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subway she did it was a it was a break from the norm i haven't had subway in like 10 years at least i know i haven't had subway in a long time yeah like possibly 15 years it wasn't even a choice it just happened yeah yeah i just i really wanted to really wanted a tuna fish sandwich real bad yeah and it's real tuna apparently it is well elena tried to tell me that it wasn't she was like you know it's not real tuna and i was like oh my god and then i googled it and it turns out there was a lawsuit back in the day yeah people was trying to say it's not real tuna and it is yeah i became the internet
for a second i was like let me just spout something that's complete bullshit with nothing to back it up she said that she was she said she was just testing me to do my i was like i wanted you to check so yeah i did my own research and it turns out survey says real tuna it was good it slapped i'm glad it slapped for you that was my lunch I like that for you.
Thanks. I had some cottage cheese with garlic and some sun -dried tomato and basil wheat thins.
You have to say wheat thins.
Wheat thins. It was delicious.
That wasn't like my lunch. That was just a snack.
Like a pre -lunch. Yeah, pre -lunch appetizer.
We have an exciting thing happening today that we can't tell you yet.
I know, and my tummy's all jumbly for us.
So she didn't eat lunch. I said, are you going to eat something, bitch?
And she said, I can't.
I'm too too excited but don't worry you will find out what this thing is you will find out fairly soon actually yeah so yeah hang tight there's a couple of i know we're being those annoying people who are like we know something and you can't but you will sometimes it's fun i promise you oh i thought you were going to continue that sentence i thought you're just like i promise you no i just meant like i promise you you'll find out like period yeah you're funny me period period uh so we're gonna be covering a case today that you might be like wait a second did i see this before you did you did uh
but i want to cover it better we've grown um we covered it a long long long long time ago it's no longer on there but um this is one of the first ones yeah this is one of the first ones so you know it's a it's a case that deserves another look and a deeper dive so dave touch a little dave touch to it so we decided to revisit it and um it's also it it happened in january which oh yeah we didn't even mean to do but i don't even know if i knew that we're fresh out of january right now check it um we are going to be covering the black dahlia murder the murder of elizabeth short so this case has so many
layers to it this is going to be a two -parter uh it must be it has to be it must it must be um getting into my transatlantic accent because we're going to hollywood baby hollywood hollywood we're going to hollywood and we're not in real life um i'm staying firmly planted over here uh but yeah this is a crazy case it is is the first case i can truly remember becoming unhinged obsessed with i remember that um it was this and like jack the ripper that i really just could not stop uh this one in particular because i remember seeing i believe it was one of those like e true hollywood stories or one
of those like mysteries and scandals with aj benza they used to do the countdowns yeah exactly and i remember it was one of those um i loved those i loved aj benza i don't know what he's up to now if he if he's good or bad right now i'm i'm not up on it and i bet he's fine i hope i'm gonna google it really fast because like i have fond memories of that show and him uh what's what if i just googled what's aj benzo what's aj benzo up to um his real name's alfred that's crazy good for good for alfred he's just like doing poker okay so is he just a poker podcast is he kind of just like quietly existing
podcast yeah it's good for him he's chilling okay oh he plays for he plays you know he plays harmonica wow that's what he's doing all right he's like blues traveler so is this the aj benza am i correct what if it this is just like a random i feel like that's to aj benza yeah i think so he has that vibe uh aj benza what are you doing what are you up to i just i when i mentioned him i was like you know you always got to be careful to be like oh fuck because you don't want the only thing for anyone to hear out of this it's aj benzo if he's a bad and you're right it was mysteries and scandals mysteries
and scandals i remember it was like he was the host and i remember him standing on us on a very rain sodden sidewalk yes it was dark there was lots of fog around him at all times and he would walk out and start telling you the story and i can oh my god right bro i can can't you see it no i not only can i see that i can see the point of view like watching the tv from your bed oh my god that's what in the purple walls yeah oh my god see it's it it has a special place in my heart core memories core memories and i remember seeing the Black Dahlia case and I remember them showing some version.
I don't know if my mind is like twisting somehow.
No, it's not because I remember it too.
Some version, maybe it was a sketch or something of her autopsy photo.
Yeah, no, I remember that.
Because I remember seeing the Glasgow smile.
I remember seeing that vividly.
And I remember that being the point when I said, what?
Like, I was like, what?
Somebody did that to someone else?
I feel like they show, No, not like obviously like an overhead shot, but they show part of the crime scene.
Yeah, it's like from the classic photo where you can, it looks, you know, the crime scene looks like there is a mannequin laying in the grass.
Yeah, yeah. And of course, we're going to get into the specifics of this because it was not a bloody crime scene.
She was drained of blood.
In part two, we will get into all the theories.
We're going to talk about who we think did it.
We're going to talk about, you know, a lot of the people that they were going after for suspects.
So don't worry, we'll get more into that.
And I think in part two, too, we'll kind of go through even more of some of the nuances of this stuff.
But right now we're going to tell you about Elizabeth Short.
I'm going to tell you about the crime scene.
I'm going to tell you about how she was found.
And we'll get a little bit into some of the suspects.
All right, let's do it.
So strap in AJ Benza.
I hope you're listening.
Oh my God, hi. Oh my God.
I don't think he has a poker podcast, by the way.
I said that wrong. It's a poker show.
Oh, OK. Good for him, man.
Yeah, just before anybody corrects me.
Yeah, you don't want to get it wrong, OK?
Yeah, I'm wrong. It was live reading.
Yeah. You know, we're live Googling right now.
We're taking us back to a cool and very overcast day, January 15th, 1947.
All right. This is when Betty Bersinger and her three -year -old daughter, Anne, left the house for a nice little morning walk.
Just a stroll. Yeah, just a stroll.
role um they so the lemert park area of los angeles which is just five miles south of hollywood was a very newly developed and planned community and there were still a lot of vacant lots in it um they were along norton avenue and people would use these vacant lots a lot of the time because people are always going to people oh yeah to dump garbage other stuff you know like rude be be the The dumb part of people.
