04x24 - The Black Dahlia

[bunniefuu]

Tonight, a mysterious

and gruesome crime

that’s haunted the

public for decades.

The tragic story

of Elizabeth Short,

known as the Black Dahlia,

is a m*rder mystery

that just doesn’t go away.

The victim is a young beauty,

and like Jack the Ripper

or the Zodiac k*ller,

her m*rder*r has never been

caught or even identified.

The police are definitely

working off the idea

that this is a

personal vendetta.

How many bad men does it

take to k*ll one 22-year-old?

A young wannabe starlet

in Hollywood contrasted

with this very horrible death.

Now we explore the top theories

surrounding one of history’s

most notorious unsolved crimes.

You’ve got this very violent,

very vicious k*ller out

there and nobody knows

when he’s gonna strike again.

Back then, when you

had power, you had money,

you had prestige, you

could get away with m*rder.

Who k*lled the infamous

Black Dahlia and why?

For over seven decades,

the Los Angeles Police

Department has kept

the Black Dahlia

m*rder case open.

Each new detective assigned

to this legendary cold case

must first review the evidence.

Los Angeles, California,

January 15, 1947.

It’s an uncharacteristically

cool morning

in Leimert Park.

There’s a local

resident who’s walking

in the early morning hours

about 10:00 with a toddler,

and she sees something

that looks like a mannequin

in an open field.

Mannequin that appears

to be broken in half.

She thinks it’s a prank.

She calls the police.

Police come and it ends up

being anything but a mannequin.

What they’re really looking at

is the bisected corpse

of a young woman,

naked, scrubbed, cleaned,

and drained of all her blood.

This was a very brutal m*rder.

The body’d been

severed at the waist

and had likewise been mutilated.

One of her breasts

has been removed.

There is an incision or

a gash above her genitals

resembling a hysterectomy scar.

The body was left in a position

that is both shocking and

sexual at the same time.

This tattoo had been

cut away from her thigh,

a tattoo of a rose, and

inserted somewhere else

that I’m not sure if you

want me describing on camera.

There were signs of t*rture.

There were signs

she had been beaten

and maybe most importantly,

there was no blood at the

scene of this homicide.

Her face was severely beaten.

Her mouth has been

slashed from ear to ear

in a grisly smile.

The police initially believe

that she had been k*lled

sometime between 10 to

12 hours before her body

was most likely dumped

at that location.

The medical

examiner, upon autopsy,

determined that the individual

d*ed from a concussion,

hemorrhaging, and

trauma to the body.

Mercifully, she was already dead

when the k*ller carved

up the rest of her.

The way the body has been

cut in half is very specific.

The body has been cut

between the second and

third lumbar vertebrae.

It’s called a hemicorporectomy.

This is the exact point

where you would cut someone

without having to

go through bone.

Investigators believe the k*ller

has to be someone

with medical training

or at least

expertise in anatomy.

There were people that

the LAPD interviewed

that were doctors.

They actually investigated

300 medical students at USC

to find out if one

of them had done it.

The very next day, officers

run the victim’s prints,

and within a few hours,

they have a name.

She is

22-year-old Elizabeth Short

from the Boston suburb of

Medford, Massachusetts.

Her fingerprints were on file

with police and FBI databases

’cause she had applied

for a job at a California

m*llitary camp in 1943.

And she had also been

arrested for underage drinking

in Santa Barbara County.

The prior arrest for underage

drinking in Santa Barbara

does become relevant

here because

the arresting officer knew

that she had a rose

tattoo on her left leg,

and that was in the report.

Investigators begin looking into

Elizabeth Short’s

background for more clues.

She was raised by

a single mother

in a middle-class family.

At a very early age,

her father faked his

su1c1de and left the family.

She was a young

woman who left her home

to come find fame and fortune,

maybe, in Los Angeles.

A beautiful young woman

cut down in the prime

of her life by this, you

know, shadowy creature.

It’s kind of the archetype

of the kinda crime

that captures the American

public’s attention.

Police and

reporters try to get a lead

on Beth’s life, but

the more they dig in,

the more of a

mystery she becomes.

She’s a high school dropout

and she’s kinda bouncing

around from friend to friend,

you know, what the youngsters

call couch surfing now.

So she was really trying

to figure out what it is

that she wants to

do with herself.

When she came to LA,

Beth describes herself

as an aspiring actress.

However, there’s no evidence

that she ever auditioned

for any roles.

