Ethan Holm
Rhetorical Writing
December 18, 2017
The Death of a Dahlia
Like a beautiful flower plucked from her prime Elizabeth Short, The Black Dahlia was murdered too young to bloom.
Elizabeth Short was a beautiful woman who pursued to be an aspiring actress. July 29, 1924, Cleo and Phoebe Short gave birth to their daughter, Elizabeth, in the city of Hyde Park, Massachusetts (Taylor). During her childhood, she preferred to be called by the nicknames of “Betty,” “Bette,” or “Beth” (Korzik). At this time, The Great Depression was going on. When the Depression struck Cleo personally, he chose to abandon his wife and their five daughters. In order to get away, he faked his suicide (Taylor). Authorities discovered Cleo’s car near a bridge and believed he had jumped into the river (Taylor). Phoebe, now a single parent, needed to make twice the amount of money to support her family. Phoebe worked as a bookkeeper and a clerk in a bakery shop to put food on the table for her family (Taylor). After a couple weeks passed from Cleo’s suicide, Phoebe received a letter from Cleo informing her he was alive and living in California (Taylor). He continued on in his letter apologizing for leaving her and the girls; he asked to come home to them, but Phoebe denied his request (Taylor).
While Elizabeth was growing up, she became fascinated with the movies. She was always going to the theatre. There she found an escape from her ordinary life, one she could not find anywhere else (Taylor). Betty remained in touch with him when she was told that he was actually alive (Korzik). Eventually, as she got older, he invited her to come out to California and stay with him until she was able to find a job (Taylor). Besides discussing Short’s parents, Elizabeth‘s beauty was beyond compare. Her neighbor from Medford, Dorothy Hernon, talked about Short to investigators after her death:
Bette was good, sweet, funny, or stuck up, always stopped and chatted, made you feel at ease. And what a walk. The truck driver and men would stare when she walked down the street. It was a wonder there weren’t more truck accidents when she walked down Salem Street…She just looked so graceful, but eye-catching, something to look at (Qtd. by Korzik).
She has been described having hair black as a raven, white alabaster skin, and eyes that were a startling blue. She always had white flowers in her hair and her lips were as red as blood (Noa). Her doll like features left an impression on all the men who knew her (Noa). The unique way Elizabeth dressed mostly in black provides evidence as to why her murder was nicknamed the Black Dahlia. She could be seen wearing black dresses, black jeans, black stockings, even black underwear (Noa). Some newspapers even gave Short the nickname of the Black Dahlia because there was a movie released about nine months prior to her murder called The Blue Dahlia that was a film about a murder mystery (Korzik). Eager to make a life in the acting world, at the age of 17 Short decided to leave home and head to Miami (Noa).
While she was in Miami, a young service man caught her eye, and they fell deeply in love (Noa). When her lover was off risking his life to fight, she refused all men who tempted her as she was saving herself for marriage, with her lover (Noa). Unfortunately, her lover was killed while serving. This news destroyed Elizabeth; she began drinking heavily (Noa). Her antidote for her pain was to sleep with all men. If a man was able to buy her a drink and a meal, she was willing to go to bed with any man of any kind (Noa). After a few nights of her nonsense, she was arrested and sent on a train back home to Massachusetts. She got off on the first stop before it reached Massachusetts, where she fell in love with Army Air Force Major Matt Gordon Jr. in 1944 (Noa). After a couple years of dating Gordon, Short received, from Matt’s mother, a telegram stating Matt was killed in a plane crash. Upon reading the telegram, Elizabeth went straight for the bar (Noa). After the bar, she chose to go to California, in hopes of making a name for herself (Noa). When she arrived in California, she fell in love with men as fast as she broke up with them because she sought to find a producer or a director who was capable of bringing her acting career to the next level (Noa). Before the death of Short, she was last seen in the Biltmore Hotel, where she had gone to the lobby waiting to meet up with her sisters (Noa).
January 15, 1947, was a day that the town of Los Angeles will never forget: the death of Elizabeth Short. The body, soon to be identified as Elizabeth Short, was found near Leimert Park; this is on the 3800 of Los Angeles’ South Norton Avenue (Editors). Betty Bersinger, along with her three-year-old daughter, were on their way to a shoe repair shop on the morning of January 15, 1947 (Korzik). As they turned the corner they continued on the sidewalk of Norton Street. As they continued to walk something white among the weeds caught the attention of Betty (Korzik). Her initial thought was that someone had thrown out a store mannequin (Korzik). She found it quite odd that a mannequin-like object was disposed in the vacant lots. However, she found it even more peculiar that the mannequin had been separated into two halves (Korzik). As a closer inspection of the mannequin was made by Betty, she discovered that the mannequin was an actual woman who had been severed into two (Korzik). As Betty realized that it was actually a human corpse she gave a panic cry and led her daughter away from the site. She quickly hurried to a nearby house in order to call the police (Korzik).
