A Pizzazz Magazine Exclusive

Publisher Don Lemmon

The Black Dahlia is possibly one of the most famous unsolved murder cases of the 20 th century. Hundreds of Americans and possibly foreigners have dedicated books and websites to the Hollywood murder in hopes of finding answers that were never discovered for the young Dahlia. The big questions being: who and why? Who would kill the vivacious and attractive young Bostonian woman and why?

Like most high-profile cases, the LAPD received numerous confessions from Confessing Sams (people who falsely confess for publicity), including military servicemen and one woman, according to Pamela Hazelton. In addition to having to sift through false confessions, the initial discovery of the murder case had been mistreated as police officers forgot to photograph the tire tracks and footprints of the crime scene - and much to their chagrin, those tire tracks and footprints (or lack thereof) led LAPD to a dead end. Where did it all start?

The morning of January 15 th, 1947 in postwar Hollywood , nothing seemed unusual for Betty Bersinger as she and her 3 year old daughter took a walk down the street. In the Leimert Park area on 39 th and Norton Ave. , Bersinger and her child walked past a weedy vacant lot where Bersinger caught a glimpse of a nude mannequin. Upon approaching the mannequin to get a closer look, it gradually began to resemble a nude human female corpse – severed in half. Following Bersinger's grizzly discovery, she immediately called the police and in a short period, the Los Angeles Police Dept. arrived on the scene of the dead body.

According to Marilyn Bardsley, Officers Frank Perkins and Will Fitzgerald were the first two on the scene and immediately called for reinforcements. The corpse, bisected at the umbilicus, appeared to have been washed and completely drained of blood and its pose gave the indication that she might have been sexually assaulted. The upper torso was just a few feet away from the lower torso, arms of the upper torso raised above its head and the legs of the lower torso greatly spread-eagled. The cadaver's wrists and ankles had rope burns while the face had minimal lacerations across the forehead, the biggest knife cut being across the mouth, in addition to a large cut around her right breast – it was safe to infer that she had been brutally tortured prior to her death.

Capt. John Donahoe of LAPD's homicide division was informed of the murder and promptly assigned senior detectives Harry Hansen, his partner Finis Brown, and Herman Willis to the case. The crime scene was almost immediately contaminated by the littering and signs of rubbernecking journalists and on-lookers had left behind. The body, at that point, had been taken to the morgue for an autopsy and to be identified. The following morning, medical examiners ruled the woman's cause of death as “hemorrhage and shock due to the concussion of the brain and lacerations to the face.”

Dr. Newbarr, Chief Surgeon in charge of the woman's autopsy, reported multiple lacerations to the forehead, anal opening dilation and multiple abrasions, and the most noticeable injury of them all: the large cut across the victim's mouth, almost extending to her earlobes. Most of the injuries, including the anal dilation, had been done postmortem. All smears that had been taken for spermatozoa were returned negative and her reproductive organs were still in tact. Examiners had also discovered that the victim's vaginal canal was very shallow and not fully developed.

The LA coroner's office was able to identify the corpse as twenty-two year old Elizabeth Short via fingerprints; she worked as a cashier at the Camp Cooke Post Exchange a few years prior to her murder, which was why her prints were on federal file. Harold Schechter implies that the best way to find answers about a victim and their killer is to look into the past (246).

Born July 29 th, 1929 to Phoebe and Cleo Short in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, “Betty” Short, well known for her vivacious and outgoing personality, was apart of a family of five girls, all raised in Medford, Massachusetts – home of their blooming miniature golf construction business. When the business took a turn for the worse, Cleo Short decided to end things quickly by vanishing into thin air. It is said that his vacant car was found near a bridge, so his disappearance was ruled a suicide, leaving Phoebe Short to tend to five children.

The remaining members of the Short family lived mostly off of welfare if working as a bakery shop clerk and bookkeeper didn't cut it for Phoebe. The only leisure time activity Phoebe Short could afford her children was the movies, which Betty loved more than anything – they attended picture shows several times a week, provoking Betty's number one desire to become a movie star. Betty was then hired to work at a local Medford movie theater.

Phoebe received an apology letter from Cleo in California , begging for forgiveness and a home to come to; Phoebe declined. Cleo then began a correspondence with his daughter, Betty, and invited her to come out to live with him in Vallejo , California . Considering a potential movie career, Betty relocated to the opposite coast with her father and got a job working at the Mare Island Naval Base in Vallejo . Betty eventually relocated to Santa Barbara after endless quarrels with her father about her untidy and boy crazy nature; she was then hired at Camp Cooke 's Post Exchange. From then on, she went from being Betty to Beth.

It was there at Camp Cooke where Beth had rebuffed advances from a live-in soldier friend, prompting the soldier to call her a tease, then proceeding to give her a black eye (Gilmore 28). Beth's stay at Camp Cooke did not last much longer following this incident. Beth had been arrested for underage drinking and was sent back home to Medford ; she bounced back and forth between Massachusetts and Miami , Florida where servicemen fell in love with her. An Army lieutenant named Gordan Fickling had a chance encounter with Beth. While Beth and Gordan were very attracted to each other, he was a bit apprehensive about a committed relationship as he was soon to be deployed. As planned, Gordan left on deployment without any further commitment to Beth.

“Beth was emotionally vulnerable and made no secret of wanting a permanent relationship,” Marilyn Bardsley reports. Though Beth dated with servicemen good and plenty, one Army pilot in particular had a claim on her heart: Maj. Matt Gordon. A commitment had been made between them after Matt had been deployed for the war; numerous letters had been exchanged in which talk of marriage had commenced. The marriage talk continued as Beth went back to the east coast and floated on cloud nine. In the midst of an October wedding dream, Beth received a telegram from Matt's mother. Beth expected it to be regarding their wedding plans, but was caught off-guard when Matt's mother told her fate had taken a turn for the worse for the Army Major as he died in a plane crash on the way home.

Though a bit shaken, Beth had picked up her correspondence with Gordan Fickling and resumed where they had left off. A few days spent in Chicago where Gordan had a layover was all it took for Beth to revive her burning desire to get married. She and Gordan had kept in touch via love-letter-a-plenty until he convinced her to come out to Long Beach , California – his next duty station. Beth traveled from Florida to Long Beach only to have her relationship with Gordan crumble as a result of his disinterest in marriage, being more inclined to women who would give up their innocence to him before all of that.

In addition, Beth was none too happy about her living arrangements – Gordan had her living in the Atwater Hotel, miles from base, as some sort of locked-up concubine. To further distract her emotions, Beth began dating other servicemen, but she received a big shotgun blast of disappointment in the face as it only made her relationship with the lieutenant even worse when he had discovered this. Around this same time, The Blue Dahlia with Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd had been released in movie theaters; Beth's pitch black hair, black lacy clothing, and vamp-like persona contributed to the nickname servicemen dubbed her adoringly – The Black Dahlia.

Following the conclusion of her relationship with Lt. Fickling, the Dahlia drifted in and out of Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles area. Still hoping to get a break in movies, she hung around hot spots such as The Hollywood Canteen and Florentine Gardens , working very little to none at all. Most of the money she had, she procured from friends and seemed to only eat and drink when the meal was paid for by someone else. On occasion, she would room with other people but soon high-tailed it when she was late with rent payments or when it was due. Rumors of the Dahlia prostituting herself ran amuck, though in present speculation it is considered unlikely that she did being that she was not properly equipped for that sort of activity – had the Dahlia tried, she would have been sooner aware of her genital underdevelopment.

As paid rent was no guarantee or promise, hotels became a familiar thing for Beth, especially when rooms were offered by strangers. Robert “Red” Manley, a very handsome and very married man, was one of these strangers who eventually befriended Beth – the extent of their relationship unknown. Manley's last encounter with Beth was a day filled with lunch, dinner, dancing, and drinks. That night, Manley checked into a hotel where Beth, once again, rebuffed his advances, claiming illness and slept in a chair while Manley slept in the bed. The following morning, Manley had an appointment but came back to pick Beth up at the hotel around noon.

Beth said she was meeting her sister and asked Manley to drop her off at the Biltmore Hotel. Manley obliged and five days later, Beth Short's body was found severed in a vacant lot. Robert Manley and the Biltmore Hotel employees very well may have been the last people to have seen Beth alive. When detectives discovered that Manley was the last known acquaintance to have seen Beth, he was immediately apprehended and taken in for questioning. Though Manley had airtight alibis for his whereabouts, police had him run through two grueling polygraph tests, both of which were inconclusive. Manley was promptly released and was no longer looked at as a suspect.