So when Betty caught sight of a pale white thing in the tall grass in the empty lot, she thought, oh, someone left a broken Taylor's mannequin in the lot rather than just getting rid of it properly.
You know, it was just one of those things that she kind of walked by and was like, like, can people stop peopling, please?
Yeah, she was like, oh my God, put your trash in the garbage.
Exactly. But then Betty got closer to the object, which was just a few inches from the edge of the the sidewalk.
If you have ever seen the crime scene photos or anything like that or been to that area, you know that she was right up out in the open.
To think that she was with her three year old daughter.
Yeah. Worst nightmare.
That shakes me to my core.
Yeah. And I mean, Elizabeth's body was right on the grass next to the sidewalk.
I mean, all of it was intentional.
And she she immediately realized she was not looking at a mannequin at all, but a horrifically mutilated body of a young woman who had been bisected at the waist. I think that's what initially really drew me to this case.
Like made me just like morbidly fascinated and absolutely horrified by this case was just the extent of the mutilation that was done to this woman.
I could not conceive of it.
I still can't conceive of it really.
It's even to this day, It stays as one of the most horrific cases of mutilation you can conjure.
Now, at the sight of this poor woman's absolutely mangled body, Betty immediately grabbed her daughter and ran for the nearest phone.
And she called the University Division of the LAPD and reported what she had seen.
Now, she was fully panicked, obviously, and absolutely horrified, going through complete shock.
so she didn't like adequately describe what she found like she wasn't able to convey it in a way that some it would be a little understandable how would you so the communications officer on the other end noted that it was a quote possible 390 which is a stuporous drunk down in the lot at 39th and norton avenue it's like dude why would she be that horrified if it was just a drunk person stumbling around that's the thing like i'm like i feel like you even if you note that as like i I think this is what she said.
You should be like, but she sounds really upset.
So it could be. Yeah, get there fast. There's other things going on here.
Now, whether because of confusion or poor communication, the officer also neglected to get the caller's name or phone number.
So didn't know her name was Betty.
Didn't know how to contact her after that.
Oof. I don't really know why.
Maybe because they were thinking it was like a stuporous drunk situation.
Maybe like first day on the job type vibes.
vibes very first day on the job training and their their overseer was like in the bathroom a lot of this uh scene was manhandled in a very bad way which i think led to the reason why we don't have definitive things even today that was the opposite of a bang -up job yeah not not great at all um in fact it was going to be a full 10 days before investigators were able to track Bersinger down through notices in the papers like they couldn't find her anywhere so they could they All they had was that initial call, and then that was it.
So they just came up upon it and were like, okay.
Jesus. Now, expecting to find someone sleeping off a night of drinking in a lot, the dispatcher sent a single patrol call to investigate the call.
And countless journalists and press photographers had heard the call go out over the police radios that they all kept in their cars.
So they all kind of followed just to see if there was any story there.
yeah um los angeles examiner reporter will fowler and his fowler and his partner felix pagel were the first to arrive at the scene before the lapd had arrived oh shit so the journalists arrived before the police and y 'all know how that goes yeah that's never good they were shocked because fowler said there's something about a dead body you couldn't mistake it's difficult to describe two parts of a body as being one however both halves were facing upwards her Her arms were extended above her head.
Her translucent blue eyes were half opened.
So I closed her eyelids.
Oh. Now that's really sweet.
Don't touch a dead body.
Why the fuck did you touch a dead body?
Yeah. Don't be the hero.
I'm sorry. Beautiful, beautiful sentiment.
Love that for you. That you were trying to be respectful.
Here's my thing to everybody.
Don't fucking touch a dead body if you find it.
Don't touch a dead body for a myriad of reasons.
Don't get your fucking fingerprints on a dead body.
Hello. You don't disturb that.
No. No. Don't disturb the scene.
You don't know anything about what's going on here.
You don't know if something was injected into her eyes.
You don't know if something was put in.
You don't know. Yeah.
So just sweet boy. Again, the sentiment, love it.
He's an empath. Very respectful, very empathetic.
I wanted to close her eyes.
Don't. Don't do that.
Yeah. Don't involve yourself.
Now the patrol officers arrived a few moments later and quickly called the division to let let them know, uh, no, it was not a drunk sleeping off a night of drinking in a vacant lot, but a horribly mutilated dead woman.
Thank you for fucking that up on the highest level you possibly could.
Well, that's the thing.
I don't know how, like, I don't know the procedural for this, but I'm assuming you would probably send a different set of officers for those two things.
Yeah, I would think so.
Like you're not sending the homicide division to a sleeping drunk.
yeah exactly like it's i'm i'm just a little confused and again i'm not i've never been in this situation how the person on the other end confused what she said so hard yeah and like you said with the amount of anxiety and panic in her voice i feel like you would question she's not going to be that upset about a drunk sleeping it's like i don't know i feel like there should It could have been a little...
Maybe, I don't know if she hung up quickly and maybe they couldn't get anything else.
I don't know. But I'm like, wow, this really, this game of telephone busted up right away.
The news, of course, brought more reporters and soon the crime scene was absolutely overtaken by reporters, photographers, additional LAPD officers.
Probably just onlookers.
But it was just chaos.
Just chaos. Of course.
And in order to keep as many people as they could out of the crime scene now, Now, detectives told patrol officers and some of the reporters at this point, because they needed however many people they could, to make a human chain around the perimeter to keep people out.
Dear God. But by this point, the scene had been absolutely trampled by so many people coming and going.
And honestly, it remained open to the press long after investigators left as well.
So whatever evidence was maybe there, totally tainted.
And again, this is 1947.
Exactly. So there's not a lot of evidence to begin with, for the most likely.
And it's like, after investigators left, that scene should have been cordoned off and somebody should have been stationed there.
And that way they can go back to the scene if they need to.
If something comes up, you go, wait, let's get back to that scene and take a look again.
And they didn't do any of that.
So people were just trampling right through it right after they left. It's like, guys, what were you thinking?
I don't get it at all.
it was common for murder victims to be dumped in various locations like the lot where Elizabeth Short was found, especially around Los Angeles.
It was just, you know, just the area.
But from the moment investigators arrived at the scene, it was clear that this was not their run of the mill.
No. This was for show.
There was a lot here.
It was definitely not the killer trying to get rid of this body quickly.
No. That is for sure.
This was not like, I just have to remove myself from this situation.
Shock factor. They had arranged Elizabeth Short's body in a very particular way and had chosen a location where she would 100 % be discovered very quickly.
Like, very quickly.
This is, and the way she was arranged, like the two halves of her body were placed close to one another with about 12 inches between them.
And the upper half was placed somewhat asymmetrically from the lower half, like a little bit to the side.
And her arms were raised above her head and both of them were bent.
Okay. At an angle, very much so like you were posing for a photograph.
Right. That makes sense.
um she was also completely nude um but it was very much like she was posing like you would lay on a bed to pose for a photograph like yeah you know like like you would see in a magazine at the time right a spicy magazine risque you know uh so it was very clear that they were trying to pose her in a way that it would shock and in a way that they they were definitely trying to send a message either about who they believed she was or about something else outside of something in their Exactly.
The level of violence that the victim had been subjected to, I mean, it exceeded what most veteran law enforcement officers and on the LAPD had ever seen or would ever see.
Really saying something.
Detective P .W. Freestone told reporters at the scene, this is the most brutal example of a sex crime I have ever seen.
She had been cleanly, and when I say cleanly, I mean cleanly, bisected at the waist. Which is shockingly cleanly.
Absolutely insane. Yes.
Whoever had done this, it felt like they had access to the type of tools required to do that in a surgical setting.
Yeah. This is kind of like when I go back to Jack the Ripper.
Don't worry. I'll talk about the DNA soon.
Thank you for tagging me and everything.
But this is kind of what I say with Jack the Ripper that I don't think, it's hard to understand how difficult it is to cut parts of the human body cleanly.
If you haven't tried to cut human body parts cleanly.
I can confidently say I've never tried it.
Yeah. So it's like if you have not been in a profession where you have done that or been around that, it's a little hard to wrap your brain around.
It is. Absolutely. Especially if you've only seen it in, like, TV and all that kind of stuff and movies.
So, like, with Jack the Ripper, I was always saying I do believe this person has medical knowledge because to be able to do that stuff in the dark, in the light, it would take somebody who knows where these organs are.
Yeah. And then to do it in the dark.
It's like muscle memory.
just feels like you have to know precisely where these things are it's kind of the same thing here this isn't somebody who just happened to figure out how to cleanly bisect a body they knew how to do it and they knew how to do it because they know where things are because they are medically trained that's how I believe this situation is going here I think you're right and there's also other parts of it that lead to that too which we'll get to there was also and this is my next point here there was a lack of blood at the scene um and it indicated obviously that this mutilation had occurred elsewhere and that she was likely
killed elsewhere but her body had also been completely drained of blood that is one of the factors about this case that always has stayed with me yeah completely drained of blood and it's just like why that's the thing and i think it was Why there is – could take you down so many different pathways.
Yes. I think it very much to me is another point in the column of this was a surgeon.
Yeah. I just – To me it feels like somebody experimenting with things that they had knowledge of obviously but experimenting to a degree.
And just doing the most. Yeah.
Almost like showing off their skills because it's like you have to have knowledge of like vessels and, you know, the vascular system to know how to properly drain a body of blood.
You're right. You also have to know how to do it, where to do it.
You have to have the space to do it.
And, you know, certain people that are suspects in this case have really big houses with basements.
Uh, do you know off the top of your head how many liters of blood, like obviously I'm sure it varies, but like, like an adult body would have?
I'm fairly certain it's five, like a little over five perhaps.
It's like somewhere around that.
Okay. Um, I lost like a ton of blood when I had my twins.
I had to get like two transfusions.
I think I lost like two liters of blood.
So that's, that's the only reason it's stuck in my head.
How many? to think of a body completely drained of blood because i saw you i saw you obviously in the hospital after you had gotten the transfusion so all your blood was back but yeah you looked i but i remember i will never forget pulling a nurse aside and being like is she like gonna make it like she okay i was like gray so i can't you were no you were literally gray like i've never understood what people meant when they say somebody's gray they like their until that moment but to see somebody completely yeah drained of blood like and to think about the the procedure and the process of that yeah
i can't because normally that far to do that it it means i'm i apologize for getting graphic here but it's really all i can do normally to do that you're going to hang the person upside down to allow all the blood to drain out just gravity you're not just going to sit them in a bathtub or anything like that and let you really need some gravity to help you out here yeah to drain somebody completely usually it's like hanging them up over something would you assume that that would have happened after she was bisected i would assume yes right because then i would yeah because that's the easiest way
to do it because you've got two halves which is awful that are less blood in each to drain at once kind of thing you know what i mean like it's less and again we're getting graphic here but but here you are.
You clicked on this, damn it.
It's less messy. Yeah, and it's less of a distance for the blood to travel to drain out of the body because you're cutting the travel in half, essentially.
So this would have to be somebody who has the capability of doing all of that.
Right, which is not your average Joe.
Which is not just your guy on the street who was mad that she didn't date him.
You know what I mean?
Which is what they were really going with for a while.
I'm like, I don't think any of these fucking dickwads that were just like being assholes to her are really capable of all this and again this wasn't a day and age where you could just like extensively look something up like that online I mean obviously there were textbooks and that kind of thing but even then I would assume the resources on something like bisecting somebody and draining somebody of blood would be pretty limited I think it's pretty safe to say that this person already had the knowledge because they had possibly gone to to school right to get this knowledge and possibly maybe not the bisecting
but i don't know you just you almost assume that this person has done something like this before for it to come out that cleanly yeah you do feel it you get the sense that this is not the first go even if maybe on some kind of cadaver in the learning process i don't know if that's how that works yeah i mean like this person and i mean if they're again where this is speculation obviously but like Like, if this is a surgeon who did this, then it's like they've performed clean cuts on the human body.
Like, obviously, that kind of cut is, like, a very specific kind of cut.
But who knows? It's like, it's similar to other things.
So, amputations can be similar.
All right. So, tangent aside.
Yeah. The victim had also been beaten about the face and head.
head um there was a ton of lacerations especially on her face and head um and the thing that i think a lot of people really remember about this case including myself is that her killer had cut her mouth from ear to ear creating a glasgow smile a permanent really ghoulish looking grin on her her face essentially one of the most disturbing aspects of this it's a very very disturbing thing to look at uh it's it's horrifying it that's why like this is such a ghoulish crime scene because it's like the there's so much shock yeah to this crime scene one she's nude two she's bisected she's been posed
with her body in the right place you know what i mean placements but, like, away from each other to, like, showcase that she's two halves of a whole.
And even, again, like, off center.
But, like, a little to the side with her arms up like she's posing for a photo and then to see how horrifically she was beaten and cut and all kinds of things.
But also she's got this ghoulish smile on her face, the permanent smile that has been chopped into her face.
It's beyond, it's really beyond anything anything you've ever seen.
There was also a ton of superficial cuts and scrapes, other parts of her body, and there also appeared to be ligature marks on her neck, wrists, and ankles.
Now, this is kind of important and kind of something that you can take in many different ways.
Obviously, it could mean that she was bound when she was alive and was being restrained, which I fully believe can be the case and probably was the case.
But this could also be one of those things where you say okay is that where she was hung upside down to be drained of blood that would leave ligature marks too that would leave ligature marks somewhere i mean her neck was also had like ligature marks as well which to me says it was part of like a torture restraining yeah uh but but it also can have to do with being hung upside down as that's the case if that's how it went yeah it's too if you think too hard about all these things all at once and and you start thinking about what was happening during all this, it can, like, fuck you up.
Like, it's just like thinking about what she went through.
Yeah. And nobody knows how long she was going through this.
One of the things that I think about the most is that it had to have been, like, a lengthy process.
Hours and hours and hours, if not days.
Yeah, it's like, it feels like it was at least hours and hours, for sure.
So police ended up fanning out, started combing the lot for any evidence they could get, but there was really little to be found.
What they did collect, some of it was like a paper cement bag with what they thought was small drops of diluted blood on it.
Investigators theorized that these cement bags were what were used to carry both sections of her body to this area.
There was also tire tracks visible on the sidewalk and a slightly bloody heel print of a man's shoe.
This is good evidence.
Yeah? But according to former detective Steve Hodel, which becomes a very important member of this case.
And we just talked about him in the Rodney Alcala case.
We did. According to him, quote, these two important pieces of evidence were not secured or photographed by the on -scene detectives.
Which, why? There's no scenario where that makes sense.
There are tire tracks and a shoe print.
Why would you not photograph that?
And they were not photographed or secured.
No. Like. Bizarre. those are important pieces of evidence that you can be the most important yeah like you can genuinely narrow down a suspect with that shit you can tell what kind of tire that is what kind of car it comes from you could tell what that shoe is what kind of shoe that is how many have been sold in the air you can tell all that shit yeah lots but we're just yeah like lapd yeah come come on.
What are you doing?
But other than that, there was really nothing else of note at the scene and no means of identifying this body.
So she ended up being labeled at first Jane Doe number one and transported to the coroner's office.
The next morning, an autopsy was conducted by Dr. Frederick Newbar, who was the chief autopsy surgeon for the county of Los Angeles.
Newbar listed the cause of death as, quote, hemorrhage and shock from a concussion of the brain and and lacerations of her face my god um they believed that that was all inflicted while she was conscious which means that glasgow smile was inflicted while she was conscious and alive and those were deep cuts yeah think about like oh it tore open her whole face when they when you looking from the side it's like her jaw has been removed almost that's horrific and it's It's hemorrhage and shock from that, which is one of the most horrific things I can imagine.
She died in shock from bleeding out.
From having her face ripped open.
Yeah. There was an additional incision from just below the navel to just above the pubic area and several smaller cuts and small bruises all over the body that were likely defensive wounds.
So she was fighting back for part of this.
I'm sure. There was also evidence suggesting that Elizabeth had been sexually assaulted.
But samples taken during the autopsy came back negative for the presence of sperm.
Newbar estimated the time of death to be somewhere within a 24 -hour window before the body was discovered.
But he couldn't be more precise than that because, I mean, his body's drained of blood and has been mutilated in a way I can't even fathom.
Of particular note, though, at least from Newbar's perspective, was how precise the bisection was, like we were talking about.
In fact, it looked like it was actually what's called a hemacorporectomy, which is, at this time in the 40s, a relatively new surgical procedure that came into use after World War II, and it involved removing everything below the waist from a surviving person.
As far as Newbar could tell, the procedure had been done after death on this victim, who we now know as elizabeth short and the precision with which it had been done really suggested that the killer or at least the person who performed the bi -section post -mortem because it could be two different people had some experience with medicine and surgery nubar also noted that the body appeared to have been thoroughly washed before it had been left in the lot which that's always so creepy to me it says surgeon to me yeah because everything is clean you have a clean field you he's not gonna go through
all of that to drain to drain blood and to bisect in such a clean way and then leave it messy yeah it's just not something that I see happening.
Hey there, my weird weirdos.
I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?
In September of 1992, 14 -year -old Misty Copsey leaves the Washington State Fair with her best friend and is never seen again.
Her body is never found.
At the time, Western Washington is home to prolific serial killers like the Green River Killer, which leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.
Over the course of eight episodes, host and cold case investigator Sarah Kalin speaks with Misty's friends and family, looks at police records, and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if Misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her.
No suspects are ruled out.
After 33 years Sarah Kalin hopes to answer the question who took Misty.
You guys are going to love this if you listen to Morbid we know that you love a cold case and we always tell you a cold case is never cold so definitely give this a listen definitely look into the case listen to who took Misty Copsey wherever you get your podcasts.