It’s in Long

Beach, California in mid-1946

that Short picks up the nickname

that will stick with her

after her death.

Elizabeth Short liked

hanging out at this diner,

and the customers there had

actually named her Black Dahlia

because she dyed her hair black.

She liked wearing

black clothing.

And a movie called "The Blue

Dahlia" had just come out.

And so they named

her the Black Dahlia.

A month before Beth’s m*rder,

she told friends that she

was going to the Bay Area

to visit her sister.

But in reality, she

went to San Diego.

And there, she sleeps

in a movie theater.

One of the women working

at the movie theater

lets Elizabeth Short live

with her and her family

for about a month.

But eventually,

they tire of her,

and that’s when she, you know,

starts up with Red Manley.

On the evening of January 9,

six days before her dead body

will be found in Leimert Park,

Beth is given a ride

back to Los Angeles

by a traveling salesman

named Red Manley.

He said she was very fidgety,

she couldn’t sit still.

She just seemed

very uncomfortable.

Red Manley tells police

that he dropped Beth off

at the Biltmore Hotel

in Downtown Los Angeles,

and then he heads home.

Officers checked out his alibi

and everything rang true.

And so the last time that

Beth was seen by anyone

was about 10:00 p.m.

at the Biltmore.

Doorman said he walked her

out and that was the last time

anyone had seen her.

Six days later, she’ll be dead.

And the biggest manhunt

in LA history kicks off.

One of the first witnesses

that investigators talked to

was her on-again,

off-again friend,

sometime housemate,

roommate, Ann Toth.

Toth is the one that

points investigators

in the direction of their first

real suspect, Mark Hansen.

Mark Hansen was the operator

of the Florentine Gardens

on Hollywood Boulevard.

It was a very

popular dance club.

He’s this Danish millionaire.

He has lots of very

powerful friends.

He’s very influential,

and he lives in this

house on Carlos Avenue.

This was kind of a haven

for dancers at his club,

for people who would

just come to the city

and wanted to be actresses,

just people chasing

the dream of Hollywood.

Ann Toth is

one of the women who lives

in the Carlos Avenue home.

She tells police that

Beth lived there too,

off and on between May

and November of 1946.

One of the reasons that

Toth directed officers

to Mark in the first

place is because she knew

that he was completed obsessed

and infatuated with Beth.

He would forbid her to

bring other men to the house,

which sounds like, you know,

the jealous boyfriend type.

Hansen was described as

fixated on Elizabeth Short.

He had this unrequited

sexual interest in her.

So she’s trying to find

a way to, you know,

kind of shoo him off sexually

without infuriating him,

so she comes up with this

fiction that she’s a virgin.

The fact that Beth rebuffed

Mark Hansen with stories

of, "I’m a virgin," probably

only fueled his desire

to want her all the more.

The stormy

relationship doesn’t end there.

To avoid any conflict with Mark,

it’s rumored that she was

having her gentlemen friends

drop her off about a

block away from his house.

Now, this just infuriates him,

so Mark doesn’t speak to

Beth now for several days.

Things allegedly come to a head

in early November 1946.

Ann Toth had told the

police that the final straw

in this relationship between

Mark Hansen and Elizabeth Short

is that Hansen had told

Elizabeth that it was only her,

it was all about her,

he was obsessed with

or fixated on her.

And then he brings

another woman home,

and she sees this and

suddenly is now aggravated.

And there is some kind of,

I don’t know if

they come to blows

or it’s just a verbal argument,

but something

happens between them

and that is kind of where

things completely fall apart

between Hansen and Short.

The morning after

this expl*si*n,

Hansen does evict

her from the property

where she’s been staying.

But Ann tells

police it isn’t the end

of Mark and Beth’s

tumultuous relationship.

The night before the m*rder,

Ann said that

Elizabeth had called

and that Mr. Hansen had been

acting nervous and restless.

She also said that Elizabeth

was going to come over,

but she didn’t show up.

So the last night that

anybody sees Elizabeth Short,

she does make a phone

call to Mark Hansen.

And he tells her,

"Everything’s fine.

You still have a place to stay."

But according to Mark,

Beth never came back.

Police question

the well connected

nightclub owner,

but he downplays his

relationship with Elizabeth.

He says he was never

interested in Beth,

he never tried to

have sex with her.

He found Beth to be

fair looking, average.

Hansen does himself no

favors with the police.

He tells easily

disprovable lies.

He says he didn’t speak to

her after he evicted her.

According to Ann,

Mark Hansen told her

Beth could come and stay there

if she needed a place to stay.

But when questioned

by investigators,

Mark Hansen said

he turned Beth away

and never saw her again.

On January 21,

six days after Beth

Short’s body is discovered,

an envelope containing the

contents of her purse arrives

at the "Los Angeles

Herald Examiner."

Among the materials submitted

were Elizabeth Short’s

Social Security card,

an address book that bore

the name of Mark Hansen

on its cover.

At first blush, it looks

like somebody’s trying

to set this guy up.

Because you just don’t send

incriminating materials

to the police.

If you wanna do that,

you might as well go

to the front desk

and turn yourself in.

It’s quite believable

and reasonable

to suspect Mark Hansen as

the perpetrator of this crime

because we know that he was

obsessed with Elizabeth.

But Mark Hansen has an alibi

and witnesses to back him up.

He said that when

the m*rder occurred,

he was at a movie theater

opening in Long Beach.

And he also had a

business associate testify

that he was at his home in

Redondo Beach until 3:00 a.m.

This would not give

him enough time

to k*ll Elizabeth and

then dispose of the body

in the way it had been

and be able to get away.

Hansen’s alibi

knocks him down

the suspect list.

Police never search his

properties or vehicles

for blood or evidence,

and the case moves on.

You’ve got this very violent,

very vicious k*ller out there

and nobody knows who he is.

Nobody knows when he’s

gonna strike again.

It’s January of 1947

and Los Angeles is in the

grips of a tabloid frenzy.

Everyone wants to know who

k*lled the Black Dahlia.

Media were all over this case.

At that time, there

were four major dailies

in the city of Los

Angeles competing.

This is the ’40s, so

you’re pre-internet,

you’re pre-Twitter, but

you are also at a time

when the papers are putting

out two editions each day.

They’re putting out

mornings and evenings,

trying to just

edge each other out

and get, you know, at least

one exclusive per day,

twice per day.

This story had everything

that you would relate

to a film noir.

You’ve got the seedy

underbelly of Hollywood.

You’ve got the gruesomeness

of the k*lling,

and then the great

unknown is who did it.

The Black Dahlia case

even becomes headline

news around the country.

Everyone was watching.

Everyone was reading papers.

This was a hot story.

And the cops were pressured

to find out who done it.

You had, at one

point, 150 suspects

that investigators were

looking at, wanting to talk to,

had talked to.

You had people who were

calling in with tips.

And you even had people

who were confessing.

There were certain things

that would only be known

to the k*ller.

One of the details that

police kept from the media

was the fact that Elizabeth

Short had a tattoo on her leg.

It was a rose.

Having information

that others don’t have

is one way of helping

eliminate folks

from like being a

potential suspect.

So, after the initial

excitement of this young woman

found in a field and the

several editions a day

of newspaper and

all this coverage,

a month passes and the

cops are still at a loss

of who k*lled Elizabeth Short.

As their

investigation continues,

the LA Police make a connection

to similar grisly murders

that occurred a decade earlier

and over 2,000 miles away.

Cleveland, iron and steel center

of the Middle West.

The nature and manner of

death of Elizabeth Short

tends to lend itself

to a belief that

there might be other murders

that are related to this.

A dismemberment m*rder,

a brutal, probably

sexual m*rder of a woman.

Cleveland, Ohio investigators

are beginning to wonder

if the Black Dahlia k*ller is

someone they’ve hunted before.

Investigators in

Cleveland are looking

at all that’s happening

around this young woman found

in a field, and

they are wondering,

"Is their k*ller the

same as our k*ller?"

About a decade before in 1930,

Cleveland also had

a k*ller who seemed

to delight in k*lling folks

and dissecting the bodies.

It all starts

in September of 1934,

when a beachcomber on

the shores of Lake Erie

makes a gruesome discovery.

They discover a

female who’s headless

with her legs

amputated at the knees,

partially covered in sand.

This body was essentially

a torso with the upper legs

still intact, but the rest

of the body was missing.

Investigators eventually find

her legs but not the head,

and this woman becomes known

as the Lady of the Lake.

Exactly one year later,

two teenagers discover

the decapitated corpse

of a white male in a vacant lot.

The body was found decapitated

with his genitals removed.

While searching the crime scene,

police find the

body of another man,

40 years old, who had also

been decapitated and castrated.

Every few months,

more butchered bodies turn up.

The Cleveland k*ller seems

to target men and women

who are down on their luck,

folks who maybe a

perpetrator might think

they won’t be missed and

were probably vulnerable

in the moment.

So we can already

see specific parallels

between the Cleveland

Torso k*ller

and the Black Dahlia case.

We see bodies that are

turning up dismembered

and d*sfigured in a way that

involves a certain amount

of anatomical and/or

medical skill and knowledge.

Like the Black Dahlia’s k*ller,

who sent taunting

letters to the newspaper,

Cleveland’s mad butcher seems

to enjoy goading

the authorities.

A very significant parallel

between the two cases

is the fact that the K*llers

communicated with police

after the murders were done.

In the case of the

Cleveland Torso k*ller,

that k*ller was taunting

the investigator

who at that time was Eliot Ness.

Eliot Ness was the investigator

who took down Al

Capone in Chicago.

The Cleveland

Torso k*ller is believed

to be responsible for

the murders of seven men

and five women.

In 1938, Cleveland’s

racked up about 12 bodies now

as a result of

this Torso k*ller,

and then it just stops.

And so the question is,

why? What happened?

The belief was is

that Eliot Ness,

during his investigation

of the Torso k*ller,

had honed in on a guy who

was only known as Dr. X.

This person has

received medical training,

and Eliot Ness coaxes this

person, who he calls Dr. X,

to talk with him.

This Dr. X receives two

polygraph tests and fails both.

There was never enough

evidence to charge him,

but Eliot Ness manages to coax

him into an insane asylum,

and the torso murders stop.

But some believe

the suspect known as Dr. X

wasn’t actually the Torso k*ller

and that the only reason

the murders stopped

is because the real k*ller moved

to a new hunting ground.

Perhaps the k*ller actually

left the area because

a letter had been received

by the police department.

In this letter,

he’s kind of cheeky,

and he says, "You can relax

now. I’ve left the area.

I’ve gone to sunny California,

and I’ll be engaging in my

surgical endeavors there."

The suspect also

says that he’s buried

his most recent

victim in Los Angeles

between Crenshaw

and Western Avenue,

which is really only about

five miles from Leimert Park.

Did Cleveland’s mad butcher

set his sights on

Elizabeth Short?

The Cleveland Torso k*ller

and the k*ller of Elizabeth

Short, the Black Dahlia,

had some type of

anatomical training.

They knew where to cut,

where to avoid bone.

There are also a

number of differences

between the two cases.

We see with the

Cleveland torso killings,

there are decapitations.

Elizabeth Short was

not decapitated.

The Cleveland Torso killings,

the bodies weren’t

necessarily posed.

Also, the Cleveland Torso

killings involved men,

which is different victimology

than the Elizabeth Short case.

The Cleveland Torso

k*ller’s mutilations

might have been more

defensively motivated,

designed to keep him

from being caught.

Versus the Elizabeth Short case,

which may have been

more in the service

of sexual gratification.

There was no hard

proof that the k*ller

of Elizabeth Short was the

Cleveland Torso k*ller.

The MOs feel totally

different to me.

Most old unsolved

murders slip into obscurity.

Not so with the Black Dahlia.

As the decades go by and

the leads grow colder,

the search for answers only

seems to be heating up.

In 1997 on the 50th

anniversary of the m*rder,

the "Los Angeles Times" hires

renowned criminal profiler

John Douglas to take his

own look at the case.

Douglas believes that the

k*ller of the Black Dahlia

was a male,

someone who’s familiar with

surgical equipment.

He believes that the

k*ller was motivated

by personal stress, alcoholism,

and romantic rejection.

One of

Douglas’s biggest questions

is, why Leimert Park?

The fact that the

k*ller dumps the body

in a residential area

right in the middle of LA

was notable to John Douglas.

Because there’s so many other

places in Southern California

to dump a body if you

don’t want it to be found.

John Douglas feels

that the perpetrator

would have a connection

to this neighborhood

and to this spot.

Well, who would possibly

have a connection

to this neighborhood

that could have the means

and the opportunity

to commit this m*rder?

Following up on that theory,

an "LA Times" reporter

finds a suspect

that has flown under the

radar for half a century.

His name is Dr. Walter Bayley.

Walter Bayley is born in 1880,

he’s a World w*r I veteran.

He is a surgeon

at the University of

Southern California,

and maybe most importantly,

he has an office not

far from the Biltmore,

you know, where Elizabeth

Short was last seen.

