The Black Dahlia: Inside The Real-Life Hollywood Horror Story (FPD CASE VAULT)
July 30 2023, Published 2:06 p.m. ET
The gruesome Black Dahlia murder has obsessed crime buffs for more than six decades, and even today remains one of the most mystifying cases in the annals of Hollywood.
"There aren't many cases with the mythic quality of the Dahlia," says Hollywood director Brian De Palma, who directed a 2006 movie based on the sensational slaying. "London had Jack the Ripper. America has The Black Dahlia."
The naked corpse of American aspiring actress and murder victim Elizabeth Short (1924 - 1947), known as the 'Black Dahlia,' lies on a grassy field covered by a blanket after the body was discovered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, January 15, 1947. Short's murdered body was severely mutilated and severed at the waist. The murder still remains unsolved.
On the night of Jan. 14, 1947, aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, 22, was stripped naked, hung upside down, savagely tortured and cut in two.
Her face was mutilated, slashed from ear to ear, giving the corpse a creepy, unnerving smile. And the crazed killer carved the letters B.D. - for Black Dahlia - deep in her thigh.
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The mysterious killer taunted cops by sending them his victim's belongings in the mail
Her remains were found discarded in a field.
Meanwhile, the killer taunted cops by mailing them some of Short's belongings - her address book, Social Security card and birth certificate. But the slaying remains unsolved.
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