Black Dahlia case: 1947 Los Angeles murder of Elizabeth Short remains unsolved, no charges ever filed

On the morning of January 15, 1947, a woman's body was discovered in a vacant lot on Norton Avenue in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. A mother pushing her child in a stroller initially believed the figure was a mannequin, according to the case file. The body was severed at the waist, drained of blood, and posed. The victim was later identified as Elizabeth Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from Massachusetts. She had been reported missing several days earlier.

The case became known as the Black Dahlia murder, a nickname derived from a film noir title and popular press accounts of Short's dark clothing and alleged habit of wearing black. From the start, the investigation was hampered. The body had been washed clean of blood, and there were no fingerprints or clear forensic traces. The killer had posed the body deliberately, and the medical examiner determined the cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head, with the severing done after death.

The Los Angeles Police Department's investigation involved numerous detectives, but the lead detective on the case was Harry Hansen, who was widely covered in the press. Also involved was a man named Robert "Red" Manley, a salesman who had driven Short to Los Angeles and was briefly a suspect; he was cleared. Police interviewed Manley, who had a solid alibi and passed polygraph tests, according to case records.