This letter, however, was not the only one sent to press. Gasoline was rubbed on the contents, possibly to remove fingerprints from the sender. The envelope contained Elizabeth Short's Social Security card, birth certificate, snapshots, and an old address book.
Letter to follow," in cut-out letters from movie advertisements. Nine days after the discovery, an envelope addressed to the Los Angeles Examiner read "Here is Dahlia's belongings. However, some state that after Manley left the Biltmore Hotel, Elizabeth headed to the Crown Grill Bar, now known as Club Galaxy, which were her last known whereabouts.Īlthough there are many different rumors as to why she was nicknamed "The Black Dahlia" by the press, the FBI's official website lists her "penchant for sheer black clothing" and the movie The Blue Dahlia, which was out at the time, to be the reason. Manley had driven her to Los Angeles and helped her check into the Biltmore Hotel. Because there was no blood on the ground, police theorized that the body had been moved there after she was murdered.īefore arriving in Los Angeles, Elizabeth had spent time with a man named Robert Manley in San Diego.
Most famously, her mouth was cut from each side to her ears in a smile. It was cut with surgical precision with no trauma to internal organs or bones. On January 15, 1947, the body of twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered by Betty Bersinger on the block of 3800 S Norton Avenue in Los Angeles, California while on a morning stroll.Įlizabeth's body was cut in half and had been drained of blood, making it so pale that Bersinger originally thought it was a mannequin. This episode was one of the only episodes where Brent Bennett co-hosted.