WHO KILLED ELIZABETH SHORT?

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, it is the most famous unsolved criminal case in Los Angeles history, and second only to the string of the notorious Bay Area Zodiac serial murders during 1968-1969, in the entire state of California.

While it is entirely possible that others may have noticed the body that morning, it was first reported to police by Betty Bersinger, a housewife who was walking down Norton Ave, pushing her 3-year-old daughter 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 (and not sure "what the hell they had"), 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 who had likely heard the "390 down" code over their police band radios ("390 down" is the code for an unconscious drunk or otherwise intoxicated person). Detectives Harry Hansen and his partner, Finis Brown arrived at the scene at 11:30 A.M. Hansen and Brown were assigned as lead detectives and Hansen would remain so for some years to come.

Elizabeth Short (aka Beth, Betty, etc.) had been dead approximately 10 hours prior to her discovery.  Her unclothed 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 indicated she had also been likely washed before transport. Because no blood was found in, on or around her body at the scene, it was 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. Among her other injuries were multiple blunt force traumas, lacerations, including one from each corner of her mouth upward toward her ears, indicative of a vicious punishment by gangsters in 20s and 30s Scotland known commonly as a "Glasgow smile". Presumed ligature marks were found on her wrists and ankles, suggesting that at some point during her horrifying ordeal she was restrained. Ultimately, her actual 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 that even included personnel from the local office of the FBI, who of course, made a thorough report on their own. The investigators initially assigned to the case numbered about 750, with sheriff's deputies and members of the California State Police (later to merge with the California Highway Patrol) assisting.

A view of the crime scene.

As for the police investigation itself, despite comments to the contrary, it was conducted rigorously and by most 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. A number of these suspects are nevertheless still 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. During the next seven years, the Black Dahlia investigation died on the vine and became essentially a cold case.

A book published in October 2025 by ex-entertainment producer Eli Frankel, "Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter", sheds new light on the reason behind what was always believed to be "conclusive" evidence as to the disposition 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 shocking new information, the book contradicts everything that has for years thought to be true about this forensically-critical revelation. In addition, Frankel provides compelling evidence of a murder near Kansas City in 1941 that has startling 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 has yet to publish a book about the case, but says he's got "the real story"--who claims to have also interviewed Betty Bersinger and he was told otherwise. 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 likely 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.

NOTE: 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 plenty of available misinformation. 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.

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