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This hemocorporectomy that he's talking about would be performed like it's like a radical surgery.
Like it is like last resort, like all you have left kind of thing.
and what you have to do is you have to cut between two specific lumbar vertebrae that makes it so that you don't have to cut bone okay and they have to like reroute the spinal cord essentially and they have to reroute because because you're removing the genitalia you're removing um any of you know the rectum that all that stuff so you're gonna have to reroute and many different things many different things for a living person right um it's a very intense intense procedure, a very complicated procedure.
And again, this person cut in the same spot that you cut for this specific procedure so that they didn't have to cut through a bone, which is strange.
And you, I'm telling you, you open up a body and you take a look at that spinal cord. It is not as simplistic as you think it's going to be to just chop through between a vertebrae.
You know what I mean?
So it's got to be someone who knows what they're doing and has seen this before.
They didn't just open her up for the first time and just figure it all out.
Right. It's just not something they've opened people up before and they've seen what's going on.
Yeah. I will die. No doubt about it.
Knowing the cause and estimated time of death was pretty important.
But for investigators, they really wanted to know who this victim was.
Like they were like, this is the most important.
During the autopsy, fingerprints were taken and passed along to the main offices of the FBI. and in their coverage of the story the day after Short's body was discovered the Los Angeles examiner included a lengthy description of the of who the girl was they were hoping someone would see this description of her the physical description and come forward among other things though the examiner described her as between 15 and 16 years old and no problem with enameled pink toenails and a three and a half inch operational scar on the right side of her back She was also described as, quote, rather well
developed with small bones and trim legs.
Okay. I'm like, you wanna...
That's a weird way to describe her.
Wanna throw any other descriptors in there?
I'm like, I don't know if I would be able to be like, well, my cousin does have trim legs, so it could be her.
It's a weird way to describe someone you think is 15 or 16 years old.
Yeah, with trim legs.
It's very 40s. Okay.
Very 40s. Truly. Fortunately for investigators, once the identification division of the Washington, D .C.
office of the FBI got the photos of her fingerprints, they found a match within an hour.
They identified Elizabeth Short from their card file of more than 104 million possible matches.
Yeah. Short's fingerprints were on file because she had filled out an application for a clerk position at Camp Cook in 1943.
and there was a second set of her prints on file from that same year after she was arrested on charges of quote violating juvenile court laws so now this dead young woman that they thought was 15 or 16 years old uh they found out was 22 year old elizabeth short 22 22 that is so young yeah i don't think it's ever hit me how young she was 22 for some reason i always thought thought she was a still a young person obviously but a little bit older 22 yeah i think i'm also looking at it from a perspective of now being later in my 20s and i'm like you're older than her so now it's like whoa you'd barely
yeah become an adult yeah and she has lived yeah a lot yeah she had a tough life tough stuff going on yeah she was struggling now elizabeth short was born Born July 29th, 1924, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston, Ken.
Hyde Park. Hyde Park, you say?
That's where the salon that I used to work at had its first ever location.
There you go. She's from our neck of the woods, Ken.
Boston. She's a Boston gal.
She was born to Cleo Alvin and Phoebe Short, and raised in Medford. Medford?
Medford, I said. Wait, I'm going to Medford tonight.
Holy shit. Get out of here.
Medford. Medford is a working class suburb about 10 miles outside of the city.
It's true. It's true.
We can confirm. I was just going to say can confirm.
At the time of Elizabeth's birth, Clio worked in construction, building miniature golf courses and, you know, other kind of attractions like that.
I didn't know mini golf was a thing way back then.
Mini golf has been around since the dawn of time.
We love to miniaturize things.
We do. We do. And I respect that.
I also respect that.
And when the stock market crashed in 1929, he became unfortunately unemployed and lost his savings.
Oh, God. It was really bad for a lot of people.
A year later in 1930, Charlestown police found Alvin's car abandoned on a bridge and he was believed to have taken his own life by drowning in the Charles River.
Ooh. But a short time later, it was discovered that Cleo had faked his own death.
and abandoned his family and moved to california hate that not great hate that not great that's fucking awful yeah that's real fucking awful i feel like i forgot that yeah there's so many parts of this case that you remember and then there's so many little details that you're like oh my god yeah i can remember that and she was only elizabeth was only about six years old oh this happened only six but old enough that you realize it oh that's terrible this is a big traumatic event um cleo alvin with cleo gone phoebe short became the sole provider for elizabeth and her four sisters so and she was working
as a bookkeeper with only one income the family struggled but did manage to survive the depression without like an insane amount of hardship at least like she kept them afloat during her childhood elizabeth began experiencing chronic bronchitis and severe asthma which ultimately required lung surgery at age 15.
oh wow i don't know if you remember there was a scar mentioned by nubar um in the autopsy that was from that surgery on her lungs got it um following her surgery the doctor suggested elizabeth would be better off in warmer drier climates uh so she began spending her winter breaks in miami with family friends okay This was kind of like that TB thing, like the tuberculosis thing, where they thought, like, we just stick you out, you know, on a balcony and you'll get fresh air, like that kind of thing.
It is better for your lungs.
After three years of wintering in Miami, Elizabeth dropped out of Medford High School during her sophomore year and moved to Miami Beach, and she quickly found work as a waitress.
On her own for the first time, she struck up a relationship with Major Matt Gordon Jr., who was an Air Force pilot stationed at a nearby base.
Place. A short time later, in January of 1943, Gordon was shipped overseas and Elizabeth decided to relocate to California, where she wanted to live with her father in Vallejo.
Oh, so they reconnected.
They reconnected. It was during this period that Elizabeth worked as a clerk at Camp Cook.
That's where the fingerprints came from.
But her relationship with her father quickly became very strained.
And within a few weeks, she decided to move to Santa Barbara.