The LAPD ran through a gauntlet of Confessing Sams when an Arnold Smith came forward. Smith, a man with a noticeable limp, was able to produce a tape recording of the man, Al Morrison, who claimed to have killed the Dahlia. Paying closer attention, it was slightly obvious that Smith and Morrison were one in the same person as Smith was able to provide details about the murder that the other Sams could not. Smith went on to explain the details of his encounter with the Dahlia and how he took her to Morrison's Hollywood hotel room when she had no other option. The Dahlia did not accept the alcohol Smith offered and expressed no interest in the tall, unattractive, and slightly handicapped man. Morrison returned to the hotel room, and according to Smith, he took the Dahlia to a house near San Pedro that allegedly belonged to an acquaintance of his. Smith then went into detail:

…and he went to her and grabbed her arm like this, and started to pull her back but she hauled off and let him have it with the purse. Just swung it out and caught him across the side of the face. He slugged her once and her knees got weak. He pulls her back into the room, and he leans her against the door while he locks the door with the key. She just stayed there as though she was unsure exactly what would follow. He said he then grabbed her and pushed her and she fell down... on the floor with her dress up on her body. He said he stood over her and said something about he was going to screw her ass. She started to yell so he bent down and slugged her again.

He said he put his hand on her neck and holds her head still while he hit her a couple of times. She didn't move. Now he didn't know what he was going to do, except he went out of the room, through the door he had locked and went downstairs. Then Morrison supposedly got a paring knife, a large butcher knife, and some clothesline and went back upstairs. She was frightened and tried to escape. He stuffed her underpants into her mouth and tied her up. By this time he had already beaten her up and cut her with the knife. She was naked, only he'd tied her hands and these were up over her head like this, and he stabbed her with a knife a lot, not enough that would kill you, but jabbing and sticking her a lot and then slitting around one tit, and then he'd cut her face across it… across the mouth. After that, she was dead.

It was then Morrison had carried Beth's body to the bathtub, cut her in half, drained her of blood, and dumped her off at the vacant lot. Some people report that Morrison had removed some of her vital organs, though LAPD declined to state. Police eventually learned that “Arnold Smith” was one of the many names Jack Anderson Wilson, also a tall and unattractive man with a limping leg, used. Coincidently, oil heiress and socialite, Georgette Bauerdorf had been raped, strangled, and found face-down in her bathtub – and Wilson had been a suspect in that unsolved case. In addition, Wilson had a rap sheet with the LAPD that consisted of nothing but robbery, sex offenses, and every alcohol-related crime imaginable.

As it turned out, Al Morrison did not exist, thereby forcing detectives to believe that Arnold Smith, or Jack Anderson Wilson, was the actual murderer. Wilson had been called back for questioning and a time and date was set for police to apprehend him. Much to the dismay of the LAPD, Wilson, in addition to a history of sex offenses, had a history of smoking and hotel fires. He was known to have burned down a few hotels during his time as a result of drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes in bed, then passing out, and getting away with it. A few days before he was to go in for questioning, Wilson got drunk in his hotel room, lit a cigarette, fell asleep, and burned to death in the hotel fire he caused, possibly burning any other shred of evidence he might have possessed in relation to the Dahlia murder.

Because the LAPD had a suspect, the case could not be closed due to his demise. Technically, it is considered an unsolved case, though circumstantial evidence points fingers at Jack Anderson Wilson. Today, there are people who still publish books about the Black Dahlia murder and their theories on who might've killed her and why. Most of the books written are blown a bit out of proportion, including Janice Knowlton's “Daddy was the Black Dahlia Killer,” where she makes the assertion that her father had an intense affair with the Dahlia though she provides no factual evidence to validate this. All of this and the only thing Elizabeth Short wanted to do was have a family and become famous. In life, hanging out at the Hollywood Canteen with movie producers to become famous and have your name in the newspaper wasn't enough. Janice Knowlton seems to agree – “all she had to do was die.”

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