I Don’t Care How The Black Dahlia Died

I’m way more interested in how Elizabeth Short lived

It’s the shocking story of a woman killed and mutilated, her body cut in two and left for all the world to see.

Discovered 74 years ago by a housewife walking with her daughter, the cold and lifeless severed body of Elizabeth Short was dumped in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The woman who found her initially thought she was looking at pieces of a department store mannequin. The body was bisected with surgical precision, drained of blood and disemboweled.

The victim had multiple cuts, bruises, contusions showing signs of torture. And her face was cut open from the corners of her mouth, in what is known as a Glasgow Smile.

“A Glasgow smile is a wound caused by making a cut from the corners of a victim’s mouth up to the ears, leaving a scar in the shape of a smile.” (Wikipedia) Both The Joker (“Batman”) and Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs” are literary examples of the Glasgow Smile — Illustration created by the author using Canva.

The January 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short is a shocking unsolved crime, a defining case for the LAPD, and a haunted mystery that the public remains obsessed with more than seven decades later. There are also multiple theories about who killed the woman known as the Black Dahlia. Was it a sex fiend with butchering skills? The famed doctor who knew Hollywood’s sexual secrets? A thief and conman with mortuary experience? A disgruntled ex-lover? A surgeon suffering from dementia?

At Medium alone, there are several articles theorizing about who might have killed Elizabeth Short. Here are two: