About 10:00 pm, on January 9, Beth Short walked out of the lobby doors of the Biltmore Hotel on Olive Street and turned south. According to authorities, she was not seen again until six days later, when her bisected body was found naked in a vacant lot in Los Angeles.Click on: The Black Dahlia in Hollywood. That is the chapter on her death.
At 11:07 a.m. on January 15, Betty Bersinger, who lived at 3705 S. Norton Avenue, was walking south on Norton, pushing her daughter in a carriage, when she saw the body in two pieces laying in the lot. She hurried along, not wanting to frighten her child, and knocked on the door of a house nearby and asked to use the telephone. She called the police and reported what she had seen and then went on with her business.
At 11:18 a.m., Officer S. J. Lambert arrived at the scene. Twelve minutes later, Sgt. F. A. Brown and H. L. Hansen were on hand and examined the body.
More officials and newspaper reporters showed up. After the coroner had the body removed the investigation began. Headlines, stories and photographs about the Black Dahlia filled the papers for weeks.
In those waning, golden days of Hollywood in January of 1947, a fellow could drop by the newsstand at Hollywood and Vine and pick up a copy of the latest edition of the Examiner and pop into Mike Lyman’s across the street for lunch and read about the “Werewolf Murder” victim, Elizabeth Short.
In 1947. the murder of Elizabeth Short competed for headline space with the divorce of actress Laraine Day and Brooklyn Dodgers manager Leo Durocher. In December, 1946, weeks before Beth’s body was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles, Benny Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel, changing the face of Las Vegas for all time. Months later, ‘Bugsy’ was shot to death in Beverly Hills on June 20. Gangsters, movie stars and murder dominated the newspapers in those post war months.
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On October 28, 1949, Lieutenant Frank B. Jemison, of the Bureau of Investigation filed a description of the body in his report to H. L. Stanley, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation.
The body had been cleanly severed at the mid line and the lower half was laying about one foot to the south of the upper half both parts laying absolutely flat with the protruding entrails of the lower one half laying under the buttocks. There was a marked post mortem lividity on the top side of both parts indicating that the victim had lain on her front side or face for some period of time immediatley following her death.
The body had been washed; there were bristles of a stiff brush still adhering to the body; there were several lacerations on the forehead which appeared to have been inflicted by a blunt instrument; lacerated left breast and lacerated right breast, the top of which appeared to have been removed. The area covered by the pubic hair was slashed in criss-cross fashion and the scarcity of hair gave rise to the opinion that the hair had been cut off rather close to the skin. (Not shaved.) There was a tic-tac-toe slashing on the right hip; the mouth was badly slashed approximately three inches from the corners and the upper lip was deeply lacerated on the right hand side. There were possible strangulation marks on the neck and definite rope or tie marks on both lower legs and arms.
From the lack of blood stains around or under the body it is a definite conclusion that she was killed elsewhere. Photographs were taken of the body and measurements as well as photographs of a tire track at the curb line at a point opposite of where the body was found. Upon removing all of the body by Cornoner’s deputies it was found that the grass undeneath the body was still wet with dew, indicating the body had been placed there after the dew fell in the early morning hours, at approximately 2:00 a.m., January 15, 1947.
Rigor mortis had not begun to set in, indicating that the murder would probably have been committed after 1:00 a.m., January 15, 1947, as the Coroner believes rigor mortis would set in within ten hours time. He stated the cause of death as shock and loss of blood from hemorrhage. He reported that echimosis [ecchymosis] appeared on the lacerations, on the head, face and right breast while slight echimosis appeared on the left breast and on the right breast and on the cut severing the body at mid line. There was no echimosis on all other lacerations indicating they were inflicted post mortem.
Note: If Jemison’s description is correct, his report implies that the “cut severing the body at mid line” began while the victim was still alive. Ecchymosis (bruising) occurs before the heart stops beating and blood flow ceases; there is the possibility of slight bruising post mortem.
The flesh cut from her left thigh weighing approximately a pound was found in her vagina and the pubic hair was found in the rectum. (See photographs.)
There were no cigarette burns and no tattoo marks on the body.
Mr. Ray Pinker of the Crime Laboratory was only able to acquire a few drops of blood from this body and typed it as “A B”, which is a rare type of blood appearing in less than six per cent of the human bodies.
The officers requested that the Coroner and the County Chemist analyze the vital organs chemically to determine for one thing whether or not her body contained narcotics. At a later date when the officers requested the results they were informed that these vital organs had been misplaced and had probably been thrown out at the time they were cleaning up the laboratory and further that they had made no analysis.
And so on.
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Authorities claimed they had no reliable leads to prove the whereabouts of Elizabeth Short from the time she left the Biltmore Hotel at about 10:00 pm on January 9 until her naked, bisected body was found on Norton Avenue on the morning of January 15.
For a more detailed description of Beth's life and bungled investigation, I recommend the above link to the site. We are having a lot of success getting authors and other Dahlia experts to do guest chats. The link for the forum is on the main page. I won't put the death pictures on my blog, but they are easily found online. Just don't believe everything you read.
Beth in life:
