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Results: The Never-Ending Mystery of the Black Dahlia Murder The gruesome death of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short confounded Los Angeles investigators in the late 1940s and remained a topic of intrigue in the decades that followed

Published on 03/24/2021
By: fsr1kitty
2522
Movies
At around 10 a.m. on January 15, 1947, Betty Bersinger was pushing her daughter in a stroller through the Leimert Park section of South Los Angeles when something caught her eye amid the weedy, vacant lots. Bersinger dashed to a neighbor's house to call the police, igniting a frenzy that engulfed several divisions of the LAPD and reporters from the city's relentlessly competitive newspapers, and laid the groundwork for what became one of the country's most famous unsolved cases.
1.
1.
As for her identification, an editor at the Examiner suggested sending fingerprints via the paper's "Soundphoto" – an early fax machine – to an office in Washington, D.C., where they could be relayed to the FBI. By the evening of January 16, authorities had matched the prints to those of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, who previously worked at an Army base in California and once been arrested for underage drinking. Did you know that the first Fax Machines were already in operation in 1947?
Yes
8%
196 votes
No
77%
1932 votes
Undecided
5%
129 votes
Not Applicable
10%
243 votes
2.
2.
A phone call to Short's mother in Massachusetts brought more information about her background, while inquiries in nearby Long Beach uncovered the hook that became a staple of the front pages: The victim was known among acquaintances there as the "Black Dahlia," a nod to her taste for black dresses and the previous year's crime film The Blue Dahlia. Original Screenplay by Raymond Chandler and produced by John Houseman, best known for playing Prof Kingsfield in The Paper Chase. Have you seen any of the following films?
The Blue Dahlia
7%
173 votes
The Black Dahlia
21%
515 votes
The Boston Strangler
22%
560 votes
Double Indemnity
18%
445 votes
The Big Sleep
15%
363 votes
Other (please specify)
1%
17 votes
Not Applicable
57%
1430 votes
3.
3.
The killer taunted investigators by mailing his victim's personal items. In late January, an envelope labeled with cut-out words and the phrase "Heaven is Here!" arrived at the Examiner's office. Inside was a collection of Short's personal documents, including her birth certificate, Social Security card and an address book featuring the name "Mark Hansen" on the cover. Police tracked down approximately 75 men from the book. Meanwhile, authorities found themselves sifting through copycat letters from the alleged killer, listening to bogus confessions and following up on other crimes that were potentially related. Without forensic evidence police had little to go in the 1940s. Do you think that the police had too many leads and too many suspects to solve the crime?
Yes
22%
546 votes
No
15%
368 votes
Undecided
44%
1096 votes
Not Applicable
20%
490 votes
4.
4.
A new lead emerged the following year when former L.A. resident Leslie Dillon, then living in Florida, contacted the police department about an acquaintance who may have murdered Short. Believing Dillon to be the actual killer with a split personality, LAPD psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Paul De River lured him west and had members of the department's notorious "Gangster Squad" detain him to extract a confession. The mishap prompted Dillon's lawsuit against the city and the launch of a 1949 grand jury investigation, which examined the efforts of law enforcement and the still-inconclusive evidence. The jury disseminated without indicting a suspect, and by the following year, the Short mystery was cast adrift into the netherworld of cold cases. The only result of the case is many many books on the subject. Have you read any of the following:
The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy (1987)
7%
185 votes
John Gregory Dunne's True Confessions (1977)
3%
83 votes
Daddy Was the Black Dahlia Killer (1995) by Janice Knowlton
3%
71 votes
Black Dahlia Avenger: The True Story (2003) by Former LAPD detective Steve Hode
4%
96 votes
British author Piu Eatwell with 2017's Black Dahlia, Red Rose,
2%
53 votes
Other (please specify)
0%
12 votes
Not Applicable
85%
2115 votes
5.
5.
Researchers say they have finally unmasked Jack the Ripper, the infamous serial killer who terrorized London in the late 1800s. A forensic investigation published in Journal of Forensic Sciences has identified the killer as Aaron Kosminski, a 23-year-old Polish barber and prime suspect at the time. Researchers compared fragments of mitochondrial DNA — which the magazine noted is inherited from one's mother — to samples from living relatives of Eddowes and Kosminski and found they matched those of Kosminski's relative. As it appears this case is now solved with scientific proof, do you think Elizabeth Short's murder can also be solved some day?
Yes
37%
927 votes
No
8%
209 votes
Undecided
34%
843 votes
Not Applicable
21%
521 votes
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