The Mysterious Black Dahlia Unsolved Case - Who May Have Done It?!
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Hi friends, how are you today? I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. My name is Bailey Sarian. Hi. And today is Monday, which means it's Murder, Mystery, and Makeup Monday.

Monday! I hope you're having a good day. My name is Bailey, if you didn't know. And on Mondays, I sit down, I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my...

Noggin, and I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would highly suggest you hit that subscribe button 'cause I'm here for you on Mondays. Okay, before we jump into today's story, I do have to give a warning. Warning, the following presentation is intended for mature audiences. It contains graphic descriptions of crime scenes, adult dialogue, and strong language. Viewer discretion is advised.

But other than that, I will shut my little trap and get into today's story. So today we are going to be talking about Elizabeth Short, aka

Elizabeth Short, she was born in July of 1924 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Her parents were Cleo and Phoebe Short. Not much was really said about her upbringing, but at some point her parents had separated and her father ended up moving to Vallejo, California. And Elizabeth actually stayed in Massachusetts with her mother. When Elizabeth became a young adult,

it was said that she was absolutely just a beautiful woman. She had a nice figure, she had dark brown black hair and bright green eyes, and she always wore a flower in her hair. When she was 18, it was said that she was a bit of a wild child, AKA a teenager. She just felt like she didn't belong in Massachusetts. Like she was destined to do something bigger, something better, and this small town just wasn't doing it for her.

Now her father Cleo, again, he was living in Vallejo, Vallejo, yeah Bailey, California. Okay, it's kind of like by San Francisco. He's living out there and he is still in talks with his daughter and he's telling her like, hey, maybe you can come out and live with me. He, Cleo, was working at the Navy yards and said that Elizabeth could like come live with him. And in return, she could like cook

and clean around the house so she didn't have to pay rent. So Elizabeth agreed and Cleo had given her $800 so she could move and come stay with him. I mean, she's excited because it's California where dreams come true. You know, this is exciting. She's in Massachusetts, like this is a whole new start. So Elizabeth moves out to live with her father, but the stay really wouldn't last that long. It would only last about three weeks.

You see, apparently Elizabeth, she would be staying out all night and she wasn't doing any cooking or cleaning like she had agreed upon with her father. So her father is the one who actually says like, "Hey, this isn't working out. This is becoming more apparent.

a headache, then it is helpful and I really want you to move out. And so Elizabeth did. She packed her stuff and she moved out. Sadly, Elizabeth's father said that this was the last time that he saw and heard from her again. Well, Elizabeth, she didn't want to go back to Massachusetts because, I mean, she's in California. She, you know, might as well like make the most of it. So she's like looking around for a job.

and she was able to find one working at Camp Cook on the military base. And she was working at the Post Exchange, which is a store where they sold food, clothes, all sorts of stuff. So Elizabeth would work there. She would only be there for about nine months. I feel like that's a good amount of time.

And then she decided to leave and head down to sunny San Diego. So Elizabeth really had no plan, okay? She had no job. She didn't know where she was gonna stay. She didn't really know what she was doing, but she was doing it. She was doing it. She was going to San Diego.

So she goes down there and that's when she meets a woman named Dorothy who worked at an all night theater. Elizabeth and Dorothy kind of hit it off. They're just chatting. And Elizabeth ends up telling Dorothy that she doesn't have anywhere to go. She doesn't have a plan.

She didn't know what she was gonna do, you know? But the two really hit it off that night and Dorothy offered Elizabeth a place to stay at her house. So Elizabeth agreed and she promised her it wasn't gonna be long. You know, she didn't wanna impose.

Now, Elizabeth would end up staying with Dorothy for about a month from December 1946 to January 1947. And she told Dorothy that she was off to her next adventure, and that someone by the name of Red was picking her up at the house. So Dorothy said her goodbyes, and Elizabeth hopped into the Studebaker Coop,

that had rolled up into the front of the house to pick her up. So Dorothy said, you know, good luck, wished her well, and that was that. The morning of January 15th, 1947, a 911 call comes into the Los Angeles Dispatch Center to report what seems to be a dead body.

Police go out to the location and when they arrive, they are just shocked, stunned, confused, you name it, that's how they're feeling. Now, when they get there, what they see is a naked body just laying on the grass out in the middle of like the suburbs. It's just a really strange place to find a body. So what they see is that the body was found lying on their back

on the lawn area and it was just steps away from the sidewalk. Now, the main thing that was probably the most concerning was the fact that the body, it was cut in half. Very concerning. The body was literally cut in half. They didn't find any identification. So at the time they just referred to her as Jane Doe, but spoiler because we know now, but it was Elizabeth.