Oh, wow. Just weeks.
yeah it's her father told a reporter after elizabeth's death i made her leave i didn't want anything to do with her or any of the rest of the family again huh you're an asshole that's wild to say it's like you're a wild asshole that's wild to say ever that's wild to say after your daughter's death and that's wild to say after your daughter's uh gruesome death yeah murder murder exactly what the fuck can you imagine no i didn't want anything to do with my child again or any of the rest of my family my other four daughters who are living on the other coast that's so fucked you should have thought
about that before you had a family that's like wild douche behavior truly um it was there in santa barbara that she was arrested for violating juvenile court laws when she was picked up for underage drinking at a santa barbara night club during her hearing the judge agreed to sentence to sentence her with probation provided Provided that Elizabeth accept a train ticket and return home to Medford, Massachusetts, and she agreed.
So she agreed to return to her mother in Massachusetts, but instead, she chose to go to Florida.
Once she was settled in Florida, she resumed her correspondence with Matt Gordon, the Air Force pilot.
And in 1945, Gordon supposedly proposed they marry when he returned home from active duty.
And despite only having met him in person a few times, Elizabeth accepted.
It was Lerf. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm was going to be short -lived because on August 10th, 1945, his plane was shot down and he was killed in the crash.
That's so sad. Which is like another traumatic event in her life.
Yeah. And she's 20.
Yeah. Now following Gordon's death, Elizabeth found work as a waitress again, but within a few months she decided she didn't want to stay in Florida and she returned home to Medford, Massachusetts.
There she found work in a local movie theater and once she was back home she really didn't feel like settled or satisfied like she thought she was gonna feel she thought she was gonna feel some kind of comfort she really didn't she didn't love it here it's a hard time too to figure out what you're doing yeah early 20s i think and figure out where you want to be yeah and she was moving back when we were just heading into winter over here not the not the best time to move back here no um but yeah Yeah, she wasn't feeling that great.
And she knew she didn't feel really satisfied in Florida either.
She was like, so neither one of these are working for me.
So on April 17th, 1946, she packed up her few belongings and returned to California.
This time she wanted to settle in Hollywood.
Okay. By most accounts, it seemed like she struggled to find her footing in California for a while.
According to Steve Hodel, Elizabeth was known to have lived as a transient at various boarding houses with a variety of roommates.
roommates she stayed at a hotel in long beach for several weeks during the summer months and then returned to hollywood uh there once she got into hollywood she kind of bounced around a few times staying at different places and eventually she found an apartment where she lived with seven other young women which wow i give you credit though ma lived with like i know didn't she live with like four other girls when she was in boston yeah yeah it's true i think that was just like the easiest way to make it happen yeah i mean we lived with a bunch of our friends in quincy so I can't really.
Yeah, I feel like that's the time that you do it.
Yeah, we were living with a lot of people, so might as well before you have kids, before all that stuff.
Now, during this time, Elizabeth was barely getting by on her wages from her job as a waitress at the Florentine Gardens Nightclub.
In a few weeks before her death, she had actually struggled to afford rent.
She was really, like, had her last few pennies.
So sad to think that, like, in her last days, she was struggling as much as she was.
Yeah. Her friend Anne Toth told detectives two or three weeks before Christmas, she said she was going to Berkeley.
But instead of going to Berkeley, she went to San Diego.
And she said just before Christmas Day, she sent me a wire saying she was low on funds and asking me to send her 20 bucks.
She had been gone about three weeks when I received another wire saying she was coming back and stating that a letter would follow.
This is the last I heard of her.
The letter never came.
Oh. Yeah. Ann Toth may have never heard from her friend again but Elizabeth did return to Los Angeles on January 9th.
That evening she was seen leaving the Olive Street entrance of the Biltmore Hotel and this would be the last time anyone but her killer would see Elizabeth Short alive.
Now by 1947 people in Los Angeles had become pretty accustomed to seeing reports of violence in the press but the story of Elizabeth Short's murder was truly unlike anything anybody The news of the discovery hit the papers that very afternoon and set off a media frenzy.
And it's really due to what police historian Glenn Martin called, quote, the brutal, misogynistic and ritual nature that the murder contained.
I mean, yeah. Now, again, it's true.
She hadn't just been murdered.
She'd been mangled.
She had been mutilated.
I mean, she had been posed.
She had been humiliated by being left naked and exposed like that.
There was clear evidence of what a Los Angeles Times reporter called, quote, an orgy of torture.
Yeah. That is honestly as kind of like crass as that sounds, it is exactly what it seems to have happened here.
Yeah, no. But again, pretty grass.
Probably a better way to say it.
Pretty grass. Adding to the sensationalism, the members of the press were quick to emphasize the sexual undertones of the crime, labeling the killer as, quote, a sex maniac and a sex fiend, which I guess you can somewhat understand.
Because why are you focusing on only that?
Yeah, you shouldn't be focusing on only that.
But I can understand why they were saying he might have been.
I can understand that they're saying there's a very big sexual aspect of this crime, a very sadistic sexual aspect of this crime.
But not hyper -focusing on it.
But like, my friends, she was also drained of blood, bisected, and given a Glasgow smile.
Like, I don't think we should focus on one aspect of this.
Yeah, we should focus on all of it.
But, as was common at the time, journalists and law enforcement were kind of like intertwined in each other's work.
and the press would really play a not like just like the last couple of cases we've covered play a big role in this case particularly when it came to shaping how the public viewed the victim and viewing the potential killer once the victim was identified as elizabeth short the story really picked up some more steam thanks in part to the you know she was beautiful and she She was very mysterious.
She was. So it kind of, it was, it lent itself very well to the time and people wanting to start salacious rumors and like dig into people's pasts and, oh, I think she was dating all these men.
Apparently she had, she dated a lot of guys.
Yeah. I mean, you're in your early twenties and you're living in Los Angeles.
Of course you're dating around.
She's beautiful. She's mysterious.
She's, you know, trying to find her footing there.
Why the fuck not? Who cares?
The story quickly became what Martin called, quote, a sad cliché, the ultimate warning tale.
Elizabeth Short had come to Hollywood to become an actress, but like so many young women before her, she'd only found disappointment, struggle, and ultimately death.
Hollywood is fucking cursed, man.
