Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon my Darlings. For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday, I will be focusing on one of the most infamous unsolved true crime cases in Hollywood history. In honor of the anniversary of the tragic date when Elizabeth Short was found brutally murdered, which happened on January 15, 1947, I will be diving into the Black Dahlia case! I want to put a warning in here that I will be describing the crime scene and details of the case that are really hard to read, so if any of my readers are sensitive to true crime content, this may not be the post to read.
Now, I have a long history with this particular case, as I went through a period in Junior High School where I would read anything I could on the case in order to try and figure out who killed Elizabeth Short. I think I felt so drawn to this case because she was just a young woman in her early twenties living in Hollywood and wishing for nothing more than love when she was unceremoniously brutally killed. The fact that the crime was never solved makes it all the more tragic, and it made my young teenage heart ache with the desire to figure out what really happened to her!
The details of the case are very commonly known to anyone who is interested in true crime and cold cases. Elizabeth Short was 22 years old when her body was discovered in a vacant lot on the west side of South Norton Avenue, midway between Coliseum Street and West 39th Street in Los Angeles on the morning of January 15, 1947. Her remains were badly mutilated, with her body being perfectly bisected and drained of blood, a Glasgow Smile carved into her lovely face (that is her face was cut ear to ear), and finally, a Rose tattoo which had been carved from her body was stuffed inside of her vagina. I know that description is very brutal, and I am sorry to have to share it, but it serves to show just how heinous this crime was!
The body was discovered by a young mother who was walking by with her daughter. At first, she believed the body was a store mannequin because of how unnaturally pale she was and the fact that her body was in two. To her horror she found that this was no mannequin, but instead a mutilated body of a young woman posed by her murderer in this vacant lot!
The investigation of the case is just as famous as the crime scene, again most true crime enthusiasts know the details very well. Once she was identified through fingerprints that were on file due to an arrest for underage drinking years earlier, it was not the police who contacted her mother first, but the newspapers wanting the best scoop on the recently deceased young woman. The way the journalist went about contacting Elizabeth’s mother was truly heartbreaking. He pretended that he was doing a story on Elizabeth winning a beauty contest and got her mother talking about her past, and then he revealed to her that her daughter had in fact been murdered! This is one of the most upsetting facts of the case to me because this could have been handled much better.
After her body was identified and the autopsy had been performed, it was time to find out more about Elizabeth’s past. It was not long before they discovered much about her past, including the fact that although Elizabeth was born in Massachusetts and lived in California for years, she also spent much time in Florida, due to her weak lungs not being able to handle New England Winters. She relocated to California and found out that her father (who was presumed dead) had faked his death after the stock market crash and was living in California. This allowed her to make contact with her long-estranged father. She made several friends in California and often moved between many different homes, whether renting or staying with friends when she was low on cash. Adding to the tragedy of her young life was not only that she had her father abandon her, only to discover he faked his death later, but when she fell in love with and got engaged to a soldier who was fighting in WWII, he ended up dying in battle before they could ever marry. I wanted to give this bit of backstory to show you how much her life revolved around wanting love and happiness.
Although many people believe that she was an aspiring actress or even a prostitute, there is absolutely no evidence of either, especially of her ever being a sex worker. The only jobs we know she had were mostly waitress jobs. The reason many think she was a sex worker comes down to her going on dates with men, but this was not uncommon for down-on-their-luck women of the age to ‘date for dinner’, or in other words go out on a date so that they would have something to eat that night! I wanted to clarify this point and make sure my readers knew that these sensational theories do not hold weight.
The beginning of the investigation brought them to a man named Robert ‘Red’ Manley. He is known to be the last person to see her alive, a few days before her body was discovered. He had picked her up at the house of one of her friends and drove her to the Biltmore Hotel, where she had said she was going to be meeting another friend. Manley was the first big suspect but was pretty quickly removed from the suspect pool.
They had built a pretty good image of who the killer may have been. The investigators long believed that this was likely a crime of passion by a man who had lusted after, or even loved, Elizabeth. They also believed that he had medical training due to how expertly her body had been bisected, the coroner had said that the procedure was expertly done, so doctors and surgeons were at the top of the suspect list.
Now this brings us to one of the top suspects of the time, and one of the top suspects still, George Hodel. He is also going to be the last specific suspect I mention, as this is already a long post and I want to wrap up this sad unsolved tale and I find him to still be the most likely culprit! George Hodel was in fact a wealthy surgeon and he was already a known criminal with ties to the police, meaning he easily bought them off! He is believed to have killed his secretary in hopes of keeping his culpability in the Black Dahlia case a secret, and even more heinously, he is also believed to have sexually abused his own daughter. Beyond this, there are recordings of a period after the Black Dahlia murder when his house had been bugged. This is the smoking gun piece of evidence in my opinion that makes me believe he is the most likely murderer, he is recorded speaking about the Black Dahlia case in very flippant terms stating that even if he did kill her there is no way to prove it!
All of this information was brought to light by Hodel’s own son, Steve Hodel. Steve Hodel only found out about his father’s possible involvement in the case decades later when he was a retired detective himself and his father was dead! He began investigating the case in hopes of proving his father innocent, but instead came to believe that he was guilty! Steve Hodel has written three books on his investigation of the case and his father’s crimes. While he is not the only person to accuse their father of being the Dahlia killer, I find his wealth of evidence to be the most believable!
With that I will end this sad tale, although it is technically still unsolved, I do personally believe that Steve Hodel has brought the truth to light, and I hope that George Hodel will officially be attached to the case as her murderer so we must no longer call this an unsolved case. I hope you have found my post about the Black Dahlia case interesting, as I have the utmost respect for the memory of Elizabeth Short and wanted to share her sad tale her in the most empathetic way possible. Who do you think killed the Black Dahlia? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is one of the most well-known pictures of Elizabeth Short. I found the image on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dahlia#/media/File:Elizabeth_Short_photo_from_police_bulletin.jpg.
Tarot Note: I have a page offering tarot and oracle readings for those interested in these services! I am very happy to be offering these readings to my treasured readers at White Rose of Avalon! Link to page: https://whiteroseofavalon.life/tarot-and-oracle-readings/
Further Reading
- The Black Dahlia Avenger by Steve Hodel