- This week, I'm excited to partner with Athena Club to bring you another episode. Above her belly button, just right in half, clean cut. They see that. Her right breast was also cut off and police noted that each of her big toes, just the big toes, were painted a vibrant red. Like it looked like maybe it had just been done. This is just a side note 'cause it got me thinking. You know, at first I was like,

that's weird that just her big toes are painted. But then I thought about it. I thought about like the times I've personally, I've done this, so maybe she did this. I've worn like open toe shoes before. Maybe one of your toes is showing, so you just paint that one toe.

Do you do that? Well, I do that. Life hack, you just paint the toe that's showing. So maybe she did it? That's what I was thinking. Or maybe some weirdo just painted her big toe. She also had deep cuts across her forehead. There was crisscross cuts on her pubic region. And on her hip, whatever sicko did this literally cut a game of tic-tac-toe into her right hip. Look.

I just feel like there's a time and a place to play tic-tac-toe, you know? And it takes a special type of sicko to cut it into somebody's body. I seriously got stuck on this tic-tac-toe thing forever.

They really did that. I mean, she was cut in half, Bailey. I know, but the tic-tac-toe. What many know most about her or most about this case was the fact that she was also cut from each side of her mouth about three inches from side to side, giving her like a joker smile. It was creepy. The whole thing is just disturbing.

So it was clear to the police that she was strangled because she had markings around her neck. And there were also marks on her arms and legs that showed signs of her being tied up with either rope or ties. She was restrained. Now they also noted that Elizabeth's body had been lying face down for an extended period of time after her death because of the lividity on her front side. So when you die, let's say you die,

Not you. Let's say someone dies sleeping face up. They lived a great life, don't worry. All of the blood pools and settles wherever you're positioned. So if you died like laying down, all the blood would pool to your backside and it turns your skin blackish purplish. But it's important because it will tell investigators if your body was moved after death. Because like in this case,

It was clear to the police officers that she died face down because of the lividity on her front side. But when they found her, she was actually face up, which in conclusion told police that she was moved, she was placed there. Now, if all of that wasn't weird, you wanna know the strangest thing of all? There was no blood.

Okay, there was no blood at the crime scene. Her body had no blood. There was no smears of blood anywhere. There was no drop of blood anywhere. There was nothing. This was strange because I mean she was cut in half. So there should be blood. Her body was completely drained of all blood. So creepy. Police really had nowhere to go from here. They had no leads.

They had a very mysterious body. And so what they decided to do was contact the woman who called 911. Maybe she saw something, you know, gotta start somewhere. So it would be about a week until police were able to locate the 911 caller, who was a woman named Ms.

Bersinger. Miss Bersinger said that she was out for a walk with her young daughter and they were going to the shoe store. You know, they're walking, they're minding their own business and she saw what seemed to be a body lying in the grass. At first she thought the body was fake, okay? Because it was extremely pale. It looked like a mannequin, but it scared her enough that she went to the nearest house and she asked if she could borrow the phone and she called 911.

Now, Miss Bersinger said that she didn't go back to the crime scene after that because she didn't want her young child to see a potential body and all that jazz, you know? But not much really came from this information. Once Jane Doe's body got to the coroner's, they were able to get fingerprints and run the prints through their system to see if they could get an ID. And luckily enough, they got a hit and they were able to ID the body as Elizabeth Short.

So based off of this information, the police were able to locate Elizabeth's father, Cleo. So police go out to his home and I feel like this is every parent's worst nightmare, police showing up to inform you that your child was murdered and cut in half and all that stuff. I don't think they tell you that, which is probably for the better. I don't know. I mean, that's just in my mind, every parent's worst.

nightmare but according to to Cleo not his when police showed up Cleo answered the door just wasted he was wasted and angry so police tell Cleo that they found his daughter's body and Cleo said that he really didn't give a rat's ass that his daughter was murdered and found and he didn't want to go down to the coroner's office to even identify her body and that was that is that not

When I read that, I was like, "Are you serious?" So then police contact Elizabeth's mother, who again was back in Massachusetts. As soon as she got to work, she got a ticket and flew right out to Los Angeles as soon as she could. So police go out and find Dorothy, the woman Elizabeth had been staying with for the last month and a half. So they find Dorothy and they're asking her if she knows anything to help them with the case. That's when Dorothy tells them

A man picked her up at the house in a Studebaker coupe and his name was Red. But this was enough information for them. Police are able to get the name, the guy's name, Red, and then also the car as well. Police began to search all

of the motels in the San Diego area. When they got to the motel in Pacifico Beach, they had records that showed a guest who checked in on December 19th to the motel. This person drove a 1939 Studebaker Coupe. Ooh, who's that, you know?

