The black dahlia with the carved joker face

It was January 15, 1947, when young Betty Bersinger set off at around 10 a.m. with her 3-year-old daughter in her stroller from her apartment on South Northern Avenue in the Leimert Park neighborhood, a new development in Los Angeles, to run some errands on the main shopping street. As she approached the corner of Northern Avenue and Coliseum Street, which was an undeveloped lot known as “Blinker” in L.A., she saw something lying next to the sidewalk. She assumed it was probably a broken mannequin that had been discarded there. But when she got closer, she got the shock of her life. There lay the naked, horribly mutilated corpse of a woman. Betty immediately called the police. Henry Hanse, one of the best homicide detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department, or LAPD for short, and Ray Pinter, the head of the LAPD’s forensic team, quickly arrived at the scene where the body was found. But when they saw the body, a cold shiver ran down their spines, as the dead woman had been draped in a shocking manner. The 5’5″ dead woman with jet-black curly hair and light blue eyes was lying on her back, her body cleanly cut in half at the waist. There was a gap of about 30 centimeters between the upper and lower halves of the body, which had been placed sideways in the grass. Some of her internal organs had been removed. Large pieces of flesh had been cut out of her pubic area, her right breast, and her left thigh. Her arms were stretched out above her head. The dead woman’s face was facing the street. Her cheeks had been slashed from ear to ear, a practice known as a “Glasgow smile.” Back in the 1920s and 1930s, this was part of gang violence in Glasgow. Today, the “Glasgow smile” is known worldwide as the trademark of the Batman villain Joker. The head and face of the deceased showed numerous hematomas. A paper bag with blood splatters was found above the head, and there were marks from a car tire and a shoe on the side of the road. Otherwise, there were no clues as to the perpetrator, who had placed the body like a work of art in the extremely busy residential area so that it would be found quickly. As there were no traces of blood at the site where the body was found, investigators assumed that this was not the scene of the crime. The subsequent autopsy revealed that the victim, who had been killed between 8 p.m. and midnight on January 14, had been bound at the wrists, ankles, neck, and thighs. The cause of death was blood loss. While the injuries to her face and the blows to her head had been inflicted while she was still alive, the other mutilations were inflicted post mortem. But who was the horribly mutilated dead woman? To answer this question, the LAPD asked the FBI for help. After 56 minutes, the question was answered when the LAPD received fingerprints via sound photo. The sound photo was a fax machine used by the intelligence service. The dead woman was identified as 22-year-old aspiring Hollywood actress Elizabeth Short, who was also known as “Black Dahlia” because of her preference for black clothing, a white dahlia in her hair, and the movie “The Blue Dahlia,” which was in theaters at the time. Once the dead woman had been identified, the investigation went into high gear. Due to the clean cuts, the perpetrator may have had surgical knowledge, which is why students from the Southern Carolina medical school were investigated. The press literally pounced on the case of the beautiful actress, who, with her blood-red lips, black-dyed hair, blue eyes, and fair skin, embodied the ideal of beauty in the 1940s. The gruesome murder of a young woman who moved in Hollywood circles and had various male acquaintances made headlines that sold well. But who was Elizabeth Short, known to her friends and acquaintances simply as “Beth”? Elizabeth was the middle daughter of Cleo Alvin and Phoebe Mae Short, born on July 29, 1924, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Boston. Elizabeth’s father was a contractor who specialized in the design and construction of miniature golf courses. Business was good, so the family moved to a house in Medford. Elizabeth had three sisters in total. However, after the stock market crash of 1929, Elizabeth’s father’s company had to file for bankruptcy, and his car was found abandoned near a bridge in Boston in 1930. Everyone believed that Elizabeth’s father had committed suicide due to his failed business career. Now Elizabeth’s mother had to take care of her four daughters on her own, and they had to move from their house to a basement apartment. Elizabeth’s mother initially worked as a seamstress, but eventually found a job as an accountant. She also received government assistance. Ten years after Elizabeth’s father disappeared, Elizabeth’s