Hide Article Text (OCR)
Black Dahlia(Continued from Page 7)work on the contents of the box. Painstakingly, they worked on each new aspect, including 200 names in the address book.Nothing. A stone wall.Since Elizabeth Short's W-seeted body was found, 38 persons have confessed to hermurder.But the police, just as dedicated to protecting the innocent as convicting the guilty, have repudiated all the confessions.Sometimes the innocent need protection from their ownmental quirks.ELEVEN TEARS have passed since “The Black Dahfta” hit the headlines and the case still is not closed. There is no time-limit escape clause for those who take a Ute.• • • •Police Sgt. Edward C. Boynton, now a detective inspector on the Ding Beach bunco squad, still recalls the girl with the black hair piled atop her head.He’s forgotten the name of the woman who christened her‘The Black Dahlia,’' but knows she handled real estate transactions.He clearly remembers that drug store meeting and another time, shortly afterwards at the same place, when he saw the beauty in the company of an Air Force officer.It was several months later when he read of the mutilation minder of a woman in Dm Angeles.In a few days, police hid identified the victim from fingerprints filed with the FBI when she was taken into police custody at the Santa Barbara bar.The newspapers ran a picture of the victim and Boynton thought he recognized her.He located the real estate woman and showed her the picture.“Oh, my God!” the woman said. “That’s her.”BOYNTON WENT BACK topolice headquarters to report Elizabeth Short had, at one time, been in Long Beach.“There were about 16 newspaper reporters there,” he said.“In talking, I mentioned casually that someone thought she should be called The BlackDahlia.’“Those reporters headed for the phones like a covey of quail tripped by a bird dog. From then on, it was The Black Dahlia Case.’ ’*Boynton wasn't concerned with the glamorous name. He asked for permission to work with detectives to see if he could locate the Air Force officer.He and his colleagues did trace the officer and found that the man had been on the East Coast at the tune of Uu» murder.TO THIS DAY, Det. Insp Boynton doesn't s[eciftcally know why the Long Beach real estate woman dubbed the beauty “The Black Dahlia.”He assumes it was because of the way Elizabeth Short wore her black hair.In newspaper accounts of the case, there has been little sfec-ulation on the “w'hy” of the name. Different stories have authoritatively attributed the name to:She hked her men friends to give her black, frilly lingerie.She wore a black dahlia a* a corsage.She preferred black suits anddresses.There was something elseElizabeth preferred I-ite. Shelost it in the flower of her youth.
Newspaper Details
Long Beach Independent Press Telegram
Long Beach, California, US
Sun, Dec 28, 1958
Page 71
Full Page
Clipped by
Eli F.
CA, USA 17 Jul 2020
Other Publications Near Long Beach, California
Independent Long Beach
Independent Press Telegram
Press Telegram
Independent
Long Beach Press Telegram
