever worked in motion pictures…the mother said that she knew nothing of the hordes of boy friends that had come into Betty's life. In Medford, she said. Bettv was known as a quiet, unassuming girl, the antithesis of the Betty whom Hollywood acquaintances described as a fast girl who had a different fellow every night and who liked to prowl the boulevard.

As I recall, Elizabeth Short wrote Joseph Fickling from San Diego that she is leaving for Chicago with a man named Jack to model and to not write her again in Los Angeles. Moving away is not what one would expect from an actress committed to making it. And why Chicago? She moved to Florida for the weather, Chicago will have brutal winter weather like Boston.

She did not tell her mother she was going to Chicago. She only wrote to Fickling about it. It is most important that she staying in touch with Fickling as he was sending her money and that was a very real lifeline to her. $100, a considerable sum in 1947,  was sent to her when she was staying with the French family in San Diego. 

Beth still asked Elvira French for a dollar when she left San Diego with Robert Manley in his Studebaker. In December 1946, the first time Elizabeth met Red Manley, he set her up to get a job but she never shows up to the interview.

There is another redhead in the news this day.

QUOTE A red haired man entered the murder picture in yet another way today on reports of Betty Blake dancer (who said) such a person came into the Gay Way Bar, 514 S. Main St. on the night of Jan 12. Miss Blake said the red haired man asked for Miss Short, who had been there earlier in the evening. ‡

This is Sunday Jan 12th. Beth had 3 days to live  

QUOTE Investigators today threw more than 700 police, sheriffs deputies and state officers into an intensive hunt for clues. Virtually abandoning their hunt for a male killer, homicide detectives theorized that Miss Short may have been butchered by a jealous woman. They began a systematic examination of her woman friends. The theory that Miss Short may have been slain by a woman was advanced by Capt. Donohoe, … The girl had no clothing or makeup when she left San Diego six days before her mutilated body was found in a vacant lot. 

Interestingly the best presentation the “woman did it” story is one printed in a St. Louis newspaper. Just as there are differences in morning and evening newspapers; outside of California, no paper is selling the story of the tragedy of a young actress. Out of state newspapers offer a vision of Los Angeles as a place of sin and regret. One example: “Unskilled, untalented and neither prettier nor shapelier then hundreds of other young women seeking fame and fortune in the entertainment world, Beth drifted about Hollywood looking for a living.” ‡‡ Cruel and dismissive compared to the glamour seeking character arc presented by the LA Times or Herald Express. An article written by a Los Angeles reporter Jim Murray appears in the St. Louis Globe Democrat. As a syndicated article for an out of town newspaper, it has a headline not written for a Los Angeles audience; QUOTE: “Violent death and crime beneath the false face of film land gaiety.” The news story takes a bite out the sunny los Angeles image in the first sentence.

QUOTE LOS ANGELES, CA— In Los Angeles murder is nothing. There were 116 murders in this city last year— the highest in the country. But every so often a murderer shows …a brutishness that marks his crime as out of the ordinary … The girl’s body was in two sections. Shocking things had been done to her youthful limbs. A tattooed rosebud had been carved out of her thigh. Her hair had been wantonly pulled— after the slaying. Her mouth had been cut in a taut, razor sharp gash before the slaying. ∞. ENDQUOTE

Remarkable. This newspaper article talks about the rose tattoo being removed and the hair pulled from her body. It doesn’t mention where the tattoo and hair were placed afterwards. I am surprised to see this in any article. We know the police have three questions that only the killer would know. As the tattoo and hair are inserted in the vagina and anal canal respectively, these facts were useful questions that the police would use to eliminate many confessors.  

Eatwell claims that her suspect Leslie Dillon was the likely killer because only he knew the Black Dahlia had a tattoo of a red rose on her upper thigh which had been cut off; because this fact had not been released to the public. Obviously not true. The Jim Murray piece is published in February of 1947. Dillon is questioned by DeRiver in December of 1948.

The Murray article the quotes the police psychiatrist often. “Only a jealous woman could have so coldly and with such fervent rage torn that body after her victim was dead,” a police psychiatrist believed. Doctor Paul DeRiver’s rationalization as to why only a woman could be the murderess gets more blatant…”and only a woman could drive in the dark of the early morning hours to that site off Norton avenue and and placed the body carefully on the hillock ∏ for a passerby to see in the morning. A man would have aroused suspicion driving alone in that lonely spot at the hour. Only a woman could coldly betray by no action that her memory concealed so frenzied a slaying. Somewhere, someday, she’ll look up into a mirror and that hand that holds the cocktail glass will begin to tremble. The reflection she sees will be that of a detective”.  ENDQUOTE

That is an odd piece of interpretive fiction for a news article, with the cocktail and the hand shaking in fear, and the detective in the mirror. Not sure how DeRiver knows she drinks. That’s the least of his foolishness.

DeRiver deals with criminals who confess and assumes killers need to confess to get this off their chest. Why confess if you are not caught?.  Indeed that's one of the basic tenants of a serial killer is that there is no remorse; the murderer justifies the victim as the victim. There is nothing to regret when the victim deserves to die. This killer, by displaying the body is presenting a trophy. 

Dr. Paul DeRiver’s push to sell the idea of a female murderer is laughable, given his efforts to exclude a male killer; only a woman could have driven a car on Norton Ave. What nonsense. DeRiver offers no science behind his interpretive claims, he is engaging in marketing a theory for the police department to the newspapers, there are no facts presented.  DeRiver exhibits a level of integrity equal to the doctor recommending a Camel Cigarette in an postwar advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post. ∏∏

The article finishes with;, “the story of Elizabeth Short will join the half-forgotten shadows of other unsolved murders..that hang over this city and give it an air of apprehension and un-ease— a place of violent death and crime beneath the false face of film land gaiety.”

The out of town angle to the news stories is to focus on the scandals as they are pulling back to curtain for their readers in order to expose the darker side of Hollywood. Murray calls Elizabeth Short “a trapped, haunted desperate girl, who had blackened her record, aroused distrust in the men she sought and proved herself unwanted anywhere.” While this is in alignment with the remarks of Harry Hansen, “a girl with an obviously low IQ.” The local press goes as far as to say a girl in the wrong place as the wrong time. The police shift from Red to a female killer is expressed in the local news on this day.