The guest name who checked in was Robert Monley. Police look up this guy, this Robert guy, and they see if they could find an image of him, a picture, and they do. Luckily, they find a picture. Now they take this picture and they bring it to Dorothy and they ask if this is the man she saw the morning Elizabeth left. And Dorothy said, "Yes, that's him." And they're like,

"Yes, bingo, you know, we're gonna solve a mystery today," is probably what they're thinking. So police try to figure out what's up with this Robert guy and they do a little background check on him, but they see that he lived in South Beach, California, he was married with a wife, and he worked as a sales engineer.

They also saw that on January 17th, just two days after the murder, he took off to San Francisco with a guy named Harry. Police first locate where Robert lived and then that's when they figure out that he's out of town with his friend Harry. So then they go out to Harry's house and nobody's home. They take a peek in his garage and guess what?

They find it's Robert's 1939 Studebaker Coupe. I mean, the pieces are coming together. Police are feeling confident that these are their people. So they wait outside of Harry's home in hopes that Harry and Robert show up. Well, the police end up sitting there for two days, okay? Two days go by and on January 19th, guess who shows up? Well, it's Harry and Robert. So police take Robert into custody. They book him. They also search his car.

The police asked Robert all sorts of questions and they also gave him two polygraph tests that Robert ends up passing. They had nothing on him, so he was released. So of course the media got ahold of this story, a beautiful young woman murdered

and cut in half. I mean, people were obsessed. And so what in the world could have happened to her? That's when the media gave her the name, the Black Dahlia. For her dark, full hair, she was always said to have a flower in her hair and her love for lacy black underwear. People in the newspaper room were like, let's talk about this murder, but make it sexy.

It was like just based off of what she was wearing that night, you know? Stupid. Okay, anyways, not the point. The people in the community are following this story heavily. Have they caught the killer? What's going on? A month goes by and police still have zero suspects.

and the community is getting a little impatient. You know, what's taking them so long to solve this murder? I'm feeling unsafe in my community. Because the media was reporting on this case pretty heavily, it led to a lot of people coming forward and actually confessing to killing Elizabeth, but none of them had actual evidence that they did indeed kill her. They were just trying to claim it. Yeah, we need better hobbies, you guys.

Look into it. But the Los Angeles Police Department did receive letters from the supposed killer, and they believed this person was indeed the killer, or at least knew who it was, because they were sending some of Elizabeth's personal items to police in the mail. One of these items was Elizabeth's address book,

one that she always had with her. Inside her address book, there were pages ripped out, which made police think, you know, maybe on those pages was the information of her killer. By February 5th, 1947, two arrests were made for this case. Robert, aka Red, and a man named Dan. They arrested Red again, they got nowhere with it, and they had to let him go.

With this man named Dan, he confessed, but later Dan said that he was mentally unwell and that's why he confessed, but that he really didn't do it. So police are like, dude, this sucks. I mean, I'm sure they didn't say that, but you know, people seem to be confessing left and right, but none of them are actually the killer. And it's just wasting everyone's time and making things more confusing. Another suspect came to the surface. That was an infamous Hollywood doctor to the stars named George Orwell.

hodl hodel?

Is it George Hodel? It's George. Friends of George recognized the pictures in the paper of Elizabeth, and they were like, "Hmm, I know that girl." So a tip was given to the police department that Elizabeth was briefly dating George. They were never official, but like people remembered seeing her around at George's home, where he threw a lot of shady parties. So police look into this George guy and who he is, and they see that he had a pretty shady past.

Not even shady, this dude had issues and should have been in prison. This sicko was accused of sexually abusing his daughter who was only 14 years old. Allegedly she became pregnant. Well, that's not alleged. Allegedly he had sexually abused her and then she became pregnant.

And then to make things worse, George attempted to perform an abortion on his daughter, but it wasn't successful. It was decided to place the baby up for adoption. Now, I guess that there was this whole trial, but it ended up being acquitted and he was let go. But I know it's like, I'm not bringing a lot of evidence and proof to this. It's, but I...

He was guilty. So George became a pretty strong suspect and the police are thinking like, this is our guy, but we need to get a confession. Now George, he was rich. He was loaded. They knew it wasn't gonna be easy trying to get anything from him. Like he's not just gonna confess.

