“On January 15th, 1947, at approximately 10 AM, local Los Angeles resident Betty Bersinger was enjoying an early morning stroll through Leimert Park with her 3 year old daughter when they witnessed an odd sight. From a distance away, they glimpsed a mannequin, discarded, seemingly at random, on the ground of a weedy, vacant lot. Naked, pallid-white, and posed with its hands over its head, its elbows bent at right angles, and its legs spread apart, the mannequin stood out heavily in the emptiness of the lot. But as Betty got closer to the odd figure, curiosity would turn to fear as the realization struck: this was no mannequin, but the corpse of a human woman, completely severed at the waist, with the upper and lower halves a foot apart. On this poor victim’s face lay a bloody smile, carved into her flesh from the corners of her lips and up to her ears.

As the shock set in, Bersinger rushed in a panic to a nearby house, quickly phoning the police. It did not take long for them to arrive, and to subsequently identify the victim as Elizabeth Short, who would throughout the course of the following investigation be dubbed the Black Dahlia. And thus began one of the most infamous investigations in American history, one that would continue to this very day and claim 100s of suspects along the way.

This is the true story of the gruesome murder of Elizabeth Short, AKA the Black Dahlia, and the highly publicized, extremely sensationalized investigation that followed. It is not just a story of murder, but of how the media’s involvement through constant probing and sensationalist reporting almost erased the true identity of Elizabeth Short, complicating and convoluting the case to a sickening degree, all just to provide cheap, attention-grabbing headlines. ”