Dr. Bayley had a young son

who was riding his bicycle

and was k*lled by a driver,

and it was a very traumatic

incident in his life.

It’s been said

that at this point,

he sort of threw

himself into his career.

He had a private practice

where he specialized

in mastectomies

and hysterectomies.

Given the injuries she suffered,

given the specific areas of

her body that were mutilated,

there’s a line of thinking

that Bayley would’ve known

exactly how to cut, move,

otherwise dismember those parts

of a human being.

Dr. Bayley and

his wife lived in Leimert Park

in a house just a block away

from where Elizabeth Short

will be found m*rder*d.

But in the months

before the m*rder,

Dr. Bayley’s marriage and

his life were coming apart.

He has become

estranged from his wife

about four months before

Elizabeth Short is k*lled,

and kind of shacks up with

this younger physician.

He had a successful

medical practice,

and then he sort of broke

bad in a certain way.

His personality

changed dramatically.

He left his wife.

He took up with

this younger woman.

He would have these

bizarre kind of habits

like watching surgery films

at night while he ate dinner

with this younger woman.

And that sorta fit the

profile of somebody

who might commit this m*rder.

One researcher investigating

the Black Dahlia case found

evidence of a connection

between Dr. Bayley

and Elizabeth Short.

And he obtained

Elizabeth Short’s

older sister’s

marriage certificate.

And on the marriage certificate,

one of the witnesses was

Dr. Bayley’s daughter.

And the address that Dr.

Bayley’s daughter listed

was only one block

from the crime scene.

And that’s where Walter

Bayley’s ex-wife lived.

So there’s now a connection

between Elizabeth

Short and Walter Bayley

and the residence

and the crime scene.

Adding to the

case against Dr. Bayley

is his own medical condition.

Dr. Bayley had a very

specific brain condition

known as encephalomalacia.

The neurobiologists said

that this kind of dementia,

this could lead to a dramatic

change of personality

later in life.

It could lead to a

certain kind of v*olence

and hypersexuality that

might be consistent

with somebody who would

commit this kind of crime.

Some theorists

contend that Bayley,

elderly and weakened

by his disease,

severed the body to make

it easier to transport

and purposely dumped

it just 1/2 a block

from the house in which

his ex-wife still lived.

If he’s the suspect

and he left this body

within proximity to his wife,

it would have been maybe

to perhaps unsettle her

and make her feel

that, you know,

this place that, you know,

she calls home and feels safe

is no longer safe

based on the fact

that a nude woman

cut in half was found

a block or two away.

Dr. Bayley

dies on January 4, 1948,

not even one year after

the Black Dahlia m*rder.

But his death doesn’t

stop speculation

that he’s the k*ller.

Bayley wasn’t a

suspect at the time,

but to a number of LAPD

homicide detectives,

of all the theories that

had been going around

for many, many decades,

they felt his was

the most plausible.

There is this thought

process that basically this man

is going mad not far

from the Biltmore

with the means,

mode, and opportunity

to commit a crime like this,

and then Elizabeth short

wanders into his path.

Walter Bayley’s death

is critical here

because if this was to

become a pattern of behavior,

he didn’t live long enough

to find another victim.

Walter Bayley

isn’t the only person

who raises suspicions long

after Elizabeth Short’s m*rder.

In 2006, Don Wolfe

publishes a book

in which he advances the theory,

what if somebody with

a hair-trigger temper,

some infamous violent mobster

k*lled Elizabeth Short?

And not only that he k*lled her,

but he did it at the behest of

a famous and powerful person.

Bugsy Siegel is

infamous mafia figure,

one of the people associated

with the foundation

of m*rder, Inc. in New York,

which is not a

reputation you develop

unless you have hurt people.

Siegel moves to

California in the mid-1930s

to set up a West

Coast criminal empire.

Despite his track record

as a merciless hitman,

he soon finds himself

hobnobbing with celebrities.

One of the power

players that Bugsy Siegel

is known to associate

with is Norman Chandler,

who is at the time the publisher

of the "Los Angeles Times."

Chandler is the civic leader

in the second largest city

in the U.S.

The rumor is that

Norman Chandler

got Elizabeth Short pregnant

and that could not be.

I don’t know if either

she refused an abortion

or he never asked, but to cover

up the affair and the baby,

Chandler reaches

out to Bugsy Siegel.

And so Bugsy Siegel

gets two of his henchmen

to take care of the problem,

and the problem is, of

course, Elizabeth Short.