"Bartenders remembered seeing the 22 year old Miss Short at the “The Dugout” on Main Street and "The Four Star" on Hollywood Boulevard, January 12, just two days before the, probable night of her slaying. C. G. Williams, bartender at the downtown spot, said Miss Short was with a blonde who "flew into a rage" ∞∞ when two men attempted "to move in on them.” One than once, Beth is seen in the company of a woman that witnesses characterized as “bossy”. Suggesting a protective perhaps even possessive attitude toward Beth when men approach them. This plays into the police lesbian angle. January 12 as you remember is when Betty Blake dancer at the Gay Way sees her. The Gay Way angle doesn’t appear in the LA Times. The word “Gay” might mean carefree time or a brightly colored party room to many in this time period but the Gay Way is a two story bar with an upstairs where there was “dancing”. This is a bar servicemen were told to not enter during WWII. After the war a fresh painted “welcome servicemen” sign appears out front. The Jewel Room also has a reputation as a gay bar.Police are very aware of these locations. Unspoken but very much thought about, the idea that Elizabeth Short shows little warmth or affection to Manley and other men, leads the police and reporters to consider that Beth prefers the sexual company of women. 

The Police Chef’s suggestion of a female killer has newspapers remind their readers of previous dangerous female killers in Los Angeles crime history; Tiger Girl, Clare Phillips, who killed with a ball peen hammer, Serial killer Louise Peete who shot her victims in the back and The Trunk Murderess, Winnie Ruth Judd who bisected and dismembered her best friends. 

When looking at pictures of Clare Phillips or Louise Peete or Winnie Ruth Judd they do not look like monsters or Werewolves. Citizens who commit hideous and violent crimes don’t wear black hats, they look like the rest of us. It is often stated that serial killers blend in, it’s deeper than that, serial killers commit a murder and are not seen, because their personality type have always been not seen. Serial killers don’t have a cloak of invisibility to help them escape the police but a hurt that angers and motivates them, not being seen is why the killer commits the crime. A serial killer commits violence because he has been ignored; abandoned, beaten, unloved, not picked for sports or games. I admire the work of Sasha Reid, University of Calgary. criminologist and developmental psychologist.†

Reid has 645 variables in her database span from the killers’ pre-conception to death. “What was going on with the parents prior to conception? Did they live in a house with lead-based paint? Was the father an alcoholic? Was mom doing drugs or drinking during the pregnancy? Then we look at the childhood. Were they born with any abnormalities? Were their birthing complications? Maybe an umbilical cord wrapped around their necks?” ††

“Low IQ. So that’s definitely a risk factor, but not for why a lot of people think. It’s a risk factor for making friends. Kids with lower IQs tend to have fewer friends because they don’t really know how to socially engage.”  Read Sasha Reid.

ONE MORE THING

One can walk into the Gallery Bar in the Biltmore Hotel lobby in downtown Los Angeles and order the Black Dahlia Cocktail. A drink made from citrus vodka, Chambord and Kahlua. The idea of that is revolting to me. I stayed at the Biltmore a few years ago and avoided the bar for that reason.

There is no restaurant in Brentwood that serves a Ron Goldman Punch. No bar in Hollywood serves a Peg Entwistle Fizz. How can we celebrate murder with a libation?  I believe the answer is our culture doesn’t perceive that the Black Dahlia is Elizabeth Short. The story of Elizabeth Short is a morality tale, a warning to all young Red Riding Hoods to not stray, true life fairy tale written in stolen blood, grimmer than Grimm’s. The Black Dahlia represents a violent fate in the manner of a tarot card, The mystery of death itself is entwined with the mystery of the unsolved crime. The Black Dahlia is a trope that has more in common with a candy skull painted face one sees on the day of the dead celebrations than it has with the tabula rasa life of Elizabeth Short. Very few deaths are as remarkable to have a life of their own that is exponentially greater than the life lived. I bring your attention to a parallel legend in European culture; “L’Inconnue de la Seine”. The plaster death mask of the Unknown Woman of the Seine; a face Albert Caymus called the drowned Mona Lisa was hung on the walls of Bohemians and sophisticates.  L’Inconnue became a muse for artists, poets and other writers, among them Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, and Vladimir Nabokov. ††† The Black Dahlia, certainly, a muse for James Ellroy and David Lynch, perhaps for you, as well as me.

 Thanks for listening.

In the next podcast, the police, looking for a woman; find a girl.  And a woman in a fur coat walks into a police station.

Until then

* Yep, every red-haired person gets called red. 

**Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder by Piu Eatwell

§ Comments of Harry Hansen. Farewell My Black Dahlia, 1971, Los Angeles Times Magazine

§§   H.H. Holmes, Harold Shipman, John Bodkin Adams and Michael Swango.

 ‡Valley Times, North Hollywood, 22 Jan 1947

‡‡Press & Sun Bulletin, Binghamton New York Feb 12 1950 page 29

∏ Hillock means small hill, such as an anthill. DeRiver is making this up. There is no significant rise of dirt on the place where the body was dumped adjacent to the sidewalk.

∏∏ “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” R. J. Reynolds solicited this “finding” by sending doctors a free carton of Camel cigarettes, and then calling  on the phone to ask what brand they smoked. 

∞St Louis Globe-Democrat, Sunday  Feb 2nd 1947, special correspondent Jim Murray, future LA Times sportswriter.

∞∞The San Francisco Examiner 22 Jan 1947, Wed  •  Page 3

†Reid completed two master’s degrees: one in criminology and sociological studies and the other in applied psychology and human development at the University of Toronto.

††Canadian Serial Killer 17 year old Peter Woodcock had killed three smaller children. Reactive attachment disorder can result from grossly negligent care before five years of age. 

†††New York Times, July 20, 2017, At a Family Workshop Near Paris, the ‘Drowned Mona Lisa’ Lives On, Elaine Sciolino

Jim Murray sells news article to an out of town newspaper. Beth is framed as desperate and unwanted.

When Robert Manley is released, the press embraces him as a loving husband. replacing the previous image of a shifty criminal.

“L’Inconnue de la Seine”

The Crown Grill & Jewel Room were separate businesses with same ownership in 1947. Hotel Olive occupied the 2nd & 3rd floor of building and had significant symbiotic relationships with the Jewel Room & the Crown Grill. In center image I embellish the matchbook map to show the Hotel Olive.

Welcome to the The Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia podcast episode 6. I am your host Scott Tracy. 

The police have located Lynn Martin, an ex-roommate who had lived with Beth Short in Hollywood and who disappeared at the same time as Beth.

The discovery of Miss Martin climaxed a backtracking by 1,000 officers of the gay path cut through Hollywood and Los Angeles night life by "the Dahlia.” Det. Lt. William Cummings, who traced Miss Martin to the valley auto court, said she has a record of eight arrests on juvenile charges in Long Beach. The girl, who appears to be in her early 20's, will be 16 next Saturday. She broke her stoic resistance to investigators' continuous questioning when Cummings began asking her about the scars... Through acquaintances of the girl the detective had learned that her upper body was scarred by the removal of tattooing, he said. When confronted by the detective's apparent intimate knowledge of her past, Miss Martin was quoted as blurting, "Oh, what's the use of trying to hide anything from you!" She then admitted her juvenile record and other more recent associations. Investigation had traced Miss Martin to a motel on Ventura Blvd., where she was seen as late as midnight Jan. 14, the night before Miss Short's severed body was found in a vacant lot near busy Crenshaw Blvd.* 

The police hoped for a useful lead from Lynn Martin. Of course she wasn't hiding because she was involved in the crime, Lynn is only guilty of being underage. Lynn has not been in contact with Beth for many weeks. Certain witness are sure they saw Beth Short in the days prior to her death. Many of the observations from strangers turn out to be false leads; the baggage handler that sees Red with a black haired woman who asks about Alaska, turns out to be wrong. A Greyhound bus driver mistakenly believed Beth was on his route from Santa Barbara to downtown Los Angeles on January 14th.

