Episode 33: The Black Dahlia Part 2

Jul 15

Hey Buds and Meat Bags. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, start there first — this episode picks up exactly where Elizabeth Short's trail went cold.

Content warning: this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.

The Black Dahlia, Part 2: The Discovery, the Investigation, and a Case That's Never Been Solved

On the morning of January 15, 1947, two rookie patrol officers responded to a call about a body in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue in Los Angeles. What they found would launch one of the most infamous — and still unsolved — murder investigations in American history.

The Discovery on Norton Avenue

Officers Fitzgerald and Perkins were called to investigate a report of a "390 down" — police code for a drunk man on the ground — in a vacant lot between 39th Street and Coliseum. When they arrived, it took them a full minute to process what they were looking at. At first glance, it looked like a mannequin. It wasn't. It was the body of a woman, cut cleanly in half.

The two rookies immediately called for backup, and because news outlets of the era monitored police radio, reporters were already racing to the scene. Aggie Underwood, a reporter for the Herald Express, arrived before homicide detectives did.

The Crime Scene

Elizabeth's body had been bisected at the waist and posed deliberately in the open lot, her arms bent above her head, legs spread apart. Nearby, investigators found a tire track, a bloody smudge on the curb, and blood on an empty sack. The bisection itself was clean, with no hesitation marks — a clear sign that whoever did it had surgical knowledge or training. Her body showed signs of having been washed after death, and dew found underneath her indicated she'd been placed there sometime before dawn.

Investigators found ligature marks on her arms consistent with having been restrained. Her face and forehead bore extensive bruising and cuts, and both corners of her mouth had been slit toward her ears — a wound known as a Glasgow smile. The medical examiner determined this was the injury that killed her; she was alive when it happened and died from choking on her own blood.

The autopsy documented further mutilation to her torso, the removal of her pubic hair, and a carved pattern in the pelvic area. Her right thigh was missing a small section of skin — later identified as the location of her rose tattoo. The cut used for the bisection was made at the easiest point to sever the spine, a technique taught in 1930s medical training, and her organs were largely undisturbed except for what was necessary to complete the cut.

What the Autopsy Revealed

Once Elizabeth's body reached the medical examiner's office, investigators determined she had died roughly 9 to 10 hours before being found, and that the bisection had occurred after death. Based on the angle of the cuts, examiners believed her arms had been bound above her head and that her body had likely been drained of blood in a bathtub. She had also sustained multiple stab wounds. Investigators recovered the missing piece of tattooed skin, which had been inserted into her body, along with additional post-mortem violations noted in the autopsy report. Lividity patterns — the way blood settles in a body after death — indicated she had been left face-down for a period of time before being moved.

Identifying Elizabeth Short

With no clothing, jewelry, or identification found at the scene, investigators' first task was figuring out who she was. Based on dew patterns, they determined she'd been dumped between 2:30 and 6:30 a.m. A neighbor recalled seeing a Ford sedan in the area around 6:30 a.m. before it drove off.

Desperate for a fast identification, the LAPD accepted an offer from a local newspaper to transmit her fingerprints to the FBI using an early fax-like technology, in exchange for exclusive access to details of the case — a preview of just how tangled the relationship between press and police would become throughout this investigation. FBI clerks manually searched fingerprint files by pattern type until they landed on a match: Elizabeth Short.

The Examiner newspaper got the identification first and called Phoebe Short in Massachusetts, fishing for personal details under the pretense that her daughter had won a beauty contest before revealing, mid-call, that Elizabeth had been murdered. Police arrived at Phoebe's door shortly after to confirm it officially and ask her to travel to Los Angeles to identify the body. Phoebe told police about Gordon Fickling, whom Betty had claimed she planned to marry — a claim Gordon would later dispute.

The Media Circus and the First Suspects

Press coverage exploded almost immediately, with reporters frequently outpacing police in their own investigation. Around this time, the press nicknamed Elizabeth "the Black Dahlia," likely inspired by the film The Blue Dahlia, which had been in theaters and featured a plot involving a murdered wife and a husband turned suspect.

A police-consulted profiler, Dr. J. Paul de River, offered an early assessment: the killing appeared sexually motivated, and given how openly the body had been displayed, the killer was likely narcissistic and might confess relatively easily once caught.

Early suspects came and went quickly. Cecil French, picked up for harassing women, drove a matching Ford sedan model with a missing back seat — but no blood was found in his vehicle. Gordon Fickling was questioned and cleared once his location at the time of the murder was verified.

As Elizabeth's identity became public, people who knew her began coming forward. Anne Toth shared what she knew of Betty's last known movements, pointing investigators toward Marjorie Graham and the Chancellor Apartments. Marjorie, back home in Massachusetts, hadn't heard from Betty since parting ways, but mentioned their old roommate Lynn — who was briefly looked at only because of an unrelated case involving a woman named Winnie Ruth Judd, before being cleared entirely.

Investigators eventually traced Betty to the French family in San Diego, who confirmed she'd last been seen with a man she called Red. It wasn't the first time police had heard the name — multiple witnesses had placed the pair together at a bar and at the bus station.

Red Manley Becomes a Suspect

Racing to identify Red before police could, the Examiner tracked down motel records showing a vehicle registered to Robert Manley. When reporters arrived at his home before investigators did, his wife told them he was away on a business trip. Furious at being scooped, police struck a deal allowing the press to observe his eventual interrogation in exchange for keeping his identity quiet until they could bring him in themselves.

When Robert returned home days later, police moved in immediately. His first words were reportedly, "I know why you are here. I know Elizabeth Short." Given that he'd spent significant time with her on her last verified day alive and had dropped her off at the Biltmore Hotel, he became the leading suspect.

The interrogation stretched on for hours across multiple days, with Robert repeatedly denying involvement through lie detector tests and aggressive questioning. He ultimately opened up to reporter Aggie Underwood — the same reporter first on scene at the crime — who convinced him that if he had nothing to hide, he had nothing to lose by telling the full story. He described their time together in detail, including Betty's growing anxiety as they neared Los Angeles and her claim that a jealous ex-boyfriend was watching her. Investigators tested his car for blood and found nothing tying him to the murder. He was cleared.

Mark Hansen, Glynn Wolfe, and Dead Ends

Investigators also scrutinized Mark Hansen, the nightclub owner who'd housed Betty on and off. Despite searching his properties and wiretapping his home, they found no evidence connecting him to the crime. Glynn Wolfe, the landlord at the Chancellor Apartments, was investigated and cleared as well.

With reporters embedded in nearly every stage of the investigation, the press tracked down Betty's missing steamer trunk before police did, insisting it be opened at the Examiner's offices for an exclusive story. Inside were a photo album, letters from Gordon Fickling, and clothing — nothing that advanced the case.

The Killer Makes Contact

About a week after the murder, an editor at the Examiner received a taunting phone call from a man claiming he could help "assist" their coverage, offering to send items belonging to Elizabeth. Editors attempted to trace the call, but the caller hung up before it could be completed.

Days later, a package arrived at LAPD containing a Greyhound baggage claim ticket, photographs, Elizabeth's Social Security card and birth certificate, the Matt Gordon obituary she'd carried everywhere, and her address book with pages torn out. The accompanying letter had been soaked in gasoline to destroy any fingerprints. Investigators combed through the address book and turned up no viable leads. Additional letters, allegedly from the killer, continued to arrive over time, including one claiming he intended to turn himself in — he never did.

The De River Debacle and Leslie Dillon

The case went cold for about a year, until 1948, when Dr. de River began corresponding with a man calling himself Jack Sand, who described a friend named Jeff with knowledge of Elizabeth's old neighborhood and habits. De River came to believe Jack and Jeff were the same person and brought the letters directly to the LAPD chief, bypassing the original homicide detectives entirely.

The department sent a member of its "gangster squad" with de River to Miami, where they identified the letter writer as Leslie Dillon and brought him back to Los Angeles for questioning — a two-year-old case suddenly reignited. During the drive, de River's informal interrogation grew increasingly unconventional, and Dillon was eventually brought to sites police believed could be connected to the murder, including a trailer park and the dump site itself, without producing any concrete evidence.

When police finally arrested and formally questioned Dillon, they also located the real "Jeff" — who had a verified alibi and denied ever making the claims attributed to him. With nothing concrete to hold him on, police released Dillon, who later sued the department for false imprisonment, false arrest, and defamation.

The fallout was significant: it came out that de River wasn't the credentialed psychologist he'd claimed to be — he was actually an ENT doctor with largely fabricated qualifications. The case had been effectively taken from the original homicide detectives, Harry Hansen and Finis Brown, and handed to a unit that hadn't even reviewed their existing files, all while a wave of LAPD corruption tied to organized crime was being uncovered.

More Dead Ends and a New Suspect

Investigators later followed up on a lead at the Aster Hotel, where staff described seeing a woman resembling Betty with a man resembling Mark Hansen, along with blood-soaked blankets and biological evidence in a hotel room. Testing found only trace amounts of blood, not nearly enough to be the murder site, and when pressed further, the hotel's owners admitted their identification was shaky and reward money may have influenced their story.

By 1950, three years after the murder, the case had circled back to homicide with no new answers — until investigators turned their attention to George Hodel, a surgeon who had been accused by his own daughter of sexual abuse a year earlier, during which she also reportedly named him as the Black Dahlia's killer. His defense was that his daughter was a pathological liar. Police wiretapped his home and captured one statement considered potentially incriminating: a hypothetical remark about the police being unable to prove anything even if he had done it, since "my secretary" — believed to be a reference to a woman who had died — "couldn't talk about it now." Still, no formal charges were ever filed.

Hodel's son, Steve Hodel, a former LAPD detective, later wrote a series of books arguing his father was guilty, citing photographs he says he found among his father's belongings and his father's surgical training as evidence he had the skill to perform the bisection. Steve has also theorized his father was connected to the Zodiac Killer. No one close to Elizabeth in life has ever recalled George Hodel as part of her circle.

Where the Case Stands Today

Every suspect investigators pursued — Cecil French, Robert Manley, Mark Hansen, Glynn Wolfe, Leslie Dillon, George Hodel — was ultimately cleared or left unproven. More than 75 years later, the murder of Elizabeth Short remains officially unsolved, her case file locked away in an LAPD filing cabinet.

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cHERRY dO-sI-dOS

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