But most investigators point

to one flaw in this theory:

her autopsy report states

that Beth wasn’t pregnant.

Elizabeth’s autopsy did not

show that she was pregnant,

that this detail

would’ve been changed

by a medical examiner, somebody

that Siegel could reach,

or somebody that

Chandler could reach.

There is other

circumstantial evidence

supporting the Black

Dahlia m*rder as a mob hit.

Norman Chandler had a condo

right near the Biltmore Hotel.

So maybe, on January 9,

when Red Manley drops

Elizabeth Short off

at the Biltmore Hotel,

maybe she’s going to

see Norman Chandler

at his condo nearby.

Maybe she was

walking into a trap.

Siegel’s

movement around the time

of the Black Dahlia k*lling

raises even more questions.

It’s believed that Bugsy

Siegel was in Los Angeles

during the time that

Elizabeth Short was k*lled.

But on the day her body

is found in Leimert Park,

Bugsy Siegel leaves town

and he goes to Palm Springs.

The LAPD has kept its

most famous cold case open

since 1947, and the

detective assigned

to the Black Dahlia

m*rder must evaluate

all the new leads and theories

that continue to come in,

like the one that comes from

a former homicide detective

who believes he’s tracked

the elusive k*ller

right to his own front door.

Steve Hodel is a 24-year

veteran of the LAPD,

but he never investigated

the Black Dahlia case himself

until the death of

his beloved father,

Dr. George Hodel, in 1999.

When his father passed away,

you know, he started

going through

all of his father’s

things and he came across

this little black book

and saw a picture that

looked like Elizabeth Short.

During some family conversation

with his older step-sister as

he’s looking at these photos,

the older sister tells

Steve that, at some point,

their dad had been identified

as a potential suspect

in the Black Dahlia m*rder.

In the very beginning,

Steve Hodel set out to

prove that his father

had no involvement in

Elizabeth Short’s m*rder.

But over time,

Steve Hodel’s investigation

would lead him

to a horrifying conclusion

and cast his father in

a very different light.

George Hodel was very

wealthy, very charismatic.

He was actually a

genius, if you will.

He’s in college at

Caltech when he was 16,

and he falls in love

with his professor.

He had an affair with

one of his teachers

and got her pregnant,

and she didn’t want

anything to do with him,

because obviously, you

know, she’s a teacher

and he’s 16 years old.

But it just kinda

goes to show like,

that personality that

he had, you know,

because as he got

older, you know,

he married several times.

He’ll go on to have 11 children

by five different women.

He grows up in

the Los Angeles area

and eventually becomes

a medical doctor

and even the head of the

LA Department of Health,

where he treated STDs

and performed abortions

for the rich and

famous and elite

around the Los Angeles area.

He had every political,

every police in his pocket.

You could say he

was taken care of.

By the 1940s,

Hodel is swinging amongst

an elite LA crowd,

including surrealist

photographer Man Ray

and movie director John Huston.

Then in 1945, he’s accused

by his daughter Tamar

of sexual abuse.

During the trial, Tamar

accuses Hodel of murdering

the Black Dahlia.

Despite the fact that

there are eyewitnesses

to the incest events,

he is acquitted,

but Los Angeles Police

then monitor his home,

planting microphones

in the house

to see if they can get evidence

related to the

Black Dahlia m*rder.

Investigators spend

the next 40 days and nights

monitoring and

recording conversations

inside the Hodel home.

At some point,

he is heard saying,

"Well, even if I did do

the Black Dahlia m*rder,

they would never catch me."

The deeper Steve digs

into the Black Dahlia evidence,

the more convinced he

becomes that his dad

is the monster who tortured

and mutilated Elizabeth Short.

Witnesses at the time

report seeing Elizabeth Short

in the presence and

company of Dr. Hodel

and that she may have

been a patient of his

or perhaps even

a dating partner.

Another clue for Steve Hodel

is the concrete bag found at

the Black Dahlia crime scene.

One of the other

reasons that Steve thought

maybe his dad has been involved

is that this concrete

bag that was found

at the scene where Elizabeth

Short’s body had been dumped,

Steve said he found a

very similar concrete bag

at his dad’s home because

there was some construction

being done there.

Steve Hodel found the receipts

and he matched the

receipts to the cement bags

that were found at

the crime scene.

Studying the crime scene photos,

Steve also believes he’s

established a motive.

There’s literally

some of Man Ray’s work

that almost exactly resembles

the way her body was laid out.