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Now, within days of the discovery, the press began referring to Short as the Black Dahlia.
It was a reference to Elizabeth's, you know, she apparently loved the flower, the Dahlia, and she wore one in her hair often.
And she also wore a lot of black clothing and she had jet black hair.
Right. So it's a, it's a very, it's a very good nickname for sure.
It's mysterious. It's got some...
Sticks with you. It's got like, for the press, it's a really smart one that they picked because it's like like we said mysterious it's easy to remember and it's got this like sexy kind of undertone to it so they were really like going with what they were trying to wrap up here gonna sell papers exactly it's also possible though that they were influenced by the popular noir film the blue dahlia which was released the previous year i'm sure it was like a mix of them regardless of where the name came from it definitely added to the sensationalism and a mysterious tone of the case.
And like we said, that's the reason why it, it's part of the reason why it has so much notoriety today, is that when it's easy to remember the name of the case, the Black Dahlia murder, it's easy to reference, you know what I mean?
Like, and again, like you said, it's going to sell more papers, which means it's going to sell more books, which means it's going to be something people want to talk about.
It's just a catchy name.
It really is. So like the crime scene itself, the canvas of the neighborhood offered really few clues to guide the investigation one local man bob meyer told detectives he'd seen a late 1930s model ford sedan stop in front of the lot around 6 30 a .m that day and he said it lingered near the area where the body was found before driving away but he couldn't recall any of the other details that's weird to me that seems like somebody who's dropping off a body yep fortunately for detectives the identification of the victim offered several new leads because now we could start connecting people to her
uh so they started with her mother phoebe and they talked to her oh poor phoebe i know investigators set out to learn everything they could about elizabeth with phoebe in the hope that something in her background would help lead them to her killer phoebe actually learned of her daughter's death when she received a call from a los angeles examiner which was soon confirmed by lapd detectives so she found out in an awful way according to phoebe elizabeth traveled to san Diego a few weeks before her death and had found work with the Naval Hospital there.
She said she left Hollywood because of the movie strike, which made it difficult to get work as an extra.
Phoebe didn't know why her daughter had returned to Los Angeles on the night of her disappearance, and she really couldn't offer any insight.
Now, given the sexual undertones of the murder, the investigation definitely turned to Elizabeth's romantic life.
According to her her mother phoebe elizabeth's only serious relationship was with matt gordon the air force pilot who she planned to marry other than matt gordon phoebe short knew really no other serious relationships that elizabeth had been in before her death her mother didn't know about serious relationships but her friends and roommates definitely were like she definitely had some relationships but not serious yeah she's dating around yeah according to los angeles times article filed shortly after her death she was known among her friends as quote a girl with a different boyfriend every night
good for her good for her uh several roommates and others who knew her claimed she had a fondness for sailors and often visited the nightclubs where sailors soldiers were known to visit that was so of the time i so love the time can i just say i fucking love that oh yeah i think it's great the aesthetic of that time that's the thing the aesthetic the aesthetic The aesthetic, but not the vibe of what was happening.
No, obviously not. The aesthetic of the time is for sure something.
It's like a movie. Yeah, it really is.
And her former roommate, Linda Rohr, said she was always going out and she loved to prowl the boulevard. Let's go, girl.
Let's go, girls. In their interviews with those closest to her, investigators learned of several men they believe could have played a role in her death.
Of the men Short had dated, investigators were very interested in one boyfriend who Elizabeth had confessed to friends she was, quote, deadly afraid of.
According to Elizabeth's former co -worker, Cheryl Mayland, there was a, quote, tall, sinister elderly man who approached her at a bar where she works a few weeks earlier and asked about Miss Short's whereabouts.
And Maylong thought it was possible that he could have been responsible for her death.
Oh, wow. Other roommates told detectives about a radio announcer with a British accent named Maurice, whom they had heard Elizabeth talk about a few weeks before her death.
But they didn't know anything else about him.
And I was like, some of these guys are like, wow, I feel bad for you.
I know. They're just like, that guy?
He's like, I just went on a date with her.
Yeah, he's like, ugh.
There were other mostly unnamed men who came up early in the investigation, including a man in Beverly Hills who had offered to pay Elizabeth's rent, and another in San Bernardino who asked her to move in with him.
But those tips really went nowhere.
They weren't involved.
They were just trying to get with her.
So yeah, so, and then we have a lead detective on the case telling reporters she probably went too far this time and just sent some guy into a blind berserk rage.
That's nice. And he called her a tease.
Oh, of course. Yeah, it's her fault.
What was she wearing?
To which I ask that man, so how many women have you chopped in half because they supposedly teased you?
Jesus Christ, sir. You fucking psychopath.
Truly. Who says that?
What are men? What kind of blind?
Not all of them, but what are some men?
What kind of blind berserk rage makes you do that?
that drain the blood from someone and perform a highly complex surgical procedure what a dumb thing to say like he probably went into a blind berserk rage and then went to medical school real quick and learned how to do that like that's the dumbest shit i've ever heard someone say that's not a blind rage my friend that's a shameful statement tortured that's a shameful statement for so many layers one oh okay it's her fault she's a tease and two that's just dumb yeah that's Just a dumb statement Don't be silly like that Don't be fucking dumb Yeah Okay Don't Don't be a dumb bitch Here he was though
What were you Who was On the rewatch Or no On Scream Scream Yeah You're in a place of dumb bitch I am Some people That guy's being a dumb bitch It feels like 2025 Is just bringing out The dumb bitches I don't know what it is We were so hopeful We were But you know It's okay It's still great Yeah In some ways In like one One way One way Sure Sure.
Or another. Yeah. One way or another.
But yeah, go listen to Scream if you want to.
Hey, you know. Anyway.
But yeah, that was that was a dumb bitch thing to say.
Among the more promising leads, though, was a tip from another about another former boyfriend, Joseph Fickling, who she met in California in 1944.
Like Matt Gordon, Fickling was a former Air Force pilot living in North Carolina, and the two had been writing back and forth as recently as Elizabeth's time in San Diego.
