The Black Dahlia

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OP Thanks. have never heard about this case.

II know everyone says she was gorgeous but I think she was funny looking

I know a woman IRL who looks just like her, but her teeth are kind of fucked up. It’s jarring and I always want to tell her who she looks like, but that would be rude. I’m sure people who are less polite have done so, already.

And yes, Elizabeth Short seems to her had a crap life. Maybe she had some fun in her life, though.

She was a dirty ho who slept with men for food and lodgings, faking whole relationships, she had many men on the go at once. She probably deserved what she got. Isn't some famous dodgy doctor supposed to have killed her in some architectually important house that some Scientology actress from that 70's show lives in now? It's a creepy house.

They exaggerated her beauty to make the case sound more interesting. She was a glorified hooker, a serial killer's #1 target.

The house where she lived as a kid is less than 200 yards from my home.

She grew up poor after her dad lost his business following the stock market crash. She loved boys and booze and apparently “got around”. A lot. .....Which means she lived her short life on her own terms & had a good time as a woman trying to make it on her own.

She got her nickname from the military guys she used to party with. She liked wearing black dresses and loved Dahlia flowers, often having one in her hair. She often said she was an actress or aspiring actress but there’s never been evidence she was cast in anything. She was working as a waitress when she was murdered.

She sounds like she was interesting. Definitely a free spirit and always up for having a good time. You go girl!! R.I.P.

Half her teeth were missing and she'd use wax to fill in what was left of them.

She was obviously a meth head before meth.

I loved the James Ellroy novel. The movie based on it, not as much.

I'm sure the Black Dahlia would not appreciate her life being analyzed by geriatric eldergays.

I agree her life sounds like it was exciting efforts she was killed. She got free shoes and purses by hooking up with the owner of a shoe store.

Check out the movie True Confessions with DeNiro and Duvall. It's an oldie but a goody.

Unless she was a Black Tranny hooker, nobody cares.

Who do you think did it?

"Which means she lived her short life on her own terms & had a good time as a woman trying to make it on her own."

She was a down-and-out skid row hooker. Her life was not fun

I liked that bad/trashily good film about Dahlia with Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett.

God, if people deserved to be heinously tortured and murdered for fucking for favors and drinking, half of the gay men in the world would be dead.

Whoever did it had medical experience. Dr. George Hodel is the one who has been talked about the most. Police suspected him. His son wrote a book about him and his daughter accused him of sexual abuse. One fucked-up family.

"She was a dirty ho who slept with men for food and lodgings, faking whole relationships, she had many men on the go at once"

I think that was pretty common at the time. Remember the world was pulling out of a grinding Depression and diving right into a world war. The world was flooded with lonely soldiers who made quick attachments to girls and bought them trinkets, etc.

I was intrigued with her ability to just move around the country, making quick friends wherever she went. She'd just get off a bus or train and be rooming with a couple gals in no time. Must have had a magnetic personality.

God could you imagine having the streets full of horny soldiers and sailors just looking to fuck?

R19, sounds like San Diego.

r19, you're looking at life through a gay lens, not one of a straight woman

"Whoever did it had medical experience."

Doubt it. People say that about ALL serial killers who hack up their victims, but serial killers are hardly ever doctors or in high-paying professions. Most are total losers.

that Hodel is one sleazy looking dude.

R8, link please? This is the first I’ve heard of her not having any teeth.

Whoever killed her really tortured her. There was shit in her stomach.

Literally, shit in her stomach?! That is foul.

[quote]R6 They exaggerated her beauty to make the case sound more interesting.

No, she really was naturally beautiful - great bone structure and coloring. Probably better looking than 90% of women.

[quote] She was a glorified hooker, a serial killer's #1 target.

True. Someone called her a skid row hooker, though, when she actually shared rooms with other wannabe starlets in Hollywood. I think she met the men who gave her money (or drinks, or meals) in bars, mostly.

No, cutting a human being in half doesn't require medical expertise, butchers are probably far better at that kind of large-scale dismemberment than a surgeon. Surgeons generally work on a much smaller scale, butchers are the ones who are cutting carcasses into halves or quarters.

Same goes for Jack the Ripper, anyone who'd grown up on a farm and helped with slaughtering the yearly hog would know how to remove internal organs. Or anyone who just like to get serious about torturing animals.

r28 is correct

I’m not saying she deserved to die but I still think she was odd looking. You look at Marilyn before all the surgeries and that’s a naturally beautiful woman

Not to mention anyone who hunted regularly, and who cleaned their own large animal carcasses, and hacked them up into storable portions when they got home.

This is not a crime that looked medical.

This was a good book on the subject.

Michelle Phillips was friends with Dr. Hodel's daughter.

half the shit in this thread is misinformation. put about to either sell newspapers and/or books claiming that they "solved" it.

she wasn't a hooker. she lead a somewhat itinerant lifestyle, but mostly lived with her family in MA or in Florida. the police could only ever find 3 men who would admit to having had sex with her. she worked in restaurants and shops and movie houses until the last few months of her life, when she came to Hollywood to see if a relationship with an old beau would work out. it didn't, so she floated around and tried to figure out what she would do with her life next. being 22 and the war being over, she wasn't certain but since no one wanted to marry her just then, she was at a loose end and was somewhat reliant upon "the kindness of strangers". this very reliance and transitoriness made her a perfect victim (think hitchhiking women in the 70s kind of profile).

almost all of Severed is pure fabrication and barfly rumors which are completely unverifiable.

the Hodel book is pure trumped-up speculation and it has never even been proven that his dad even knew the victim, much less dated her or was obsessed with her or murdered her in the Sowden house.

the nature of what was found in the autopsy is almost all rumor, because it has never been disclosed fully. no one really knows what the pathologist meant by "feces", and the opinion that "a doctor must have done it" was simply that--an opinion given the precise cutting. that didn't rule out looking for butchers, hunters and anyone else with a saw in their garage, and the police didn't rule anyone out because of that opinion.

She was a hooker, you're wrong about that.

Right about the Hodel stuff, though.

R35 the police at the time even disavowed your "fact", repeatedly and to the press. they could find no evidence that she was a hooker, in the classic sense. they claimed she would lead men on but was skilled at getting out of fucking them.

a lot of women would hang out in bars and restaurants and have men buy them drinks and/or food while talking and flirting at that time, and in that place (Hwood in the 40s). she supposedly did do that, and would sometimes hit them up to "borrow" money off of them, or get them to give her a ride or pick up sundries or pay tabs for her.

her Hollywood acquaintances said she didn't smoke, nor even drink. she lived with a guy who owned a nightclub and supposedly had an endless stream of young women living in his house, "rent" free. one of his tenants, who knew E. Short, said that he would make these girls pay with their asses. she said that didn't happen with E. Short---she told him she was a virgin to get out of having to do the deal with him.

the last guy that drove her up the coast (the one who was a major early suspect in the killing, but was verifiably elsewhere at the time of the murder) put her up in hotels along the way. he said she feigned sick and they never fucked. granted, he would say that since he was catting around behind his wife's back and got caught up in an infamous crime and had his face splashed in the papers. time and again, this was the story with her though.

she asked for shit and either got it or didn't. she didn't sell her ass in the streets, as far as what we know.

R16 - there was also a movie in the 1970s called Who Is the Black Dahlia? with Lucie Arnaz.

[quote]a lot of women would hang out in bars and restaurants and have men buy them drinks and/or food while talking and flirting

Covid super-spreaders.

r35, because the police would never lie or be mistaken

Shortly before her disappearance/death, she followed a man down to San Diego. Dead end as usual. Not knowing what to do she went to an all-night movie theater and fell asleep. But it wasn't an all-night establishment, and a young usher took pity on her and invited her to stay the night with her family. She ended-up staying about 3 mos. She lolled around writing letters and just hanging out, saying she was looking for a job. Then one day she just up and left with a guy who took her ack to L.A. and dropped her off at the bus station. She hung out there for a few hours, then the workers there said she took her bags and started walking up the street. And that's the last anyone ever saw of her... alive.

She lived a pretty unconventional life for a woman in the ‘40s. She sounded mentally unstable.

She was 18 in the mugshot at R27—she had gotten in trouble for underage drinking.

R23 To be fair, that's kind of just how men of that era looked... isn't it?

I thought she had a physical abnormality so she was unable to have vaginal sex.

R40...got several facts wrong. She didn't follow any man to San Diego, she was only there about a month, and she was last seen leaving the Biltmore hotel lobby.

I'm like the other poster who has read all about this case for years. I used to be super fascinated by it, lol.

R44 = Caitlyn

I've always wondered if her case was connected to Jean Spangler's, but probably not.

R44, I thought I heard that, too.

There was an outdoor cabin style motel located in downtown LA, the New Aster (still operating). The owners wife told the Grand Jury investigators that she found sheets covered in blood and feces left in a room in the days after she was found dead, and they recognized her. There was a bunch of other weird stuff with this motel. Maybe nothing, but it has always piqued my interest.

Yeah there's a couple of books about it that are quite fascinating. Is such a creepy case. How she was tortured. Her blood was drained. The creepy joker smile. I was so excited when that movie came out with Josh hartnett and Scarlett Johansson. I was so pissed when the movie was mostly about the stupid detectives then the Black Dahlia.

There’s a book that investigates that story r49

R50, the movie was atrocious.

As far as I’m concerned, the final word on who killed Elizabeth Smart was Patty Jenkins’ miniseries “I Am The Night,” starring Chris Pine as a detective investigating the creepy George Hodel, who absolutely committed the murder, and the podcast “Root of Evil” (which they released in conjunction with it). Saga of a family - the Hodels - even more twisted than, ahem, the one currently corrupting the white house.

there was a problem with identifying her as a hooker, because a lot of identifications were done by her looks and photo alone and supposedly there was a hooker who looked very similar to her running around the LA area at the time.

tons of IDs were done with people who didn't really know her. there was a lot of footwork by the police, and they would go into bars and clubs all over and ask them if they saw her in there, with whom, etc. some people said they saw her, some said they saw her and she was a regular, some say etcetcetc. as for how many of these sightings can be considered "real" when you're dealing with someone who didn't have regular habits and was just in town for a few months before she was killed, i really can't say but a lot looks doubtful.

you have to also keep in mind that supposedly more people have falsely confessed to committing this crime in CA than any other. people who were pulled in for arguing with their spouse, drunk & disorderly or whathaveyou would blurt out that they did it or try to implicate someone they knew, or claim that they had seen or or knew her from bars and so on. this crime was on everyone's tongue. there's a reason it's mentioned in the film Sunset Boulevard.

DL fave Lucie Arnaz asks, "Who Is the Black Dahlia?"

Some people have linked the Black Dahlia murder to the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf

The Lucie Arnaz movie was awful

"some people" don't know crap about crimes. the Bauerdorf killing was linked because she was found in a partially filled bathtub. the Dahlia crime was linked to it speculatively because it was assumed someone needed a bathtub to drain the blood away, the misinformation that the two girls worked at the Hollywood CAnteen (by the time E. Short showed up, that canteen was closed and the two definitely didn't know each other), they were both brunette caucasians, and the author most in favor of that link had a convenient "suspect" that he wanted to tie to both killings.

Bauerdorf was a different kind of crime entirely. is it impossible that they were done by the same person? no, simply because we don't know who did either one. but the Bauerdorf crime was one in which the person either invaded her home before she got home and waited for her, or snuck in afterward, raped her and strangled her and then tried to cover it up by faking that she drowned, then drove away in her car and parked it in another part of town.

the Dahlia crime was a lot more involved, precise, and took planning. the aim was torture and mutilation, and possibly sadistic in nature. the victim was picked up somewhere and dropped off deliberately somewhere after the body was prepared in a certain way for some kind of "effect", but not the effect of hiding the basic facts of the crime.

the Dahlia crime was definitely what one would expect from a serial. the Bauerdorf crime looked like a rape that possibly got out of hand, and could have been a serial but also could have been some drunken dude, a neighbor, the building maintenance man or whomever knew that Georgette Bauerdorf lived in her apartment alone. and that included a LOT of servicemen she met at the Canteen that she would allow to sleep on her couch. also, Georgette's family was away on a trip at the time so basic "crime of opportunity".

DL fave Lucie Arnaz talks about making "Who Is the Black Dahlia." It was made in two weeks, but she's proud of her work in the "cult classic."

I’m not convinced George Hodel murdered her but aside from that the story of the Hodel family is super fucked up and fascinating

R60 Hodel's son lost all credibility when he claimed his father was the fuckin' Zodiac.

Just so you know, my dad was also Jack the Ripper

The killer sliced-off her tattoo as a souvenir. Yes, the autopsy did reveal she had an undeveloped vagina. And even though she had a nice smile, she had a lot of dental decay.

It's a fascinating case that will never be solved—probably just like the Zodiac Killer. Too much time has passed and everyone involved is long gone. What happened to Elizabeth Short is truly horrific, and anyone suggesting she "deserved it" is a psychopath. I've read several books about the case and seen the morgue photographs. The way her body was desecrated is absolutely ghastly. The murder of Marion Parker, a young Los Angeles girl (20 years before the Black Dahlia case) is equally, if not more, horrifying, though in that case the killer was caught.

R63, how can a vadge be "undeveloped"?

I think the "infantile genatalia" claim is a myth.

"I think the "infantile genitalia" claim is a myth.

"The “Elizabeth Short had infantile genitalia” story actually came from former Examiner reporter Will Fowler, who was another pathological liar (the Black Dahlia case seems to inspire extravagant lies). I spent a fair amount of time with Will over the years and eventually figured out just how much he was lying, using techniques that wouldn’t necessarily be noticed in a one-time interview. Will did it because he liked to “put one over on the competition,” for he considered the Black Dahlia his literary property, and also because he liked to feel superior to whomever he was talking to.""

R66 the Wikipedia article actually does a good job of breaking down the theories and rumors and discerning fact from fiction:

[quote]Another widely circulated rumor (sometimes used to counter claims that Short was a prostitute) holds that Short was unable to have sexual intercourse because of a congenital defect that resulted in gonadal dysgenesis, also known as "infantile genitalia". Los Angeles County district attorney's files state that the investigators had questioned three men with whom Short had engaged in sex, including a Chicago police officer who was a suspect in the case; FBI files on the case also contain a statement from one of Short's alleged lovers. Short's autopsy itself, which was reprinted in full in Michael Newton's 2009 book The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, notes that her uterus was "small"; however, no other information in the autopsy is provided that would suggest her reproductive organs were anything other than anatomically normal. The autopsy also states that Short was not and had never been pregnant, contrary to what had been claimed prior to and following her death.

It also explains how numerous details of the case have been fabricated and are points of dispute.

[quote]The killer sliced-off her tattoo as a souvenir.

And then the killer stashed it in her vagina for safekeeping and forgot about it?

I’m reading this really good book about the case

In spite of the son's grandiose bullshit claims, most people think George Hodel was the Black Dahlia's killer.

Obviously the Zodiac claim is ridiculous.

I heard there's also an interesting case about a group of hikers in Russia who died in mysterious circumstances at a place called Dyatlov Pass. Perhaps someone should write a thread about it as I'm sure it's never been discussed at DL before.

Just write the thread and don't bother searching first - why waste precious time?

Lucie Arnaz played her in the movie. Gary said it was ok.

I just finished reading Black Dahlia, Red Rose and I believe the killer has been identified. It was an excellent read.

Who do they say did it, R73?

Also, was the autopsy really released in full or not? Two different replies in this thread claim two different things.

From the big name reviews, it sounds like a lot of people are impressed with Piu Eatwell’s book, too.