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Elizabeth Short Biography
Murder Victim
Aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, now nicknamed the "Black Dahlia," was the victim in a notorious 1947 murder case. (The name was a play on the 1946 movie The Blue Dahlia, written by Raymond Chandler.) On 15 January 1947, Short's body was discovered in a Los Angeles vacant lot, cut in two at the waist and severely mutilated. The gruesome nature of the crime and the Hollywood connection made the case a public sensation. The case was never officially solved, but became famous for the number of people who falsely admitted to the killing.
Extra credit: James Ellroy's 1987 novel The Black Dahlia is a work of fiction based on the Short murder. A 2006 film based on the novel starred Mia Kirshner as Elizabeth Short, and co-starred Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson.
Other LA murder victims include Sharon Tate, Bonny Lee Bakley and Dorothy Stratten... Or see our related loop, Autopsy by Noguchi.
Blog posts mentioning Elizabeth Short:
Four Good Links
The Black Dahlia Site
Large-scale page about the murder case and all its many details
The Black Dahlia Case
The Crime Library details the entire case; not for the squeamish
The Black Dahlia
Official site of the 2006 film
IMDB: The Black Dahlia
Cast list and other details on the 2006 film
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
Best Known As
The "Black Dahlia" murder victim