WHO KILLED ELIZABETH SHORT?

NOTE: This page was revised on 03/27/2026 with updated information that is more accurate than the original post.

Today marks the 79th anniversary of pretty, 22-year-old Boston-area native Elizabeth Short's brutal murder. Her bloodless, unimaginably mutilated body was found on the morning of January 15, 1947 on an undeveloped lot on the 3800 block of South Norton Ave. in the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. Dubbed by the press as The Black Dahlia Murder (her nickname was given to her by patrons of a drug store she frequented in Long Beach, California before her death), it is the most famous unsolved criminal case in Los Angeles history, second only to the string of the notorious Bay Area Zodiac serial murders during 1968-1969, in the state of California.

Many armchair detectives, a number of book authors and just plain crackpots have claimed to have solved both cases, with one claiming that is was the same suspect in both (!). Before you get hooked on the notion, as yet, there is still no official disposition of either case from law enforcement, including an arrest and/or conviction.

In the meantime, both cases remain open and unsolved, and especially in the case of Elizabeth Short, it is highly unlikely that the murderer is still alive.

Elizabeth Short's body was discovered and reported to police by Betty Bersinger, a housewife who was walking down Norton Ave, pushing her toddler in a stroller. She found a house across the street where she was let in to make the phone call at 11:05 A.M.

An apparent re-enactment of Betty Bersinger making her phone call.

The first LAPD officers on the scene were Frank Perkins and Wayne Fitzgerald at 11:09 A.M. After witnessing what they had found, they called back to University Division, located at 809 West Jefferson Boulevard. Almost immediately thereafter, various police personnel arrived. By this time, the scene was crowded with reporters and news photographers. Detectives Harry Hansen and his partner, Finis Brown arrived at the scene at 11:30 A.M. Hansen and Brown were subsequently assigned as lead detectives.

Elizabeth Short (aka Beth, Betty) had been dead approximately 10-12 hours prior to her discovery.  Her nude body had been exsanguinated (i.e. drained of blood) and bisected (i.e. cut in half) at the abdomen. Evidence of fibers used in the manufacture of scrub brushes found during the autopsy (analyzed at an FBI laboratory) indicated she had also been washed and scrubbed before being transported to the crime scene. It was also determined that she had been killed at another location and her remains dumped in the empty lot on Norton Ave. that had grown thick with weeds and trash.

Among her other injuries were multiple blunt force traumas, lacerations, including one from each corner of her mouth upward--about two inches--toward her ears. What appeared to be ligature marks were found on her wrists and ankles, suggesting that at some point during her horrifying ordeal she was restrained. Ultimately, her cause of death was ruled as "hemorrhage and shock from concussion of the brain and lacerations to her face, due to multiple blows using a blunt instrument".

Map indicating the murder site on S. Norton Ave.

The killing touched off the largest law enforcement manhunt in Los Angeles history, and included personnel from the office of the FBI, sheriff's deputies and the California State Police (later to merge with the California Highway Patrol). The FBI later made an independent report of their own.

A view of the crime scene. Notice trash on parkway and vacant lot.

As for the police investigation itself, despite comments to the contrary, it was conducted rigorously and by all reliable accounts, by the book. However, there are some lingering questions as to the position of the body minutes after she was found by authorities. Hundreds of suspects were interrogated (Miranda Rights were still over two decades away, and in 1940s Los Angeles, that meant a tough grilling) and subsequently cleared. Nevertheless, a number of these suspects are still inaccurately claimed to be the guilty party by persistent researchers and authors.

Police and the press at the murder scene on S. Norton Ave.

By March 1947, the investigators had exhausted their viable leads and the media had printed every piece of information they could dig up or fed to them by the police that was interesting enough to sell newspapers. In the meantime, more murders occurred (none related), eventually pushing the Black Dahlia story off the front page. During the next few years, the investigation slowly died on the vine and essentially became a cold case.

A book published in October 2025 by entertainment producer Eli Frankel, "Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter", sheds ostensible new light on the reason behind what was always believed to be generally accepted evidence as to the location of Short's body soon after the police arrived on the scene. During an interview with the then 101-year-old Betty Bersinger, Frankel was astonished when she told him that she did not spot the body on the sidewalk -- it was laying face down, in the weeds about 10-14 feet from the curb. According to Frankel, when he wondered why she hadn't mentioned this to anyone before, she simply answered, "Nobody asked."

Armed with this surprising new information, the book contradicts everything that has for years thought to be true about this forensically-critical revelation. In addition, Frankel provides his opinion on a murder near Kansas City in 1941 that has some similarities and connects the two murders to a person who was living in both areas at the same time, and who was also an initial suspect in the Black Dahlia case but cleared. Nevertheless, a bit of a wrinkle occurred when these so-called new facts were vehemently called "crap" and rejected by another writer who also interviewed Bersinger years before and who told him the body was near the sidewalk. The writer also has evidence that the so-called suspect was not in Los Angeles at the time of Elizabeth Short's murder. Who to believe?

Inspecting Short's belongings that were stored in a bus station locker.

And that is the crux of the current discourse on the Black Dahlia; it is teeming with theories, suppositions, misdirects and falsehoods, and somewhere in the midst of all this detritus are the true facts regarding the case. Besides statements from the police investigators and newspaper accounts (the police were largely free with their information-sharing with the media), one has to tiptoe around the piles in the pasture to uncover enough to figure out what is true (or maybe true) and what isn't. All authentic evidence and conspiracy theories aside, it is almost certain we will never know beyond the shadow of a doubt the identity of the person who murdered Elizabeth Short. 

Elizabeth's funeral at Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA.

Much of the appeal for cold cases is they provide armchair detectives with the means of coming to their own conclusions based on existing information--as well as prolific misinformation--and make up their minds without substantiated facts. A massive amount of material has accumulated over the decades regarding the Black Dahlia slaying, including books, films, podcasts and much more. As a result, only a small portion of it has been covered here. However, with a little sleuthing, it is not difficult to discover a wealth of information for yourself--accurate or not--on the topic. I would only suggest you keep an open mind and not rush to any conclusions, no matter how plausible they may sound. You only need remember that the case remains officially unsolved.

Finally, in my estimation, if you are at all interested in separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to facts regarding the Black Dahlia case, you need go no further than a fellow by the name of Larry Harnisch. The ex-editor, feature writer and blogger for the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Mr. Harnisch has been researching the Black Dahlia case since 1996 when he wrote an article for The Times for the 50th anniversary of Elizabeth Short's murder.

Harnisch hosts an informative monthly podcast, "Black Dahlia: Ask me Anything". Here's a sample episode. They each run about an hour long.

Harnisch's analysis on "How to Read a Black Dahlia Story" is well-worth watching as it will provide you with a solid foundation if you want to explore the topic further.

With respect, R.I.P. Elizabeth Short.