The autopsy showed an immense amount of laceration along with mutilations to Short’s face, torso and other parts of her body. Detective Lieutenant Jesse Haskins provided a more detailed description of the crime scene:
The body was lying with the head towards the north, the feet towards the south, the left leg was 5 inches west of the sidewalk… The body was lying face up and the severed part was jogged over about 10 inches, the upper half of the body from the lower half… There was a tire track right up against the curbing and there was what appeared to be a possible bloody heel mark in this tire mark; and on the curbing which is very low there was one spot of blood and there was an empty paper cement sack lying in the driveway and it also had a spot of blood on… It had been brought there from some other location… The body was clean and appeared to have been washed (Qtd. by Korzik).
According to the coroner, before Short was murdered, she had been forced to eat her own feces. The coroner also discovered flesh and pubic hair had been taken or shaven from her body and found in her vagina and rectum (Fitts). Found over her pubic area were numerous cuts in a criss-cross pattern (Korzik). Further into the autopsy, it was discovered that Elizabeth’s killer removed her uterus from her body (Fitts). No evidence of sperm was present in the body at the time of the autopsy (Noa). Aside from the mutilations present from the waist below, one of the most rememberable occurred to Short’s face. Large, long gashes extended from her mouth to each ear; creating an eerie smile (Fitts). This type of smile is also know as a Glasgow smile.
Short’s body was found with her lying on her back with her arms raised over her shoulders and her legs were in an obscene seductively spread apart position (Noa). A chunk of flesh was missing from her leg that was later discovered stuffed up her genitals (Noa). The officers noticed at the crime scene that there was no blood on the corpse as well as the area where she was found which indicated to the officers that Elizabeth Short has been murdered somewhere else (Noa). The coroner also found abrasions and cuts covering her body including rope marks near her wrists, ankles and neck (Noa). Over the course of several days, Elizabeth was tied down and tortured; later determined by investigators involved in this case (Noa). Photos taken from the crime scene indicated that Short had been given a hemicorporectomy. This is a procedure that slices the body beneath the lumbar spine, the only spot where the body can be severed in half without breaking bone (Fitts). This procedure can be connected to her cause of death that was listed as hemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain and lacerations to the face (Noa).
Initially, the evidence suggested that the primary suspects in this case were George Hodel, Joseph Dumais, and a few other men who were not as likely to be the murderer. Nine days after the death of the Black Dahlia, the local newspaper, the Examiner, received a package. Elizabeth Short’s birth certificate, social security card, address book, and Matt Gordon‘s obituary were contained in the package sent to the Examiner (Noa). No fingerprints were lifted from the envelope because the package reeked the smell of gasoline used to erase all fingerprints (Noa). The Los Angeles District Attorney confirmed that 62 people confessed to Short’s murder but only 22 of the suspects were viable suspects and by June of 1947, the police had eliminated a list of 75 suspects (Korzik).
One of the most recent confessions that has been made from former Los Angeles Police Department Detective Steve Hodel who said that his father, George Hodel a grandiose doctor, was the murderer of the Black Dahlia. Steve Hodel had diligently risen through the ranks of the Los Angeles police department in just over 23 years, establishing a reputation as homicide detective (Fitts). One day as Steve ventured throughout his father’s possessions after he died, Steve found a photo album tucked away in a box (Fitts). Near the back of the album, something caught the attention of Steve’s eye: two pictures of a young woman, her eyes toward the ground, curly, dark black hair. As he inspected the images further he realized that this woman looked like the Black Dahlia (Fitts). Now that he found a trail left by his dad, he had to figure out if his dad is the murderer. Back in 2012, Steve had soil samples taken from his dad’s Hollywood estate which tested positive for the chemical markers for human decomposition. Meaning other bodies may have been buried there in the past (Latson).
The letters that were sent to the press and police from someone who calls themself, The Black Dahlia Avenger. They claimed to be Elizabeth killer also had an exact resemblance of Steve’s dad‘s handwriting (Fitts). Photos from the crime scene revealed the body was cut in two using a technique called a hemicorporectomy (Fitts). This is connected to George Hodel because this method was taught in the 1930s, which was the same time that George had been in medical school (Fitts). A world famous surrealist artist named Man Ray was a family friend of George Hodel (Fitts). Two of the photographs Man Ray created, Les Amoureux and Minotaur, do show similar resemblances to the mutilated body of Short (Fitts). Steve Hodel stated, “‘He wanted to be like Man Ray, he wanted to be an artist and I think this was his masterpiece’” (Qtd. by Blakinger).
