Discovery of the Body
Los Angeles, CA, January 15, 1947. It’s an uncharacteristically cool morning in Leimert Park. A local resident is walking in the early morning hours, around 10:00 AM, with a toddler, and she sees something that looks like a mannequin in an open field.
A mannequin that appears to be broken in half. She thinks it’s a prank. She calls the police. The police arrive, and it ends up being anything but a mannequin.
What they’re really looking at is the bisected corpse of a young woman—naked, scrubbed clean, and drained of all her blood. This was a very brutal murder. The body had been severed at the waist and had likewise been mutilated.
Investigators believe the killer had to be someone with medical training or at least expertise in anatomy. There were people that the LAPD interviewed who were doctors. They actually investigated 300 medical students at USC to find out if one of them had done it.
Identifying the Victim
The very next day, officers run the victim’s fingerprints, and within a few hours, they have a name.
She is 22-year-old Elizabeth Short from the Boston suburb of Medford, MA. She was a young woman who left her home to find fame and fortune, perhaps in Los Angeles.
A beautiful young woman, cut down in her prime by this shadowy creature. It’s the kind of crime that captures the American public’s attention.
Police and reporters try to get a lead on Beth’s life. But the more they dig in, the more of a mystery she becomes.
She’s a high school dropout, bouncing around from friend to friend—what the youngsters call couch surfing. She was really trying to figure out what she wanted to do with herself. When she came to L.A., Beth described herself as an aspiring actress. However, there’s no evidence that she ever auditioned for any roles.
The Last Known Sightings
On the evening of January 9th, six days before her dead body would be found in Leimert Park, Beth is given a ride back to Los Angeles by a traveling salesman named Red Manley.
He said she was very fidgety. She couldn’t sit still. She just seemed very uncomfortable. Red Manley tells police that he dropped Beth off at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, then he heads home. Officers check out his alibi, and everything is true.
The last time that Beth was seen by anyone was about 10:00 PM at the Biltmore. The doorman said he walked her out, and that was the last time anyone had seen her.
Six days later, she would be dead, and the biggest manhunt in L.A. history kicks off.
Mark Hansen: The First Real Suspect
One of the first witnesses that investigators talk to is her on-again, off-again friend, sometimes housemate, and roommate Ann Toth. Toth is the one that points investigators in the direction of their first real suspect: Mark Hansen.
Mark Hansen was the operator of the Florentine Gardens on Hollywood Blvd., a very popular dance club.
He was Danish, well-connected, and very influential. He lived in a house on Carlos Avenue, which was kind of a haven for dancers at his club, people who had just come to the city and wanted to be actresses—people chasing the dream of Hollywood.
Ann Toth was one of the women who lived in the Carlos Avenue home. She tells police that Beth lived there, too, off and on between May and November of 1946.
Toth directed officers to Mark in the first place because she knew that he was completely obsessed and infatuated with Beth.
He would forbid her from bringing other men to the house, which sounds like the jealous boyfriend type.
Hansen was described as obsessed with Elizabeth Short. He had this unrequited sexual interest in her, so she tried to find a way to shoo him off sexually without infuriating him. So she came up with the fiction that she was a virgin.
The fact that Beth rebuffed Mark Hansen with stories of being a virgin probably only fueled his desire for her all the more.
The Relationship Falls Apart
To avoid any conflict with Mark, it’s rumored that she was having her gentleman friends drop her off about a block away from his house. This just infuriated him. So Mark didn’t speak to Beth for several days.
Things allegedly came to a head in early November 1946.
Ann Toth had told the police that the final straw in the relationship between Mark Hansen and Elizabeth Short was that Hansen had told Elizabeth that she was the only one for him, that he was obsessed with her.
And then he brought another woman home. She saw this, and suddenly, there was an argument—whether physical or verbal is unclear—but something happened between them, and that is where things completely fell apart between Hansen and Short.
The morning after this explosion, Hansen evicted her from the property where she had been staying.
But Ann tells police it isn’t the end of Mark and Beth’s tumultuous relationship.
A Suspicious Phone Call
Ann Toth says that Elizabeth had called and that Mr. Hansen had been acting nervous and restless. She also said that Elizabeth was going to come over, but she never showed up.
So the last night that anybody sees Elizabeth Short, she makes a phone call to Mark Hansen. And he tells her everything’s fine, that she still has a place to stay.
But according to Mark, Beth never came back.
Hansen’s Alibi and the Case Moves On
Police question the well-connected nightclub owner, but he downplays his relationship with Elizabeth.
He says that he was never interested in her, never tried to have sex with her. He found Beth to be fair-looking—average.
Hansen does himself no favors with the police. He tells easily disprovable lies. He says he didn’t speak to her after he evicted her.
But according to Ann, Mark Hansen told her Beth could come and stay there if she needed a place. However, when questioned by investigators, Mark Hansen said he turned Beth away and never saw her again.
A Chilling Letter Arrives
On January 21st, six days after Beth Short’s body is discovered, an envelope containing the contents of her purse arrives at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
Among the materials submitted were Elizabeth Short’s Social Security card and an address book with the name Mark Hansen on its cover.
At first glance, it looks like somebody’s trying to set this guy up because you just don’t send incriminating materials to the police. If you wanted to do that, you might as well go to the front desk and turn yourself in.
It’s quite believable and reasonable to suspect Mark Hansen as the perpetrator of this crime because we know that he was obsessed with Elizabeth.
But Mark Hansen has an alibi and witnesses to back him up.
He said that when the murder occurred, he was at a movie theater opening in Long Beach, and he also had a business associate testify that he was at his home in Redondo Beach until 3:00 AM. This would not give him enough time to kill Elizabeth, dispose of the body in the way it had been, and still get away.
Hansen’s alibi knocks him down the suspect list. Police never search his properties or vehicles for blood or evidence, and the case moves on.
An Enduring Mystery
The Elizabeth Short mystery carries on to this day because nobody has been caught.
Given the nature of the crime, we want an answer. We want to know. We want to know who did it. And until we do, there will always be an interest.
Source: HISTORY. (2023, August 11). Cracking the Black Dahlia Murder Case | History’s Greatest Mysteries (Season 4) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snZlhuK1d9Y