Rich people don't just confess, they lawyer up or they shut up. But at some point police bug his home and they listen in to his daily conversations. Fun. I mean, not fun. Don't do that, it's illegal. You can only, but I would like to do that job. That would be fun to me. On February 18th, 1950,

Investigators are now listening in to his day-to-day whatever shenanigans. George is talking on the phone. Around 8:30 PM, they hear a woman scream. Two minutes later, they hear a woman scream again. Now it was noted that a woman was not heard anytime within the house after 6:50 PM. This woman was not in any conversation and not

heard of again until the time of letting out those two screams. So LAPD goes out to the house and they go inside to check things out, see what's going on and then they leave. So I guess nothing was found. Once police leave, they hear George like making a phone call. George is saying something along the lines of putting a pillow over her face and covering her with a blanket. That's what he says on the phone.

Then after some time passes, they hear George saying, quote, supposing I did kill the Black Dahlia, they couldn't prove it now. They can't talk to my secretary anymore because she's dead, end quote. George's secretary at the time had just died from an overdose. So, hmm.

You know, it was all, it's all sketchy. And I feel like I could just do a whole video on like George himself, because again, there was like some shady stuff going down, okay? Because also in the transcripts from the house bug, it was believed that George was giving payoffs to law enforcement. The whole thing is just like really sketchy.

There were a lot of people who really believed that George was indeed the one responsible. And by April of 1950, there was actually enough evidence to charge George for the murder of Elizabeth. But when they tried to make an arrest, it was too late. George fled the US and I believe he went to the Philippines, but he fled the US.

George had a son and his name is Steve. And Steve heavily believed that his father was responsible for the murder and even believed that his father killed many more. See, his father like left the country, but then he would come back from time to time to the States, not telling anyone of course. And Steve believed that when he came back, he was actually like killing people when he was here and then he would leave again.

Steve said that like when he got older, he decided that he wanted to do some further digging on his father to try and find some answers. So in 2013, yes, 2013, the soil behind George's home was tested for human remains.

They tested the soil and it came back positive. The downside with this test is that it just tells you it's positive. It doesn't tell you whose remains, when there was remains, why there was remains, you know? So there's really not much information other than it did test positive. Steve, George's son, he ended up writing a book about his father and how he believes it was him who committed the Black Dahlia murder. But many are still very skeptical

and kind of doubt his story a lot, because they think that Steve maybe has a personal vendetta against his father. So he got off the hook, George, because he was gone. They really couldn't do anything about it. Back to square one. The case once again went cold. Now on November 24th, 1950, a woman by the name of Christine Reynolds, who was 35 years old, she was a mother of three, she called the Oakland Tribune to give them a tip that she was going to turn herself

and confess to the Black Dahlia murder. By this time, Christine was the 27th person to confess to the murder. 27th.

I hate people. So police are kind of like, yeah, sure lady. But something was very different with Christine's story, okay? Christine told police that she had many love affairs with Hollywood movie stars. They're like, okay, bravo. But she also said that Elizabeth was living with her at the time of her murder. Christine said that she knew Elizabeth as Libby and that they had met at a bar in Hollywood about three and a half years ago.

Christine said that they had been in a bit of a love affair of their own and they would meet at motels for some sweet loving, which now we're like, yeah, big deal. But again, this was the early 50s. So two girls having a love affair was just like, what? You know, people are just losing their shit. So the media, once again, is adding to the story, describing their relationship as pervy and unnatural. And people are just, their heads are exploding. This case is just turning into some huge media storm.

Christine told the police that Elizabeth was also running around with another woman while they were together. Four nights before Elizabeth's murder, Christine was drunk and irritated because Elizabeth wasn't home yet. It was getting late and she wasn't home. So she went out looking for her and that's when she found her at a bar with another woman named Louise. Elizabeth and her got into a bit of an argument and Christine told her like, "Come on, we're leaving."