Another viable suspect on the list was Army Corporal and combat veteran Joseph Dumais, who has been known to be drinking with Short in the past. Dumais could not recall what he may have done during his 42-day furlough that occurred around the time of Short’s death (Taylor). He went out drinking with Short a couple days before Betty found her body, but after imbibing too much he blacked out and woke up in a cab in New York City (Blakinger). The corporal was found with a stack of newspaper clippings about the Black Dahlia case along with blood all over his clothing (Taylor). He told investigators, “‘ It’s possible that I could have committed the murder. When I get drunk I get rough with women’” (Taylor). Dumais was later cleared of killing Elizabeth after he was sent to a psychiatrist (Taylor).
Despite the fact that the initial reports suggested that George Hodel killed the Black Dahlia, investigators believe that the murder of Short is either connected to a surgical man, another murder, or she had known the killer before she died. Detective Hansen said under sworn testimony before the 1949 Los Angeles Country Grand Jury his theory on the case:
‘I have a little pet theory of my own. I think a medical man committed the murder, a very fine surgeon. I base that conclusion on the way the body was bisected… It is unusual in this sense, that the point at which the body was bisected is, according to eminent medical men, the easiest spot in the spinal column to sever… He hit it exactly’(Qtd. by Harnisch).
There was a handful who were convinced that the death of Short was connected to the 1936 murder and dissection of a six-year-old Suzanne Degnan. William Heirens was arrested in the summer of 1946 for burglary in the Degnan’s neighborhood (Korzik). After interrogations for Degnan’s murder, William eventually confessed to killing Suzanne (Korzik). Both Suzanne’s murder and Elizabeth’s murder had letters sent using a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters (Korzik). Shorts body was discovered on Norton Avenue. Norton Avenue is three square is west of Degnan Boulevard. The last name of Suzanne was Degnan (Korzik). Both of the corpses were found drained of blood and dismembered (Korzik).
This unsolved crime suggests that the murder of the Black Dahlia was committed by Mr. George Hodel. Hodel is most likely the killer because the autopsy confirmed that her body was severed using the hemicorporectomy method, which was being taught in medical schools at the same time that Hodel was in medical school. This also connects to the theory by Detective Hansen and how he thinks a medical man did the killing. This cannot be overlooked because he does not just coincidentally become a suspect of a crime who has picture of Elizabeth Short, found by his son, and knows the method of a hemicorporectomy.
Annotated Works Cited
Blakinger, Keri. “Here Are the Things We Still Don’t Know about Black Dahlia.” NY Daily
News, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, 15 Jan. 2016, www.nydailynews.com/news/national/
don-black-dahlia-article-1.2498088.
The article in the NY Daily News by Keri Blakinger depicts the background information of the Black Dahlia, information on the initial investigation, as well as interviews by lead investigators and those who may be related to Elizabeth Short’s death. Blakinger currently is working for the Houston Chronicle; however, when she wrote this article she was working for the NY Daily News. Her writing has appeared in VICE, The Washington Post, Salon, Quartz, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, and The Fix. This is more directed to a mature audience due to the gruesomeness of the corpse’s conditions. This could also being directed to those who are following the Black Dahlia’s case. This work is different than other sources because it goes further in depth on the condition and state of the Black Dahlia’s body as well as interviews from some of the suspects. This work will highlight my topic because it will allow me to further show the conditions of Short’s body.
Editors, Biography.com. “Black Dahlia.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 21 Sept.
2016, www.biography.com/people/black-dahlia-21117617.
This article by editors employed by biography.com, references the background of Elizabeth Short and the initial investigation of her murder. It also describes recent findings within the crime investigation of the Black Dahlia. The intended audience of this article would be for those who are interested in the Black Dahlia’s case or like murder mysteries. This could also be intended for a detective trying to gather background information on the case. This work is similar to others because they all have the same information about the findings of Short’s body and the state of her corpse. This is different than other sources because this article tell about the new findings and leads that were found in 2013 tied to this case. I will use this article to strengthen my paper with the background and the new discoveries found for the case of the Black Dahlia.
Fitts, Alexis Sobel. “I Know Who Killed the Black Dahlia: My Own Father.” The Guardian,
Guardian News and Media, 26 May 2016, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/26/
black-dahlia-murder-steve-hodel-elizabeth-short.
In this article by Alexis Sobel Fitts, she interviews Steve Hodel who claims that his father, George Hodel, is the killer of the Black Dahlia and he knows that his dad is the killer. Fitts is a magazine writer, reporter, and editor based chiefly in New York City. She previously was a contributing editor at Columbia Journalism Review. Her work has appeared in/on Aeon, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, Wired, Popular Mechanics, OnEarth, Salon. Those who are interested in the Black Dahlia’s case is the more directed audience for this article. This article is similar to the article written by UNC-Chapel Hill because they both talk about how George Hodel is a possible suspect. This article differs to the article by UNC because this is an interview by his son and his son reveals clues to consider why his father is the killer. This work illuminates my topic because it will provide evidence as to why George Hodel is a prime suspect.