And some believe that,

if this was George Hodel

who perpetrated this m*rder,

that he was trying to imitate

or perhaps even supersede

the work of Man Ray due

to his close relationship

and perhaps jealousy of Man Ray.

In 1950, just

when it seems the case

against George

Hodel is heating up,

the doctor abruptly

moves to the Philippines,

which at the time has no

extradition treaty with the U.S.

He goes there and he

creates a whole new family.

And he came back many years

later, lived in San Francisco,

and then he passed.

Steve went on to

write several books

and still believes to

this day that his father

actually k*lled Elizabeth Short.

In 2017,

the 70-year anniversary of

Elizabeth Short’s m*rder,

a fresh look at the

unredacted records

breathes new life

into an investigation

that has never

officially been closed.

The fact of the matter is,

LAPD still has a very

talented detective assigned

to this investigation

with the hopes

that a solution still remains.

Some believe that solution

may involve a man

who made headlines

in the months after the m*rder.

This is someone who

investigators had looked at

from the very start.

It’s the fall of 1948,

and LAPD’s chief

police psychiatrist,

Dr. Joseph Paul De River,

is still determined

to find the Black

Dahlia’s k*ller.

The LAPD, years

on from the m*rder,

starts to get a

little desperate.

They’re trying to bait out

the k*ller any way they can.

So Dr. De River is interviewed

for a true crime magazine

where he basically makes

some flattering statements

about who the Black

Dahlia k*ller may be,

talking about the

intelligence of the individual

who did this and perhaps

the person’s need

to brag or boast about it.

Within days,

the letter that De River

has been waiting for arrives

at police headquarters.

A man named Jack Sands

contacted De River saying

that he had information about

the Elizabeth Short m*rder.

And the main thing that

is posited in this letter

is that someone

named Jeff Connors

has committed the homicide.

Sands proposes that the

m*rder*r, Jeff Connors,

could’ve been Elizabeth

Short’s ex-lover

and perhaps she mocked him

by insulting his manhood,

therefore, the m*rder would’ve

been motivated by revenge.

Jack Sands proposes this

as the hypothetical motive

of Jeff Connors, but

Dr. De River says,

"Oh no, Sands

himself is the guy."

By now, police

psychiatrist Dr. De River

is convinced he’s writing

to the actual k*ller

and that Jack Sands

is not his real name.

So to track down

this Jack Sands,

the LAPD dispatches

an officer to Florida

to monitor his mailbox.

And they soon discover

that this Jack Sands

is actually a man

named Leslie Dillon.

Dillon is a married man who

bounced between residences

and also between jobs.

He’d once worked as a

mortician’s assistant,

which intrigues

police given the way

that Elizabeth Short’s

body was cut up.

De River has

an undercover LAPD officer

bring Dillon to a bugged

hotel in El Monte, California,

so De River can talk to

him about the m*rder.

They spend three days in

a hotel room that’s bugged

to have a conversation about

the details of this k*lling.

Dillon tells the police

that he believes Connor

had a motive to k*ll

Elizabeth Short.

Playing on a hunch,

Dr. De River asks Dillon

to take off his clothes,

and he’s shocked.

Dillon has the

genitals of a child.

This is important because

it might’ve been the reason

that Elizabeth Short may

have been mocking him

and thus, his reason

for feeling humiliated

and wanting to

retaliate and k*ll her.

De River is seeking to

establish the credibility

of Leslie Dillon,

so he tests him.

He inquires about the damage

to Elizabeth Short’s body.

One of the things that we

know that police held back

was the fact that the suspect

had actually cut a portion

of Elizabeth Short’s leg,

which contained a

tattoo of a rose.

When asked about the rose

tattoo and its location

on Elizabeth Short’s body,

without hesitation,

Leslie Dillon states

that it was removed

from her left thigh

and placed in her pelvis.

This was something only the

k*ller and the police knew,

and he just answered the

question affirmatively.

After four days of questioning,

Dr. De River is convinced

he’s finally solved

the Black Dahlia m*rder.

They go back to Los Angeles,

and Dillon is

ultimately arrested,

but just when it seems

like the case is a lock,

LAPD makes a stunning

announcement.

On January 10, 1949,

Leslie Dillon is

booked on suspicion

of k*lling Elizabeth Short.

Upon inspection of

Leslie’s Dillon’s suitcase,

investigators find 700

phenobarbital pills,

along with 70 razorblades,

and a dog leash.

The dog leash itself

had been damaged or worn,

perhaps as if it had been

bearing a significant weight,

as in the weight of the

body of Elizabeth Short.

Strengthening

the case against Dillon,

it’s discovered that a

relative who gave him

a place to stay at the

time of the Dahlia m*rder

lived just two blocks

from where Beth’s purse

and shoes were dumped.

They found her

handbag and her shoes,

just maybe two miles

from where she was left.

Leslie Dillon has suggested

a man named Jeff Connors is

the Black Dahlia m*rder*r

and that he lives in the

San Francisco Bay Area,

but the cops

believe Jeff Connors

is merely Dillon’s alter ego.

And as things turn out,

there is a real Jeff

Connors and he really is

in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Interestingly

enough, police learn

that Jeff Connors, in addition

to knowing Leslie Dillon,

he also knows Mark Hansen,

one of our suspects

from a previous theory,

as well as Elizabeth Short.

And that all of these

paths might’ve crossed

at some time previously.

Investigators

suspect that those paths

might’ve crossed when a jealous

and spurned Mark Hansen may

have enlisted their help

in k*lling Beth Short.

But when Jeff Connors’

ex-wife gives him an alibi

for the presumed

time of the m*rder,

he’s allowed to walk free.

Mark Hansen was very powerful,

and he had a lot of money and

he had a lot of connections.

What if he used all of that

to make this case disappear?

Leslie Dillon had plenty reason

to want to get rid

of Elizabeth Short.

There’s a theory that

she mocked his manhood

or lack thereof.

Leslie Dillon may

have the motivation

with humiliation and revenge.

Mark Hansen may have the

means and the ability

to get Elizabeth Short to him

and also the means to get it

all cleaned up afterwards.

All these years later,

newly uncovered witness

statements may finally explain

how that happened.

In 2018, the son of one of

the Florentine Garden showgirls

reaches out to

investigators and says

that his mom, Nanette,

had said to him

that she knew exactly who

had k*lled the Black Dahlia.

Nanette also,

according to her son,

said to him that she had

seen someone who resembled

Elizabeth Short in

Mark Hansen’s home

behind the Florentine Gardens,

known as the Carlos

Avenue house.

According to Nanette’s son,

she asked Hansen

who the girl was,

and he said it was

Elizabeth Short.

So a week after the

Black Dahlia m*rder,

when the story was

all over the news,

Mark Hansen apparently

called Nanette and said

she shouldn’t mention

this to anyone

or her career would be over.

But Beth was out

of Hansen’s Carlos

Avenue house by the 10th,

so where did she go after that?

According to unredacted

district attorney’s

office documents,

Mark Hansen, Leslie

Dillon, and Elizabeth Short

were all seen at the

Aster Motel together.

Theory has it that Leslie Dillon

and her old friend Mark

Hansen kidnapped her

and tortured her in one of

the rooms at the Aster Hotel.

Witnesses saw Mark

Hansen leave room three

at the Aster Hotel

in Los Angeles.

The hotel owner’s wife

walked into room three

after everyone had left it,

and she found blood

and gore everywhere.

These witness

accounts, buried for decades,

point to the possibility

that the Aster Motel was where

Elizabeth Short was tortured,

m*rder*d, and mutilated.

However, by the time the LAPD

examined the Aster Motel,

there is no evidence

of a bloody m*rder.

And though the Aster Motel is

ruled out as a crime scene,

the detectives

assigned to investigate

are quickly removed.

The two detectives who

were working this case,

who were working the

Aster Hotel scene,

are suddenly excused.

Why would they be

kicked off this case?

Is it because of

Mark Hansen’s pull?

Is it possible

that multimillionaire

Mark Hansen had the clout

to bury evidence and

squelch an investigation

into his possible guilt?

It’s yet another

unanswered question

in LA’s most compelling

m*rder mystery.

The Elizabeth Short mystery

carries on to this day

because nobody’s been caught.

Given the nature of the crime,

we want an answer.

We wanna know why.

We wanna know who.

And until we do, I think there

will always be an interest.

The Black Dahlia m*rder has

a long, unsavory suspect list,

but without solid evidence,

there’s still no way to

rule anyone in or out.

The file remains open.

A detective is

still on the case.

Maybe one day a newfound

clue will finally lead

to the identity of

Elizabeth Short’s k*ller

and justice at last

for the Black Dahlia.

I’m Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History’s Greatest Mysteries."