Oh, shit. Very, very, like, recent to when she died.
Yep. Fickling told detectives she told me not to write her anymore at San Diego and that she was in Chicago.
Or that she was going to Chicago, excuse me.
Oh. In April 1947, Fickling started to suspect he was only one of Elizabeth's romantic interests.
Well, listen. And that her expression of love for him might have been disingenuous.
Eh. He wrote in April to her, You say in your letter you want us to be good friends, but from your wire you seem you want more than that.
So she was just like playing the field, apparently.
She said, I don't know.
She said, I don't know, I'm like 20.
I don't know, I'm like 22 right now.
Now, based on the letters between them that investigators discovered among Elizabeth's belongings, Fickling's confusion and Elizabeth's ambivalence eventually led to the end of their relationship.
Yeah. He wrote in one letter, in your letter you mentioned a ring from Matt.
you gave no further explanation i really don't understand i wouldn't want to interfere okay well he seems respectful he does like that's a pretty respectful thing to say like hey you just mentioned that another guy gave you an engagement ring so like i don't want to interfere in that i'm gonna i'm gonna bow out yeah the letters indicate that elizabeth had told fickling about her proposed marriage to matt gordon but failed to mention that gordon had died two years earlier okay Okay.
That's an interesting play.
It sounds like she didn't want a lot from this man romantically, and that was the best way to go about it, to let him down easy.
Yeah, it does kind of seem like that.
You know? Yeah. Okay.
In an interview with Charlotte, North Carolina detectives, Fickling said he'd last heard from Elizabeth in a letter dated January 8th, 1947, the night she left San Diego.
Oh, wow. And he hadn't heard from her since.
And given that he was on the other side of the country when she was killed, he was quickly ruled out as a suspect.
But they just got like a little more insight into what was going on in her life, I guess.
A few days into their investigation, detectives learned that when she returned from San Diego, Elizabeth had been traveling in the company of, quote, an unidentified red -haired man.
On January 20th, detectives picked up 25 -year -old Robert Manley, a salesman the press described as, quote, slender, neatly dressed man with carrot -hued hair.
Not carrot. Not carrot -hued.
Not carrot top over here.
And he was believed to have been with Elizabeth on the night she disappeared.
Uh -oh. Manley admitted to police that he had casually dated Elizabeth since first meeting a few weeks before Christmas, and that he had dropped her off at the Biltmore the night she disappeared.
But he flatly denied having anything to do with her murder.
He told detectives, my wife and I had had some misunderstandings.
I guess so. I thought I'd make a little test to see if I were still in love with my wife.
so he picked up elizabeth at a nightclub and they hit it off first of all baby that's super disrespectful to your wife yeah super disrespectful to elizabeth to be a part of a fucking test unknowingly and third of all fuck off yeah fuck you you know what your hair is carrot hued okay ginger all right okay no soul all right you're just died you feel like whatever according to to manly he picked elizabeth up at a pacific beach motel on january 8th and drove her back to los angeles but he had not connected elizabeth with the stories in the papers and thus he did not come forward to the police i don't
know about that my friend i don't know sounds like you were doing another test to see if law enforcement would contact you well investigators were also unconvinced by this.
And they asked Manly to take a polygraph examination and he agreed.
But after the long drive from San Diego and many hours of intense questioning by police, he couldn't keep from falling asleep during the exam and it was postponed That's giving rude.
That's giving That's giving what?
That's giving, sir, how do you fall asleep under these circumstances?
Adrenaline would be shooting me into the Kuiper belt Who knows how long they were questioning But if it wasn't for like at least 12 hours, open your eyes.
Well, and the thing is, here's the thing.
He was very forthcoming with information, regardless of falling asleep during the polygraph.
He was very forthcoming when he was conscious.
When he was conscious, he was forthcoming with information.
And he told police the last time he'd seen Elizabeth, he noticed several scratches on her upper arms. And she attributed to them to an intensely jealous boyfriend.
friend and she described him as an italian with black hair who lived in san diego okay so we're like who's that guy yeah who is him so although he appeared to be telling the truth manly's story was inconsistent with other statements gathered by police particularly that of william sullivan a railway express clerk who claimed to have seen elizabeth on january 14th according to sullivan A woman resembling Short visited the office about noon on January 14th, accompanied by a red -haired man, and inquired about shipping a trunk and some suitcases to Ketchkin Hospital.
When asked to whom the items were being shipped, the woman said to herself and gave the name Elizabeth Short.
Okay. The same couple was seen about an hour later by Jidelle Gray, a waitress at a cafe in San Diego.
ago. Gray described the man as, quote, very fair complexioned and said his hair was quite straight and he was slightly freckled.
Okay. Sounds like a jinx to me.
Based on these witness identifications, Manley was beginning to look like a pretty strong suspect.
He sure was. But the following day, Sullivan admitted to detectives that he had been mistaken in his identification of Manley and in fact did not believe it was the same person.
Sullivan changed his story when police police told him that another young woman matching Short's description had come forward to say she had been at the express office with her red -haired boyfriend on January 14th.
When he was shown a picture of the woman he immediately recognized her as the person he'd seen that night.
Remember, he said that she used her name, so he just lied.
Oh, what the hell? What the fuck?
With Sullivan's identification now recanted the mystery of the red -haired man proved to be a dead end and Captain and Jack Donahue ordered Robert Manley released from custody immediately.
All right. Now, only one week into the investigation, detectives who had been certain the key to finding Elizabeth's killer was in her love life had now begun to accept the boyfriend angle was probably a dead end.
Yeah, it seemed like it.
They weren't going to find him in there.
And that is where we are going to end for part one.
You butthead. Because we have some real suspects coming in part two.
I know who they are.
And it's going to get crazy.
the story just gets wilder as you go yeah this is a wild case i i got a 99 .9 opinion me too yeah so we will definitely talk about that in part two and yeah in the meantime we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you lie to the police about your whereabouts or test your fucking wife in any way yeah fuck don't test me and don't call the victim a tease oh ayayada ayayada Thank you.
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