Harnisch, Larry. "Haunting Images and Details of Death." Los Angeles Times, 15 Sept. 2006,
Global Newsstream, https://search.proquest.com/docview/422101063?accountid=45111.
Larry Harnisch, a Los Angeles Times copy editor and writer started studying the murder of the Black Dahlia since 1996. He has websites devoted to research on the Black Dahlia and has published columns in the Los Angeles Times regarding the murder mystery. He talked about Elizabeth Shorts’s background and possible suspects based on the information at hand at the time. In this article, he talked about a medical man being one of the prime suspects because of the precision on Short’s lacerations. Harnisch uses logical arguments and interviews to support his claim, which is his personal opinion. He does not reference any previous works he has composed in this text. The intended audience is more directed toward those who are interested in the murder of Elizabeth Short, but would be of interest to any reader. This work will help explain who the LAPD suspect the killer is in the murder.
Korzik, Morgan. “The 1947 Murder of Elizabeth Short.” The Black Dahlia, UNC-Chapel Hill, 2
Dec. 2016, blackdahlia.web.unc.edu.
This article by Morgan Korzik depicts how there are different suspects, why they are a suspect to the murder of the Black Dahlia, and what their connection was to Elizabeth Short. Korzik’s information is very reliable and she references different sources which agree with her point of view on her website. She made this website for her Honors English class when she was at UNC-Chapel Hill. This website differs from other sources because this elaborates on what items of Short’s were found and ideas as to who the killer is in this case, as well as theories, the crime scene investigation, the initial investigation and a list of suspects. This compares to other sources because it briefly describes Short and the story around the murder as well as the finding of her body. This website is more intended for anyone interested in the murder of the Black Dahlia. Having this information will allow me to expand on the ways that the killer was in contact with the police and newspapers without being caught.
Latson, Jennifer. “Black Dahlia Murder Case Hits 68 Years Unsolved.” Time, Time, 15 Jan. 2015,
time.com/3657606/black-dahlia-murder-case/.
Jennifer Latson has written for the Boston Globe, the Houston Chronicle, and Time. She has also won an MFA for creative nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire. In this article, Latson elaborates on some of the suspects that arise in the case of Elizabeth Short. George Hodel and a woman who claims her late father was their murderer were just a couple of the suspects that Latson mentions. Those who enjoy reading Time or those who follow murder mysteries and/or following the Black Dahlia would be the intended audience of this article. This work is different than from the work of Troy Taylor because Taylor never brought up a woman’s late father as a suspect and the investigation behind it. This work will contribute to my paper because it will give another suspect to consider as to who killed the Black Dahlia.
Noa, Madeleine. “The Black Dahlia – One of the Most Brutal Murders on Record.” Historic
Mysteries, Historicmysteries.com, 11 Jan. 2010, www.historicmysteries.com/the-black-
dahlia/.
In this article by Madeleine Noa, she provides information on the autopsy by the leading detectives in the case and how her body was placed and positioned at the crime scene. Noa has been an associate writer for IN Magazine and Second City Magazine, having been published 13 times between the two publications. This work is more directed towards detectives who want to look at the autopsy to see if they can get any leads from the victim’s wounds. On the other hand, this could also be directed to the audience of those who have been following the Black Dahlia’s case since she was murdered. This work is similar to the work of UNC-Chapel Hill because they both have brief autopsies on Elizabeth Short. However, this article is different than the UNC because some of the results from the autopsy were not present in the UNC article. This work will make my topic stand out by having more information on what the Black Dahlia looked like when she was found.
Taylor, Troy. “WHO KILLED THE BLACK DAHLIA?” ELIZABETH SHORT —
THE BLACK DAHLIA, 2013, www.prairieghosts.com/beth.html.
Troy Taylor, the author of this website, explains the background around the case of Elizabeth Short. He thoroughly goes into detail about Short’s whereabouts prior to her murder and the suspects that come up during the investigation of her murder. He uses specific people like Mark Hansen and Red Manley to back up his arguments of who killed the Black Dahlia. This website would be recommended to those interested in murder mysteries or those who have been following the Black Dahlia’s case. This work is the same as other sources that I have looked at because they look at the same suspects of Mark Hansen and Red Manley and how their affiliation with Short. This work has different points that I have not seen in other sources like an army officer was a suspect at one point in the case because he was found with blood all over his clothes and articles about the murder stacked in piles. I will use this work to illuminate my topic by using the results of the autopsy and the other suspects that came into play.