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Black Dahlia E Short — Part 1

162 pages · May 08, 2026 · Broad topic: Famous Crimes & Fugitives · Topic: Black Dahlia E Short · 162 pages OCR'd
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{Additional story on Page 3) A definite suspect has been established in the brutal mur~ der of 22-year-old Hilizabeth: Short, whose mutilated body cant lot in southwestern Los Angeles Wednesday morning. Identification of the girl waa - ‘made last night. by polies frour copies of her fingerprints on file with the FRI in Washington. ingr ite? +e ena emanutneeertenthtienratnttretintteetaertnteystentnsreeenstne Elizabeth was a Massachusetts - gixl who recently lived at a. hotel t 1611 N, Orange Dr., in Holly~° wood, ; i In 1943 she was a civilian o ploye at a post exchange at Cam Coke, near Lompoc, and mar frecently worked at the naval hog, pital in San Diego. . Investigators, who said they —_ were withholding the name of the © suspect for the present, declared - that he might he the man of whom Elizabeth told friends sha was “deadly afraid.” That Hlizabeth lived ii fear of & suitor was substantiated in San « Diego by Mrs. Vera French and her daughter, Dorothy. : The Frenchs, who live at 275¢ ‘Camino Tadare, Pacifie Beach, said , Hlizabeth lived with them. . trom Iast Dec. 12 until Jan, 8, - when she hurriedly left for Holly~ wood, i Mrs. French told officers that Elizabeth, whoni she had met in. San Diego, was very popular with : men and had many dates. The girl, she said, often spoke, how- : ever, about a boy friend from . whom she was always tiding be« ause of an tmexplained fear, . _ Harold Frank Costa, 31, abd” onald Leyes, 22, who lived $n. the samé Hollywood hotel Jabt . ctober as Elizabeth, described « er ag being a very abtractive girl ho liked to see and be seen in Hollywood nightspots, : “approached her at the Sixth was found dumped in a va~.. i "sqid Miss Unkefer, “with beautgul Seed Y “Two other persons who reported - to police they knew Hlizabeth hen she lived in Hollywood wdte arvin Margolis, 27, and ‘Willi (Robinson, 25. °° + ° . The two men said. they had oft« m been in places Hlizabeth fré« quented, The last time they saw ‘her, they said, was the latter part | of November. - . On the night before the body wag found, a Los Angeles police- woman said, a girl answering the description of the pretty, dark- haired victim asked for protection « | against a man who “had threat-" rened-to kill me.” ' The policewoman, Myrtle Mee - Bride, told homicide investigatora .~ igte last night that the girl} ae. (1 “gts, bus terminal, sobb g! with terrox. i The policewoman Said the girl, told her she had just run into a _ former boyfriend, whe once had” threatened to “kill her if he ever, found her with another man.” She had left him that day. 3 Mrs. McBride, who at first be- Heved the girl who appealed for aid was Elizabeth, was not as cer- tain after viewing photos of the slain gixl. . . Mrs. Phoebe M. Short of Med- ford, Mass., mother of the slain girl, said dast night she had re-. ceived a letter from her daughter ; from San Diego about two weeks ago. aks far as I know she vas | working in a naval hospital there,” | said Mrs, Short. i “T just can’t believe my daugh- | : “ter is dead.” i, Identification was made from i fingerprints which the FBI had/ on record from Sept. 1943, when | the girl was arrested In Sante } , Barbara. - ; | She had been @ clerk at the Camp Cooke post exchange near Santa Barbara and was picked up [ ‘for drinking with soldiers in ar cafe there. Policewoman "Mary Unkefer of the Sante, Barbara police depart- ment took the girl te her own| home to live with her for nine days. : | |*She was very good looki ” 7 dgrk hair and fair skin. §he essed nicely and was a long way } _ from being a barfly.” i - , Miss Unketssessid the gict Rad ‘a rose tattcoed on her left ieg. | I “She Joved to sit so that it would | Ishow,” the policewoman recalled. I The killer gouged the identifying mark from the body. j + “We put her on the train for - ‘her home, and several times Jater ‘she wrote fo me from there,” Miss Unkefer recalled. One a* her let-- ters said: “[]L never forget you—thank God you picked me up when you aig? t | PBI records described the girh.as , & 45 foot 6, 121 pounds, brown _grken eyés, medium build and with imnoles on the back of her neck. ~ “Phe description tallies almost exactly with that given by the coroner’s office here of the body -]found Wednesday morning on Noxton Ave. between 39th St. and : Coliseum St. . v Vesterday an autopsy showed the gbhl had been. tortured with sharp metal weapons before she died, then trussed up and putchered. , Dr. Frederick DB. Newbarr, chief autopsy surgeon, listed the cause of death as hemorrhage from face: ‘and head wounds after examining ’ ithe body of the victim for three “Hours. He ruled out the possibility that _ ‘the pretty young girl had been strangied, Rope burns shout the wrists} .and ankles indicated, however, that the girl had probably been [ stpung up for torture and post t myprtem mutilation, the surgé jther grotesque findings of tife ‘autopsy gave evidence of tKe | fiendish mind of the slayer toward whose identity and capture the full force of the Los Angeles hom- icide squdd was turned. : To spur sapprehension of the criminal, city officials moved to}. post a $10,000 reward. Council-! “man Lloyd G, Davies said he: . would propose the reward beforé |: the City Council today, : Automobiles gave detectives their only early clues to the killer. Gne car which detectives be- lieved might have been used by ‘the slayer was a 1940 green Hua- ‘son convertible which was found abandoned on a gas station lot at 951 Manchester Ave. .. The car had bloodstains on one door, and inside were copies of three newspapers with detailed accounts of the slaying. The registered owner of the v§- ‘hiple told police the car was stolqn m him, but he had failed jo Ake a report. @ was called to headquartezs for further questioning. * . ,
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