Guest Author - Robin Rounds Whittemore

Elizabeth Short wanted to be a household name, so she headed for California, as any girl with that dream would have done. To be noticed, she wore the color black and put dahlias in her dyed hair. Eventually, she did indeed become a household name, but not in the way she was hoping. Households came to know her as The Black Dahlia.

Her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Short. Cleo Short left the family by driving his car near a bridge and then abandoning it. Everyone thought he had committed suicide. Years later, he wrote his wife, Phoebe a letter apologizing for his actions. Phoebe wanted nothing to do with him.

At age 19, Elizabeth (or Beth, as she liked to be called) left home and went to live with her father in California. The reunion was short lived. Beth, and her father, Cleo did not get on well. Cleo felt that Beth was lazy and he did not approve of her staying out so late. Beth eventually moved out.

She had many jobs, as well as places to live in the years to come. One job was a mail room job at an army base in California. Upon the discovery of the body, her fingerprints had to be taken to identify her. The mail room job, and her arrest for underage drinking, was what helped the FBI identify her.

The woman that found the severed body in the vacant lot she was looking at a tossed aside store mannequin. Upon closer inspection, she realized that she had stumbled up on a body. The area was Norton Avenue between Coliseum Street and 39th Street, Los Angeles, California.

Upon investigation by police, the lack of blood told them that she had been killed elsewhere and later placed at that scene. There was dew under the body, so they figured she had been placed there after 2:00 am. The temperature had been down to 38 degrees. In addition to her body being severed, her face had been slashed, and there were rope marks on her wrists and ankles. The coroner’s office determined she had been killed by blows to the head.

Speculation still surrounds the case. With the murder having been committed so long ago, the killer is (or killers are) most likely dead. Was she just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did she go on a date with a man who turned out to be a sadistic killer? Did a man make advances and Beth spurned him, causing him to go berserk? The world will likely never know what really happened to Beth Short.

Elizabeth Short was born on July 29, 1924 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. The Black Dahlia was found dead, her body torn in half, on January 15, 1947 in a vacant lot. In between her life and death, there are some known facts, and even more mystery. In her death, at only age 22, Elizabeth Short got her wish to become famous.