Elizabeth Short’s appearance is striking and uncommon; there is no such thing as a Goth look in 1947. The heavy make-up resonates with an identity one would associate with a silent film star or geisha girl; neither of these is a foundation for a movie career, but it makes a dramatic impression. The newspapers describe her contrasting appearance of black hair and pale skin, however if you think about it, that description would fit Elvira as well as Dita Von Tease. 

I believe the witnesses who knew Elizabeth Short when they speak of seeing her during the lost days and tend to be dismissive of strangers who think they saw Elizabeth, with one very important exception. Myrl McBride, a policewoman. 

A Police bulletin is issued in the 21st of January seeking witness who would assist the investigation WANTED INFORMATION WHEREABOUTS OF ELIZABETH SHORT Between January 9th and 15th 1947.Description female American 22 years 5‘6“ 118 pounds black hair green eyes very attractive bad lower teeth fingernails chewed to the quick this subject was found brutally murdered body severed and mutilated January 15, 1947 at 39th and Norton Ave. Subject on whom information wanted was last seen January 9, 1947 when she got out of the car at Biltmore Hotel ... Subject makes friends with both sexes and frequented cocktail bars and night spots. Note the police seek information starting with her arrival at the Biltmore. Of course Beth was seen leaving the hotel, they clearly hope for more Biltmore witnesses. Elizabeth Short is not reported missing on the evening of the 9th or 10th or 11th 12th or 13th or 14th. The police have witnesses who have seen her, but have no knowledge where she spends the night. As I have noted previously, where is she missing from? She doesn’t live anywhere so who would report her missing? Anne Toth thinks she’s in Berkeley, Joseph Fickling believes she’s on the way to Chicago, Phoebe Short thinks she working at a naval hospital in San Diego, Mark Hansen declined to allow her to return to his house and Lynn Martin hasn’t seen or spoken to her for over two months. Beth is HOMELESS. There are only two options for these seven days. She been abducted and all the witnesses are wrong. Or she has been depending on the kindness of strangers as she did in San Diego and she is sleeping on couches until her luck runs out? THE local newspapers tell a story as a Hollywood tragedy of abduction and torture. The out of town papers tell a story of a squandered life tossed aside like a cigarette. In another decade, Beth might have been a beatnik or a hippie. She is only 22 years old.  but has seen more of America than most 22 year olds. Emotionally she still a teenager, infatuated with different men on different nights. A day dreamer and freeloader, not much of a doer. Age-wise,  emotionally, I would say Lynn Martin is the 22 year old and Beth Short is the 15 year old. 

The police bulletin states Beth is friendly, in fact, she has few friends. It becomes frustrating for the police to find so many that recognize Beth but do not know her at all. Her drunken father abandoned her twice. Beth seems to carry that betrayal within her, along with the idea that the world owes her; folks do feel sorry for her and try to help. Oddly, she isn’t as thankful as these Good Samaritans might expect. Beth is narcissistic but not malicious, she lies easily and often. I was bothered quite a bit when I first started to research the crime about this pattern of dishonesty, and now I think of it as situational. Sometimes Beth lies when she first meets someone, to add depth to her story she gives herself a past; she was married she had a baby and lost it; sometimes she gives herself a future as a movie extra or model going to Chicago. Beth simply is inventing a more interesting version of herself to present to others. Sometimes she introduces herself as Beth, other times Bettie or Elizabeth; is one name better than another? Beth is trying them out. When police interviewed acquaintances they find a trail of disappointed men and disapproving women.

Since police think criminals lie; in the eyes of a police detectives like Hansen and Brown, her actions are those of a grifter. Beth has no job, how does the rent get paid? Why is she hanging around in bars like a freelance “B” girl, Hansen sees a young woman with the game plan of a carny. Hansen realizes Beth’s dating game is rigged sideshow. No kewpie doll for you, sailor but thanks for picking up the tab. As of this date, the current police thinking was that Beth would date men for free meals and save her passion for women. 

January 22nd 1947 Bakersfield Californian QUOTE  "It sounds like a cheap detective thriller," said Capt. Donohoe of the homicide squad, "but we finally were forced to turn to the theory that a woman was at the bottom of it." (Donohoe) pointed to other mutilation murders in which women in jealous rages hacked their girl friends to death.**

The sighting of Beth during these 7 days that strikes me as the most solid is the commentary of bartender Buddy La Gore, who told of observing Beth Short with two brunettes. “Always fastidious and proud of her apparel, she appeared disheveled and ‘frantic-eyed’ that night, La Gore said. "She, looked as, if she had slept in her clothes for days. Her black sheer dress was stained and crumpled. "She always wore the best nylons. but this time she had no stockings on.”

I have to believe a bartender that notices nylons.

Continuing, “her hair was straggly. Lipstick had been smeared on at a hit-or-miss angle. The powder on her face was caked. Another thing I noticed, she was cowed, instead of being gay and excited, the way I'd always seen,… Also, she was  friendly and nice to me instead of acting like a 'grand lady' and bossy. La Gore said Miss Short and the two brunettes sat at a corner table whispering as they sipped beer. They left after an hour.” 

More News of a sighting; a red-haired man entered the Gay Way Bar on 514 South Main Street on the night of January 12th and asked dancer, Betty Blake for Beth, Betty knew Beth  had been in that bar earlier that night. † The Jewel Room and the Gay Way Bar were among the downtown locations that were rumored to cater to a homosexual crowd. During the war years, the military posted signs at every place they suspected drew a gay crowd, that said “Out of bounds to military personnel.” With the war over, a new sign is posted next to the door at the Gay Way Bar— SERVICEMEN WELCOME. Betty Burke says she saw Beth sitting alone in the bar earlier that night. but did not say so to the red haired man. ††

Homosexuality is classified as mental illness at this time.§ The public strongly associates homosexual behavior with pedophilia.§§ Dr. deRiver, the LAPD’s criminal psychiatrist considered homosexuals to be QUOTE “a grave danger to society” and “seducers of children.” In “sexual orgies,” DeRiver added, “they were even prone to commit murder.” A baseless and idiotic claim. DeRiver has a list of 10,000 sexual deviants.

The Jewel Room has an important role to play during the seven missing days, but there is a fair amount of confusion. The LAPD struggles to find willing witnesses. And when the Crown Grill witnesses supply information, it is sometimes contradictory. One witness will say they saw Beth and another worker will say she was not there that night. Leaving the testimonies at odds and open to interpretation.

If we go to various web sites, you’ll notice a variance of opinion. Larry Harnish QUOTE The Crown Jewel Cocktail Room (also known as the the Crown Jewel Grill, the Crown Grill and the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge), 427 W. 8th St., was just another downtown bar where people thought they had seen Elizabeth Short. There is a shadow  — but only a shadow — of truth because her roommate Ann Toth sometimes met her boyfriend there.

What Ann Toth says in her testimony to the investigators. Beth “may have gone down there because of my going down there with Leo, but I never saw her there… Leo Hymes was more of a regular and gave the first names of three bartenders at the Crown Grill.‡

The Deranged crimes web site accepts the possibility of Beth going there. QUOTE She may have been headed for the Crown Grill at Eighth and Olive.   She’d been there before and perhaps she hoped to bump into someone she knew; after all, she needed a place to stay.

When asked if they’d seen Beth, most of the patrons were reluctant to talk to the police. By day the bar catered to the lunch crowd, lots of men escorting women who were not their wives. By night the clientele was mostly gay men. Because homosexuality was illegal there were only a few places where men could meet.”

Police Investigators were aware of the reputation of the bar and spoke Anne Toth about Beth’s attitude toward lesbians, asking, Didn’t she "indicate to you she wasn't fond of queer women?” Ann replied, "No, she always made the statement, very queer people in this town, queer people, referring to both men and women I guess. That is the only thing referring to queers that she ever mentioned … Why did (Beth) go through the trouble of wearing falsies and all that, to attract a queer lesbian, because either they go for you or don't go for you, they don't care if you haven't any shape. As far as that goes, in my estimation, I think she was definitely out to attract men. I can't see anyway of her wanting to attract a woman, because I would definitely notice it. I have been around enough to notice it in this town -- I would notice it.”

Wikipedia QUOTE Beth was allegedly seen by patrons of the Crown Grill Cocktail Lounge at 754 South Olive Street

In the District Atty files QUOTE  “Elizabeth Short and her friend Marjorie Graham and Ann Toth were known drinking customers of this bar.” ‡‡

Chris Anaya, a waitress that started working at the Crown Grill after the death of Elizabeth Short, told District Atty investigator James F. McGrath that she heard from fellow employees that Beth was a customer. She was seen in the company of a "beautiful redhead," a waitress named Kay Graham, and a blonde girl called June Pina, McGrath said. 

Anaya also said she heard that the three of them "spent several nights at a hotel situated just above this cocktail bar known as the Olive Hotel." 

At the time of the grand jury investigation, the hotel records did not indicate a room had been occupied by any of the three women; however, McGrath stated the records were in poor condition and further checking was scheduled.” Note that Anaya is a hearsay witness. Police certainly struggle with getting straight answers. The night bartender at the Crown Grill on January 9th was Joe Scalise, who seemed to have issues with women who declined his advances. Hitting on women should never lead to hitting women. Scalise was a suspect at one point. Question of the day, “What is a raging heterosexual bartender with anger management issues doing working in a gay bar?” One more confusing Crown Grill bit of testimony. Another relevant file from the  DA office states; Francis Campbell, is said to be bi-sexual by her associates at the Crown Grill Bar, waitress Bernice Smith, and waitress Marjorie Underorbok. They all knew victim as a customer of this bar two blocks from the Biltmore Hotel. Suspect, Campbell, stated she was on duty the night of victim’s disappearance. A few days after the murder, Officer Ed Barrett was told by a bartender in the Crown Grill that victim was in there that night alone. Suspect Francis Campbell never came forth with (this) information….

What are we to make this place with three names and two addresses? And a wildly different clientele base day and night? Very Jekyll and Hyde. This question is a Gordian knot in the investigation. I sliced thru this knot with a matchbook I bought on eBay.

Inside the Crown Grill matchbook cover is a neighborhood map that shows that the Crown Grill is at 429 W  8th and the Jewel Room is at 754 S Olive. The matchbook advertises the Crown Grill serves breakfast, luncheon, dinner, late snacks and cocktails. There is no such place as the Crown Jewel Grill or the Crown Grill Cocktail Room. The Jewel Room and the Crown Grill were separate businesses and had separate liquor licenses. Picture on the matchbook cover is on the website. 

The Olive Hotel was the primary tenant at the corner of Olive and 8th Street in 1947, operating the two floors of rooms above. A guest would enter the small lobby on the ground floor and check in with the clerk then go upstairs to the rooms. Or eat or drink on the first floor. The Hotel Olive opened as the Rockwell in 1906. The Crown Grill opened in the 30’s and changed its name to Lou Silver’s Crown Grill in 1956 and closed in the 60’s. The Jewel Room opened in 1941 and closed its doors in 1979. Hotel Olive address 750 S Olive. The Jewel Cocktail Room entrance was at 754 S. Olive Street. The Crown Grill benefited the Hotel Olive as an onsite restaurant. The Jewel Room benefited the Hotel Olive by offering a potential stream of cash clients who might need a confidential and perhaps temporary hotel room. Knowing this it makes sense that the DA finds the Hotel Olive records to be in poor condition when the rooms are occupied by men who don’t wish to check in. The Hotel Olive would have a second ledger.  Beth and her friends could smile and influence the Hotel clerk to allow them to stay in an empty off-the-books room.

George Bacos was the brother of Frances Campbell. George is one of the acquaintances of Elizabeth Short to commented on her make up. “"I didn't want to kiss her because of all that 'goop' she used on her face. I'm used to nice, cultured girls.” Bacos, head usher at NBC Studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood dated Lynn Martin, parked with Elizabeth Short and sourced musical talent for the Jewel Room. Investigators asked George Bacos, "Did you ever see her at any time talking to any queer women?" Bacos answered, "I don't believe I did, no." Likely this is not the truth. The union talent was not always paid for their services so the owners of the Jewel Room are listed in the 1947 Defaulters List of the American Federation of Musicians; Jack Silverman, Harold Dimsdale, Lenard Castle, Karl Green and Harry Weiss are proprietors. Harry Weiss is our focus. 

QUOTE The … Jewel Room at 754 S. Olive, unlike most other gay bars in the neighborhood that might serve more flamboyant clients, the Jewel Room had a fancy dress code and was considered “discreet and elegant." A driver’s license was needed to enter, “There was a code of conduct in such bars that normally prohibited any same-sex touching, making it difficult at times to tell a gay bar from a straight one.”  ENDQUOTE 

Overly flamboyant behavior could have dire economic and social consequences, police actively prosecuted and shamed homosexuals. QUOTE Owned by lawyer Harry Weiss, the proprietor of two other gay bars, who supposedly once sprung Tab Hunter from a gay arrest. Weiss, dubbed “the faggot lawyer” by judges, purportedly gave the police tips regarding the identities of his gay patrons. The vice squad then passed Weiss’s business card to any men they arrested, and Weiss paid the police half of any legal fees he earned from the resulting cases.‡ ‡

Clearly the Jewel Room is self enclosed environment. They have a dress code and a bouncer to examine the drivers licenses. So a Crown Grill guest or worker would not have a clear view of the Jewel Room’s “discreet and elegant." clientele. 

If bartender in the Crown says Betty Short was in there that night alone. We don’t know if that actually refers to the Crown Jewel Room or the Crown Grill. Francis Campbell is shamed in the DA report as an unwilling witness because she never came forth with certain information.Maybe she wasn’t in the right room that night. It matters that the Jewel Room has musical entertainment, maybe nothing more than a piano bar, but it would give a girl like Beth a reason to go alone, to relax and not be ‘interrupted’. It seems clear that Joe Scalise would tend bar in the Grill rather than the Jewel Room. No doubt an inside door would open the Jewel Room to the Hotel Olive and to the Crown Grill. The two businesses would have separate hours of operation. The Jewel Room did not need to be open for breakfast or lunch. The evening dress code eliminated riffraff and helped many patrons who wished to remain discreet. A demand to show your Drivers License was helpful in suppressing Police harassment, given if a Cop came in, he couldn’t be undercover because the bouncer knew his real name.  

I feel very comfortable re-writing the sentence that has Beth leaving the Biltmore in the direction of the Crown Grill where she might bump into a friend who could help her because she needs a place to stay.  I suggest Elizabeth took the Olive street exit from the Biltmore Hotel in the direction of Hotel Olive, at 750 S Olive Street where the Hotel clerk could be her ‘friend’. 

These details give me confidence that Beth was seen at 8th and Olive. It is understandable that Francis Campbell, bisexual waitress and other workers at the Jewel Room and CROWN Grill would be reluctant witnesses when talking to the police, there would be  significant consequences to their friends who would face jail time and fines for victimless crimes.  There is no missing week. There are too many sightings by those who knew her; Beth is recognized by strangers in places one would expect her to be, outside the Tabu nightclub on the boulevard, getting into cabs.

The most significant missing week event involves Policewoman Myrl McBride.  The treatment of McBride by her superiors is the key to understanding of the “why” of the missing seven days narrative imposed by the LAPD. Steve Hodel interviewed McBride in 2001 when she was 88. Officer McBride remembers calming Beth down, then accompanying her back to the Main Street bar where they recovered Beth’s purse. (The threatening man was gone.) After Elizabeth assured McBride that she was “O.K.” the officer left, but confirmed she saw and spoke to her just thirty minutes later when Elizabeth exited a second bar, accompanied by “two men and a woman.”  It is significant that the out of town newspapers report the incident without bias.

Quoting the SF Examiner: Subheadline in bold: FOURTH SUSPECT

“Policewoman Myrl O. McBride related that the girl, so filled with terror that she was crying, ran up to (McBride) in a downtown bus station and asked for protection against an "ex-marine boy friend who once  threatened to kill me if he found me with another man," The girl explained that she had just encountered the marine in a bar and had been so frightened that she had run out without her purse and wraps… McBride went to the bar with the girl while she retrieved those articles. The policewoman advised Miss Short to go home, but the girl returned to the bus station, explaining: "My daddy's coming in two hours from now..

Compare to the LA Times: Subheadline in bold : RESEMBLANCE DOUBTED

“Policewoman Mvrl McBride who said the victim  looked like a girl she talked with on Main Street last Tuesday night, … was more dubious about the resemblance after seeing Elizabeth Short's photograph. The policewoman said the girl came to her in a bus station, saying "Someone wants 'to kill me," then told of a former serviceman-suitor's meeting her in a bar and repeating a threat on her life should he find her with another man. Policewoman McBride said she later saw the girl re-enter the bar and emerge with two men and another woman. She had told the policewoman she was to meet her parents at the bus station later.”

It is revealing to compare these two stories as the LA TIMES omits –

1) Elizabeth crying and being “filled with terror”.

2) Elizabeth asking for the LAPD for protection. 

3) McBride going into the bar with Elizabeth,

No out of town newspaper doubts Myrl McBride’s credibility. No out of town newspaper walks back McBride’s identification of Elizabeth Short, not the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the Des Moines Register, not even the San Bernardino Sun. Myrl McBride is a serious PR problem in Los Angeles for the police department because Beth Short seeks protection on the day she is murdered. This is not a problem for San Francisco or Atlanta or Baltimore. The LAPD uses its influence with city newspapers to throw McBride under the bus to save face. Steve Hodel is correct in his observations on McBride. Once it’s understood why the LAPD chose to smear McBride in 1947, there is every reason to accept her truthful story today.

The most important thing to happen on this day is a phone call to the city editor of the Examiner James Richardson. 

“I must congratulate you on what the Examiner has done in the Black Dahlia case.

Thank you. 

You seem to have run out of material

That’s right.

Maybe I can be of some assistance. 

We need it. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll send you some of the things she had with her when she, shall we say, disappeared.

What kind of things? 

… her address book and her birth certificate and a few other things she had in her handbag. 

“When will I get them?”

Within the next day or so. See how far you can get with them. I must say goodbye. You may be trying to trace this call.”

Wait a minute... The line was dead.  The package from the killer will mailed tomorrow and arrive the day after.

One More thing in other news this day. 

Skeleton of Woman found near Victorville. 

A... woman’s skeleton was found yesterday near U.S. Highway 66 about 10 miles south of Victorville. Wrapped in a quilt which was bound with a sash cord, the skeleton lay in a shallow grave three miles from Miller Corners and about 125 feet from the highway. Surveyors unearthed a shallow grave about 16 inches deep where deputies said the body apparently had been buried nude an estimated three to six months ago. There were no bone fractures to indicate violence.

How is this connected to the Black Dahlia murder?

There is no connection. The story occupied space in the newspapers for one day and investigators for a week. No character arc. No identity, no suspects, no grieving family, no story.  The Black Dahlia case is a maze of dead-end clues and false sightings, an address book of 100 acquaintances and no friends, a trunk filled with photos of ghost lovers and letters never mailed and a cryptic telegram.

Elizabeth Short’s life was a cipher, a tabula rasa, her death is a puzzle, a Rorschach test. This dead woman outside Victorville is so anonymous that her life is a void. The tragedy is her life is erased. No books will be written about her. Her death is a period at the end of a sentence. I can’t call it a mystery; no more a mystery than the mystery of sand. 