They left. Christine's driving. And while on the car ride home, Christine and Elizabeth were arguing. And Christine said that she leaned over and she began to choke Elizabeth and that she was fighting back. She was trying to get away from her. Eventually, Elizabeth was able to break free and get the car door open and just kind of run up the street a bit. Christine said she kind of like pulls up the car over next to her, walks up behind Elizabeth and puts her in a choke hold. Then Christine remembered that she had like a,

a flip knife with her, a pocket, it was not a pocket knife, a bigger flip knife. She had a knife with her. So she pulls the knife out and she has it in her hand to intimidate Elizabeth. Christine tells police she completely forgot she had the knife in her hand because she was drinking whiskey. And then she's like started to stab her, but she didn't remember that she stabbed her, but she remembered

that she stabbed her because she's telling investigators. Now police are listening and they're taking their notes, but they're not fully buying Christine's story. Christine was saying that Elizabeth was killed and left there on the street, but when police first found the body, remember there wasn't any blood around. So if Christine really did stab her, there would be blood everywhere. But, because there's a big but, there was one detail in Christine's story that was not public knowledge. It's

It's pretty bad, so cover your ears for a second if you don't want to hear this. Well, I feel like all of it has been pretty bad. Well, Christine told police that she had quote, "cut some of her goddamn hair off and shoved it up her effing pussy." End quote. Yeah. Police were like, okay,

She knows something. She knows something. When they found Elizabeth's body, whoever did this had indeed cut off some of Elizabeth's hair and shoved it up her lower region. Like this person, what is it?

I've got a lot of questions. Tic-tac-toe, hair cut in half, you name it. It was, it sadly was done. I mean, this poor Elizabeth. This information was not public knowledge. Nobody knew about this little detail except for police. They sit down with Christine and they're like, look,

We know you're lying. Things aren't lining up. And that's when Christine broke down and her story just fell apart. Christine said that she had a girlfriend who worked for the Los Angeles Police Department. And she was the one that told her about the hair situation. And that's how Christine got the information.

Police are like, you know, why'd you lie? Why'd you waste our time? And she said that two days before Elizabeth's body was found, that Christine, she had woken up with blood all over her clothes and her shoes, but she didn't recall what had happened because she was heavily drinking at

Christine said that she went straight to the police with her bloody clothes and told them like, "I think I did something." When she was there, she wasn't taken seriously at all and ended up just leaving. She probably did kill somebody and she thinks it's little Elizabeth. They probably should check that.

She said that she really struggled with this, like it was sitting with her and she was thinking about it and so that's when she decided to come forward and try to confess again because she just couldn't live with herself knowing that she may have killed somebody. You would think police would fact check the girl who told Christine about the hair situation. Like shouldn't this have led investigators to dig a little bit deeper and figure out why did that person tell Christine in the first place? Just find out what that was all about.

Maybe that person was in on it or purposely causing a distraction to the case. For some reason, police did not go and question whoever it was that leaked the information in the first place. This story had become a media sensation. Sketches and letters were coming in from around the US showing their support or interest to this case.

In 1950, there was a sketch that came in to one of the police departments in North Carolina. It was a drawing and on it, it said Dahlia Killer. Look this man up. And it was like a drawing of a man. The police department in North Carolina, they forwarded the sketch to Los Angeles Police Department. And honestly, when you look at this drawing, it's funny. It's not funny, but it's kind of cute. But it looked,

exactly like George. While the horrible murder of Elizabeth Short still remains unsolved, there's still one suspect that remained on police's mind. One person that they believed may have been the killer and would fit the profile, like mark all the boxes. All signs were pointing towards Cleveland, Ohio. So in Cleveland, Ohio, there was a string of very,

very disturbing murders. I was gonna say suspish, but honestly just disturbing. And these murders were happening before Elizabeth's body was found. Why was this linking to Elizabeth's story, you ask? The victims that were found in Cleveland were found cut in half, like sliced in half, just like Elizabeth was found.

This was a serial killer who was cutting up their victims in a very similar fashion to the way Elizabeth's body was found. The serial killer became known as the Cleveland Torso Killer, who had quote "moved out west" where it's believed the Black Dahlia could have been his final murder. And that my friends is the unsolved mystery about the horrific murder of Elizabeth Short. Thoughts?

Also, remember how I mentioned that there was a game of tic-tac-toe cut into Elizabeth's body? I've been spending a lot of time about this and I don't know why it's been bothering me so much, but it got me thinking. When was the last time you played tic-tac-toe alone?

Do you think that maybe there was more than one person involved? Someone has to be the ex, someone has to be the oh. I'm telling you, the tic-tac-toe is heavy on my noggin. But who was playing? I don't know. But then again, reading into the Cleveland Torso Killer, it sounds gross but it fits his style. And maybe he did travel out to California and did indeed kill her. Or...

What if George was the Cleveland torso killer? Hopefully this wasn't too confusing. I feel like I simplified it a lot and made it easy, right? Okay, good. I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Please be safe out there and I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye.