Hide Article Text (OCR)
.£ £| t’ •''Alt..« immma fesr v-tj«r^A?sreaKj(*Ktnaiww•■.«.■ -fcwi-wafciSiThe Case of the Black DahliaasassfOTt☆☆☆☆☆Torture Murder of Elizabeth Short Continues to Baffle Police‘^^/HENEVER the talk turns to famous crimes, veteran police officers always wind up discussing the most notorious unsolved murder of them all, the brutal killing of Long Beach waitress Elizabeth (Betty) Short, 22, on Jan. [5, 1947, in Los Angeles.'in them it seems incredible that sncli ;lt; crime could go unsolved.Belly Short—she was called “The Black Dahlia”—was held captive in a Los Angeles apartment for five days, anti Savagely tort tired during that time.When she died, her killer bundled her hotly into a car and drove 15 minutes until he came to a vacant, weedy lot, where he dumped it.Her body had been horribly mutilated in five days of agony.AMD, 10 DAYS after the crime had been committed,, someone coolly mailed to police a package containing her purse, Social Security card, address book and miscellaneous papers and receipts.The Black Dahlia’s address book contained 200 names, nearly all of them men. 111 the slow process of tracing suspects, police finally wound up with 41 confessions.”Each “confession,” however, failed to fit the facts of tiie murder. The Los Angeles Police Department still regards the case as open, often routinely questioning suspects taken in 011 similar-type crimes.Who was so brazen as to kidnap a pretty girl off the street, hold her cap-' tivc :or five days and torture her with a butcher knife, dump her body in the middle of a great city, and calmly mail her personal effects to the police?Police say, frankly, they haven’t (he ghosl of an idea.BETTY SHORT, one of four sisters raised by their mother in Salem, Mass., was an unusually pretty child, with visions of Hollywood stardom dancing in her head.She worked as a waitress, and sometimes as a theater usher. When she was 18, she went to Northern California, to live with Iter father. Cleo. They set up housekeeping in Vallejo, btil Belly was unhappy almost immediately. There were the visions of Hollywood, and in ,1943 she and her father broke up.“I I old her to go her way and T would go mine,” her father said. She Wouldn’t stay home.”Betty Short headed for Hollywood and heartbreak. She took an apartment near the University of Southern California campus, but couldn’t settle down—and couldn’t attract attention.Her mother, Phoebe,1 recalls: ‘Elizabeth:always- wanted-td be anBy George C. Flowers$lt;$THERE ARE many lheor.es as to why she was called The Black Dahlia but the most popular was her fondness for black lingerie. However, Long Beach Police Sgt. Edward C. Roynton, who revealed her nickname to the press, thinks it was the result of a chance remark made in a thug store here when another woman, observing black-haired Miss Short pass by, said:“They ought to call her the Black Dahlia.”The beauty of the victim, her unusual name and habits, and the arrogance of her murderer, drew so much attention that the l.os Angeles police department assigned 50 defectives to the case.However, not until Sepl. 13, 1949, did they even find the apartment where Miss Short was probably tied and tortured. Blood-stained sheets and clothes found there indicated a relationship to the crime, which occurred on a busy downtown street.actress. She was ambitious and beautiful and full of life, but she had her moments of despondency,“She would be gay and caiefTef: one moment, then in (he depths of despair the next.”SHF, TRIED job after job, and apparently romance after romance, all ending in failure. She returned to’ her mother in Massachusetts, and another romance. When that fell through, sheSixteen years have elapsed since brutal slaying of Elizabeth1 Short, but the unsolved crime remains an open case in Los Angeles police files.came back to Southern California, finally to Long Beach.Working as a waitress in a coffee shop, then in a bar, she thought she had finally found her man, an officer in the Air Foirce stationed here. She announced to her few friends that marriage was in the offing.The romance collapsed when the officer was transferred east, and Getty Short started along the drifting palh i,hat lead to her death.Tracing (he- days! before sire''Was killed,' police 'found* she -drove 'fromBut none came.At 10 p. m. she abandoned her vigil, smiled to the doorman and walked out into'the street.No one has been found who has seen her alive since she left the hotel.FIVE DAYS LATER, a mother and her 5-year-old daughter were walking along a sidewalk toward a grocery store. The girl pointed into a vacant Jot and.asked:. tRUMORS OF SCANDAL followed.L. K. Waggoner, a Los Angeles police officer, told the county grand jury that he had been pulled off’ the case when he was working a hot Long Beach angle.A grand jury spokesman said it was investigating widespread and persistent rumors of a payoff to aulhoricies in Los Angeles.”Waggoner said:The case could have been solved if we had been allowed to continue our investigating. I was suddenly taken off the case and ! never did know why. Other officers and myself were making remarkable progress.”THE GRAND JURY, however, also questioned seven other officers who played key parts in investigating the •'Black Dahlia case, and in the end decided it -could find no evidence of payoff” in the situation.Consequently, the Black Dahlia murder case remains unsolved. This despite the fact that the killer had the audacity to commit kidnap, torture and murder in the heart of a big chi', then1 mail 'the' victfrii’S 'personal effects fo'poJideC ’ . . lt;'—San Diego to Los Angeles Jan. 10 with a male companion.HE WAS questioned as a prime suspect, but cleared. The shack, however, forced him to undergo psychiatric treatnjent for a menial breakdown.On the night of Jan. 10, Betty Short changed a dollar bill at a Los Angeles hotel cigar stand and made a couple of phone calls. She wailed a while in the lobby, as if expecting an answer.It was the body of the Blark Dahlia. Grotesque torture marks covered the legs and trunk.Autopsy investigation revealed that Betty Short’s body had been slashed repeatedly with a large knife for five days before she died.Then, they declared, the body was drained of its blood, carefully scrubbed—and the hair of the head shampooed.Doctors found rape burns ihat indicated Miss Short may have been lied up during the five days of her torture and captivity.
Newspaper Details
Independent Press Telegram
Long Beach, California, US
Sun, Jan 27, 1963
Page 46
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 19 May 2024
Other Publications Near Long Beach, California
Independent Long Beach
Independent Press Telegram
Press Telegram
Independent
Long Beach Press Telegram
