Elizabeth Short was an American woman who was found murdered in Los Angeles in 1947. Her case became highly publicized due to the graphic nature of the crime, which included her corpse having been mutilated and bisected at the waist. Short spent her early life in Medford, Massachusetts and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived. She accepted an offer of marriage from an Army Air Force Lieutenant Fickling, whom she had known from Florida, less than a week before Japan ended the war in 1945.
About Black Dahlia in brief
Elizabeth Short was an American woman who was found murdered in Los Angeles in 1947. Her case became highly publicized due to the graphic nature of the crime, which included her corpse having been mutilated and bisected at the waist. A native of Boston, Short spent her early life in Medford, Massachusetts and Florida before relocating to California, where her father lived. She would acquire the nickname of the Black Dahlia posthumously, as newspapers of the period often nicknamed particularly lurid crimes. The term may have originated from a film noir murder mystery, The Blue Dahlia, released in April 1946. Short’s unsolved murder and the details surrounding it have had a lasting cultural intrigue, generating various theories and public speculation. Her life and death have been the basis of numerous books and films, and her murder is frequently cited as one of the most famous unsolved murders in American history. It has likewise been credited by historians asone of the first major crimes in post–World War II America to capture national attention. According to some sources, she did in fact have aspirations to be a film star, though she had no known acting credits or jobs during her time in L.A. Short spent the last six months of her life in southern California, mostly in the Los Angeles area; she had been working as a waitress and rented a room behind the Florentine nightclub on Hollywood Boulevard. She accepted an offer of marriage from an Army Air Force Lieutenant Fickling, whom she had known from Florida, less than a week before Japan ended the war in 1945.
She died in a plane crash less than one week after the surrender of Japan in August 1945, and was buried in a Los Angeles suburb. She was the third of five daughters of Cleo and Phoebe May Short. Around 1927, the Short family relocated to Portland, Maine, before settling in Medoff, Massachusetts the same year. In late 1942, Short’s mother received a letter of apology from her presumed-deceased husband, which revealed that he was in fact alive and had started a new life in California. In December, at age 18, Short relocated to Vallejo to live with her father, at the time, he was working at the nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard on San Francisco Bay. In January 1943, she took a job at the Base Exchange at Camp Cooke near Lompoc, living with several friends, and briefly with an Armyair Force sergeant who reportedly abused her. In mid-1943, she was arrested on September 23, 1943, for underage drinking at a local bar. The juvenile authorities sent her back to Medford but she returned instead to Florida, making only occasional visits to Massachusetts. During the next three years, Short lived in Florida during the winter months and spent the rest of the year in medford with her mother and sisters. In July 1946, she relocated to Los Angeles to visit her father in California; she accepted an Offer of Marriage from Army Air Forces Lieutenant Joseph Gordon Fickler.
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