mother received a letter from him. In it, he wrote that he had fled to California to build a new life for himself. He asked his wife to move back in with him with their daughters. But Phoebe was too hurt and wanted nothing more to do with her husband. Elizabeth had suffered from breathing difficulties since birth, which developed into chronic bronchitis and asthma. In February 1939, Elizabeth had lung surgery. A year later, when Elizabeth was 16, her mother finally had enough money to send Elizabeth to stay with friends in Miami for the winter. The milder climate was good for Elizabeth, who spent the winters there for the next few years. During her stay in Miami, Elizabeth worked at a beach resort. When Elizabeth was 19, she moved in with her alcoholic father in Vallejo, near San Francisco. Elizabeth’s big dream was to become a famous Hollywood actress, so she spent every penny on her clothes and appearance. Living with her controlling father proved to be quite difficult, as Elizabeth did not want to play housewife for him, so in early 1943 she took a job at the post office at Camp Cooke army camp in Lompoc near Santa Barbara. The young, attractive Elizabeth was naturally adored by the young soldiers, who crowned her the camp’s beauty queen. But this job ended when Elizabeth was arrested on September 23, 1943, at the El Paseo restaurant in Santa Barbara for drinking alcohol as a minor. The prison guard took pity on Elizabeth and gave her money so she could buy a bus ticket to Medford to visit her mother. After that, Elizabeth’s lifestyle changed dramatically. She moved around constantly, living in Chicago, then Florida or Georgia, and briefly in Massachusetts again. She kept her head above water with odd jobs as a waitress or ticket taker at the cinema. She often frequented nightclubs that played jazz. But then, in December 1944, she met and fell in love with Matt Gordon, an Air Force officer. Elizabeth and Matt wanted to get married. But a few weeks before the end of World War II, the fighter pilot was killed in a plane crash on August 10, 1945, near Kalaikunda. Matt’s death was a turning point in Elizabeth’s life, who had lost all her bearings. Elizabeth threw herself into nightlife to numb the painful loss of her beloved Matt. Every night she had a different man in tow, whom she picked up on the legendary Hollywood Boulevard. Elizabeth was aware of her effect on men, which she shamelessly exploited to have them finance her lifestyle. In July 1946, she tried to make a fresh start with Joseph Gordon Fickling. She had met the Air Force lieutenant in Florida in 1944. But the relationship failed because Elizabeth shamelessly flirted with other men in Fickling’s presence. Despite everything, he maintained a lively correspondence with Elizabeth, which often helped her out financially. He received the last letter from Elizabeth on February 6, 1947, six days before her murder. After the failed relationship with Fickling, Elizabeth was chronically broke. She tried her hand at acting in L.A., where she had to constantly change her accommodation due to her financial situation. Between November 13 and December 15, 1946, she lived with eight women in a two-room apartment, where she had to pay $1 per night for a cot and a drawer in the closet. She often avoided paying her landlord by using the back door when he came to collect the rent. Despite her financial hardship, she always managed to dress well. Her appearance was important to her. She was very well-groomed except for her teeth, as she was terrified of the dentist. On December 9, she took a bus to San Diego completely out of the blue, perhaps because she owed money to too many people in L.A. Once there, she bought a movie ticket for the Arztec Theatre, where the film “The Jazz Singer” was playing. Elizabeth was found asleep by the ticket seller, Dorothy French, who took pity on the young woman. She took her home with her, where Elizabeth lived with her family until January 1947, when she was kicked out because of her behavior. Elizabeth lazed around all day, went out every evening, and returned late at night, which was too much for Dorothy. During this time, Elizabeth had met Robert “Red” Manley, a married traveling salesman, whom she asked after her eviction if he would drive her back to L.A. On January 8, 1947, he picked her up in his car and dropped her off in L.A. Then they went their separate ways. On January 15, housewife Betty Bersinger found Elizabeth’s brutally mutilated and displayed body in Leimert Park in the morning. Her murder made headlines around the world, but to this day, Elizabeth’s killer has not been found. Her murder is one of the most famous cold cases in American criminal history. Whether the mystery of who murdered Elizabeth will ever be solved remains to be seen.