*Los Angeles Times 22 Jan 1947, Wed  •  Page 2

** Bakersfield Californian  January 22, 1947 Page 2

 †Valley Times, Jan 22, 1947 Page 2, (San Fernando Valley)

†† Death of the Black Dahlia, by Craig Rice, mystery writer.  San Francisco Examiner · 9 Nov 1952

§ In 1952 the American Psychiatric Association published the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time. It included homosexuality as a mental disease.

§§ americanhistoryusa.com/the-gay-bars-and-vice-squads-of-1950s-los-angeles/ Dan Bryan, Jan 7 2013

‡ The Black Dahlia in Hollywood, http://www.theblackdahliainhollywood.com/?s=Leo+Hymes 

‡ ‡ Los Angeles District Attorney Frank Jemison would testify to that fact at the 1949 Grand jury hearings.

‡ ‡‡ https://ericbrightwell.com/2013/06/17/the-cooper-do-nuts-uprising/ https://queermaps.org/place/gay way-cafe  closed May 1956

LAPD employee interview cards, from the Biltmore Hotel to the Crown Grill

Note the proximity of the “missing days” hotels and bars.

Corral Bar at bus depot. Myrl McBride assists Beth Short retrieve her “things”

Lovers lanes as defined by the Los Angeles Times. Only on the westside. Only unsolved murders!

Welcome to the Black Dahlia and the Blue Dahlia podcast. Episode 7  I am your host Scott Tracy. 

in news today…

An unknown man threatened the life of Sultry Toni Smith, who now lives in the Hollywood apartment once shared by Miss Short. QUOTE The brunette beauty, her lips trembling with fear, said she answered the telephone in Apartment 501 last night to hear a strange man's gruff voice say: 'Well Toni. you are next.” "I honestly have no idea who he might have been. I don’t know why he should have threatened me.” * Miss Smith moved into Apartment 501 two weeks after Miss Short moved out. Fearful that she might be the next victim of the fiend who tortured Miss Short to death, then savagely hacked ...(her) in half. Miss Smith was given police protection. END-QUOTE

Toni Smith is a very photogenic non-Black Dahlia suspect. A person of interest for ten minutes. The press uses the word “sultry” as if it is Toni’s first name. In fact, Georgia is her first name. Toni is her actress name and she is a single mother of a three year old boy. I am not sure there would be much of a story in the paper without the accompanying photo of an ambitious and beautifully dressed actress sitting on the couch smiling with her long legs folded and posed underneath her body. Sultry Toni Smith appears to be auditioning for attention rather than trembling in fear. The Toni Smith story and this ‘actress as damsel in distress’ photo are not printed in the LA TIMES. However, because the Black Dahlia news is drying up. Many papers such as Bakersfield Californian, San Mateo Times believe the public is still thirsty for the sex and violence headlines of the Black Dahlia stories. It is amusing to imagine Sultry Toni Smith was ever a suspect; 

Question of the day: raise your hand if believe the police think a Mother a of three year old boy, might be the dangerous Lesbian thespian they were seeking in the murder? 

Interestingly, the Toni Smith story is put to use in some newspapers as part of the shift of the focus of the LAPD because a man telephoned Toni Smith. QUOTE Police, previously convinced that a woman was responsible, widened their search after hearing Miss Smith's story and finding other clues which pointed to a man. Police Lieutenant P. W. Freestone said be believed the killer in dumping the body onto a vacant lot early last Wednesday lowered one foot on a very small pool of blood on the ground, staining his shoe. He indicated the print was left by a man.

Other "tips" were telephoned to the homicide detail, ... A bloody towel was found (on) Hobart St. near 29th and was sent to the police crime laboratory for tests. A pair of nylon stockings picked up at 12th and Hoover; likewise were considered significant. 

Let’s step back from the news and state the obvious. These stockings, the bloody towel and the threatened actress are all dead ends. We don’t hear about Sultry Toni again in the police blotter or on the big screen. 

The thirst for news of the Black Dahlia has created significant pressure for new headlines. As the Black Dahlia Avenger has said to James Richardson yesterday, “you seem to have run out of material.” The Tortured Slain Nude Girl is what the public wants to read about. This is not lost on anyone in the publishing business. The Black Dahlia case plays a significant role in media historically as it changes the floor and the ceiling to what is permissible to show and tell the American public. From this point forward, the illustrated paperback covers for detective stories show more of the female figure. True Crime magazines change their covers and stories. On my web page I have a section of pre-war covers that are much more tame than the post-1947 covers. Pre war: Women in torn negligees, tied to the bedpost, Men with perfect hair and handguns are there to save them. Post war the images are raw. Women now have cigarettes, cleavage and Tommy guns. In five years, Paula Klaw will be selling pictures of Bettie Page based on customer requests for poses. There is no place for Pollyanna in this new detective world that embraces the threats of torture and bondage. As in Film Noir, the post war female is at the center of the spiderweb and a big part of the mystery is to find out if the woman is a victim or the spider.  From an essay on True Crime magazines by Eric Godtland, QUOTE “In January 1947 a crime occurred that foreshadowed the direction of detective magazines for the remainder of their lifespan. The Black Dahlia murder case, involving the mutilation of a beautiful Hollywood starlet riveted the detective world. Horrible as it all was, the obvious sex appeal lurking in the backstory was not lost on publishers struggling to hold a shrinking readership.”**

Back to the news, Mrs. John Bersinger arrives at the University Police Station with her husband, wearing a fur coat. The paper states QUOTE…Mrs. John Bersinger, 3705 Norton Ave., volunteered that she was woman who first telephoned University Police Station on Jan. 15.  “I was terribly shocked and scared to death," she said. QUOTE "I grabbed Anne and we walked as fast as we could to the first house that had a telephone. "When I called the police, they asked me what number I was talking from, and I gave it to them. They didn't ask me my name.” 

We have covered this. I love that Betty Bersinger, gets dressed up to got to the police station. The newspapers were everything in 1947.  It was exciting to be in the paper and be photographed. Of course she put on a fur coat, she is a star witness; she wanted to make her husband proud and look pretty. I have a photo essay on the press coverage of Mrs. Bersinger on my web site as the press brackets her pictures. 

In the Los Angeles Times this day an article about a new witness…they refer to …a thin man. QUOTE Out of the shadows of the Norton Ave. "lovers lane," where the mutilated, nude body of Elizabeth Short was found in a weed-webbed vacant lot, a thin man walked yesterday into the case. This new character in the grisly murder story, … was pictured to police by Walter A. Johnson, 3815 Welland St.§

Two notes, first is it possible to tell this story without including the word “nude” but there it is for the reasons we just discussed. Second, Welland Avenue is seven blocks east of Norton so Walter Johnson drove over half mile at night to dump his lawn clipping among the weeds of a vacant lot. 

Johnson said that at about 9 p.m. on Jan. 14 he went to the area, an undeveloped tract known as a haven for smoochers and trash haulers with a carload of shrub cuttings. As he slowed his car to a stop, he noticed a light colored 1935 model sedan parked on the west side of Norton directly opposite the fire plug near which Miss Short's body subsequently lay. The right rear door of the sedan was open. Standing near the car was the thin man, described by Johnson as 45 years of age, 5 feet 8 inches tall, thin build, wearing tan top coat and a dark hat pulled low. As Johnson stopped, the man looked up, startled. He then crossed the street and walked slowly past Johnson's car, hands in pockets. He scrutinized Johnson thoroughly and then craned look into Johnson's sedan. … At this point Johnson fearing the thin man was a bandit, drove away, circled the block, and returned to the spot. This time, he said the other car sped away with grinding gears and burning tires.

Let’s digest this — the other guy is parked on the wrong side of the street and neither of them expected to another person. Clearly the two men spooked each other. It’s 9 p.m. Beth Short is alive for at least six more hours. This has nothing to do with the Black Dahlia, this is only Norton Ave news, QUOTE a haven for smoochers and trash haulers. END-QUOTE What are you going to say to the wife? “Honey now that I finished mowing the lawn today, I’m in the mood for a bit of hanky-panky, let’s you and I drive around the corner to a special vacant lot I know..”

Honestly, it is a thick line between a dump and a lovers lane. Mr. Johnson didn’t go the the neighborhood to smooch. Let’s talk about a couple of things. One, criminals and lovers lanes, and  two  newspapers and lovers lanes.

Let’s begin with killers and lover’s lanes; is there any history of this, is a lover’s lane is a good dumping ground? No. Teenage lovers in cars and killers with a body in the trunk are seeking very different types of privacy and isolation. Historically, an isolated lover’s lane is where serial killers go shopping not dumping. Let’s name some lovers lane incidents. The Texarkana Moonlight Killer attacked four couples in cars over eight weeks from Feb 22nd thru May 3rd 1946 in isolated lovers lanes.

The Red Light Bandit, Carl Chessman robbed Regina Johnson and her date as they parked in isolation on a hill in west Pasadena on Jan 19th 1948.

The Zodiac killer shot teenage lovers Jensen and Faraday in their car on Lake Herman Road north of Benicia on December 20th 1968. The Valentine’s Day killings of Patricia Mann and Jesse McBane of Durham North Carolina, began with an abduction from a lover’s lane near Hillandale golf course. The lovers were found on February 25th 1971, ten days after their date and 4.2 miles from their car. They had been tortured but died fully clothed, tied to separate trees next to each other. 

All of these killings seem to be murders of opportunity. There is little indication of a killer stalking these victims ahead of time. These “lover’s lanes” were isolated, not this classic high school movie trope of cars parked next to each other as they might be at a drive-in movie. None of these victims are killed elsewhere and taken to a lover’s lane to be dumped. 

What can we learn from how newspapers used the words “Lover’s Lane”. In 1947  there are 8 instances of the words “lover’s lane” appearing together in the Los Angeles Times in the 12 months of the year. Thought it might be more but only 8 times.

On January 17th, 24th, 26th and 27th, the paper uses “lover’s lane” in reverence to Elizabeth Short. 

On February 13th, lovers lane used in the report of the murder of Jeanie French. 

On June 8th lovers lane used in a short story!

On Sept 13th, the bodies of 39 year old George Vigus and 21 year old Iris Scott are strangled and stuffed into the trunk of George’s Chevrolet coupe in a lover lane near Hyde Park in Toronto, Canada. 

The Los Angeles Times Sunday edition had fiction included in the syndicated This Week † magazine on June 8th,  and so a fictional undercover detective has to wait in the dark on a lonely bench in a park that is considered a lovers lane area, but his jealous girl friend follows him and melodramatic misunderstanding ensues. I expected the use of the words “Lover’s Lane” to be far more numerous, but nope. Opera Lovers, Garden Lovers, Film Lovers, Horse Lovers, Music Lovers and Bowling Lane. The big takeaway shocked me. The words “lover’s lane” are only used in the Los Angeles Times in a murder story. Astoundingly, all of the crimes involving lovers lanes were unsolved. In the Lone Women murders, the term lover’s lane is exclusively used for dump sites on the westside. Map on the web page.

I believe the press uses the term “lovers lane” to amplify drama and fear in the suburban public, as a “dog whistle” to parents so they worry about their teenagers. 

However, the idea of the site being a lovers lane supplies a pseudo-motive for the killer and implies a relationship with the victim. Of course the logic fails, any person driving on Norton Ave. would see trash and weeds in the vacant lot; not lovers. What reason could there be to believe the killer knows of this location as a spot for “smoochers”?

If the killer lives in the neighborhood he might have seen someone parked there but if he lives in the neighborhood, Norton Ave. is a poor choice for a dump site, given the danger being recognized. The body is not placed on Norton by the killer because its a lovers lane; it’s called a lovers lane in the newspaper because a body is found there. 

In contrast, how does the press coverage handle the non-suburban residential body dumps of other murders? Evelyn Winters is dumped near train tracks, and her warm dead body is kissed on the lips by the man that finds her but that dirt road is not called a lovers lane. After a late night of dance and drinks, Peter Hernandez forces himself on Angela Loya in an empty lot on Olympic between Sam Pedro and Alameda. Hernandez is a meat cutter by trade. Angela is raped, bludgeoned then disemboweled and dies on the way to the hospital. Lone women victims who are killed in east downtown are never given the implied title of lovers. Derelicts live in Skid Row. There are no shortage of Skid Row stories of sorrow and loss, but these events even when they are murder, are less significant news to citizens of the westside. There is no indication that kids necking in cars plays any significant role in the murder of Elizabeth Short.  Beth was not killed because some man tried to get handsy in a parked car in Leimert Park and cut her in half and dumped her body in that same spot as a gravestone to his sexual frustration. Elizabeth Short is killed because she is a victim in the eyes of her torturer. The study of victimology is key to understanding this type of lust killer. Returning to the commentary of Sasha Reid; serial killers begin their lives as victims and have trouble making friends. Predators select victims that they can overpower. Consider the Lone Women Murders; Louis Springer was 99 pounds, Laura Treslad was 105 pounds, she is five foot four, Naomi Cook was 109 pounds, five foot two. Smaller victims are easier to control. Beth Short was 115 pounds, five foot five.

In 1946, the term lovers lane is used to describe  the location of Gertrude Landon. On July 15th 1946 her body is found in half buried in a Gravel pit in Lomita, adjacent to Palos Verdes, five days after she disappeared. Gertrude is wearing only panties, brassiere, shoes and a diamond engagement ring. The Examiner, Times and Herald called the location a lovers lane, the body was found by 33-year-old Wilmington shipyard worker Theodore P. Walther hiking thru the area. Not a lovers lane. It is a gravel pit that no one visits in five days; a wise choice for an out of the way dump site. Once again a wealthy part of town like Palos Verdes is treated differently than skid row murder. Contrast the Landon murder with the Red Rose murder of 1939; on December 28th John Frank Reavis, trombone player and candy salesman drives “B” girl Alice Burns in his 1929 truck at 4:30 a.m. to an abandoned industrial coal yard lot south of Chinatown with the expectation of sex, Burns choses the isolated location as she is familiar with it. No newspaper will anoint the location as a lover’s lane. 

The Skid Row section of downtown Los Angeles is the birthplace of the disposable victim trope we see in television and movies today. Jerry Burns worked in a cheap beer tavern, she lived in Skid Row hotel was killed in the shadows of the downtown railroad yards.

Yet, it could be said that 17 year old Jerri Alice Burns had fuller life than Elizabeth Short. “Jerri” Burns had a job, a husband and home in San Bernardino. But she can’t die in a lovers lane because the 17 year old was blond temptress who would induce lonely drunks to drink to excess. Newspapers can’t give Jerri Burns a character arc because the public sees her as a sex worker not as a sexy actress. The Los Angeles Times listed her occupation as a Skid Row Entertainer. The Arizona Republic called her a Taxi Dancer, the Texas Record called her a barroom hostess, the Wilmington Press, defines Jerri Burns by the Skid Row neighborhood, calling her an East-side Entertainer, whatever that is supposed to mean; it’s rather like calling Sally Rand a “Ballon Artist”. San Bernardino Sun says she was employed at a 5th street bar and lived in an East Side semi-slum neighborhood. Slum dwellers don’t get a character arc in the newspapers, even if they are entertaining. 

The character arc for Beth Short is invented from the very beginning. Jack Smith tells the story in his memoirs. “..as a rewrite man for the Daily News in 1947 "Within the minute I had written what may have been the first sentence ever written on the Black Dahlia case.. I can't remember it word for word, but my lead went pretty much like this: 'The nude body of a young woman, neatly cut in two at the waist, was found early today on a vacant lot near Crenshaw and Exposition Boulevards.'" His editor added one adjective, making Short "a beautiful young woman” ... Our city editor, of course, no more knew what the unfortunate young woman had looked like than I did ... But the lesson was clear. On the Daily News, at least, all young women whose nude bodies were found in two pieces on vacant lots were beautiful. I never forgot it."

The reporter writes the article and the editor makes it a story. It’s the local papers that create this imaginary youth the public will connect with, a girl who dreams of bigger things; movie fame and hopes of a happy marriage to a handsome uniformed warrior. The out of town newspapers dismiss her as a moth fatally drawn to the flickering flame of Hollywood. 

Elizabeth Short was never going to be the next Jean Wallace or Yvonne DeCarlo much less the next Toni Smith. With her Goth make-up and trail of jealous boyfriends, Elizabeth Short was never going to be a Pollyanna in the suburbs.

Beth didn’t fit in Hollywood and she wouldn’t fit in suburban Leimert Park. She passes thru the Biltmore and she finds her way to the Dugout bar and the Hotel Olive. Why? Why be in bars? Anne Toth says she doesn’t drink. A subset question; why bars downtown? It’s not as if one would hope to meet a movie producer at the Corral Bar in the Greyhound Bus Station. What sort of girl would pass thru the Biltmore to sit alone at the Gay Way? I believe the answer is that Beth fits in with the misfits. All these places that Robert Manley would have never taken Beth are places she occupies during her last days. The Gay Way bar is one block west of the bus station, one block north from the Dugout. It’s not home; it is where a person goes when they don’t have a home. Beth surrounds herself with those who live on the margins on the city of Los Angeles.

One more thing Men and women and children who founded Los Angeles lived on the margins.  The original forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores” were families of mixed race who were marginalized in Mexico. They came with hope. The journey was necessary because caste system of the Spanish ruling class of Mexico was severe. A Spaniard born on the Iberian Peninsula was closer to God than the Spaniard born in Mexico; a citizens privileges, taxes, legal rights and economic potential were rigidly defined at birth.

Peninsular, Criollo. Indio, and Negro; and the mixes: Mulato. Mestizo. Zambo. The lower the caste, the less Mexico was your home. And so, the marginal ones are willing to risk the long journey without promise; the streets of Los Angeles are paved with immigrants. We have always attracted those on the margins.

What does this have to do with Beth Short? Americans don't think of our culture as having a caste system. The American dream asserts that every person can rise to the highest level of our society. The Hollywood movie star dream has a young girl sipping a coke at a stool at Top Hat Cafe on Sunset hoping to be noticed by publisher of The Hollywood Reporter. This myth seduces lessor talents that they can achieve stardom with luck and timing and is assigned to the mutilation murder of Elizabeth Short in a reversal; a young girl comes to movie town with big dreams and her life ends in tragedy because of bad luck and bad timing.

The cast system in LA doesn't have an “E” on the end; citizens of Los Angeles will cast you; a star, a bit-player, an extra, a nobody. There was no shortage of young girls in Los Angeles who hoped to be the next Lana Turner discovered in a malt shop. The daily customers at the Long Beach lunch counter that crowned her the Black Dahlia did so because they cast her aside as yet another naïve wannabe. There's a cynicism to that nom de guerre; a cynicism readers of Raymond Chandler would recognize.

The future actress fable presented by the Times and Herald papers is easily rejected; it would be equally foolish to accept the character framing that we read from the out of town papers. That St Louis Post Democrat story that has Elizabeth lose her innocence then her life.  This good girl did not turn bad when the gay living in cinema sin city made her lose her way. It is best to give up on the idea that Elizabeth was good or bad. She had wanderlust long before she found herself in wicked Hollywood, Beth’s asthma caused her to move away from her family in Boston to Florida. Her potential husband changed coasts and she followed. Happiness escaped her. She wasn’t meant to be in motion pictures, she was meant to be in motion.  The tragedy of Elizabeth Short is not that the fate of becoming a famous actress eluded her, the tragedy is, she never hit the road with Neal Cassidy and Jack Kérouac.

Until next time

East side skid row location for Red Rose Murder. Jerri Burns

Women are beautiful, threatened and rescued, men are determined, armed and nicely coiffed unless there is an explosion, then a cowlick.

Women are in trouble sells the stories but now women are on both sides of the law and will kill for all the money. Men are less often the hero and show character with their hands not hair and posture.

Not every girl at NTG’s Florentine Gardens review becomes a success in the business but it worked for Jean Wallace and Yvonne DeCarlo.

This is a significant topic that has been ignored by other researchers.