The Black Dahlia case

Elizabeth Short, known in death as The Black Dahlia, was an aspiring Hollywood actress found dead in a downtown Los Angeles field in 1947 – her corpse mutilated and posed.

Elizabeth was 22 years old and had moved to Los Angeles from her hometown in Massachusetts, set on pursuing Hollywood dreams – she was noted in her hometown for her striking beauty – she was statuesque with pale skin, blue eyes, dark hair and a penchant for wearing all black.

After surgery for asthma she was advised to head to warmer climes and moved to California as a teen to be with her father who, sidenote, the family thought had killed himself during the stock market crash but actually he had just abandoned them.

They didn’t get along so she headed south to Santa Barbara where she was arrested for under-aged drinking and sent home to Massachusetts. She returned to California and spent her last 6 months in Los Angeles.

She was a loner and a wanderer and drifted along on friends couches and was known as a bit of a tease in that she flirted with men to get them to pay for meals and drinks, but wouldn’t go home with them.

She was last seen alive at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on January 9 1947 with a man named Robert Manley who was later cleared as a suspect. Her mutilated body was found by a young mother pushing a stroller on January 15.

Theories on what happened

To this date her murder remains unsolved though there have been hundreds of confessions, sensationalized news reports, and countless theories.

In the first nonfiction book written about The Black Dahlia, Severed by James Gilmore, there is a pretty shocking play by play of her death.

James Gilmore was himself a Hollywood man, counting James Dean as a friend in the 50s. When researching his book he met a former criminal and sex offender named Jack Anderson Wilson at bars in Los Angeles throughout the 80s. Wilson had long alluded to knowing something about the case. After buying the man lots of drinks, Gilmore asked him what he knew of the Black Dahlia murder. And Wilson proceeded to give him the play by play. Which brings us to the perfume. Wilson said:

“There was a red bottle, had a glass stopper you use for putting fancy perfume in. And he could’ve taken her eyes out with that. But you understand, that’s what he had said. Because his mind was gone.”

While the claims are of unknown validity as the book had a lot of errors, Elizabeth was often described as having a signature scent – in fact, Robert Manley had identified a purse and a shoe found in a dump as Elizabeth’s because they smelled like her perfume.

Other sources such as her roommate described Elizabeth’s perfume as very strong and cheap - something she bought from a dime store (mean!).

Without anything to go on other than the bottle was red and it had a stopper, here are a few examples of what bottles around that time looked like. The perfume that I would guess would be Tabu by Dana as it was popular, relatively cheap, and very strong.

Visiting the grave of The Black Dahlia

After I posted a video of this topic on TikTok, a follower reached out to let me know that Elizabeth was buried at a cemetery in Oakland. It just so happened that I was in Oakland that weekend visiting Mandy Aftel’s Archive of Curious Scents. I got a ride over to the cemetery and was able to find her grave. Just a note that the staff at the cemetery won’t tell you where it is as her mother requested they not share that info. It is possible to find it online just please be respectful if you do visit. Here is a photo I took of her grave - someone had left her an offering of lipstick.