Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Black Dahlia

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

On January 15, 1947, a young woman was found dead in Los Angeles, California.  She was found naked, cut in half, and drained of blood.  When the crime was reported in the newspaper, the woman received a nickname, the Black Dahlia.  Though the case has been cold for the better part of a century, the murder of the Black Dahlia has remained one of the most well-known true crime cases in America and still fascinates people to this day. Learn about the murder of the Black Dahlia, potential, and the media frenzy surrounding the case on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Stash Go to get.stash.com/EVERYTHING to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. ExpressVPN Go to expressvpn.com/EED to get an extra four months of ExpressVPN for free!w Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On January 15, 1947, a young woman was found dead in Los Angeles, California. She was found naked, cut in half, and drained of blood. When the crime was reported in the newspaper, the deceased woman was given a nickname, The Black Dahlia. Though the case has been cold for the better part of a century, the murder of the Black Dahlia has remained one of the best known true crime cases in America and still fascinates people to this day. Learn more about the murder of the Black Dahlia,

potential suspects and the media frenzy surrounding the case on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Did you ever hear about the selfie that solved a murder or the jury that used a Ouija board to speak to a victim? If that made you pause, you need to listen to Morning Cup of Murder. I'm Karina B. Minas Durfer, and every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I tell one chilling true crime story tied to that exact day in history. With over 2,500 episodes to binge, you'll never run out. out of dark stories to start your morning with. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe.

The Black Dahlia, otherwise known as Elizabeth Short, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 29, 1924. Short was the third of five daughters to Cleo Alvin Short Jr. and Phoebe May Sawyer. Elizabeth's father had previously worked in the U.S. Navy as a sailor before the family moved to Boston. After moving, he took up a job as a builder of mini golf courses. Unfortunately, the 1929 stock market crash caused the family to lose most of their money. The following year, her father abandoned his car by a bridge,

and it was believed that he had committed suicide by jumping into the river. In the years following her father's death, Elizabeth would develop severe asthma and bronchitis forcing her to undergo lung surgery. To prevent further complications, the doctors recommended that Elizabeth moved to a warmer area, which led her to live in Miami during the winter. During this arrangement, Elizabeth would decide to drop out of high school as a sophomore. In 1942, 12 years after the supposed death of her father,

Elizabeth's mother received a letter that would change their family's lives. Elizabeth's father, who was assumed to be dead, was in fact very much alive. Within the letter, he told the family that he had a new life in California and offered an apology for faking his death. After learning the truth about her dad, Elizabeth took the opportunity to move to Viejo, California, to live with her father. As you might guess, this arrangement did not go so well. The two got into fights, leading Elizabeth to move out of her father's house just a month after arriving.

Her move to California was pretty much a disaster. Shortly after moving out, Elizabeth got into an abusive relationship and was later arrested for underage drinking. The arrest ultimately resulted in Elizabeth Lerner, leaving California and moving back to Florida. And during her time in Florida, she got engaged to an Air Force officer, but he died in a crash shortly after 1945. With nothing left in Florida, Elizabeth decided to move back to California,

this time to Los Angeles, to reach her goal of becoming an actress. She would live there for just six months. Elizabeth's short's last known whereabout were reported on January 9, 1947. On the night of January 9th, Elizabeth was returning to her home in Los Angeles after visiting her married boyfriend, Robert Red Manley. Manly dropped short off at the Biltmore Hotel, where she was supposed to be meeting one of her sisters who was visiting. Some of the staff reported seeing her that night, corroborating Manly's story. Later that evening, it was also reported that Short was at a cocktail lounge just down the street. And after that, her whereabouts are unknown.

Fast forward six days to the early morning of January 15th. A mother was walking with her children at Lamert Park in Los Angeles. She had noticed a body just a few feet away from the sidewalk. The body was so pale that she initially thought that it was a mannequin, but quickly realized the dark truth. The mannequin was a woman. It was Elizabeth Short, dead at the age of 22. She was stripped naked and sliced in half at the waist.

The body was extremely mutilated, despite, no blood being found at the crime scene. The body was laid out in a posed position and had been completely drained of blood, giving her skin a whitish color. It's believed that she was washed before being placed at the crime scene. Her face was slashed from her mouth

to her ears in what's known as a Glasgow smile. Near the body, detectives did find some clues. A cement sack nearby contained watery blood, and a footprint was found near the crime scene. An autopsy was performed the following day, which found rope marks on her wrists, neck, and ankles. The autopsy also found that the technique used to cut Elizabeth in half was a type of surgery called a hemicorrectomy. Fortunately, evidence showed that Elizabeth was already dead when this happened. Hemicorporectomy has only been reported 66 times in medical literature, and it removes every part of the body below the waist, leading investigators to believe that whoever

killed Elizabeth had medical knowledge and training. Her cause of death was reported as lacerations to her face combined with blows to her head. Her body was identified through her fingerprints, which were on record from her previous arrest for underage drinking. Following her body's identification, a team of reporters from the Los Angeles Examiner, a Hurst-owned tabloid paper, called Elizabeth's mother. During the call, the reporter first told her that her daughter had won a beauty contest. They asked her mother questions before finally revealing that her daughter was not a beauty contest winner, but rather a murder victim. Phoebe Short was reportedly in disbelief over the news, and it wasn't until the police confirmed it that she realized that it was true. The examiner

offered to fly Phoebe to Los Angeles so she could supposedly help the police. However, this aid was offered with malicious intent. Their real goal was to keep Phoebe away from other newspapers to protect their story. A significant aspect of the case's notoriety stemmed from the media sensation surrounding it. This case in particular blew up bigger than most and became a major story, with the examiner selling the most copies it had since the end of the Second World War. It was quite common for murder cases to be given a nickname during this time. Elizabeth Short was nicknamed the Black Dahlia from a film titled The Blue Dahlia. The nickname played on the film and reference Elizabeth's dark hair and Ruehabilis.

preference for wearing sheer black clothing. Other newspapers had been referring to the case as the werewolf murders, but seeing the popularity of the black dahlia caused newspapers to pivot to the new nickname. The case quickly became a sensationalized spectacle dominating front page news for months. However, despite the constant media coverage and public attention, no arrests were ever made. Despite the lack of arrests, the police received some information during their

initial investigations. On January 21, 1947, a person who claimed to be the murderer called into the examiner, congratulating the paper on the coverage of the case, and claimed that he would be sending the paper some souvenirs. An envelope was then sent to the paper three days later. Inside the envelope was a letter written from cut-up paper clippings. With a letter, shorts birth certificate, business cards, an address book, and photographs were found. The packet had been cleaned with gasoline. The gasoline caused police to believe that the packet was sent by the killer,

and they were fortunate enough to find some fingerprints on the envelope. Unfortunately, the prints were compromised at some point in transit. The same day the envelope arrived, a packet was also dropped off. The packet contained a handbag and black shoes, both of which had also been cleaned with gasoline. A few days later, the examiner got another letter, this time handwritten. The letter stated, quote, Here it is, turning in Wednesday, January 29th, 10 a.m., and my fun at police, Black Dahlia Adventure, end quote. The letter said the killer would turn himself in at a specific location, though no one ever appeared.

He instead left another letter claiming the killing was justified. Despite this, the L.A. police worked to solve the case and quickly began to investigate and interrogate suspects. One of the men was her boyfriend, Robert Manley, who had dropped her off at the hotel. He was cleared after passing multiple polygraph tests. The LAPD, desperate to solve the case given its high-profile status, had a combined total of 750 investigators working on it. They investigated multiple areas for evidence, including storm drains and abandoned buildings, but found nothing.

They eventually offered a $10,000 reward for information, but this didn't help either. Instead, they received hundreds of false confessions to the crime. As mentioned earlier, the police believed that the murderer was likely a surgeon or someone with medical training due to the precise nature of the cuts on her body. To follow up in this lead, they collaborated with local universities to investigate medical students but again had no success. Despite this, there were a few theories as to who killed the black Dahlia. One theory is that the killer committed suicide. This comes from a note of an unidentified man who committed suicide at a beach, just two months after the murder.

The man had left his clothes at the shore with a note, and the note said that the man was too cowardly to hand himself in for the black dolly a murder, and that he had jumped into the water instead. The clothes gave no indication as to the man's identity. A detective on the case provided another suspect. Though the suspect's name was never given to the public, the detective claimed that he had interviewed a man

observed at the crime scene before the body was discovered. A neighbor said that he had seen a man in a cell. sedan parked with its rear door open at the scene. The sedan owner was followed to a restaurant where he worked, but was cleared of suspicion by the LAPD. Despite this, the detective remained convinced that it was him. Another prime suspect was George Hodel. Hodel was a doctor in Los Angeles who was accused by his own son, Steve, of the crime. Shortly before Short's death, Hodel was suspected of murdering his secretary and accused of raping his daughter, although he was never charged. Steve used his father's experience as a surgeon and his previous accusations as evidence.

The police took this accusation seriously and bugged his house. It has since been revealed that Hodel discussed supposedly killing Short and his secretary. Unfortunately in the 1950s, Hodel fled the United States and moved to the Philippines before he was ever formally questioned. A book published in 2017, titled The Black Dahlia, focuses on a suspect named Leslie Dillon. Dylan. Dylan was a former morticians assistant working at the Astor Motel in Los Angeles as a bellhop. The book claimed that on the morning Elizabeth's body was found, a room in the motel was reported to be covered in blood and fecal matter. Though the police denied that the motel had any involvement with the case, the book's author, Pugh Eatwell, believes that Dylan and his associates, Mark Hanson and Jeff Connors, were involved in a robbery scheme and were paying off Sergeant Finnis Brown at the LAPD to keep the scheme under wrap.

The theory is that Elizabeth learned too much about the scheme and was killed by Dylan to keep the robberies a secret. Despite being never charged or even formally accused, members of the LAPD believe Dylan could be the killer. A few other theories have to do with other notorious crimes. One such case was the Cleveland Torso murders. The Cleveland Torso murders were a series of gruesome killings in the 1930s, in which an unidentified serial killer dismembered at least 12 victims in Cleveland, Ohio, many of whom were never even identified. These murders happened about a decade before Elizabeth Short was killed,

and the connection was investigated, though no evidence ever connecting the two crimes were found. Another theory was that the Chicago Lipstick murderers and the Black Dahlia case were connected. In 1946, a six-year-old was dismembered in Chicago. The captain of the LAPD at the time stated this theory publicly. and believe that they were connected. The very tenuous evidence came from Elizabeth being found three blocks away from Degnan Boulevard. As the victim's name in the Chicago case was Degin, they believed there was somehow a connection. Initially, the ransom notes handwriting from the lipstick killer was similar to the one found in the Black Dahlia Avenger letter,

though the cases were never formally connected. The Black Dahlia case has endured as a symbol of Hollywood's darker underbelly. tied up with themes of exploitation, broken dreams, and sensationalist media. The case remains officially unsolved, one of Los Angeles's most haunting cold cases, and continues to capture the imagination of true crime researchers and the public alike. Despite all of the theories, the Black Dahlia's killer has never been found, and justice for Elizabeth Short has never been served. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel.

The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ash. My big thanks go to everyone who supports a show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. This is where everything happens that's outside of the show. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you two can have it read on the show.