World Mysteries - The Black Dahlia Murder - Worlds Unsolved Mysteries

World Mysteries - The Black Dahlia Murder - World's Unsolved Mysteries

22-year old Elizabeth Short was very active at promoting herself into showbiz at the time the Black Dahlia murder occurred, however, no one knew of the killer or who actually did the murder.

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World Mysteries - The Black Dahlia Murder - Worlds Unsolved Mysteries

Who Is the Black Dahlia?

Nicknamed "the Black Dahlia," Elizabeth Short was brutally murdered in Los Angeles in 1947, her body cut in half and severely mutilated. The Black Dahlia's killer was never found, making her murder one of the oldest cold case files in L.A. to date, and the city's most famous.

Who Killed the Black Dahlia?

A retired police detective suspects he's getting closer to solving a series of 1940s Hollywood murders, including that of the Black Dahlia — and the man he suspects to be the killer is his own father. Steve Hodel first began to suspect George Hodel while going through his belongings after his death at age 91 in 1999.

Where The Black Dahlia was found?

The shocking murder of Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, is one of the oldest unsolved murder cases in Los Angeles history. On Jan. 15, 1947, Short's severely mutilated body was discovered in a vacant lot near the intersection of 39th Street and Norton Avenue in South Los Angeles.

World Mysteries - The Black Dahlia Murder - Worlds Unsolved Mysteries

Black Dahlia Murder Case Hits 68 Years Unsolved

There’s never been a shortage of suspects in the Black Dahlia murder — but police have never been able to pin the crime on any of them.

After the mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short — cut in half at the waist and drained of blood — was found in a vacant Los Angeles lot on this day, Jan. 15, in 1947, dozens of people confessed to killing the woman who newspapers dubbed “the Black Dahlia.”

It became the most sensational murder story in a city rife with sensational murders, and fame-seekers all over town wanted to play a part. Over the years, the number of people claiming responsibility grew to hundreds, most of whom detectives ruled out almost immediately.

One promising admission came a few weeks after the murder, from an Army corporal who said he had been drinking with Short in San Francisco a few days before her body was discovered — then blacked out, with no memory of his activity until he came to again in a cab outside New York’s Penn Station. (Short, an aspiring movie star, had a fondness for servicemen, according to The Black Dahlia, the James Ellroy novel based on her murder.)

Asked if he thought he had committed the murder, the corporal said yes, and became a prime suspect until evidence emerged that he had actually been on his military base the day of Short’s death.

World Mysteries - The Black Dahlia Murder - Worlds Unsolved Mysteries

Then there was the woman who became convinced — in 1991, after therapy chipped away at 40-year-old repressed memories — that her late father was the murderer. Police dug up the yard of her childhood home, where she believed they’d find his weapons or the remains of other victims. They did find a rusty knife, farm tools, and costume jewelry — but no evidence to tie him to the Black Dahlia case or any other murders.

Most recently, retired detective Steve Hodel landed on a suspect he believes is unquestionably the killer: his own father, the late doctor George Hodel. Soil samples taken from the doctor’s Hollywood estate in 2012 tested positive for the chemical markers for human decomposition, meaning other bodies may have been buried there.

The younger Hodel’s suspicions were raised when he found pictures of a woman he believed was the Black Dahlia among his father’s possessions; furthermore, he says the surgical accuracy with which she was cut in half and disemboweled suggests a killer with medical training — like George Hodel, who died in 1999.