Firstly, let's start with a picture of the Black Dahlia so as not to forget what she really looked like before the carnage in the 2nd picture. I figured we would just get to the meat of the problem of when she ran to a policeman terrified and asking for his help, telling him that someone was stalking her and would kill her if he caught her. All this a short week before her body was found.

Her name was Elizabeth Short, her killer called her the Black Dahlia. Elizabeth was 22 years old, 5'5" tall and weighed 120 pounds. She had jet black hair worn in a bouffant pompadour, blue eyes and a rose tattoo on her left thigh. She was uneventfully raised in Massachusetts and left for Hollywood at the tender age of 18 to chase her dream of becoming a big movie star. Elizabeth, like me, had a passion for black clothing and was last seen leaving her hotel clad in black sweater and slacks. Elizabeth's story remains the most appalling of Hollywood's murder cases.

As can be seen by the mug shot of Elizabeth above, she was no angel. Having arrived in Hollywood and only having minimal success at breaking into movies, she fell into the ever popular road to nowhere, prostitution, to eat and make ends meet. But on the night of January 10, 1947, the Black Dahlia walked away and became one of the most horrifying and unsolved murder cases in Hollywood history. No one knows exactly what happened, only that on the morning of January 15, 1947, the body of the Black Dahlia was discovered lying in the grass of an empty lot. The lady that discovered the body could not believe what she was seeing. It looked like a broken department store dummy. The pieces that were found were laid out for display, nude and neatly bisected at the waist. The Dahlia's breasts were slashed and covered with cigarette burns. Her mouth had been cut at the corners into a wide grin. Her head had been bashed in beyond recognition. The Black Dahlia's body showed evidence of other mutilations, the strangest of which was a deep triangle-shaped gouge in her left thigh. This was where the rose tattoo had been previously and the coroner found the tattoo secreted in another completely different part of the body. There were rope burns on her ankles and wrists and the authorities guessed that she had been subjected to a torture session that lasted probably for 3 days. The Black Dahlia was identified by her fingerprints. She had apparently worked at a PX at Camp Cooke, California during World War II.

There were some strange details of the Black Dahlia's murder also. Her hair, when she was found had been dyed red, shampooed and carefully set. Her remains had been completely drained of blood and freshly washed and then taken to her final resting place in the empty lot. The discovery of the body set about the largest crime hunt in the city's history. There were many false leads, and to make matters worse, since 1947 more than 50 men and an unsettling number of gay women have "confessed" to the vivisection. Why do people do this? Fame, yes ..... sick, absolutely!

Who could have Elizabeth met in her travels around Hollywood? Below is a note allegedly sent by her killer to the "Los Angeles Examiner" and "Other Los Angeles Papers" dispatching the Black Dahlia's belongings. What sort of monster could do this to someone and then worry about returning her "things" later. What monster, indeed!

As Kenneth Anger stated in Hollywood Babylon, where I did my research for this layout, "The Black Dahlia's story belongs to L.A.'s Shadowland, a twilight zone haunted by the mystery of her murder to this day."

Below you will find the links showing the pictures of what happened to Elizabeth Short. Please, please, look at your own risk! These are not pleasant and if you're sensitive to this sort of thing, well, go somewhere else ........ now!

Now did that scare you? I hope so! Love you to pieces (oh, eww), Janet

October 9, 2005 - I've done some reading on the Black Dahlia and the news gets worse and worse. It appears that Elizabeth Short was not a prostitute so I apologize for saying that but she, just like all of us red blooded American women, had an eye for men, especially men in uniform. And although I have more research to do, it seems that a certain LAPD policeman/private investigator thinks that he has solved the crime and he believes it was his FATHER! Wow. After his father died, he found what looks to be some pictures (nude and dressed) taken of Elizabeth Short in his father's personal/private belongings. His father was a surgeon and had a healthy respect for cruelty, bondage and the torture of women, which brings me to this update. It appears that the monster was quite skilled and performed a hysterectomy (removed Elizabeth's uterus) through a perfect incision in her lower abdomen. It is visible in the pictures as you can see. Further horrors were inflicted, for example, the killer cut off some of Elizabeth's pubic hairs and shoved them into her vagina along with the rose tattoo that was cut from her left leg as I mentioned above. And worse, the authorities found feces (that's shit to you) in her mouth. Now I don't know about you guys, but this smacks of a rage-filled sexual mutiliation hate crime to me. I think Elizabeth said no, simply no, to the monster's sexual advances and the slight drove him/her to this atrocity. It had to be some psycho-depraved shit, some highly skilled professional with a huge ego that did this to her. He wanted her, she said no. Oh well, and life goes on! See you in your dreams, Janet